Page:What will he do with it.djvu/247

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WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
237

which Greek sculpture never gives to the Parian stone; stone cannot convey that melancholy—it is the shadow which needs for its substance a living, mortal heart.

Crack went the whips; the horses bounded on—the equipage rolled fast down the street, followed by its satellites. "Well!" said a voice in the street below, "I never saw Lady Montfort in such beauty. Ah, here comes my lord!"

Mrs. Crane heard and looked forth again. A dozen or more gentlemen on horseback rode slowly up the street; which of these was Lord Montfort?—not difficult to distinguish. As the by-standers lifted their hats to the cavalcade, the horsemen generally returned the salutation by simply touching their own—one horseman uncovered wholly. That one must be the Marquis, the greatest man in those parts, with lands stretching away on either side that town for miles and miles; a territory which in feudal times might have alarmed a king. He, the civilest, must be the greatest. A man still young, decidedly good-looking, wonderfully well-dressed, wonderfully well-mounted, the careless ease of high rank in his air and gesture. To the superficial gaze, just what the great Lord of Montfort should be. Look again! In that fair face is there not something that puts you in mind of a florid period which contains a feeble platitude?—something in its very prettiness that betrays a weak nature, and a sterile mind?

The cavalcade passed away—the vans and the wagons again usurped the thoroughfare. Arabella Crane left the window, and approached the little looking-glass over the mantle-piece. She gazed upon her own face bitterly—she was comparing it with the features of the dazzling Marchioness.

The door was flung open, and Jasper Losely sauntered in, whistling a French air, and flapping the dust from his boots with his kid glove. "All right," said he, gayly." A famous day of it."

"You have won," said Mrs. Crane, in a tone rather of disappointment than congratulation.

"Yes. That £100 of Rugge's has been the making of me. I only wanted a capital just to start with!" He flung himself into a chair, opened his pocket-book, and scrutinized its contents. "Guess," said he, suddenly, "on whose horse I won these two rouleaux? Lord Montfort's! Ay, and I saw my lady!"

"So did I see her, from this window. She did not look happy!"

"Not happy!—with such an equipage! neatest turn-out I ever