Lottie's wooing
Dale, Darley, 1848-1931
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A// rights reserved. THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. “ A Cottage OF Gentility,” II. Lottie’s Rival, .... III. A Dangerous Neighbor, IV. Lily Entertains a Visitor, V. Lottie’s Problem, VI. Mrs. Vaughan at Home,. VII. The Promise of May,. VIII. Shadows OF THE Future, IX. The Well-Dressing,. X. For Alec’s Sake, .... XI. Starlight XII. Lottie is Nervous, .... XIII. In Arden, XIV. Lottie’s Decoration, XV. In the Van, XVI. Singed Wings, XVII. The Straightest Path, XVIII. Singed! XIX. Good-by Forever, XX. Lottie’s Sphinx, .... XXI. The Artist is Offended, XXII. The Abduction, .... XXIII. Lottie Practices Self-Examination, iii PAGE I 15 22 30 39 48 62 72 82 89 95 104 116 128 140 iri i/i 171 178 191 202 210 218 CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXIV. Under a Cloud, 225 XXV. Mr. Barrett is Made Jealous, .... 234 XXVI. In the Rain, 244 XXVII. “ Those Dreadful Girls ! ” 251 XXVIII. The Last Trick, 259 XXIX. Lottie Half Controls Her Doom, . . .271 XXX. The First Tiff, 282 XXXI. The Unexpected 291 XXXII. Kitty is Roused, 302 XXXIII. Lily Advises Lottie, 312 XXXIV. The Source of the Lathkild, .... 316 XXXV. Mr. Savage’s Revenge, 323 XXXVI. Lottie’s Penance, 335 XXXVII. Concerns Mr. Barrett, 341 XXXVHI. Mrs. Vaughan Rises to the Occasion, . . 350 XXXIX. Tn which Confessions are Heard, . . . 357 XL. Conclusion, 364 LOTTIE’S WOOING CHAPTER I. A COTTAGE OF GENTILITY.” He saw a cottage with a double coachhouse, A cottage of gentility. And the devil did grin, for his darling sin Is the pride that apes humility. — Coleridge. WoRKWELL is a fourth-rate town in the county of Derby ; it stands high in the Peak, and is bounded on two sides by a range of lofty rugged hills, the slopes of which are for the most part moorland, but the lower ground is often well wooded. The woods are mostly composed of larches and pines, and as coal is cheap in this corner of the world, the trees are allowed to grow for twenty years, till their tall, straight trunks are long enough to make ladders and scaffolding poles. The pasturage in the valleys is very rich, and the meadows round Workwell, which are well watered by a rapid little river, were already donning their fresh green clothing, although it was still early in the year. Workwell, which, by the way, bears another name on the map, though for the purposes of this story it is not neces- sary to be more specific in designating it, is a clean little town, with a very fine. old church, which stands on an eminence in the center of the town and possesses a noted peal of bells, which bells seemed, to those unfortunate people who are made melancholy by the sound of bells, to be always ringing. 2 LOTTIE'S ir DOING. They were ringing merrily at noon one Lady-day to the great annoyance of a certain young lady who had just made their acquaintance. She was standing listening to them in an empty room in an empty house, rather unsuitably called The Cottage, which stood at the beginning of the High Street, just on the outskirts of the town. The Cottage was a very bright little house, with bay windows in the drawing room and dining room and the bed- rooms over them ; there was about half an acre of garden at the side, a stable yard containing coachhouse and stable, and the whole premises were shut off from the road by high wooden doors. It was an unpretentious little place, but it was not a villa, and it 7ms detached, two facts which Miss Lottie Vaughan, who had chosen it as a residence for her mother, considered two of its greatest merits ; it possessed a third recommen- dation in her eyes — the rent was low, but low as it was the rent was rather more than her mother’s income quite justi- fied her in giving, but, as she said, they must economize in something else. The Cottage was at present unfurnished, and Mrs. Vaughan and her two daughters had just arrived to take possession of it. They had walked up from the station, leaving Jack, Mrs. Vaughan’s only son, to follow with their personal luggage ; their furniture they were eagerly and momentarily expect- ing to arrive ; in fact, they were surprised that it had not come sooner. They had been living in Jersey, and had left that remark- able little island a day or two earlier than the furniture and the man who was moving it, in order to spend a few days with some friends at Weymouth. The man, who was to cross the Channel by the Southampton boat, had now had ample time to arrive, and Miss Lottie Vaughan, who had chosen the house and made all the arrangements for the removal of their goods and chattels, was inwardly anxious and outwardly vexed at his delay. “ Oh, those bells ! I wish they would leave off ringing ; they are maddening,” she exclaimed impatiently as Mrs. Vaughan, who had just made a tour of inspection of her new house, seated her portly person on a camp stool before COTTAGE OF GENTILITY: 3 the fire, which was blazing to welcome them, this same camp stool being the only article of furniture the house at present contained. “ They are ringing us in, Lottie,” said the younger girl, who was sitting on the wide window seat. “ I wish they’d ring that dawdle Goodman and the furni- ture in,” said Lottie. “ Whati-^iz// we do if it does not come to-day, Lottie?” asked Lily. “ We must go into lodgings or go to an hotel,? said Mrs. Vaughan placidly. “ My dear mother, we can’t possibly afford to do either ; we shall have to live very carefully indeed for the next three months ; as it is, this move has cost us a lot of money,” said Lottie. “ I told you so, Lottie. Three removes are as bad as a fire. But you would leave Jersey ; it was all your doing. I should never have had the spirit to do it,” said Mrs. Vaughan, whose too, too solid flesh was not suggestive of any spirit underlying it. “ I know that, mother ; I’ll take the responsibility. But you did agree with me that Jersey was a very bad place for Jack, and for Lily too,” said Lottie, still watching the wooden doors in the hope of seeing them thrown open to admit the vans. “ True, I did.” ' “ Well, I should never have married there, though I never expect to have half the fun in England I had in Jersey,” said Lottie. “You have had plenty of fun, Lottie ; it is Lily’s turn for that now. You ought to be looking out for a husband, though I am sure I don’t know how I should ever do with- out you.” “ I have looked out, mother. Come here, Lily ; do you see that large house they are building on that hill facing us ? ” “Yes,” said Lily, looking across some meadojvs toward a half-built house on the slope of the opposite hill. “Well, our landlord, Mr. Barrett, who is the duke’s agent, is building that house for himself. He is rich and a bachelor, and he is now living at the hotel in the High Street.” 4 LOTTIE* S WOOIHG. “ Well ? ” asked Lily. “I mean to marry Mr. Barrett, that is all,” said Lottie frankly. “ Why, you don’t know him, Lottie ! ” “ True, I have only seen him once when I hired the house ; but I mean to marry him, notwithstanding that, when his new house is finished.” “ Suppose he does not ask you ? ” “ He must be made to ask me, that’s all. My dear Lily, when you are as old as I am you will know a woman who is not absolutely ugly, nor quite a fool, can marry any man she has made up her mind to marry,” said Lottie rather grandly. “ How is it there are so many old maids, then ? ” “ Because some women don’t want to marry, others who do want to don’t know their power, and others prefer to remain single rather than to exercise it.” “ I would a thousand times rather die an old maid than exercise it,” said Lily. “ My dear child, you will never have any need to do so ; it will be an emharras de richesses, a plethora of husbands in your case. I am different ; I wasted my time and oppor- tunities in Jersey flirting with subs ; now, for the sake of Jack and you, it is incumbent on me to marry a rich man. Nothing short of that can retrieve our fallen fortunes and put you and Jack in the position you were born to occupy ; so for the sake of my family I mean to do it.” “ How you do run on, Lottie ; I never heard such a girl,” said Mrs. Vaughan admiringly. Circumstances directed me here, circumstances over which I had no control made a rich bachelor our landlord ; he wants a wife to manage that new house when it is ready, I want a husband. Circumstances have thrown us together. I shall take the advantage of circumstances and supply Mr. Barrett with a wife,” said Lottie, dancing lightly up and down the empty room as she spoke. “ Ah ! well, what is to be will be, I suppose,” said Mrs. Vaughan, warming her fat red hands at the fire. “ No, mother, I never said that ; that is sheer fatalism. I don’t mean to sit down quietly in this house and be the sport of circumstances ; that is cowardly, to my mind. I mean to use circumstances as the means to my end, which COTTAGE OF GENTILITY. 5 I believe to be a kind of genius, the only kind I possess, unless it be a genius for making two hundred pound a year go as far as five hundred pound a year does with other people,” said Lottie, pausing again at the window to look for any sign of Goodman. “ Ah ! you are clever enough at that, in fact I don’t know what you are not clever at ; it seems to me you can do any- thing you give your mind to, so I dare say you’ll marry Mr. Barrett if you have set your heart on it,” said Mrs. Vaughan. “ I don’t think I have displayed much talent in bringing you into an empty house in such cold, blustering weather as this,” said Lottie. It was a bitterly cold day, and it was blowing half a gale, and the wind whistled wildly through the empty house, and shook the windows, and blew open some doors and banged others in a most impertinent and irritating manner, till Lottie’s restlessness and anxiety became visible. “ Oh ! why does not that wretched man come? I’ll send Jack out to make inquiries about him as soon as he arrives with the boxes,” she said impatiently. “ Where are you going to place the piano, Lottie, when it does arrive ? ” asked Lily. “ Let me see. Well, I think there, opposite the window. The oak cabinet must go on this side of the room, the pier glass in that recess, and father’s portrait over the fireplace. Those are all fixed stars ; the rest of the furniture for this room is like the planets — it must move round according to the season,” said Lottie, trying to forget her undefined fear lest anything had happened to the furniture in planning its arrangement. “ I don’t think much of the hall, Lottie ; I like a large hall,” said Lily as Mrs. Vaughan began to nod, for she spent a great deal of time napping. “ W’ait till we get the grandfather clock opposite the hall door, and the horns and the warming pan hung up on that wall, a few rugs thrown about, and some drapery, and you’ll see it will look quite imposing. O Goodman ! do come ; I am longing to begin to arrange the things. Let’s go upstairs again, Lil, and decide where the wardrobes are to 6 LOTTIE'S WOOING. The two girls ran upstairs, and we will take advantage of their absence to describe their personal appearance. Lottie was very reticent about her age, but according to ’ the family Bible, which was always kept under lock and key, she was twenty-eight her last birthday. She was not pretty —she just missed deserving that epithet — but she was an attractive girl, and one of her charms was her voice, which was low and sweet and«sympathetic. She was rather small, with pretty hands and feet, and a very pretty little figure ; captious critics said her waist was too small in proportion to her bust, but Lottie was wont to say it only looked small because it was so round ; and no matter how old her dress was it always fitted like a glove. Her hair was beautiful — a sunny, golden brown, with lights and shades in it, and it was always well dressed in the prevailing fashion, for she was of opinion that well- arranged hair gave a certain air of distinction. Her com- plexion was fresh and ruddy, and one of the trials of her life was that she was inclined to have too much color, and her greatest terror was lest she should grow as stout and as red as her mother. Mrs. Vaughan was not by any means an aristocratic look- ing woman ; on the contrary, she looked exceedingly like a xiook. Jersey gossips said she did originally belong to that useful class of society. She was short, very stout, very round, very red, also, unlike some cooks, very good tem- pered, very fond of nodding and napping over a book, and leaving her household affairs to her very capable elder daughter to manage. She dressed in perpetual weeds : Lottie considered they toned down her complexion, and as she had a weakness for very bright colors, one of the difficulties of Lottie’s life was removed by keeping her in mourning. Jersey gossips did not hit the right nail on the head when they said she was once a cook. She was really a farmer’s daughter, whom Captain Vaughan had fallen in love with when he was a midshipman and she a pretty girl living in the village of which his father was the squire. Captain Vaughan died at sea some ten years before this story opens, and his widow, who at the time of his death was living in Jersey, remained there till the education of **A COTTAGE OF GENTILITY, 7 her children was finished. His only son, Jack, now seven- teen years old, was studying for Sandhurst, his uncle having offered to pay his expenses there if he passed the prelimi- nary examination before his eighteenth birthday. Lily, the younger daughter, was a pretty edition of Lottie ; her features were more regular, her complexion more delicate, her manner much quieter than Lottie’s ; she was an amiable, innocent little girl, not overburdened with brains, the pet of the family, but rather kept in the back- ground by Lottie, who was nevertheless very fond and proud of her younger sister. There was a vein of coarseness in Lottie, inherited from her mother, which sometimes jarred upon Lily’s more refined nature ; for instance, when Lottie announced her intention of marrying Mr. Barrett, Lily blushed for very shame at her sister’s want of womanly dignity ; but still she admired Lottie, and looked up to her as a model in many ways. In fact, Lottie was a sort of household goddess, and the first article of faith in the Vaughan family was to believe in Lottie, their first duty to man to put their whole trust in her, while they “ dreed their weird ” in that state and local- ity in which it pleased Lottie to place them. It had now pleased her to bring them to Workwell to fret out their destiny in that town — firstly, because they had some rich connections in the neighborhood, under the shadow of whose wings they could slip into society ; sec- ondly, because The Cottage was just the very house for them ; thirdly, because, as Lottie had frankly confessed, she meant to marry their landlord. She was the pivot upon which the family turned ; some latent force set her in motion, and her family was perforce obliged to revolve with her. She was dressmaker, milliner, cook, and housekeeper to the others ; she kept Jack up to his work ; shd managed her mother, who was as plastic clay in her hands, and screened her vulgarity as much as possible ; she chose their circle of acquaintances, and knew exactly where to draw the line, and how to draw it, which, as she sometimes said, was the more difficult task. In short, though by no means intel- lectual, Lottie was a very clever woman, and as remarkable a housewife as her celebrated prototype, whose passive and 8 LOTTIE'S WOOING. persistent cutting of bread and butter in spite of her lover’s distressing condition on a shutter has rendered her immortal. The position of the expected wardrobes had not been definitely settled when Mr. John Vaughan walked into the house, and told his elder sister to come downstairs and see where the boxes were to go. “Has the furniture come?” exclaimed Lottie, rushing downstairs in a great state of excitement. “The furniture ! My dear Lottie, I know nothing about the furniture. I was laboring under the pleasant delusion that it was in this house ; for aught I know to the contrary it may be at the bottom of the sea,” said Jack, calmly knocking the ash off the cigar he was smoking as he leant on the balusters. He was a good-looking boy, with a round, good-tempered face, and the fresh complexion which seemed to be a family characteristic. He had a pleasant voice and gentlemanly manners ; he was somewhat of a dandy, but he had not a scrap of conceit about him at present ; he hated work, and loved nothing better than teasing his sisters. “ Don’t talk such nonsense, Jack,” said Lottie hastily as she proceeded to tell the flyman where to carry the boxes. “ I merely made a probable, though perhaps not alto- gether a happy suggestion as to its present locality. Let us hope it is merely on the sea, not in it, nor under it,” said Jack. “ Do be quiet. Jack. Carry the plate chest upstairs and lock it up in one of the rooms, and don’t stand there talk- ing such utter twaddle,” said Lottie, who was getting more and more anxious about the furniture. Jack obeyed the first part of this order, but continued to discourse on the probabilities of his suggestion being the correct, though undesirable, solution of the mysterious delay in Goodman’s arrival. “ Now, Jack,” said Lottie when the boxes were carried upstairs and the flyman dismissed, “ I want you to go into the town and make inquiries about this wretch Goodman and the furniture.” “ My dear Lottie,” said Jack slowly and impressively, “ I don't stir from this house until I have inspected the prem- ises, and had a good round meal. I am dying of hunger COTTAGE OF GEN IT LIT YT 9 and curiosity. Hunger is the more pressing need, but from the observations I made on my way here there seems noth- ing to be had in this city but Spa ornaments and photo- graphs of the surrounding country. I can’t laugh on gypsum nor on photographs.” “ There is a very good confectioner close by ; you may go and get some meat patties and biscuits, and we will picnic indoors to-day ; perhaps by the time you come back the furniture will have arrived.” A few minutes after Jack had started on an errand thoroughly congenial to him, there was a ring at the door bell, and Lily ran to open the door, exclaiming : “ There is Goodman at last ! ” There was a short pause, and then Lily reappeared, look- ing rather alarmed. “ Lottie, do come here ; it is Goodman, but he seems dazed ; there are no vans, and I can’t get anything out of him. He won’t come in.” “ Nonsense ! he must come in. Well, Goodman, come in, please ; I have been expecting you for the last hour and a half ; I thought you would have had some of the furniture in before we arrived,” said Lottie, going to the hall. Goodman, a small, wiry man, stood just inside the hall, twirling his hat round and round, and looking the picture of misery. He was very pale, and his hands shook so he could scarcely hold his hat, and when, at Lottie’s command, he moved forward, his knees trembled under him so that he could only stagger like a tipsy man across the hall ; and yet he did not look as if he had been drinking. Lottie’s vague nervousness began to take a more definite shape, but her fears were still wide of the mark. “ Well, Goodman, I am very glad you have come. Dear me, how ill you look ! Did you have a very bad passage ? ” said Mrs. Vaughan, turning round on her stool to look at the packer. Lottie was inwardly longing to shake him. “ No, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. I don’t know, ma’am. I mean an awful passage, ma’am,” stammered the luckless man.. “ Is the man daft ? ” whispered Lottie to Lily. “ Where’s the furniture ? ” she asked aloud. “ The furniture ? I — I — I don’t know. I mean I can’t lO LOTTIE'S WOOING. — I daren’t — I — oh ! my blessed goodness, I wish I had never been born,” gasped Goodman, mopping his forehead with a red handkerchief spotted with white. “ The man is as mad as a hatter, Lil. Has the furniture come, Goodman ? ” said Lottie slowly and emphatically. “ No, ma’am,” said Goodman, with a profound sigh, it’s — it’s gone.” “Gone! Where to? What stupid mistake have you made, Goodman ? ” said Lottie. “ The furniture not come ? But the house is empty, Goodman ; we have no beds, not so much as a chair to sit upon, till it arrives,” said Mrs. Vaughan. “ Oh, my dear, good ladies, for the love of Heaven forgive me ; I can never tell you ; oh, if this here floor would but open and swallow me up ! Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! the furni- ture is gone, ma’am. Gone, every stick of it ; gone,” gasped Goodman, throwing himself on his knees in front of Mrs. Vaughan to the intense amusement of Lily, who stood behind him shaking with suppressed laughter. “ The man is raving mad,” said Lottie as she stepped in front of him, and then, bending slightly forward, asked in slow and distinct tones : “Goodman, will you be good enough to answer this question, and leave these heroics for a more seasonable occasion ? Where is our furniture ?” The man continued to kneel before Mrs. Vaughan, trem- bling like an aspen, and then suddenly, just as Jack appeared on the threshold with his arms filled with paper bags of pastry, he blurted out : “ It is gone to the bottom, every stick of it, and, God forgive me, I wish I was with it.” Jack gave a long, low whistle, and dropped half the paper bags on the floor. Mrs. Vaughan, whose tears always lay close to the surface, burst into loud sobs, and cried : “ I am a poor widow, with only a roof over my head and the clothes I stand up in. Oh ! if my poor, dear husband could but see me ! ” Lottie staggered to the window sill, and, turning very pale, sank on to it, murmuring in impressive tones, “ We are ruined ! ” Lily looked from her mother to her sister, uncertain *‘A COTl'AGE OF GENTILITY.” II whether to laugh or to cry, and unable to grasp the truth of the calamity which had befallen them. “ What ? Everything lost } Does he mean everything, Lottie ? The piano, and the oak cabinet, and the pier glass, and the grandfather clock with the moon in it, that I was so fond of? ” said Lily. “ Every stick and stone, miss." “ Your poor, dear father’s portrait too, in his uniform with the epaulettes. And the beds — oh, dear, oh, dear, if poor, dear Vaughan could but see his widow stripped of everything, oh, what would he, would he say?" said Mrs. Vaughan, rocking herself backward and forward with such impetus that Lottie mechanically thought she would overbalance herself and come to the ground, stool and all. ‘‘ Yes, ma’am, it is all gone ; it went down off Cherbourg," said Goodman, who now took a melancholy pleasure in making the loss clear to the ladies. “ Cherbourg ! What the dickens were you doing there ?" exclaimed Jack, picking up his parcels and putting them on to the case of china, the only thing except clothes and plate left to them. “ Well, sir, it was like this," said Goodman, who had risen from his knees, and, now that the ice was broken, was long- ing to unburden his soul by a full confession. “I thought I might as well bring the furniture over in a cutter instead of by the mail, as that was cheaper. I own it was very wrong of me, and I wish I had died before I thought of such a thing. I chartered a boat, and we got it all on board safe enough, and on Monday evening the skipper and his mate and I embarked, and if it had been a calm night all would have gone well ; but it wasn’t calm, ladies — ’twasn’t no fault of ours, sir, but it blew a gale." Here Goodman paused to take breath. “ Well, sir, we knew, laden as we were, if we got into the Race of Alderney in such a wild night we should never get out alive, so we made for Cherbourg ; but the boat could not live in such a sea — dirtier weather I never saw — and she went down about four o’clock on Tuesday morning, a mile from the French coast. We managed to swim to a rock, and were taken off by a fishing boat more dead than alive ; and I almost wish I had gone down with the furniture," 12 LOTTIE'S WOOING. “ If you wished you had gone down instead of it, it would be more to the point,” growled good-tempered Jack, “ O Goodman ! Goodman ! How could you go to treat a poor widow and my orphaned children so; why, we have not so much as a chair to sit upon.” “ Lucky you caught on to that old camp stool, mother,” said Jack, who was secretly alarmed at Lottie’s silence, and mentally measuring the extent of the calamity by its dura- tion. “ It is dreadful ! No pictures, no books, no knickknacks, no grandfather clock with the moon, no clock at all,” said Lily. “ No beds, no tables, no chairs, no china, no glass, no house linen, no kitchen things, not so much as a kettle left for a cup of tea,” groaned Mrs. Vaughan, whose lamenta- tions were chiefly confined to the more useful accessories of life. “ Look here, Goodman, I don’t want to say anything to you that I might regret in calmer moments, so if you would be so good as to clear out of here till we have recovered our normal equanimity I should be obliged to you. You can come in again later this evening, and we will discuss the matter further then,” said Jack, who was seriously alarmed at the apparently total collapse of Lottie. That young lady had not spoken since that brief ejacula- tion that they were ruined; unlike Lily, her quick brains had seized the situation at once, and as she knew better than any of the others how grave it was, she had cause to be dumfounded at the catastrophe. She sat like one stunned, while two facts were burnt into her brain : one, the amount of their balance in the bank ; the other, the loss of the furniture. As soon as Goodman had taken Jack’s advice and departed. Jack handed round the patties, and suggested they should have some luncheon before they took any further measures. Food never came amiss to Mrs. Vaughan nor to Jack; indeed, Lottie was the only one of the party who had no appetite, and she made no attempt to eat, but shook her head in hopeless silence when Jack tried to induce her to take something. COTTAGE OF GENTILITY. 13 As they ate, Lily and Jack discussed the various forms of punishment they considered Goodman merited, but Lottie was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to hear a word they said. “ How much money have we in the bank, Lottie ? ” said Mrs. Vaughan. Thirty pounds.’' “ And how long has that to last ? ” ‘‘Till the dividends come next June. I dare not touch that thirty pounds for furniture,” said Lottie gloomily. “ But, Lottie, we must have beds and things; how are you going to get them ? ” asked her mother. “ I don’t know,” almost moaned Lottie. “ Oh'! don’t bother Lottie, mother ; she is sure to think of some way out of the difficulty. If you would only try one of these meat patties, Lottie, you’d be inspired with an idea ; do try, there’s a dear girl, to please me,” said Jack. To oblige him Lottie put out her right hand to take a patty, and as she did so her eyes fell on a handsome diamond ring, an heirloom, which she wore on her fourth finger. The sight of it gave her fresh courage, she saw a way out of the difficulty, and her whole manner changed in a moment. “ What an idiot I am. I forgot my ring. De Faye told me in Jersey I could get fifty pounds for it any day. Jack, you and I must go to the nearest town to-morrow and sell it. Cheer up, mother ; I see my way out of the wood now,” exclaimed Lottie, moving to the fire to warm herself, for the news had chilled her. “ O Lottie, and you are so fond of that ring ! ” said Lily, realizing the sacrifice her sister was about to make. “ What would your poor, dear father say if he knew you sold that ring, Lottie?” said Mrs. Vaughan. “ She need not sell it, she can send it to her uncle’s. I’ll take it for you, Lottie ; you can’t go into a pawnbroker’s. See the effect of that patty: ‘Richard’s himself again.’ Have another, Richard ? I knew you’d derive ghostly strength and mental inspiration from it,” said Jack, “I got you into the scrape, I am bound to get you out of it somehow. I was stunned at first ; I could not think of 14 LOTTIE'S WOOING. anything. I feel it is partly my fault ; I ought to have seen the furniture put on board myself,” said Lottie slowly. “ It wasn’t at all your fault, Lottie — I don’t blame you, but fifty pounds won’t furnish this house ; we had two hundred pounds’ worth at least,” said her mother. “ Fifty pounds used as I shall use it will go a long way ; I shall buy second-hand sofas and chairs, and upholster them myself ; and it is possible there may be a little sal- vage; as they went down so near land some of the things may be washed up. Well, Jack, you and I must go to Derby or Chesterfield to-morrow and see what we can get ; the question now is. What are we to do for to-night?” “ Make a good lunch, my dear girl, and I dare say you’ll be able to solve that problem. Lodgings, I understand, are incompatible with the state of our finances,” said Jack. “ Quite. Thank goodness, we have not a servant to pro- vide for. You and I can manage here, Jack; we have plenty of rugs — if we can borrow some pillows we will make up some beds on the boxes.” “ All right ; if you can manage, I can. There is the traveling bath, so we can have a bath. But what’s to become of mother and Lil ? ” “ That’s the difficulty, because we know no one here at present. I have it. Jack, you must goto The Crown and ask for Mr. Barrett — he lives there : he is our landlord, so he is bound to be civil. Tell him what has happened ; hint that economy is an object, and ask him if he knows anyone who would be charitable enough to give mother and Lil a bed for to-night. Perhaps the rector of the parish would do so ; I don’t know anything about him, but Mr. Barrett, of course, does.” “All right ; I’ll go.” “ And ask him also which is the cheapest place for us to go to for furniture ; perhaps he will offer to drive us some- where— he has two horses,” said Lottie, who had now quite recovered her usual spirits. “ If he offers to come and see us shall I bring him over ? ” “ Certainly. I won’t go out till you come back, and then I must go and buy a little china and glass, and a few kitchen things, in the town,” said Lottie as Jack started. LOTTIE'S RIVAL. She was acting up to her creed ; she was utilizing these untoward circumstances as means to her end ; her end, as she owned, was marriage with Mr. Barrett, and she was quick to see that this domestic catastrophe might and probably would precipitate their intimacy with their landlord. “ It is an ill wind that blows no good,” and if the same wind that blew their furniture to the bottom of the sea also blew Mr. Barrett into The Cottage as a friend in need, why, it would not be such an ill wind after all. It had changed her tactics somewhat, but perhaps the fresh tack might bring her into the harbor sooner than the old. One good must result from it, Lottie reflected : it could not fail to give her an insight into Mr. Barrett’s character; at present she knew absolutely nothing about him, except that he was rich, unmarried, and apparently held a very good position in the neighborhood, and seemed to be well known and respected in the town. But now she had given him the opportunity of helping them in their difficulty if he were so disposed, she would learn whether he was kind hearted and generous or mean and selfish ; she could learn more of the man’s nature in the next few hours than three months of ordinary inter- course could teach her. So while Mrs. Vaughan and Lily sat counting up all their lost possessions, and greeting each freshly remembered article with a new lamentation, Lottie sat by the window watching eagerly for Jack’s return, and making a list of things which were immediately necessary, and wondering what response Mr. Barrett would make to her appeal. CHAPTER 11. Lottie’s rival. About half a mile from the house the Vaughans had just taken, stood what Lottie considered an ideal cottage, called The Dell. It was really and truly a cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows in the gables, latticed windows downstairs, and a rustic porch covered in summer with roses. LOTTIE'S WOOINC. l6 It was small, but it was a most compact little house, and stood in a large garden which opened into a tiny paddock, devoted to Miss Savage’s fowls. The only drawback to The Dell was the approach, which was by a narrow and rather steep lane not wide enough for two carriages to pass ; but The Dell had two gates, so you could drive in at one and out at the other, and thus avoid turning round. In this ideal cottage, which also belonged to Mr. Barrett, lived a maiden lady named Savage. She had now been five years at The Dell ; during the first three years her father lived with her, but for the last two years she had been alone, and it was a subject of much curiosity and speculation in Workwell as to what had become of the father. All that was actually known was that about two years ago he had had a great disappointment, followed by a mysterious illness. The disappointment was not of a senti- mental nature ; on the contrary, it was most prosaic ; it referred to his profession, not to his affections. He was an architect of the Gothic school, a beautiful draughtsman, and devoted to his art, for which he had talent which almost amounted to genius ; he was original, and was apt to sacrifice utility to beauty when it was difficult to com- bine the two. It was this tendency which brought about the disappointment alluded to above. He, among other architects, had sent in designs for a townhall in a neighboring city, and Mr. Savage’s design, though by far the most beautiful, was declined in favor of one in the renaissance style. Shortly after this he dis- appeared from Workwell, and he had not been heard of since. His daughter, who was passionately attached to him, always answered vaguely that he was in London when questioned on the subject ; but very few people had the courage to approach Miss Savage on what was evidently an unpleasant topic. It was presumed she went to see him, for she went up to London every two months for a day or two, but she never spoke of him on her return, and changed the conversation if other people did. Since the disappearance from Workwell of Mr. Savage, Miss Savage had reduced her establishment to one servant and a boy : a scrub and a grub, she was LOTTIE'S RIVAL. 17 wont to call them ; she had sold her pony, and she lived very economically. Some malicious tongues suggested that Mr. Savage had gone to the bad altogether ; but there was no foundation for such a report, unless the sad expression sometimes surprised on Miss Savage’s face was sufficient scaffolding to support such a theory. One person, and one person only, besides herself, knew what had become of her father, and that person was her friend and landlord, Mr. Barrett ; but the secret, she knew, was as safe in his keeping as with the dead. This friendship between Miss Savage and Mr. Barrett was another subject which greatly exercised the minds and tongues of the local gossips ; some maintained they were engaged to be married, others were sure she had refused him over and over again, others knew for a fact he had never proposed to her. The truth was no one knew anything about it, and cer- tainly neither Mr. Barrett nor Miss Savage were likely to enlighten their neighbors on so very private a matter. One fact was indisputable : they were very great friends. Miss Savage’s age was another mystery in connection with her which the Workwell people tried in vain to solve. It was not easy to guess it even approximately, for while her hair was snow-white her complexion was still fresh, and her figure girlish ; she was probably about forty, but she might have been much less. She was handsome ; she had dark eyes and eyebrows, an aquiline nose, and beautiful teeth, and a sweet but sad expression ; she was tall and slight ; alto- gether she was an aristocratic looking woman, who excited interest wherever she went. Two letters awaited her when she came down to break- fast on the morning of the Vaughans’ arrival at The Cot- tage ; she broke the seal of one eagerly and anxiously ; but as she read her whole face changed, an expression of radiant joy chased away the sadness, as the sun breaking through the clouds dispels them. Joy loses half its sweetness unless it can be shared, and her first impulse was to share with some person, or, failing a person, some thing, this joy which overwhelmed her and LOTTIE’S tVOO/JVO. i8 the bell for Martha, the scrub, to bring in the breakfast, and as she did so a soft, wet, black nose was thrust against her hand, and the mute, appealing eyes of a dachshund begged to be told what had happened. “Yes, Roy, he is coming back. Master’s coming home at last, dear dog. Martha, your master is coming home to-morrow.” Roy wagged his tail, and Martha said : “ Oh, indeed, ma’am ! ” and Miss Savage sat down to play with her breakfast, feeling that joy such as hers was incommunicable, at least to her immediate circle. The grub showed rather more sympathy than the scrub at the news; if the master came back the pony would’ probably come back, and he would have stable work, which he loved, instead of gardening, which he hated. The immediate benefit he derived from the news was, he was sent with a letter from his mistress to Mr. Barrett, which gave him an excellent opportunity of wasting half his morning in going and returning, so he was undeniably much pleased. The letter informed Mr. Barrett of the expected return of Mr. Savage, and further told him that Miss Savage was going to London and back the fol- lowing day ; and the grub brought back a verbal message to the effect that Mr. Barrett would call at three that after- noon. At three Mr. Barrett arrived, and found Miss Savage eagerly expecting him. “ I am so glad you have come. Isn’t it splendid news? ” she said as she welcomed her visitor. “ It is indeed. You mean to go to-morrow, I suppose, to fetch him ?” “ Oh, yes ! I would have gone to-day if it had been pos- sible. I scarcely know how to wait. See, the letter says at once,” said Miss Savage, handing her friend the letter which had changed her whole life for her. It was from the medical superintendent of a large lunatic asylum, informing her that her father was now sufficiently recovered to return home, and she was at liberty to remove him at once. This was the mystery which had so disturbed the Work- well people ; Mr. Savage had been in an asylum all this LOTTIE'S RIVAL. ^9 time ; the disappointment following a period of suspense and overwork had turned his brain and brought on an attack of mania. At first he was violent, but he had had no outbreak during the last twelve months, and was now consid- ered well enough to be under his daughter’s care. That the Workwell gossips would guess the truth as soon as they saw him Miss Savage was well aware ; that he would never earn another shilling she also knew ; but to have him with her again was her heart’s desire. What she had suffered during the last two years only those who have been through the same furnace can tell, for it is a furnace heated one seven times more than furnaces are wont to be heated. It will be like having him back from-the dead. I did not think it was possible to feel such joy on earth ; it is the greatest joy I have ever known,” said Miss Savage as a few tears rolled down her cheeks. 