Christie Johnstone | Page 5

your would-be aristocrats dare to be; but what a
charming abruptness hers was!
I do not excel in descriptions, and yet I want to give you some carnal
idea of a certain peculiarity and charm this lady possessed; permit me
to call a sister art to my aid.
There has lately stepped upon the French stage a charming personage,
whose manner is quite free from the affectation that soils nearly all
French actresses--Mademoiselle Madeleine Brohan! When you see this
young lady play Mademoiselle La Segli'ere, you see high-bred
sensibility personified, and you see something like Lady Barbara
Sinclair.
She was a connection of Lord Ipsden's, but they had not met for two
years, when they encountered each other in Paris just before the
commencement of this "Dramatic Story," "Novel" by courtesy.
The month he spent in Paris, near her, was a bright month to Lord
Ipsden. A bystander would not have gathered, from his manner, that he
was warmly in love with this lady; but, for all that, his lordship was
gradually uncoiling himself, and gracefully, quietly basking in the rays
of Barbara Sinclair.
He was also just beginning to take an interest in subjects of the
day--ministries, flat paintings, controversial novels, Cromwell's
spotless integrity, etc.--why not? They interested her.
Suddenly the lady and her family returned to England. Lord Ipsden,
who was going to Rome, came to England instead.
She had not been five days in London, before she made her
preparations to spend six months in Perthshire.
This brought matters to a climax.

Lord Ipsden proposed in form.
Lady Barbara was surprised; she had not viewed his graceful attentions
in that light at all. However, she answered by letter his proposal which
had been made by letter.
After a few of those courteous words a lady always bestows on a
gentleman who has offered her the highest compliment any man has it
in his power to offer any woman, she came to the point in the following
characteristic manner:
"The man I marry must have two things, virtues and vices--you have
neither. You do nothing, and never will do anything but sketch and
hum tunes, and dance and dangle. Forget this folly the day after
to-morrow, my dear Ipsden, and, if I may ask a favor of one to whom I
refuse that which would not be a kindness, be still good friends with
her who will always be
"Your affectionate _Cousin,_
"BARBARA SINCLAIR."
Soon after this effusion she vanished into Perthshire, leaving her cousin
stunned by a blow which she thought would be only a scratch to one of
his character.
Lord Ipsden relapsed into greater listlessness than before he had
cherished these crushed hopes. The world now became really dark and
blank to him. He was too languid to go anywhere or do anything; a
republican might have compared the settled expression of his
handsome, hopeless face with that of most day-laborers of the same age,
and moderated his envy of the rich and titled.
At last he became so pale as well as languid that Mr. Saunders
interfered.
Saunders was a model valet and factotum; who had been with his
master ever since he left Eton, and had made himself necessary to him

in their journeys.
The said Saunders was really an invaluable servant, and, with a world
of obsequiousness, contrived to have his own way on most occasions.
He had, I believe, only one great weakness, that of imagining a
beau-ideal of aristocracy and then outdoing it in the person of John
Saunders.
Now this Saunders was human, and could not be eight years with this
young gentleman and not take some little interest in him. He was
flunky, and took a great interest in him, as stepping-stone to his own
greatness. So when he saw him turning pale and thin, and reading one
letter fifty times, he speculated and inquired what was the matter. He
brought the intellect of Mr. Saunders to bear on the question at the
following angle:
"Now, if I was a young lord with 20,000 pounds a year, and all the
world at my feet, what would make me in this way? Why, the liver!
Nothing else.
"And that is what is wrong with him, you may depend."
This conclusion arrived at, Mr. Saunders coolly wrote his convictions
to Dr. Aberford, and desired that gentleman's immediate attention to the
case. An hour or two later, he glided into his lord's room, not without
some secret trepidation, no trace of which appeared on his face. He
pulled a long histrionic countenance. "My lord," said he, in soft,
melancholy tones, "your lordship's melancholy state of health gives me
great anxiety; and, with many apologies to your lordship, the doctor is
sent for, my lord."
"Why, Saunders, you are mad; there is nothing the