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56

A STUDY IN GREY.

POOR Cookham Dene in a mild way was a disappointed man. He felt, though he did not own, that he had never been exactly appreciated. He was certain that his poor wife had not understood him. His daughter he did not expect to understand him; she was a mere child, or he thought so. In some vague way he felt that his wife had hung like a mill-stone round his neck; she had kept him back-how or from what he did not exactly know, but he had not made his mark, and he had always felt at least up to a certain period of his life-that he should make his mark sooner or later; in what capacity he might have been puzzled to explain.

He had great gifts; his mother had told him so when he was a boy. He was a schoolmaster's pet, which perhaps is rather a bad sign; he ended by believing that he was a scholar, he was certainly a dreamer. He fancied that he had a literary turn, but was not quite certain about it. Art he despised; music he did not care for; he had no turn for science, but he thought novels rubbish, and prided himself on his good sense. He was rather shy, perhaps a little proud. Nobody sought him as a friend, and it did not occur to him that friends were to be sought. He had not struggled for either comfortable circumstances or a fair social position, but both had come to him, and in process of time a wife came also-how, he really hardly recollected. His mother and her relations had something to do with it, he occasionally reflected rather bitterly, but he led a lonely life, and felt that he was entitled to something, he hardly knew what, that had never been bestowed upon him, and he grew a little sour.

Then his wife died-faded away silently-and he was sorry ; but still he felt that she had never understood him, and so too felt Maisie.

Maisie was growing a big girl now, and believed in her father implicitly, except when doubts obtruded themselves, as they will in the case even of the most faithful, and then she thrust them from her with indignation. She feared that her mother had never quite comprehended the great heart that had been given into her keeping; but she was sure that she

understood her father thoroughly and that he understood her, and that they were devoted to each other; still in this, as has been hinted, she happened to be mistaken.

She meant to keep house for her father, and minister to all his little wants; but her father had different ideas, and was glad to let her go away and live with some very old friends of her mother's. Maisie was grieved, perhaps a little irritated at this, but poor papa checked her remonstrances abruptly, and away she went. Papa, to tell the truth, was not very fond of Maisie. He fancied she had been petted by her mother, and he knew that her mother was not an intellectual woman, and he believed that Maisie was not intellectual either.

But Maisie thought she was different from other girls, and so the old friends to whom she had been consigned thought. They considered her pert, and rather disagreeable. Still they did not say so; being an excellent and patient old couple, they sought by degrees to bring ameliorating influences to bear.

A good many months rolled by, and papa's letters were short and infrequent. He told Maisie that he had had a cold in the head, that he had had the house painted, that he had bought a pair of boots and returned them as they were a bad fit, but he did not tell her anything of particular importance, and did not seem to pine for her return. She did not understand this; she had flattered herself that after her mother's decease they would be all in all to each other. Having an affectionate nature or an eye to effect, she had burned to pose as the devoted daughter.

One morning when she came down to breakfast old Mr. and Mrs. Brown, as we shall call them, wore grave countenances and looked at Maisie, as she could not help thinking, oddly. Then Mrs. Brown glanced at her husband and shrugged her shoulders, and Mr. Brown shrugged his, and went on munching his buttered toast with downcast eyes.

Maisie thought all this rather singular, but she was accustomed to the odd ways of the queer old couple, so made an excellent meal without in the least anticipating the pleasant little surprise that was in store for her.

The fact of the matter was, her dear father had been appreciated at last, by a remarkably pretty girl, too. Mr. and Mrs. Brown thought he must be mad, but he thought himself still a bit of a lady-killer. He had always considered himself such in his heart of hearts, but a strict sense of propriety had prevented his

saying so. He had fancied from time to time that young ladies in church or in omnibuses had glanced at him archly. No doubt he looked far short of his real age, at least such was his conviction, and he had an interesting appearance, as is the case with all men of intellect. He had married young, and just at the time when husbands are beginning to enjoy a wonderful recrudescence of juvenility wives have a trick of looking irritatingly old, or perhaps one's taste at fifty is not that of twenty-five. Anyhow, Mr. Cookham Dene felt that he had made a mistake; he was rather ashamed of his wife.

But when she withered away and died he was a little ashamed of himself, though it did not occur to him that he had been in anywise to blame, and he knew that she had made him happy, or at least comfortable, for many many years; but she had never understood or appreciated him, though, poor soul, she was perhaps scarcely to be blamed for that, her mind, such as it was, being entirely given over to household concerns.

Well, she was gone, and he was still in the prime of life, and he went his way—not rejoicing exactly, for every incident in his career somehow or other seemed tinged with a sense of melancholy disappointment--but he felt that he had elbow room, and that there was still a chance of at least an Indian summer, and so he met with his reward at last.

She was very pretty! she had a nice figure, and natural pale gold hair and rather steely blue eyes, and a winsome if tight little mouth with real teeth, which is rather rare nowadays, and an innocent childish manner. Also she had a neat foot and ankle, and a trim habit of dressing. But there was a drawback-a very slight one, Mr. Dene thought, Mr. and Mrs. Brown regarded the matter seriously-she had been an attendant in a boot shop. Beyond that nobody knew anything at all about her, where she came from, or who were her belongings, or if she had any.

There was nothing to be done. The marriage was a fait accompli. Mr. Brown opined, as might have been expected under the circumstances, that there was 'no fool like an old fool.' His wife broke the exasperating intelligence as gently as she could to her young guest, and Maisie-well, it would require the powers of a better story-teller than myself to describe her emotions.

She was not merely wounded to the quick, she trembled with rage. She could not believe what she heard; the possibility of such a catastrophe had never dawned upon her; she felt as if

some one had boxed her ears. She was dazed and stupefied, then she felt as if she should go mad. She could not sit quiet the whole day. They had told her nothing yet about the boot shop, or that mamma-in-law was pretty. Maisie had some pedigree pride.

Maisie had been rather well educated. Her mother had sent her to a nice school, and she not only had accomplishments but ladylike manners. But for her conceit she would have been a nice girl enough. She had sometimes hoped that she might grow up good-looking, but she did not believe that she was ugly-nor was she, but she prided herself on her cleverness, and that is a relative term.

Mr. and Mrs. Brown might have been odd people, but they were kind--more than kind, and told Maisie she might always consider their house her home. They did not suppose a pretty silly little woman like her mother-in-law would desire to have the trouble of looking after her. But the new Mrs. Cookham Dene, if silly in some respects, was wide enough awake in others, and, though of a babyfied aspect, had the spirit of a tyrant. Moreover she was jealous. She had not been well brought up, and she did not see why Maisie should be well brought up either. At all events she was not going to let the girl give herself airs.

So one day an imperative and formally grateful letter arrived from the head of the family, and his daughter had to be packed off back home again. Mrs. Brown said it was really too bad of that silly old fellow; her husband thought that perhaps on the whole they were well rid of the child. Good easy man, he dreaded complications, and he liked to see the household expenses kept down.

Maisie journeyed back home sorrowfully-indignantly, with a touch of dread. She knew now that her father held her of no account. She had misgivings relative to her mother-in-law. Mrs. Brown seemed to doubt whether she would be able to put the interloper into her right place, though Maisie had said that she meant to do so, that she did not intend her father to be imposed Had Maisie been a boy, perhaps she would never have gone home, but run away to sea, as the expression is. But girls are not wanted in the mercantile marine, and she had no money, and she was a bit cowed by the turn affairs had taken, and she was desperate. Oh, if only her mother-in-law could be struck dead by lightning, or if only she would obligingly tumble downstairs and break her neck! But Fortune was singularly apathetic.

on.

When Maisie got home she noticed, as the cab drew up at the door, that everything looked amazingly spick-and-span. New paint everywhere, an efflorescence of scarlet geraniums, and the scrubby old garden a model of suburban propriety. New short window-blinds with brass bands, the front door chocolate and gold, and the ornamental ironwork, which used to be a dirty creamcolour, painted and gilded as if the once gloomy old villa had been turned into a seaside boarding house.

Inside, sticky new furniture, gaudy patterns, and plenty of gas just being lighted, though it was scarcely dusk.

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A prim domestic. Everything quite en règle, but not in the best of taste. All the shabby old rubbish' that her mother had been so fond of banished. Papa, she learnt, was lying down with a headache; he was not to be disturbed. The promoted shop assistant was out and would not be back till dinner-time. Dinner! Good heavens! thought Maisie, who, in spite of her appetite, was of a frugal disposition. Only Phil was at home.

And here Phil came. A youth of a comical but blighted aspect. It was easy to see that he lived at war with his kind. A fondness for catapults was written on his face. His antic disposition was shown by an irresistible propensity to slide along the banisters instead of going downstairs properly. He had a crushed and brow-beaten expression, but whipcord in abundance surged from his pocket, and, though he spoke in a whisper, he was munching some sticky substance, and his eye roved in an unquenchable spirit of mischief.

'Well, Maisie,' he said, 'what do you think of it all, eh ?' He eyed her with gloomy inquisitiveness, and added, ‘You will have to mind your "p's" and "q's," my dear.'

'Just look,' he proceeded; 'peep in there; would you ever have thought it the same room? Mustn't they have been making the money spin? I only came back from school yesterday, and I would rather be there than here. It's beastly slow. I am not allowed downstairs. I am glad you are come back; it will be somebody to talk to; and have you any money, Maisie? for I am getting tired of it, and mean to run away and enlist or something.'

Maisie's heart sank within her, but her mother-in-law's greeting, on her return in a neat little brougham, was quite gushingly affectionate.

Certainly she was pretty. Maisie was obliged to own that, pretty of course in a silly frivolous way, and her advances were

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