CHAPTER I.

Anyone who has read the Mort d'Arthur can hardly fail, if he traverse the Combe of Edge in early summer, to be struck by its resemblance to the fairy Valley of Avilion.

A spot still by good fortune remote from rail, and therefore lying fresh and unsullied between its protecting hills, waiting, like the pearl of great price, to reward the eye of the diligent seeker after beauty. It seems hard, at first glance, to believe that the rigors of an English winter can ever sweep across its sunny uplands.

As regards the falling of rain and hail, and the buffeting of winds, it is to be supposed the place does not, literally speaking, resemble the mystic Isle; but it was a fact, as Allonby had just elicited from the oldest inhabitant, that snow had only three times lain on the hills within his memory.

To the young man himself, as he sat in a patch of shade just outside the rural inn, with a tankard of cider in his hand, and his long legs extended in an attitude of blissful rest, it seemed as if the remainder of the description must be also true.

Up over his head, the sky was blue—how blue! An unseen lark trembled somewhere in its depths, and its song dropped earthwards in trills of melody.

It was that loveliest season of the English summer which comes before the cutting of the grass. All up the sides of the valley the meadows were ripe for the scythe; the dark-red spires of the sorrel and the white stars of the ox-eye daisy bent softly in the warm south breeze. Down below the level of the eye, in the very heart of the Combe, a fringe of reeds and little willows marked the lowly course of the brook. No one who noted its insignificant proportions would have guessed—unless he were a true disciple of Isaak Walton—what plump trout glided over its clear gravel bed.

In the fine pasturage of the glebe meadows, the red-brown cows were gathered under a tree, out of the hot sparkle of the sun. The orchards had lost their bewildering glory of bloom, except just here and there, where a late apple-tree shoot was still decorated with coral-tinted wreath.

And beyond the orchards was the crown of summer sea—

thought Allonby, who was altogether in a Tennysonian frame of mind that morning. He could not help it. The fresh loveliness of his surroundings impressed him with a dreamy delight, and he loved nothing so well as the luxury of yielding to his impressions. He was filled with a blending of indescribable emotions, longings, desires; wondering how anyone managed to live in London and yet retain any powers of mind and thought.

"I have been here two days," he sighed, "and my range of ideas is stretching, stretching, like the handkerchief in the fairy-tale which stretched into a gown. My horizon is widening, my standard of perfection is rising; I shall either die, if it goes on much longer, or become a totally different person. Farewell, my old self, with your trivial daubs, your dingy studio, your faded London models. Let us go in for the shearing of sheep under burning skies, for moon-rise on the waters of an endless sea, for the white, dusty perspective of the village street, or for Mary, the maid of the inn!"

Mr. Allonby, as will have been gathered from this fragment, was not a strikingly coherent thinker; but to-day he was certainly more wool-gathering than usual, and he had not even strength to be angry with himself for the same.

"Temperament," he went on, lazily "national temperament, is entirely the result of climatic influence. I fancy I've heard that sentiment before—I have a dim idea that I have heard it frequently; but I have never till this moment realised it thoroughly. I now give it the sanction of my unqualified assent. They say of us, that no Englishman understands how to flâner. How the devil could anyone flâner in the shades of a London fog? Is east wind conducive to lounging in the centres of squares? or a ceaseless downpour the best accompaniment to a meal taken out of doors? No, indeed! Give me only a landscape like the present, and six weeks of days such as this, and I will undertake to rival the veriest flâneur that ever strolled in a Neapolitan market. How sweet-tempered I should grow, too! Even now I recall, dimly as in a dream, the herds of cross and disagreeable people who struggle into omnibuses at Piccadilly Circus. Why, oh, why do they do it? Do they really imagine it worth the trouble? Why don't they tear off their

mittens and mackintoshes, fling away their tall hats, their parcels, their gamps, and make one simultaneous rush for the Island Valley of Avilion?"

And, as he thus mused, arose straightway before his imagination—which was keen—a vision of such a crowd as emanates, on a wet night, from a Metropolitan railway-station—of such a crowd pouring from an imaginary terminus, and flocking down that poetic village street, inundating the grass-grown curve of beach in the bay, swarming in a black herd up the warm red sides of the peaceful cliff.

"Jove!" he ejaculated, under his breath, "how they would spoil the place!"

And he checked his philanthropic desire that all his fellow Londoners should come to learn lounging in this ideal village. His beatific musings were broken into by the appearance of the inn-keeper's young daughter, "Mary, the maid of the inn," as he had named her, though her parents had christened her Sarah.

She came walking awkwardly through the cool dark passage, and poked her pretty, tow-colored head round the doorway, to obtain a side scrutiny of her father's guest, who was an object of great interest to her.

"Me mother said I was t'ask yer if yer was goin' to get your dinner aout, same as yesterday, or if yer'd get yer dinner here to-day?"

This question brought Allonby's thoughts home to a sense of forgotten duty. The spot he had yesterday selected, whence to paint his projected picture, was a mile along the valley, and the day was passing; so far he had been conspicuously successful in his efforts to become a lounger.

"I wonder if your mother would tie me up some dinner in a handkerchief?" said he. "I had none yesterday, because it was too far to come back."

Then, as the girl disappeared, he rose, stretched, and told himself that he was a fool to have put off his tramp till the hottest hour of the day, when it would be quite impossible to get an inch of shade, either side of the way.

However, he had come to Edge Combe brimful of good resolutions, and he meant at least to try to keep them, in spite of the strange fermentation which seemed to be taking place in his brain. As he shouldered his camp-stool and other paraphernalia, it occurred to him to bestow a smiling pity on a poor fool who could allow all his ideas of life to be revolutionized by a sudden plunge from London dirt and heat into the glamor of a Devonshire summer.

"However," he reflected, "it won't last. I've been overturned in this way before. Look what an ass I made of myself in Maremma! It doesn't increase one's self-respect to recall these things. But after all, either I am a singularly unappreciative person, or my insular prejudices are very strong, or—I like best to imagine this third—there is a something in the fickle beauty of an English summer which surpasses even Italy. I don't think anything there ever moved me quite as the Valley of Avilion does. There is something so pure, so wholesome, in this sea-scented, warm air. There is no treachery, no malaria lurking under the loveliest bits of foliage—no mosquitoes either," he suddenly concluded, somewhat prosaically, as he lifted his soft cloth helmet, and wiped his big forehead. "Only one drawback to an English summer," he continued, as he started on his way, with his dinner tied up in a blue handkerchief and began to tramp, with long strides, along the curve road, with its low stone wall, which skirted the deep blue bay. "Only

one drawback, and that one which enhances its beauty, and makes it all the more precious: one is never sure of keeping it for two days together. Its uncertainty is its charm."

He paused and keenly surveyed the purple and hazy horizon. No signs, as yet, of the weather breaking; all was fair, and all was very, very hot. He rested his dinner on a stone, and again passed his handkerchief over his brow. The swish, swish of the scythes in the long grass made him glance up. The mowers were mowing the steep hill to his right, and the long sweep of their muscular arms was fine to see, as they advanced, step by step, in regular order, the fragrant crop falling prostrate in their path.

"It's a grand day!" cried Allonby, in the joy of his heart.

"Ay, sir, and it'll be a grand week. We'll dû all we've got to dû before the rain comes."

This was said with a cheery authority which gladdened Allonby afresh, and seemed to put a final touch to his riotous delight. Scarcely a moment before he had affirmed that the uncertainty of the weather was what pleased him; but the dictum of this rural prophet was none the less encouraging and reassuring.

Just beyond the mowers, under a clump of very fine ash-trees, stood the forge, and in its shadow the furnace roared, and the sparks leaped out. The young man must needs pause here again to enjoy the contrast of the fierce dark fire on the one side, and on the other the musical trickle of a limpid rill of water, which fell from a spout, and dropped into a roughly hewn stone basin, shooting and sparkling in the light.

As he stood, absorbed in gazing, the shrill call of some bird came clearly to his ear, and made him glance up. He was standing at the foot of a very steep hill thickly grown with trees, and high up, between the leaves, he could descry peeps of a long white house, and a sunny terrace, blazing with geraniums. His keen eyes noticed at once a big brass cage wherein doubtless a cockatoo was enjoying the sunshine, and then he saw a little lady in white come slowly along, with a wide black straw hat to shield her from the sun. He was far-sighted enough to know that the little lady was middle-aged and wore spectacles, but she had a sweet and pleasant countenance, and at once Allonby longed to know what favored mortal this was who made her home in Avilion.

How lovely was that sunny terrace! How soothing the cry of that unseen bird! What a lovely wicker-chair that was which stood so invitingly just in the shadow of the porch! A great longing to enter these precincts, to penetrate into the mysteries of that dusky, cool interior, took possession of him, and he had gazed for many minutes before it occurred to him that he must present something the appearance of a little street urchin, flattening his nose against a confectioner's window.

Turning sharply, he saw that the grimy smith, with his blue eyes looking oddly from his blackened face, was standing at the door of the smithy, regarding him with much curiosity.

"Good morning," said Allonby. "That's a pretty house up the hill there. Who lives in it?"

"The Miss Willoughbys," was the answer. "It's the only big house in the village, sir."

Allonby breathed freely. He had dreaded lest he should receive for answer that Mr. Stokes the tanner, or Noakes the varnish-maker, dwelt in that poetic house; but no! All was in keeping with the valley of Avilion. The Misses Willoughby! He said to himself that the name might have been made on purpose.

With a strong effort he tore himself away, and continued his tramp in the broiling sun, and still, as he went up the valley, between the steep banks of harts-tongue, over the musical brooks, he could hear the hot and sleepy cries of the bird on the terrace growing ever fainter and fainter.

CHAPTER II.

Miss Fanny Willoughby, when the unseen Allonby saw her pass on the terrace, had just come from feeding her fowls. The poultry-yard was quite a feature at Edge, as the house was always called for brevity's sake, though its full name was Edge Willoughby. This year had been a very fortunate one for Miss Fanny's pigeons, and her mind was full of happy and contented thoughts as she carried back her empty tin dishes and deposited them carefully, along with her gardening gloves, in the little room known as the gardening-room.

Beside her walked the very bird whose call had attracted the artist's attention. Jacky was a Cornish chough, coal-black in plumage, with brilliant orange-tinted beak. He strutted along sideways and with great dignity, casting looks of exultant triumph at the imprisoned cockatoo, who was his sworn foe. Puck, the stout and overfed terrier, solemnly accompanied them, as was his invariable habit, walking very close to the neat box-border, and now and then sniffing at the glowing geraniums.

"Dear me!" said Miss Fanny, "how warm it is—quite oppressive."

She would not for worlds have said that it was hot, but her dear little face was pink with her exertions, and her small plump hands so moist that to pull off the gloves was quite a business.

The sound of a piano was loudly audible—a jingly piano, very much out of tune, up and down which scales were being rattled lightly and evenly.

"I really think I shall tell the child not to practise any more," said Miss Fanny. "Charlotte is certainly a trifle exacting this warm weather."

So saying, she opened a door to her right, and entered a room which was evidently sacred to the purposes of education—the education of a former day. A reclining-board and two large globes were its principal features. The book-shelves were stocked with such works as "Mangnall's Questions," "Child's Guide," "Mrs. Markham's England," and the like. On the square table in the window was a slate full of sums, and what used to be known as a "copy slip"—bearing a statement of doubtful veracity:

This sentence comprised exactly the system on which Elaine Brabourne's aunts had brought her up.

They loved her very dearly, but they would have thought it a criminal weakness to tell her so. They acted always on that strange system which was in vogue when they were young—namely, that you always would be naughty if you could, and that the only thing to keep you under was a constant atmosphere of repression. If you learned your lesson, you were given to understand that the fact was due to the excellence of the manner in which you were taught—not to any effort of your own. If you did not learn it, you were conscious that this deficiency on your part was only to be expected from one who habitually made so small a use of such exceptional advantages. You were never encouraged to form an opinion of your own. It was an understood thing that you accepted that of your elders. For example: "A plate basket," said Miss Charlotte, "should always be kept in the parlor closet;" and her niece Elaine would have regarded the woman who ventured to keep hers elsewhere as out of the pale of civilization.

This plan of education had answered very well for the Misses Willoughby, whose lives had been peaceful and secluded as modern lives rarely are, and who passed their days always in the same place, and in nobody's society but their own. Their delightful unanimity of opinion was the great bond of peace between them; but they had never reflected that Elaine Brabourne could not pass her life in Avilion as they had done, nor paused to consider what would be the result when this girl, who had never been allowed to think for herself, even in such a matter as the color of her gowns, should be suddenly precipitated into London life as the eldest daughter of a rich man.

Elaine did not cease her scales, nor look round as her aunt entered. The metronome's loud ticks were in her ear, and she dared not halt; but sweet-tempered little Miss Fanny crossed the room with light step, and stopped the instrument of torture with a smile.

"Oh, Aunt Fanny! Aunt Char said I was to play scales for an hour!"

"My dear, it is so excessively warm," said Miss Fanny, apologetically, "I feel sure you should lie down till the luncheon-bell rings. It is really quite exceptional weather; I am so glad for the hay-makers."

Elaine, like a machine, had busied herself in closing the piano and putting away her music. Now she rose, and followed her aunt to the table by the window.

She was such a very odd mixture of what was pleasing and what was not, that it was hard to say what was the impression she first conveyed.

She was a head taller than her aunt, and looked like an overgrown child. She wore a hideous green and white cotton frock, and a black holland apron. The frock had shrunk above her ankles, and was an agonising misfit. Of the said ankles it was impossible to judge, for their proportions were shrouded in white cotton stockings and cashmere boots without heels.

She was quite a blonde, and her hair was abundant. It was combed back very tightly from a rather high forehead, plaited and coiled in a lump behind, which lump, in profile, stuck straight out from the head.

The eye seemed to take in and absorb these details before one realised the brilliancy of the complexion, the delicate outline of the short nose, the fine grey eyes, perhaps a shade too light in color, but relieved by heavy dark lashes, and the almost faultless curve of the upper lip.

Such was Miss Brabourne at nineteen. A child, with a mind utterly unformed, and a person to match. The dull expression of the pretty face when at rest was quite noticeable. It looked as if the girl had no thoughts; and this was sometimes varied by a look of discontent, which was anything but an improvement. She felt, vaguely, that she was dull; and that her life bored her; but her mind had not been trained enough to enable her to realise anything.

She had read astonishingly little. There was a deeply-rooted conviction in the minds of her aunts Fanny, Charlotte and Emily that reading was a waste of time,—except it were history, read aloud.

It was hard to see wherein the great charm of this reading aloud lay; it had sometimes occurred to Elaine to wonder why she was made to read "Markham's France" aloud to her aunts by the hour together, yet, if found perusing the same book to herself in the corner, it was taken away, and she was told to "get her mending."

She did not care conspicuously for reading. She did not care for anything much, so far as she knew. The only thing which evoked any warm interest was music, and the one piece of restraint which she deeply resented was the being forbidden to play on the beautiful grand piano in the drawing-room. It never occurred to her aunts for a moment that their pupil could play far better than her teachers; it never dawned upon them that she was fifty times more able to do justice to the grand piano than they were. Elaine was the child—under their authority. It stood to reason that she must not play on the best piano, any more than she might loll in arm-chairs, stand on the hearthrug, or go up and down the front staircase. And so, at an age when most girls are going out to balls, admiring and being admired, Elaine was playing her scales, getting up at half-past six, going to bed at half-past nine, not happy, but quite ignorant of what she needed to make her so.

There was one aunt who did not quite agree with the plans adopted for their niece's education, but she was far too gentle to tell her sisters so. This was Aunt Ellen, the eldest, and Elaine's god-mother.