TEMPLE BAR. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED "BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY." SEPTEMBER 1883. Belinda. BY RHODA BROUGHTON. AUTHOR OF RED AS A ROSE IS SHE,' 'GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART,' PERIOD II. CHAPTER XXIX. "Lieb Liebchen, leg's Händchen auf's Herze mein. Er hämmert und klopfet bei Tag und bei Nacht; Damit ich balde schlafen kann." N other climes, a sunset of suave sublimity usually means that isle this is not the case. Even the weather will submit to no tyranny, but follows its own wild and freakish will. You may close your eyes upon a distant steady heaven of molten copper and speckless blue; and open them upon a soaked-blanket sky, half an inch above your head. During the many wakeful patches that vary the sameness of her night, Belinda has full time to repent of her evening's doings; but not once does it occur to her that the weather may possibly intervene to prohibit the excursion. Among all her half-sincere plans for evading the expedition, the alternative of a wet day has not once suggested itself; and when the morn comes, dim and sad, the poignancy of her disappointment at sight of the dripping bushes and filled flower-cups shows her how much of VOL. LXIX. B veracity there was in her projects of abstinence. Now she will have to endure the pang of renunciation, without having enjoyed the merit of self-conquest. And yet it is a lovely rain, not harshly driving, nor rudely strewing the earth with a ravin of torn-off petals; but gently stealing down from the cloud-roof overhead, softly thrusting itself between the blossom-lips, feeding the juicy leaves, healthful, wealthful, beneficent, yet execrated by two young eyes that are morosely watching it. It is execrated by two old ones also. The Professor tentatively throws out an idea as to the advisability of telegraphing to the Archæological Society his inability to preside over its deliberations. "But you are not sugar or salt!" cries Belinda impatiently, as she stands, a comforter thrown over her arm, and a mackintosh extended to receive her husband's meagre person; "you will be in cabs and trains all day." "It is not always easy to secure a cab at a moment's notice on a wet day!" replies he, demurring; "as I have often explained to you, it is upon trifles that the laws of health depend; there may be delay enough to allow of my getting my feet thoroughly wet; a circumstance amply sufficient to throw a chill upon a liver already predisposed." "But will not you be putting the Society to great inconvenience? will not its members be very much disappointed ?" asks she, reddening consciously as she speaks. What is she saying? What does she care whether they are disappointed or not? To what depths of disingenuousness has she-truthful as she has been hitherto counted her life longalready descended? But it may clear-it may clear! "I might obviate the difficulty by taking an extra pair of socks in my pocket to change at the Club," he says thoughtfully! and then her spirits rise, for he extends his arms, not to take a parting embrace, but to insert them in the waterproof-sleeves which she, with wifely alacrity, holds ready to receive them. He is gone. That one main obstacle to her pleasure is at all events removed. If only it would clear! She is no longer halfsincere with herself. No longer does she feign a desire to extricate herself from the entanglement into which she has plunged, nor a gratitude to Mother Nature for having come to her aid. Without asking why she wishes it, she has concentrated all her being upon the one mastering desire to see that cloud-curtain raise its trailing corners, transpierced and put to flight by such a sun as yesterday's. "It does not look in the least like lifting!" she says, in a tone which she in vain tries to make sound careless, to Sarah, as they enter the drawing-room after breakfast. "Do you think that there is any chance of its lifting?" "Not the slightest !" replies Sarah placidly. With that adaptability to circumstances which makes life to her one long feast, Miss Churchill has arranged herself for a wet day. A small fire-not unwelcome in the rain-chilled atmosphere -brightens the hearth; and to it she has-for to her nothing is sacred-pulled up the Professor's chair: that one of Mudie's novels which, by its large type, wide margins, and plenitude of titled names, seems to promise the least strain upon the intellect, in her hand. "Who would have thought it, yesterday?" says Mrs. Forth, in a tone of mournful irritation, totally unable to follow her philosophic sister's example, and fidgeting uneasily about the room. "Who indeed ?" rejoins Sarah equably. There is something in the indifferent content of her voice that jars upon Belinda's mood. The dogs have taken their cue from Miss Churchill-Punch has got inside the fender as if it were winter; the cat lies lazily stretched just outside the parrot's cage; and Polly, exasperated by her air of calm security, is walking stealthily, head downwards, along the side of his cage, and when he has got, as he thinks, within reach of her, is stretching out first a vicious-hooked nose, and then a long crooked grey hand, to make a grab at her whiskers. Sarah laughs. "You were so anxious for it yesterday," says Belinda, with an irrationally aggrieved accent. "Was I?" answers Sarah, yawning. "I am not the least. anxious for it now; I am thoroughly comfortable, thank God! Why do not you come near the fire? I have a hundred questions to ask you; we have the house all to ourselves-excuse (parenthetically) "my reckoning that among our advantagesand I have scores of good things to tell you about Cannes and Granny; you used to be fond of Grannyana!" "I am not cold," replies Belinda, avoiding compliance by seating herself where she can at once command the window, and evade her sister's eyes. "Tell me them here." "Well, you must know," begins Sarah, prudently ignoring this ruse, and launching into her narrative," that some Poles had the apartment above ours at the hotel, their salon was over Granny's bedroom, and every night, at about ten o'clock, they began to dance sarabands, and cancans, and Highland schottisches, and the Lord knows what in it! You know how fond Granny is of having her old head danced over when she is courting her beauty sleep." She pauses to see whether her hearer is listening; it is obvious that she is not, as for a moment or two she makes no comment, and then, becoming aware of the silence, breaks into a factitious laugh. "Ha! ha!" "What are you laughing at?" asks Sarah sharply. "I had not come to the point yet." The other stops, embarrassed. "It-it was very good, even so far as you had gone," she answers in confusion. "The end was better still," replies Miss Churchill shortly, taking up her book again; "but you shall never hear it!" "How ill-natured!" cries Mrs. Forth, advancing eagerly towards the hearth, roused into alarm at her own self-betrayal; "and I-I was so much interested in it. I should like you to begin it all over again." But Sarah is inexorable. Presently Belinda desists from her importunities, and not daring to return to the window, also takes up a book, occasionally from behind its shelter throwing a desperate eye on the weather. It is a hopeless wet day. Once or twice, indeed, there has been a tantalising thinning of, and movement among, the vapours; but it has ended only in a more resolute, inflexible fastening upon the earth. Eleven-that hour of clearing-has come and gone, and brought no clearing with it. After all, she might as well have done her plain duty, and sent him away. In that case she would at least have had the throbs of an approving conscience to keep her up. And what, pray, has she now? The forenoon is gone; luncheon is over; they are again in the drawing-room. The novel has long ago dropped from Sarah's fingers, and she has slidden into a warm, infantile slumber. The door-bell, loudly jangling, wakes her with a jump. "It is those hateful boys!" she cries petulantly, starting up. "Am I never to have any peace from them? and I was in such a beautiful sleep!" One glance at her sister's face-that sister who has obviously not shared her slumbers; whose watch has been at length rewarded, though by no brightening of the material sky-tells her who is among "those hateful boys." Perhaps this fact adds a new tinge of ill-humour to her tone, as she advances, childishly rubbing her drowsy eyes with her knuckles, to meet her admirers. "You woke me!" she says, pouting. "I was in such a beautiful sleep!" This speech is not calculated to reassure three timid young gentlemen, who have already been questioning the wisdom of their own procedure, and doubtfully discussing among themselves the |