Not Without Thorns. Molesworth Mrs.

army of smuts, the year by year more heavily laden air.

      “I wish,” said Eugenia, at length, “I wish we either lived quite in the middle of a great town – I shouldn’t mind if it were in the heart of the city even, in London, I mean – or quite, quite in the country. Up on the top of a hill or down in the depths of a valley, I don’t care which, provided it was out of sight and hearing of railways and omnibuses, and smoke and factories, and – and – ”

      “And shops?” suggested Sydney. “Shops and perhaps churches?”

      “No, I like shops. At least, I like buying nice things. You know I do, Sydney – you are laughing at me,” reproachfully. “It isn’t nice of you when I am speaking seriously and want you to be sympathising. As for churches,” she went on, languidly, “I am not sure if I would rather be without them or not. It is one of the points I have not quite made up my mind upon yet. Don’t look so shocked child, I only said churches – I didn’t say clergymen; and of course, even up on the top of my hill there would be sure to be a church, with no music, and sermons an hour long.”

      “Eugenia, what nonsense you do talk sometimes!” exclaimed Sydney, when her sister at last stopped to take breath. “I cannot understand how you, who are really so clever, can go on so. It doesn’t matter with me, of course, but a great many people wouldn’t like it at all – wouldn’t understand that you were in fun.”

      ”‘A great many people’ left the room ten minutes ago, my dear Sydney,” replied Eugenia, coolly. “Don’t distress yourself about me. We have each our special talents, you know; perhaps mine is talking nonsense. It is a great gift, but of course, like all great gifts, it requires cultivation.”

      Sydney did not reply; she turned away, and moved slowly towards the door.

      “I must go and take my things off,” she said, quietly.

      “No, you mustn’t; at least, not till I let you,” exclaimed Eugenia. “Now, Sydney, don’t be tiresome. You are not to get cross; I’ve been quite cross enough for both. You should be glad to see I’ve talked myself into a good humour again. Come here, you crabbed little thing!” she pulled Sydney with her down into her old place in front of the fire; “and if you will be good and nice, I’ll tell you about last night. Oh, Sydney it was – I can’t tell you what it was – it was so delightful. I never thought anything in the world could be half so nice.”

      She had flung herself down on the rug by her sister, and as she spoke she raised herself on her elbows, her head a little thrown back in her excitement, her bright, expressive eyes looking up eagerly into Sydney’s face. Sydney looked full of interest and inquiry; over her face, fair and soft and girlish as it was, there crept an expression of almost maternal anxiety.

      “I am glad you enjoyed it so much,” she said, sympathisingly. “Mrs Dalrymple was very kind, I suppose. Did you see that nice-looking Miss Eyrecourt again? Is she still there?”

      “She was, but I think she was to leave to-day,” said Eugenia. Then after a little pause she went on again – “Yes, she is handsome, certainly; but, Sydney, I don’t think I like her. But never mind about her. Oh, Sydney, I did so enjoy it all.”

      “I am very glad,” said the younger sister again; “but tell me, Eugenia, why did you enjoy it so much?”

      It was very strange – now that she had Sydney all to herself comfortably – Sydney, as eager to hear, as ready to be sympathising as the most exacting narrator could demand, it seemed to Eugenia she had nothing to tell. At first the younger sister felt rather puzzled, but before long the mystery was explained – an accidental allusion to the hero of the evening by name, and Sydney understood the whole; understood it, young as she was, far better than Eugenia herself. The discovery by no means diminished her anxiety, the cause for which she, perhaps, a little exaggerated. She knew her sister’s fitfulness and impressionability; she suspected, though but dimly, the unsounded depths beneath. Yet she made an almost unavoidable mistake in judging this vivid, complex, immature nature too much by her own. How could a girl of seventeen, wise though she might be for her years, have done otherwise?

      She kept her suspicions to herself, her misgivings also at first, but she did not altogether succeed in concealing her gravity.

      “What are you looking so gloomy about, Sydney?” said Eugenia.

      “I don’t quite know. I can’t exactly say why I feel so – not gloomy, Eugenia, but anxious,” she replied. “I am not sure that I like that Captain Chancellor, however handsome and charming he is. I don’t think it was quite nice of him picking you out in that conspicuous way. It must have made people notice you.”

      “That would never trouble me,” said Eugenia, loftily; but still the half-expressed doubt in her sister’s words seemed to echo some hitherto unacknowledged instinct in herself. Sydney went on speaking —

      “I have often felt a sort of vague dread of finding ourselves really grown-up, Eugenia. Papa can’t enter into things as a mother could, though he is so kind and gentle. We seem to be thrown so on our own resources. I don’t, of course, mean so much with regard to myself;” here a faint tinge of pink crept over her face; “I am wonderfully, unusually fortunate; but that does not make my anxiety for your happiness the less; I wish we had a mother, Eugenia.”

      “So do I,” said the elder girl, wistfully. “Even if she had lived a few years with us it would have been different. But not even to be able to remember her! We can’t expect papa to see that we are too much thrown upon ourselves, for he has never seen it otherwise. And, of course, Aunt Susan is less than no good. However, Sydney,” she went on, in a different tone, “as far as regards this Captain Chancellor, whom, for some reason – I don’t know what, I don’t think you quite do yourself – you are so afraid of, you may set your mind at rest. I have been thinking very seriously to myself to-day. I thoroughly understand myself and the whole position of things, and I am very well able to take care of myself. I am not going to have my head turned so easily.”

      Sydney smiled, and shook her head.

      “I hope not,” she said. Eugenia grew more earnest.

      “Don’t look so unconvinced,” she remonstrated. “Even supposing I were so contemptibly silly, do you think I couldn’t stop in time – do you think I would let any one – even you – find it out? But, after all, what is more to the purpose, and will satisfy you better than all my assurances, the chances are very small that I shall ever meet this dangerous person again. So forget all about him, Sydney, and I shall too. By-the-bye, how strange it will seem to have Gerald Thurston here again. I am glad for papa’s sake.”

      “And for our own sakes too,” said Sydney, with some indignation. “I think you are strangely ungrateful, Eugenia. Have you forgotten how very, very kind he was to us – to you especially? I know you cried bitterly when he went away.”

      “Did I? I was a child,” said Eugenia, indifferently. But immediately her mood changed. “No, Sydney,” she exclaimed, “it is ungrateful of me to speak like that; I do remember and I shall always like Gerald. But Frank provokes me into seeming uninterested by the fuss he makes about Gerald, as if such a piece of perfection never existed before. And you’re nearly as bad yourself. Now, don’t look dignified. I cannot help being contradictory sometimes. Kiss me, Sydney;” for by this time Sydney had risen and was really leaving the room, but stopped to kiss her sister as she was told. “That’s a good child, and thank you for your advice, or warning, whichever it was, though I really don’t need it as much as you think. I promise to forget all about Captain Chancellor as fast as I can. There now, won’t that please you?”

      The “forgetting all about him” was not to be done in a minute, she found, though she set to work at it vehemently enough; for the leaving anything alone, allowing a possible evil to die a natural death, as is not unfrequently the wisest policy, was a negative course quite opposed to Miss Laurence’s principles. Constantly during the next few days she found herself speculating on the possibility of her meeting Captain Chancellor again, recalling his words, and looks, and tones; but these “follies” she did her best to discourage. Never had she been more active or energetic in her home