Rhoda Fleming | Page 4

VISIBLE XI. AN INDICATIVE DUET IN A
MINOR KEY
BOOK 2. XII. AT THE THEATRE. XIII. THE FARMER SPEAKS
XIV. BETWEEN RHODA AND ROBERT XI. A VISIT TO
WREXBY HALL XII. AT FAIRLY PARK XVII. A YEOMAN OF
THE OLD BREED XVIII. AN ASSEMBLY AT THE PILOT INN
XIX. ROBERT SMITTEN LOW XX. MRS. LOVELL SHOWS A
TAME BRUTE
BOOK 3. XXI. GIVES A GLIMPSE OF WHAT POOR VILLANIES
THE STORY CONTAINS XXII. EDWARD TAKES HIS COURSE
XXIII. MAJOR PERCY WARING XXIV. WARBEACH VILLAGE
CHURCH XXV. OF THE FEARFUL TEMPTATION WHICH CAME
UPON ANTHONY HACKBUT, AND OF HIS MEETING WITH
DAHLIA XXVI. IN THE PARK XXVII. CONTAINS A STUDY OF
A FOOL IN TROUBLE XXVIII. EDWARD'S LETTER XXIX.
FURTHERMORE OF THE FOOL
BOOK 4. XXX. THE EXPIATION XXXI. THE MELTING OF THE
THOUSAND XXXII. LA QUESTION D'ARGENT XXXIII.
EDWARD'S RETURN XXXIV. FATHER AND SON XXXV. THE
NIGHT BEFORE XXXVI. EDWARD MEETS HIS MATCH XXXVII.
EDWARD TRIES HIS ELOQUENCE XXXVIII. TOO LATE

BOOK 5. XXXIX. DAHLIA GOES HOME XL. A FREAK OF THE
MONEY-DEMON, THAT MAY HAVE BEEN ANTICIPATED XLI.
DAHLIA'S FRENZY XLII. ANTHONY IN A COLLAPSE XLIII.
RHODA PLEDGES HER HAND XLIV. THE ENEMY APPEARS
XLV. THE FARMER IS AWAKENED XLVI. WHEN THE NIGHT
IS DARKEST XLVII. DAWN IS NEAR XLVIII. CONCLUSION

RHODA FLEMING
BOOK 1.
I. THE KENTISH FAMILY II. QUEEN ANNE'S FARM III.
SUGGESTS THE MIGHT OF THE MONEY-DEMON IV. THE
TEXT FROM SCRIPTURE V. THE SISTERS MEET VI. EDWARD
AND ALGERNON VII. GREAT NEWS FROM DAHLIA VIII.
INTRODUCES MRS. LOVELL IX. ROBERT INTERVENES X.
DAHLIA IS NOT VISIBLE XI. AN INDICATIVE DUET IN A
MINOR KEY
CHAPTER I
Remains of our good yeomanry blood will be found in Kent,
developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women.
The distinction survives there between Kentish women and women of
Kent, as a true South-eastern dame will let you know, if it is her fortune
to belong to that favoured portion of the county where the great battle
was fought, in which the gentler sex performed manful work, but on
what luckless heads we hear not; and when garrulous tradition is
discreet, the severe historic Muse declines to hazard a guess. Saxon,
one would presume, since it is thought something to have broken them.
My plain story is of two Kentish damsels, and runs from a home of
flowers into regions where flowers are few and sickly, on to where the
flowers which breathe sweet breath have been proved in mortal fire.
Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman-farmer

of the county. Both were of sound Kentish extraction, albeit varieties of
the breed. The farm had its name from a tradition, common to many
other farmhouses within a circuit of the metropolis, that the
ante-Hanoverian lady had used the place in her day as a
nursery-hospital for the royal little ones. It was a square three-storied
building of red brick, much beaten and stained by the weather, with an
ivied side, up which the ivy grew stoutly, topping the roof in
triumphant lumps. The house could hardly be termed picturesque. Its
aspect had struck many eyes as being very much that of a red-coat
sentinel grenadier, battered with service, and standing firmly enough,
though not at ease. Surrounding it was a high wall, built partly of flint
and partly of brick, and ringed all over with grey lichen and brown
spots of bearded moss, that bore witness to the touch of many winds
and rains. Tufts of pale grass, and gilliflowers, and travelling
stone-crop, hung from the wall, and driblets of ivy ran broadening to
the outer ground. The royal Arms were said to have surmounted the
great iron gateway; but they had vanished, either with the family, or at
the indications of an approaching rust. Rust defiled its bars; but, when
you looked through them, the splendour of an unrivalled garden gave
vivid signs of youth, and of the taste of an orderly, laborious, and
cunning hand.
The garden was under Mrs. Fleming's charge. The joy of her love for it
was written on its lustrous beds, as poets write. She had the poetic
passion for flowers. Perhaps her taste may now seem questionable. She
cherished the old-fashioned delight in tulips; the house was reached on
a gravel-path between rows of tulips, rich with one natural blush, or
freaked by art. She liked a bulk of colour; and when the dahlia dawned
upon our gardens, she gave her heart to dahlias. By good desert, the
fervent woman gained a prize at a flower-show for one of her dahlias,
and `Dahlia' was the name uttered at the christening of her eldest
daughter, at which all Wrexby parish laughed as long as the joke could
last. There was laughter also when Mrs. Fleming's second daughter
received