Vera Nevill | Page 9

her own beauty, and determined to exact its full value; and yet she was tender and affectionate, full of poetry and refinement, honest and true as her own fanciful name.
The secret of these strange contradictions is simply this. Vera has never loved. No one spark of divine fire has ever touched her soul or warmed the latent energies of her being. She has lived in the thick of the world, but love has passed her scatheless. Her mind, her intellect, her brain, are all alive, and sharpened acutely; her heart slumbers still. Happier for her, perhaps, had it never awakened.
She leant upon the stone parapet, supporting her chin upon her hand, dreaming her dreams. Her hat lay by her side, her long dark dress fell in straight heavy folds to her feet. The yellow leaves fluttered about her, the peacocks strutted up and down, the gardeners in the distance were sweeping up the dead leaves on the lawns, but Vera stirred not; one motionless, beautiful figure giving grace, and life, and harmony to the deserted scene.
* * * * *
Some one was passing along among the upper rooms of the house, followed by Mrs. Eccles, panting and exhausted.
"I am sure, Sir John, I am quite ashamed that you should see the place so choked up with dust and lumber. If you had only let me have a day's notice, instead of being took all of a sudden like, I'd have had the house tidied up a bit; but what with not expecting to see any of the family, and my being old, and not so quick at the cleaning as I used to be----"
"Never mind, Mrs. Eccles; I had just as soon see it as it is. I only wanted to see if you could make three or four rooms tolerably habitable in case I thought of bringing my horses down for a month or so. The stables, I find, are in good repair."
"Yes, Sir John, and so is the house; though the furniture is that old-fashioned, that it is hardly fit for you to use."
"Oh! it will do well enough; besides, I have not made up my mind at all. It is quite uncertain whether I shall come----Who is that?" stopping suddenly short before the window.
"That! Oh, bless me, Sir John, it's Miss Vera, from the vicarage. I hope you won't object to her being here; of course, she could not know you was back. I had given her leave to walk in the grounds."
"The vicarage! Has Mr. Daintree a daughter so old as that?"
"Oh, law! no, Sir John. It is Mrs. Daintree's sister. She came from abroad to live with them last year. A very nice young lady, Sir John, is Miss Nevill, and seems lonely like, and it kind of cheers her up to come and see me and walk in the garden. I am sure I hope you won't take it amiss that I should have allowed her to come."
"Take it amiss--good gracious, no! Pray, let Miss--Miss Nevill, did you say?--come as often as she likes. What about the cellars, Mrs. Eccles?"
"I will get the key, Sir John." The housekeeper precedes him out of the room, but Sir John stands still by the window.
"What a picture," he says to himself below his breath; "how well she looks there. She gives to the old place just the one thing it lacks--has always lacked ever since I have known it--the presence of a beautiful woman. Yes, Mrs. Eccles, I am coming." This last aloud, and he hastens downstairs.
Five minutes later, Sir John Kynaston says to his housekeeper,
"You need not scare that young lady away from the place by telling her I was here to-day and saw her. And you may get the rooms ready, Mrs. Eccles, and order anything that is wanted, and get in a couple of maids, for I have made up my mind to bring my horses down next month."
CHAPTER III.
FANNING DEAD ASHES.
Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan, Sorrow calls no time that's gone, Violets plucked, the sweetest rain Makes not fresh, nor grow again.
Fletcher.
"Have you heard of Sir John's latest vagary, grandpapa? He is gone down to Kynaston to hunt--so there's an end of him."
"Humph! Where did you hear that?"
"I've been lunching at Lady Kynaston's."
The speaker stood by the window of one of the large houses at Prince's Gate overlooking the Horticultural Gardens. She was a small, slight woman, with fair pale features and a mass of soft yellow hair. She had a delicate complexion and very clear blue eyes. Altogether she was a pretty little woman. A stranger would have guessed her to be a girl barely out of her teens. Helen Romer was in reality five-and-twenty, and she had been a widow four years.
Of her brief married life few people could