"Better or worse, it will not come from me." "When you break it to them," sidling up with a cajoling air, "it does not hurt them nearly so much! I declare I think they almost like it!" No answer. A silence cut into only by the uncouth shriek of a departing engine. "Why at least did you drag him here?" asks Belinda presently, still opposing a front of granite to her sister's blandishments. "I am afraid I can not quite defend it," replies Sarah, in a small voice, and again hanging her head; "but to tell the truth-which indeed I always try to do-times were slack! There was nobody else much just then, and I thought I could at least make him fetch and carry! Then, with an acute change of key and access of emotion: "I was grossly deceived; he is too disobliging to fetch, and too much afraid of over-fatiguing himself to carry!" Another pause. A quick wind-whiff tosses through the window a little storm of pear-petals, and throws them on Belinda's lap. "Now if the cases were reversed," says Sarah, kneeling down at her senior's elbow, and folding her hands with an extremely insinuating gesture of supplication, "if you were in difficulties—” "I do not see much to brag of in that, for my part!" springing to her feet again. "No more do I," replies Belinda dryly. "I am never in difficulties, as you call them, because I never have any temptation to be; perhaps if I had I might; but as you are well aware," stifling a sigh, "I have not, and never had any charm for men !" "It is very odd, is not it?" says Sarah, not attempting to combat this assertion, but looking at her sister with an expression of compassionate curiosity. "I can not think why it is. I have often wondered what the reason could be; sometimes I think it is your nose!" "My nose?" repeats Belinda hastily, involuntarily glancing round in search of a mirror, and putting up her hand to her face; "what is the matter with my nose?" "There is nothing the matter with it," rejoins Sarah, still spéculatively gauging her sister's attractions; "perhaps it would be better for you if there were; it is only too good! I can not fancy any man venturing to love such a nose; it looks too high and mighty to inspire anything short of veneration!" "It is not so very high either!" cries Belinda hurriedly, drawing from her pocket a very fine handkerchief, and applying a corner of it in careful measurement to her traduced feature. "There!" marking off a small portion with her thumb; "only that much." "It is not a case of measurement," says Sarah gravely; "I have seen noses several hands higher that were not nearly so alarming. It is a case of feeling; somehow yours makes them feel small. Take my word for it," with a shrewd look, "the one thing that they never can either forgive or forget is to be made to feel small.” Belinda laughs, a little bitterly. "It is clear, then, that nothing short of amputation could make me attractive, and I am afraid even that might fail; but I do not know why we digressed to me at all." “I had a little plan," says Sarah, her airy gayety giving sudden place again to gloom at the returning thought of her own sorrows; "but you have frightened it away.” "What is it?" very shortly. 66 'Well, you know," instantly resuming her wheedling air and her coaxing posture at her sister's knees, "that we are going to drive to Moritzburg to-day, you and I; of course Professor Forth," with a slight grimace, "will be on duty there to meet us; equally of course, young Rivers, who seems to have contracted a not altogether reprehensible habit of dogging our steps, will be there too." "Well?" averting her head a little. "Well, I thought-but you are not a pleasant person to unfold one's little schemes to-I thought that for once you might be obliging, and pair off casually with my dear, and take an opportunity of softly breathing to him that nobody-I least of all-will try to stop him if he effects a graceful retreat to Oxbridge and the Digamma!” "And meanwhile you?" in a rather low and suppressed voice, and with face still turned away. "And meanwhile I," replied Sarah, jovially, "killing two birds with one stone-keeping the coast clear, that is to say, and marking my gratitude for that haystack of gardenias-shall be straying hand-in-hand through the vernal woods with-" But that sentence is destined never to be ended. Belinda has risen from her seat with a gesture so sudden and violent as almost to destroy the equilibrium of the girl so caressingly propped against her, and has thrust head and neck out of the window, as if, even in this fresh room, she gasped for air. It is a moment before she speaks; and even then her voice sounds odd. "I have already told you that I utterly decline to be mixed up in your entanglements. I forbid you to mention the subject to me again." "Whew-w-w-w!" says Sarah by-and-by, in a low key, when she has recovered the breath reft from her by stupefaction at her sister's procedure, enough to speak at all; remaining seated meanwhile in stunned isolation on her lonely stool. "Forbid! What an ugly word! After all," speculatively, "I am not much surprised that men are frightened at you. I am frightened at you myself sometimes; and so no wonder that they shake in their shoes, and dare not call their harmless souls their own." "How many times are you going to tell me that?" cries Belinda, veering round in sudden passion. "Do you think that it can be very pleasant to hear that I can never inspire anything but alarm and aversion? I am as well aware of it as you can be; but I am a little tired of hearing it." "And you might inspire such different feelings," says Sarah, in a tone of the purest artistic regret; "it is a pity to see advantages which would have made me famous if I had had them, absolutely thrown away upon you! I suppose," with a sigh, "that it is the old story of the people with large appetites and nothing to eat, and the people with plenty to eat and no appetites." CHAPTER III. "For mirth of May, with skippis and with hoppis, The birdis sang upon the tender croppis, With curiose notes, as Venus' chapell clerkis. The skyes rang for schouting of the larkis." AWAY they go to Moritzburg, when the noon sun is warm and high; away they go, handsome, gay, and chaperonless. There is no reason why their grandmother, who is a perfectly able-bodied old lady, should not escort them; but as she is sixty-five years of age, has no ex pectation of meeting a lover, and is quite indifferent to spring tints and German Schlosses, she wisely chooses to stay at home. "If you can not behave like young gentlewomen without having me always at your heels, why all I can say, my dears, is that I am sorry for you," is the formula with which she mostly salves her own conscience and dismisses them. The result is, perhaps, not worse than that of more pretentious exhortations; for the girls, having a sense of being on parole, do behave like young gentlewomen; at least Belinda always does, and Sarah very often. They get into their carriage in a quick and cautious manner; casting, meanwhile, apprehensive glances toward a house a good deal lower down the street, and which they will be obliged to pass. "Sarah," says Belinda, impressively, unconsciously speaking half under her breath, "if you hear a window open, mind you do not look that way; she is quite capable of bawling at us from the balcony; and if she finds out where we are going to, she is certain to insist on coming too." "If she gets into this carriage to-day," replies Sarah, firmly, "it will be over my dead body!" and away they go. With lowered parasols and held breath they pass the dreaded house-pass it in safety, Not a sound issues from its silent casements. Away they go across the Elbe, over the many-arched bridge, where the people, more leisurely than in our breathless London, are standing to watch the rafts floating down the river, and guided between the piles; through the Neustadt, where the Strong August forever prances in bronze; past the Leipzig Railway Station, under the Acacia alley, leaving on their right the great new, dreary barracks, backed by the pine |