Cashel Byron's Profession

When the autumn set in, Alice was in Scotland learning to shoot; and

Lydia was at Wiltstoken, preparing her father's letters and memoirs

for publication. She did not write at the castle, all the rooms in

which were either domed, vaulted, gilded, galleried, three-sided,

six-sided, anything except four-sided, or in some way suggestive of

the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," and out of keeping with the

associations of her father's life. In her search for a congruous

room to work in, the idea of causing a pavilion to be erected in the

elm vista occurred to her. But she had no mind to be disturbed just

then by the presence of a troop of stone-masons, slaters, and

carpenters, nor any time to lose in waiting for the end of their

operations.

So she had the Warren Lodge cleansed and lime washed,

and the kitchen transformed into a comfortable library, where, as

she sat facing the door at her writing-table, in the centre of the

room, she could see the elm vista through one window and through

another a tract of wood and meadow land intersected by the high-road

and by a canal, beyond which the prospect ended in a distant green

slope used as a sheep run. The other apartments were used by a

couple of maid-servants, who kept the place well swept and dusted,

prepared Miss Carew's lunch, answered her bell, and went on her

errands to the castle; and, failing any of these employments, sat

outside in the sun, reading novels. When Lydia had worked in this

retreat daily for two months her mind became so full of the old life

with her father that the interruptions of the servants often

recalled her to the present with a shock. On the twelfth of August

she was bewildered for a moment when Phoebe, one of the maids,

entered and said, "If you please, miss, Bashville is wishful to know can he speak to

you a moment?"

Permission being given, Bashville entered. Since his wrestle with

Cashel he had never quite recovered his former imperturbability. His

manner and speech were as smooth and respectful as before, but his

countenance was no longer steadfast; he was on bad terms with the

butler because he had been reproved by him for blushing. On this

occasion he came to beg leave to absent himself during the

afternoon. He seldom asked favors of this kind, and was of course

never refused.

"The road is quite thronged to-day," she observed, as he thanked

her. "Do you know why?"

"No, madam," said Bashville, and blushed.

"People begin to shoot on the twelfth," she said; "but I suppose it

cannot have anything to do with that. Is there a race, or a fair, or

any such thing in the neighborhood?"