We none Florence and Walter were astonished | wonder who the deuce he was. when they looked at Aunt Anne. They of us ever knew." hardly knew her again. The shabby black shawl had vanished, the dusty bonnet was replaced by a soft white cap; there was lace at her throat fastened by a little crinkly gold brooch, having a place for hair in the middle; her satin dress trailed an inch or two on the ground behind, and she had put a red carnation in her bosom almost coquettishly. "He didn't know you are a journalist, I think." "Now, dears," she said, with a smile of welcome that was fascinating from its absolute genuineness, "I shall be truly hurt if you fail to do justice to our simple repast"- and she sat down with an air of old-fashioned stateliness as if she were heading a banquet table. "Sit down dears. Robert, you must have Florence on your right hand. The Hibberts took their places merrily, their spirits reviving now that they were no longer alone with their host. Aunt Anne, too, looked so picturesque sitting there in the little summer-like room, with the garden beyond, that they could not help being glad they had come. They felt that they were living a distinct day in their lives, and not one that afterwards in looking back they would find difficult to sort out from a hundred others like it. Even Mr. Baines grew less grumpy, and offered presently to show them the garden. "And the plum-trees and the peartrees," said Aunt Anne; "and the view from the summer-house in the corner." "Oh, yes," her husband said, "we'll show them all;" and he helped to do the honors of the table with what he evidently intended to be genial courtesy. "It does my heart good to see you, dears," Aunt Anne said as she insisted on helping them to an enormous quantity of stewed cranberries. "And it does us good to be here," they answered, forgetting all their vexation at losing a day by the sea; forgetting even the poor chicken that was being roasted in vain, and the waiting fly to be paid for at so much an hour. "Walter dear," Mrs. Hibbert said, as they drove back to Brighton, carefully balancing on their knees four large pots of jam, while they also kept an eye on an enormous nosegay badly tied up, that wobbled about on the back seat, "Mr. Baines didn't seem to know you when we arrived." "He had never set eyes on me before. Aunt Anne only set eyes on him five years ago. He was rather a grumpy beggar. I "No, I suppose not. I wonder if he ever did anything for a living himself." Then as if he repented saying anything that sounded unkind of a man whose salt he had just eaten, he added, " But you can never tell what people are from their talk the first time you see them. He is not unlike a man I knew some years ago, who was a great inventive genius. He used to shuffle about in shoes too big for him just as this beggar did.” "I felt quite frightened when he first came round the corner." "You see it was rough upon him having his morning spoilt. A man who lives in the country like that generally gets wrapped up in his surroundings. I suppose I must have known that Aunt Anne was at Rottingdean," he went on; "but if so, I had forgotten it. She quarrelled with my father and every one else because she was always quite unable to keep any money. There was a great deliberation in the family a few years ago, when it was announced that Aunt Anne was destitute and no one wanted to keep her." "But had she no money of her own?" "She had a little, but she lived on the capital till it was gone, and there was an end of that. Then suddenly she married Mr. Baines. I don't know who he was, but she met him at a railway-station. had a bad headache, I believe, and she thought he was ill and went up to him and offered him some smelling-salts." He "Why, it was quite romantic," Florence exclaimed. Walter had a curious way of looking up when he was amused, and he looked up in that curious way now. "Do go on," she said. "I don't know any more except that somehow they got married, and she turned up to-day as you saw; and I wish she hadn't given us any jam; confound it. I say, darling, let's throw it over that hedge." "Oh, I wouldn't for the world," Florence said. "It would be so unkind. She was a dear old lady, Walter, and I am glad we went to see her. She asked for our address in London, and said she would write to us." But Aunt Anne did not write for a long time, and then it was only to condole with Walter on the death of his father. The first year after their visit to Rottingdean ment. she sent a large Christmas card inscribed | cially in London, in comfort and refineto "My dear Walter and Florence, from Aunt Anne;" but the second year even this was omitted. It was not until Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert had been married nearly seven years that Aunt Anne again appeared before them. CHAPTER II. MANY things had happened to Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert in those seven years. Most important of all — to themselves, at least - was the birth of their two children, lovely children Mrs. Hibbert declared them to be, and in his heart her husband agreed with her. But the time came when Walter found to his dismay that even lovely children would sometimes cry, and that as they grew older they wanted room to run about with that delightful patter-pattering sound that is usually more musical to a mother's ear than to a father's, especially when he has to produce intelligible copy. So the Hibberts moved away from the little flat in which they had begun their married life, to an ugly little upright house sufficiently near Portland Road to enable Walter to get quickly to the office. There a nursery could be made at the top of the house, where the children were not only out of sight, but out of hearing. Walter did a great deal of work and was fairly well paid, but that did not mean a large income for a young couple with two children and three servants, trying to keep up an appearance before the world. He wrote for magazines and literary journals, Occasionally he did a long pot-boiler for one of those reviews he called refuges for destitute intellects, and altogether was thrown much among men better off than himself, so that he did not like to look poor. Besides, he preferred to live with a certain amount of comfort even though it meant a certain amount of anxiety, to looking poverty-stricken or shabby for the sake of knowing precisely how he would stand at the end of the quarter, or being able at any moment to lay his hand on a ten-pound note. "You not only feel awkward yourself if you look poor, but cause other people to feel so," he said; "and that is making yourself a nuisance; and you have no business to do that if you can avoid it." So, though the Hibberts had only a small house, it was pretty and well arranged. Their simple meals were daintily served, and everything about them had an air that implies content dashed with luxury. In fact they lived as people can live now, even on a small income, and espe Still, it was a difficult task to pull through, and Walter felt that he ought to be making more money. He knew, too, though he did not tell his wife so, that the constant work and anxiety were telling on him; he wanted another but a far longer bracing-up than the one he had had seven years ago at Brighton. "A sea-voyage would be the thing," he thought, "only I don't see how it could be managed, even if I could get away." The last year had been a fortunate one in some respects: an aunt of Mrs. Hibbert's had died, leaving them a hundred pounds and a furnished cottage near Witley in Surrey. It was a dear little cottage, they both protested — red brick, of course, as all well-bred cottages are nowadays, standing in an acre and a half of its own fir wood, and having round it a garden with tan paths and those prim flowers that grow best in the vicinity of fir. It would be delightful to stay there in the summer holidays, they agreed, or to run down from Saturday to Monday, or by and by to send the children there for a spell with the governess when their parents were not able to get away from town. Walter had tried sending Florence and the children and going down every week himself, but he found “it didn't work." She was always longing to be with him, and he with her. It was only a broad sea and a few thousand miles that would make separation possible, and he did not think he could endure that very long; he was absurdly fond of his dear little wife. All this he thought over as he walked along the Strand one morning towards Fleet Street and his office. He was going to see his chief who had sent for him on a matter of business. His chief was Mr. Fisher, an excellent editor, though not quite enough of a partisan perhaps to have a strong following. The Centre was a model of fairness and the mainstay of that great section of the reading public that likes its news trustworthy and copious, but has no pronounced party leanings. Still, if it was a paper without political influence, it was one of great political use, for it invariably stated a question from all points of view with equal fairness, though it leant, if at all, from sheer editorial generosity, towards making the best of it for the weakest side. Thus a minority looked to it almost as to an advocate, and the majority knew that any strength that was against them would be set forth in the Centre, and that if none was pleaded there, the right and the triumph were together. Mr. Fisher liked Walter Hibbert; and though by tacit agreement their relations inside the office were purely formal, outside they were more intimate. Occasionally they took the form of a quiet dinner, or a few hours in the little house near Portland Road, where Florence contributed a good deal to her husband's popularity. As he walked along the Strand that morning, Walter meditated on many ways of improving his condition and at the same time of not overworking himself. He found that it told on him considerably to be down late at the office three nights a week, doing his article, and then, with the excitement of work still upon him, to go home tired and hungry in the small hours of the morning. It was bad for Florence too, for she generally sat up for him, declaring that to taste his supper and to have a little chat with him did her good and made her heart light. Sometimes he thought he would take up a different line altogether (he knew his editor would aid and abet him in anything for his good) and try living in the country, and running up to town every day if necessary. But this would never do, it would only make him restive. His position was not yet strong enough to admit of taking things so easily. It was important to him to live among men of knowledge and influence, to be in the whirl and twirl of things, and London was essentially the bull's-eye, not only of wealth and commerce, but of most other things with which men of all degrees concern themselves. "Will you speak to me, Walter?" looked up and instantly held out his hand with a smile. "Why, it's Wimple," he said; "how are you, old fellow? Of course I'll speak to you. How are you?" The man who had stopped him was about eight-and-twenty, he was tall and thin, his legs were too long and very rickety. To look at he was not prepossessing; he had a pinky complexion, pale reddish hair, and small, round, dark eyes with light lashes and weak lids. On either side of his face there were some straggling whiskers; his lips were thin and his whole expression very grave. His voice was low but firm in its tone, as though he wished to convey that even in small matters it would be useless to contradict him. He wore rather shabby, dark clothes, his thin overcoat was unbuttoned and showed that the undercoat was faced with watered silk that had worn a little shiny; attached to his waistcoat was a watchguard made of brown hair ornamented here and there with bright gold clasps. He did not look strong or very flourishing. He was fairly gentleman-like, but only fairly so, and he did not look very agreeable. The apparent weakness of his legs seemed to preAnd when he got to this point he came vent him from walking uprightly; he to the conclusion that he was thinking too looked down a good deal at the toes of his much about himself. After all he only boots, which were well polished. The wanted a month's rest or a couple of oddest thing about him was that with all months' change of air; a friendly talk such his unprepossessing appearance he had a as he might possibly get in the next quar- certain air of sentiment; occasionally a ter of an hour would probably bring about sentimental tone stole into his voice, but either and in a far better form than he he carefully repressed it. Walter rememhimself could devise it. Mr. Fisher was bered the moment he looked at him that a man of infinite resource, not merely in the brown hair watchguard had been the regard to his paper, but for himself and gift of a pretty girl, the daughter of a his friends too, when they consulted him tailor to whom he had made love as if in about their personal affairs. It was one compensation for not paying her father's of his characteristics that he liked being bill. He wondered how it had ended, consulted. Walter felt that the best thing whether the girl had broken her heart for would be to get away alone with Florence, him or found him out. But the next moto some place where the climate had no ment he hated himself for his ungenerous cause to be ashamed of itself; he wanted thoughts, and forcing them back spoke in to be sated with sunshine. It was no good as friendly a voice as he could manage. going alone, and no matter how pleasant a "It's ages since we came across each friend went with him, a time always came other," he said, "and I should not have when he wanted to go by one route and seen you just now if you had not seen the friend by another. "Now, your wife," | me." "I wasn't sure whether you would speak to me," Mr. Wimple said solemnly as they went towards Fleet Street together, and then almost hurriedly, as if to avoid thinking about unpleasant things, he asked, "How is your wife?" "All right, thank you. But how are you, and how are you getting on?" "I am not at all well, Walter "Mr. Wimple coughed, as if to show that he was delicate" and my uncle has behaved shamefully to me.' 66 Why, what has he done?" Walter asked, wishing that he felt more cordial, for he had known Alfred Wimple longer almost than he had known any one. Old acquaintance was not to be lightly put aside. It constituted a claim in Walter's eyes as strong as did relationship, though it was only when the claim was made on him, and never when he might have pressed it for his own advantage, that he remembered this. refuse, and it's a beggarly sum, after all." To which Walter answered nothing. He had always felt angry with himself for not liking Alfred better; they were such very old friends. They had been schoolfellows long ago, and afterwards, when Walter was at Cambridge and Alfred was an articled clerk in London (he was by three years the younger of the two), there had been occasions when they had met and spent many pleasant hours together. To do Walter justice, it had always been Alfred who had sought him and not he who had sought Alfred, for in spite of the latter's much professed affection Walter never wholly trusted him; he hated himself for it, but the fact remained. "The worst of Alfred is, that he lies," he had said to himself long ago. He remembered his own remark to-day with a certain amount of reproach, but he knew that he had not been unjust; still, after all, he thought it was not so very great a crime; many people lied nowadays, sometimes without being aware of it. He was in "Done! why, he has turned me out of his office, just because he wanted to make room for the son of a rich client, for noth-clined to think that he had been rather ing else in the world." "That was rough," Walter answered, thinking almost against his will that Wimple had never been very accurate and that this account was possibly not a fair one. "What excuse did he make?" "He said my health was bad, that I was not strong enough to do the work, and had better take a few months' holiday. It is quite true about my health. I am very delicate, Walter." He turned, and looked at his friend with round, dark eyes that seemed to have no pupils to them, as though he wanted to see the effect of his statement. "I must take a few months' rest." "Then perhaps he was right after all. But can you manage the few months' rest?" Walter asked, hesitating, for he knew the question was expected from him. In old days he had had so much to do with Wimple's affairs that he did not like to ignore them altogether. "He makes me an allowance, of course, but it's not sufficient," Alfred Wimple answered reluctantly; "I wanted him to keep my post open for a few months, but he refused, though he's the only relation I have." hard on Alfred, who had been very constant to him. Besides, Wimple had been unlucky; he had been left a penniless lad to the care of an uncle, a rich city solicitor, who had not appreciated the charge; he had never had a soul who cared for him, and must have been very miserable and lonely at times. If he had had a mother or sister, or any one at all to look after him, he might have been different. Then too Walter remembered that once when he was very ill in the vacation it was Alfred who had turned up and nursed him with almost a woman's anxiety. A kindness like that made a link too strong for a few disagreeables to break. He could not help thinking that he was a brute not to like his old friend better. "I am sorry things are so bad with you, old man; you must come and dine and talk them over." Mr. Wimple looked him earnestly in the face. "I don't like to come," he said, in a half-ashamed, half-pathetic voice; "I behaved so badly to you about that thirty pounds, but luck was against me." "Never mind, you shall make it all right when luck is with you," Walter answered cheerfully, determined to forget all unpleasant bygones. "Why not come tonight? we shall be alone." Mr. Wimple shook his head. "No, not to-night," he said; "I am not well, and I am going down to the country till Wednesday; it will do me good." A little smile hovered round his mouth as he added, “Some nice people in Hampshire have asked me to stay with them." would come on Thursday instead of on Wednesday. I expect an old friend and should like you to meet him; he is clever and rather off luck just now; of course you'll get your chat with my wife all right Mr.in fact better if there are one or two people to engross me." "In Hampshire. Whereabouts in Hampshire?" There was a certain hesitation in Wimple's manner as he answered: "You don't know them, and I don't suppose you ever heard of the place, Walter; it is called Liphook." "Liphook, why of course I know it, it is on the Portsmouth line; we have a cottage, left us by my wife's aunt only last year, which is in the same direction, only nearer town. How long are you going to stay there?" "Till Wednesday. I will come and dine with you on Thursday, if you will have me." "All right, old man, 7.30. had better tell me where to I have to put you off for sons." Perhaps you write in case business rea Mr. Wimple hesitated a minute, and then gave his London address, adding that he should be back on Wednesday night or Thursday morning at latest. They were standing by the newspaper office. "Do you think there might be anything I could do here?" he asked, nodding at the poster outside the door; "I might review legal books or something of that sort." "I expect Fisher has a dozen men ready for anything at a moment's notice," Walter answered," but I'll put in a word for you if I get the chance;" and with a certain feeling of relief he shook his friend's hand and rushed up-stairs. The atmosphere seemed a little clearer when he was alone. "I'll do what I can for him," he thought, "but I can't stand much of his company. There is a want of fresh air about him that bothers me so. Perhaps he could do a legal book occasionally, he used to write rather well. I'll try what can be done." But his talk with Mr. Fisher was so important to himself and so interesting in many ways that he forgot all about Alfred until he was going out of the door; and then it was too late to speak about him. Suddenly a happy thought struck him Mr. Fisher was to dine with Walter next week, he would ask him for Thursday. Then if he liked Alfred it might go all right. He remembered, too, that Alfred always dressed carefully and looked his best in the evening and laid himself out to be agreeable. "By the way, Fisher, I wonder if you 66 Very well, Thursday if you like; it will do equally well for me; I am free both evenings as far as I know." "Agreed then," and Walter went down the office stairs pleased at his own success. "That horrid Mr. Wimple will spoil our dinner; I never liked him," Florence exclaimed when she heard of the arrangement. "I know you didn't, and I don't like him either, which is mean of me, for he's a very old friend." "But if we neither of us like him, why should we inflict him on our lives?" "We won't; we'll cut him as soon as he has five hundred a year; but it wouldn't be fair to do so just now when he's down on his luck; he and I have been friends too long for that." "But not very great friends?" "Perhaps not; but we won't throw him over in bad weather-try and be a little nice to him to please me, there's a dear Floggie," which instantly carried the day. "You had better ask Ethel Dunlop; Fisher is fond of music, and she will amuse him when he is tired of flirting with you," Walter suggested. "He'll never tire of that," she laughed, "but I'll invite her if you like. She can sing while you talk to Mr. Wimple and your editor discusses European politics with me." "He'll probably discuss politics outside Europe, if he discusses any," her husband answered; "things look very queer in the East." "They always do," she said wisely, "but I believe it's all nonsense, and only our idea because we live so far off." "You had better tell Fisher to send me out to see." |
