Cashel Byron's Profession

"The business of getting a suitable companion, and the pleasure or

duty of relieving poor people, are two different things, Lydia."

"True, Lucian. When will Miss Goff call?"

"This evening. Mind; nothing is settled as yet. If you think better

of it on seeing her you have only to treat her as an ordinary

visitor and the subject will drop. For my own part, I prefer her

sister; but she will not leave Mrs. Goff, who has not yet recovered

from the shock of her husband's death."

Lydia looked reflectively at the little volume in her hand, and

seemed to think out the question of Miss Goff. Presently, with an

air of having made up her mind, she said, "Can you guess which of

Goethe's characters you remind me of when you try to be worldly-wise

for my sake?"

"When I try--What an extraordinary irrelevance! I have not read

Goethe lately. Mephistopheles, I suppose. But I did not mean to be

cynical."

"No; not Mephistopheles, but Wagner--with a difference. Wagner

taking Mephistopheles instead of Faust for his model." Seeing by his

face that he did not relish the comparison, she added, "I am paying

you a compliment. Wagner represents a very clever man."

"The saving clause is unnecessary," he said, somewhat sarcastically.

"I know your opinion of me quite well, Lydia."

She looked quickly at him. Detecting the concern in her glance, he

shook his head sadly, saying, "I must go now, Lydia. I leave you in

charge of the housekeeper until Miss Goff arrives."

She gave him her hand, and a dull glow came into his gray jaws as he

took it. Then he buttoned his coat and walked gravely away. As he

went, she watched the sun mirrored in his glossy hat, and drowned in

his respectable coat. She sighed, and took up Goethe again.

But after a little while she began to be tired of sitting still, and

she rose and wandered through the park for nearly an hour, trying to

find the places in which she had played in her childhood during a

visit to her late aunt. She recognized a great toppling Druid's

altar that had formerly reminded her of Mount Sinai threatening to

fall on the head of Christian in "The Pilgrim's Progress." Farther

on she saw and avoided a swamp in which she had once earned a

scolding from her nurse by filling her stockings with mud. Then she

found herself in a long avenue of green turf, running east and west,

and apparently endless. This seemed the most delightful of all her

possessions, and she had begun to plan a pavilion to build near it,

when she suddenly recollected that this must be the elm vista of

which the privacy was so stringently insisted upon, by her invalid

tenant at the Warren Lodge. She fled into the wood at once, and,

when she was safe there, laughed at the oddity of being a trespasser

in her own domain. She made a wide detour in order to avoid

intruding a second time; consequently, after walking for a quarter

of an hour, she lost herself. The trees seemed never ending; she

began to think she must possess a forest as well as a park. At last

she saw an opening. Hastening toward it, she came again into the

sunlight, and stopped, dazzled by an apparition which she at first

took to be a beautiful statue, but presently recognized, with a

strange glow of delight, as a living man.