



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Laurel Walk
By Mrs Molesworth
Illustrations by J. Steeple Davis
Published by Drexel Biddle, Philadelphia.
This edition dated 1899.

The Laurel Walk, by Mrs Molesworth.

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THE LAUREL WALK, BY MRS MOLESWORTH.

CHAPTER ONE.

A RAINY EVENING.

There was a chemist's shop at Craig Bay, quite a smart chemist's shop,
with plate-glass windows and the orthodox "purple" and other coloured
jars of Rosamund fame.  It was one of the inconsistencies of the place,
of which there were several.  For Craig Bay was far from being a town;
it was not even a big village, and the two or three shops of its early
days were of the simplest and quaintest description, emporiums of a
little of everything, into which you made your way by descending two or
three steps below the level of the rough pavement outside.  The
chemist's shop was the first established, I think, of the new order of
things, when the place and neighbourhood suddenly rose into repute as
peculiarly bracing and healthy from the mingling of sea and hill air
with which they were favoured.  It was kept in countenance now by
several others, a draper's, a stationer's, a photographer's, of course,
besides the imperative butcher's, fishmonger's, and so on, some of which
subsided into closed shutters and vacancy after the "season" was over
and the visitors had departed.  For endeavours which had been made to
introduce a _winter_ season had not been crowned with success.  The
place was too out-of-the-way, the boasted mildness of climate not
altogether to be depended upon.  But the chemist's shop stood faithfully
open all the year round, doing a little business in wares not, strictly
speaking, belonging to it, such as note-paper and even books, when the
library-and-stationer's in one had gone to sleep for the time.

On a cold raw evening in late November, Betty Morion stood waiting for
her sister Frances on the door-step of the shop.  It would have been
warmer inside, but Betty had her fancies, like many other people, and
one of them was a dislike to the smell of drugs, with which "inside,"
naturally, was impregnated.  And she was thickly clad and fairly well
used to cold and to damp--even to rain--for to-night it was drizzling
depressingly.

"I wish Francie would be quick," thought the girl more than once during
the first few moments of her waiting, though she knew it was certainly
not poor Frances' fault.  Their father's prescriptions had always some
very special and peculiar directions accompanying them, and Betty knew
of old that the waiting for them was apt to be a long affair.

And she was not of an impatient nature.  After a while she forgot about
the tiresomeness, and fell to watching the reflections of the brilliant
colours of the jars in the puddles and on the surface of the wet
pavement just below her, as she had often watched them before.  They
were pretty--in a sense--and yet somehow they made the surrounding
dreariness drearier.

"I wonder if it does rain more here than anywhere else," she said to
herself dreamily.  "What a splashing walk home we shall have!  I wish we
did not live up a hill--at least I think I wish we didn't, though
perhaps if our house was down here I should wish it was higher up!
Perhaps it doesn't really rain more at Craig Bay than at other places,
but we notice it more.  For nearly everything pleasant that ever comes
to us depends on the weather."  And Betty sighed.  "I could fancy," she
went on, "living in a way that would make one scarcely care what it was
like out of doors.  A beautiful big house with ferneries and
conservatories, and lovely rooms to wander about in, and a library full
of delightful books, and lots of people to stay with us and--well, yes,
of course, it would be nice to go drives and rides and walks too, and to
have exquisite gardens.  But still life might be very pleasant even when
it did rain," and again Betty sighed.  "It needn't be anything so _very_
tremendous, after all," she added to herself.  "Craig-Morion might be--"
but a gentle touch on her shoulder made her turn.  It was her sister,
packages in hand, and rather embarrassed by her umbrella.

"Can you open it for me, dear?" she said, and Betty hastened to do so.
"I am so afraid," Frances went on, when Betty's own umbrella was ready
for business too, and they were both under way, "I am so afraid of
dropping any of these things.  Papa is so anxious to have them at once.
Do you remember the day that Eira dropped the bottle of red ink--wasn't
it dreadful?" and Frances laughed a little at the recollection.

Her laugh was very sweet, but scarcely merry.  There are laughs which
tell of sadness more quickly almost than tears.  But it was not that
kind either; it was the laugh of one who is resolutely cheerful, who has
learnt by experience the wisdom of making the best of things--a lesson
not often learnt by the young while young, though by some it is acquired
so gradually and unconsciously that on looking back from the table-land
of later years they do not realise it had ever been a lesson to be
learnt at all.

For its roots lie deeper than philosophy.  They are to be found in
unselfishness, in self-forgetting, and earnest longing to carry the
burdens of others, or at least to share them.

And Frances Morion was still young, though twenty-seven.  She by no
means looked her age.  Her life in many ways had been a healthy one in
its material surroundings, and she herself had made it so in other ways.

Betty scarcely laughed in return.  It is doubtful if she heard what her
sister said.

"Isn't it _horribly_ wet?" she said.  "I was really wondering just now
if it rains more here than anywhere else, or if--" and after a moment's
hesitation--"if we notice it more, Francie, because, you see, there is
so little else to notice."

Miss Morion turned quickly and glanced at her sister, forgetting that it
was far too dark to discern the girl's features.  She always felt
troubled when Betty spoke in that way, when her voice took that
particular tone.  She could be philosophical for herself far more easily
than for her younger sisters.

"Well, on the other hand," she said cheerfully, "doesn't it show that we
have no very great troubles to bear if we have leisure to think so much
about small ones?"

"I don't say we _have_ any very big troubles to bear," said Betty.  "I--
I almost sometimes find myself wishing we had--"

"Oh, Betty, _don't_," said her sister quickly, "don't wish anything like
that!"

"No," said Betty, "I wasn't going to say quite what you thought.  I mean
I wish anything big would come into our lives!  Anything really
interesting, and--well, yes!  I may as well own it--anything exciting!
It is all on such a dull, dead level, and has always been the same, and
always will be, it seems to me.  And when one is no longer very young
the spring and buoyancy seem to go.  When I was seventeen or eighteen
I'd all sorts of happy fancies and expectations, but now--why, Francie,
I'm twenty-four, and _nothing_ has come."

For a moment or two Frances walked on in silence.

"I dare say," she said at last, "if we knew more of other lives, we
should find a good many something like ours.  And after all, Betty,
one's real life is what one is oneself."

Betty laughed slightly.  Her laugh was not bitter, but without any ring
of joyousness.

"I know that," she said.  "But it doesn't do me any good.  It's just
_myself_ that depresses me.  I'm not big enough, nor brave enough, nor
anything enough, to rise above circumstances, as people talk about.  I
want circumstances to help me a little!  And I don't ask anything very
extravagant, I know.

"No, Frances," she added, "you're not--not quite right.  I think I could
bear things better and feel more spirit if you would allow that our
lives _are_ exceptional in some ways."

"Perhaps so," the elder sister agreed.

"You know," continued Betty, "it isn't fallings in love or marriage that
I'm talking about.  I really and truly very seldom think of anything of
that kind, though of course, in the abstract, I can see that a home of
one's own, and the feeling oneself a centre, is the ideal life; but
heaps of girls don't marry, and there are plenty, lots of other
interests and objects to live for, which we _are_ unusually without!"

Frances opened her mouth with an intention of remonstrating, but the
words died away before she gave them utterance.  There was so much truth
in what Betty said, and Frances was too thorough-going to believe in the
efficacy of any consolation without a genuine root, so she said nothing.

"And I'm afraid," pursued Betty, who certainly could not be accused this
evening of having donned rose-coloured spectacles, "I'm afraid," she
repeated, "that it's coming over Eira too, though she has kept her
youngness marvellously, so far."

In her turn Frances gave a little laugh which could scarcely be called
mirthful.

"Betty dear," she said, "you are rather unmerciful to-night, piling on
the agony!  You think me very philosophical, but I must confess I am not
proof against our present depressing circumstances.  I don't think I've
ever come up the hill in such rain and darkness, and so horribly cold
too."  And in spite of herself she shivered a little.

In a moment Betty's mood had changed to penitence.

"Oh, Frances, I'm a brute," she exclaimed, "for I know you were tired
before we came out; reading aloud to papa for so long together is really
