arms.
“Here’s heroics!” said Mrs. Seton; but she was overawed more or less by the flashing eyes and imposing aspect of this young woman, who was no “frump” after all, as appeared, but a person to be reckoned with—not Stella’s duenna, but something in her own right. Then she turned to Stella, who was more comprehensible, with whom a friend might quarrel and make it up again and no harm done. “My dear,” she said, “you are the one of this family who understands a little, who can be spoken to—I shan’t notice the rude things your sister says—I was obliged to tell you, for it’s always best to hear from a friend what is being said about you outside. You might have seen yourself boycotted, don’t you know? and not known what it meant. But, I dare say, if we all stand by you, you’ll not be boycotted for very long. You don’t mean to be rude, I hope, to your best friends.”
“Oh, Lottie! I hope you will stand by me,” cried Stella. “It was all an accident, as sure, as sure–! I only took them to the yacht for fun—and then I thought I should like to see the sails up—for fun. And then—oh, it was anything but fun after that!” the girl cried.
“I dare say. Were you sick?—did you make an exhibition of yourself? Oh, I shall hear all about it from Algy—Charlie won’t say anything, so he is the one, I suppose. Don’t forget he’s a very bad boy—oh, there isn’t a good one between them! I shouldn’t like to be out with them alone. But Charlie! the rows he has had everywhere, the scandals he has made! Oh, my dear! If you go and marry Charlie Somers, Stella, which you’ll have to do, I believe–”
“He is the very last person she shall marry if she will listen to me!”
“Oh, you are too silly for anything, Katherine,” said Stella, slightly pushing her away. “You don’t know the world, you are goody-goody. What do you know about men? But I don’t want to marry anyone. I want to have my fun. The sea was dreadful the other night, and I was terribly frightened and thought I was going to be drowned. But yet it was fun in a way. Oh, Lottie, you understand! One felt it was such a dreadful thing to happen, and the state papa and everybody would be in! Still it is very, very impudent to discuss me like that, as if I had been run away with. I wasn’t in the least. It was I who wanted to go out. They said the wind was getting up, but I didn’t care, I said. ‘Let’s try.’ It was all for fun. And it was fun, after all.”
“Oh, if you take it in that way,” said Mrs. Seton, “and perhaps it is the best way just to brazen it out. Say what fun it was for everybody. Don’t go in for being pale and having been ill and all that. Laugh at Algy for being such a milksop. You are a clever little thing, Stella. I am sure that is the best way. And if I were you I should smooth down the old cats here—those old cats, you know, that came to the picnic—and throw dust in the eyes of Lady Jane, and then you’ll do. I’ll fight your battles for you, you may be sure. And then there is Charlie Somers. I wouldn’t turn up my nose at Charlie Somers if I were you.”
“He is nothing to me,” said Stella. “He has never said a word to me that all the world—that Kate herself—mightn’t hear. When he does it’ll be time enough to turn up my nose, or not. Oh, what do I care? I don’t want to have anybody to stand up for me. I can do quite well by myself, thank you. Kate, why should I sit here in a dressing gown? I am quite well. I want the fresh air and to run about. You are so silly; you always want to pet me and take care of me as if I were a child. I’m going out now with Lottie to have a little run before lunch and see the view.”
“Brava,” said Mrs. Seton, “you see what a lot of good I’ve done her—that is what she wants, shaking up, not being petted and fed with sweets. All right, Stella, run and get your frock on and I’ll wait for you. You may be quite right, Miss Tredgold,” she said, when Stella had disappeared, “to stand up for your family. But all the same it’s quite true what I say.”
“If it is true, it is abominable; but I don’t believe it to be true,” Katherine cried.
“Well, I don’t say it isn’t a shame. I’ve had abominable things said of me. But what does that matter so long as your husband stands by you like a brick, as Tom does? But if I were you, and Charlie Somers really comes forward—it is just as likely he won’t, for he ain’t a marrying man, he likes his fun like Stella—but if he does come forward–”
“I hope he will have more sense than to think of such a thing. He will certainly not be well received.”
“Oh, if you stick to that! But why should you now? If she married it would be the best thing possible for you. You ain’t bad looking, and I shouldn’t wonder if you were only the age she says. But with Stella here you seem a hundred, and nobody looks twice at you–”
Katherine smiled, but the smile was not without bitterness. “You are very kind to advise me for my good,” she said.
“Oh, you mean I’m very impudent—perhaps I am! But I know what I’m saying all the same. If Charlie Somers comes forward–”
“Advise him not to do so, you who are fond of giving advice,” said Katherine, “for my father will have nothing to say to him, and it would be no use.”
“Oh, your father!” said Mrs. Seton with contempt, and then she kissed her hand to Stella, who came in with her hat on ready for the “run” she had proposed. “Here she is as fresh as paint,” said that mistress of all the elegancies of language—“what a good ’un I am for stirring up the right spirit! You see how much of an invalid she is now! Where shall we go for our run, Stella, now that you have made yourself look so killing? You don’t mean, I should suppose, to waste that toilette upon me?”
“We’ll go and look at the view,” said Stella, “that is all I am equal to; and I’ll show you where we went that night.”
“Papa will be ready for his luncheon in half an hour, Stella.”
“Yes, I know, I know! Don’t push papa and his luncheon down my throat for ever,” cried the girl. She too was a mistress of language. She went out with her adviser arm-in-arm, clinging to her as if to her dearest friend, while Katherine stood in the window, rather sadly, looking after the pair. Stella had been restored to her sister by the half-illness of her rescue, and there was a pang in Katherine’s mind which was mingled of many sentiments as the semi-invalid went forth hanging upon her worst friend. Would nobody ever cling to Katherine as Stella, her only sister, clung to this woman—this—woman! Katherine did not know what epithet to use. If she had had bad words at her disposal I am afraid she would have expended them on Mrs. Seton, but she had not. They were not in her way. Was it possible this—woman might be right? Could Stella’s mad prank, if it could be called so—rather her childish, foolish impulse, meaning no harm—tell against her seriously with anybody in their senses? Katherine could not believe it—it was impossible. The people who had known her from her childhood knew that there was no harm in Stella. She might be thoughtless, disregarding everything that came in the way of her amusement, but after all that was not a crime. She was sure that such old cats as Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay would never think anything of the kind. But then there was Lady Jane. Lady Jane was not an old cat; she was a very important person. When she spoke the word no dog ventured to bark. But then her kindness to the Tredgold girls had always been a little in the way of patronage. She was not of their middle-class world. The side with which she would be in sympathy would be that of the young men. The escapade in the boat would be to her their fun, but on Stella’s it would not be fun. It would be folly of the deepest dye, perhaps—who could tell?—depravity. In fiction—a young woman not much in society instinctively takes a good many of her ideas from fiction—it had become fashionable of late to represent wicked girls, girls without soul or heart, as the prevailing type. Lady Jane might suppose that Stella, whom she did not know very well, was a girl without soul or heart, ready to do anything for a little excitement and a new sensation, without the least reflection
