The Lovels of Arden | Page 2

convenient for him to receive
her at home, that he had heard with pleasure of her progress, and that
experienced people with whom he had conferred, had agreed with him
that any interruption to the regular course of her studies could not fail
to be a disadvantage to her in the future.

"They are all going home except me, papa," she wrote piteously on one
occasion, "and I feel as if I were different from them, somehow. Do let
me come home to Arden for this one year. I don't think my
schoolfellows believe me when I talk of home, and the gardens, and the
dear old park. I have seen it in their faces, and you cannot think how
hard it is to bear. And I want to see you, papa. You must not fancy that,
because I speak of these things, I am not anxious for that. I do want to
see you very much. By-and-by, when I am grown up, I shall seem a
stranger to you."
To this letter, and to many such, letters, Mr. Lovel's reply was always
the same. It did not suit his convenience that his only daughter should
return to England until her education was completed. Perhaps it would
have suited him better could she have remained away altogether; but he
did not say as much as that; he only let her see very clearly that there
was no pleasure for him in the prospect of her return.
And yet she was glad to go back. At the worst it was going home. She
told herself again and again, in those meditations upon her future life
which were not so happy as a girl's reveries should be,--she told herself
that her father must come to love her in time. She was ready to love
him so much on her part; to be so devoted, faithful, and obedient, to
bear so much from him if need were, only to be rewarded with his
affection in the end.
So at eighteen years of age Clarissa Lovel's education was finished, and
she came home alone from a quiet little suburban village just outside
Paris, and having arrived to-night at the Great Northern Station, King's
Cross, had still a long journey before her.
Mr. Lovel lived near a small town called Holborough, in the depths of
Yorkshire; a dreary little town enough, but boasting several estates of
considerable importance in its neighbourhood. In days gone by, the
Lovels had been people of high standing in this northern region, and
Clarissa had yet to learn how far that standing was diminished.
She had been seated about five minutes in a comfortable corner of a
first-class carriage, with a thick shawl over her knees, and all her little

girlish trifles of books and travelling, bags gathered about her, and she
had begun to flatter herself with the pleasing fancy that she was to have
the compartment to herself for the first stage of the journey, perhaps for
the whole of the journey, when a porter flung open the door with a
bustling air, and a gentleman came in, with more travelling-rugs, canes,
and umbrellas, russia leather bags, and despatch boxes, than Clarissa
had ever before beheld a traveller encumbered with. He came into the
carriage very quietly, however, in spite of these impedimenta, arranged
his belongings in a methodical manner, and without the slightest
inconvenience to Miss Lovel, and then seated himself next the door,
upon the farther side of the carriage.
Clarissa looked at him rather anxiously, wondering whether they two
were to be solitary companions throughout the whole of that long night
journey. She had no prudish horror of such a position, only a natural
girlish shyness in the presence of a stranger.
The traveller was a man of about thirty, tall, broad-shouldered, with
long arms, and powerful-looking hands, ungloved, and bronzed a little
by sun and wind. There was the same healthy bronze upon his face,
Clarissa perceived, when he took off his hat, and hung it up above him;
rather a handsome face, with a long straight nose, dark blue eyes with
thick brown eyebrows, a well cut mouth and chin, and a thick thatch of
crisp dark brown hair waving round a broad, intelligent-looking
forehead. The firm, full upper lip was half-hidden by a carefully trained
moustache; and in his dress and bearing the stranger had altogether a
military air: one could fancy him a cavalry soldier. That bare muscular
hand seemed made to grasp the massive hilt of a sabre.
His expression was grave--grave and a little proud, Clarissa thought;
and, unused as she was to lonely wanderings in this outer world, she
felt somehow that this man was a gentleman, and that she need be
troubled by no fear that he would make