Tom, I am fully persuaded she did not marry; or Mr. Carlton either—if he had a preference any way, it was, I say, for my cousin, though the preference never came to anything. As to young Crane—if Miss Beauchamp’s dislike to him was not genuine, she must have been a good actor.”
This was all. It was but a little item of news. Lady Jane sat some time longer, but she had gained the extent of Mrs. West’s information, and she went away revolving it.
She went down to South Wennock revolving it; she did nothing but revolve it after she was settled at home. And the conclusion she arrived at was, that Clarice had married one of those young men—Mr. Tom West.
And what of the Mr. Carlton? Could it be the one who was now Laura’s husband? Lady Jane felt little if any doubt of it. The description, personal and circumstantial, tallied with him in all points; and the name, Lewis Carlton, was not a common one. Ever and anon there would come over Jane, with a shiver, a remembrance of that portentous dream, in which it had seemed to be shown her that her sister Clarice was dead, and that Mr. Carlton had had some hand in causing the death. Had one of these young men married Clarice, and worked her ill? and was Mr. Carlton privy to it? But Jane, a just woman, shrunk from asking that question, even of her own mind. She had no grounds whatever for suspecting Mr. Carlton of such a thing; and surely it was wrong to dwell upon a dream for them. There was one question, however, that she could ask him in all reason—and that was, whether he was the same Mr. Carlton; if so, it was possible he could impart some information of her sister. Jane did not think it very likely that he could, but it was certainly possible.
And meantime, while Jane was seeking for an opportunity of doing this, or perhaps deliberating upon the best way of asking it, and how much she should say about Clarice, and how much she should not, a fever broke out at South Wennock.
STEVE LIDYARD’S ADVENTURE; OR, THE MYSTERIOUS CITY.
By Edwin F. Roberts, Author of "Queen’s Musketeers,” "Claribel’s Mystery,” &c.
I give the following as I heard it from Steve’s own lips, as I and half a dozen of us sat in a garden one sunny afternoon,—a fine cedar lifting up its stately and spreading branches between us and the ardent sun above, and forming a very welcome shade. Cigars and sherry were within easy reach, and among our listeners, besides the City “fogies,” there were their matrons and one or two very pretty girls: admirable listeners these last, when they did not, with their own pleasant prattle and musical laughter, break upon the more serious progress of the conversation.
“So it’s my turn, is it?” said Steve, in reply to a challenge. “Very well, here goes.”
Steve Lidyard, I may say, par párenthèse, was a fine athletic fellow, much on the sunny side of thirty, bearded, bronzed, and bearing about him evident tokens of having seen hard work and done good service, and, as he had been “out with Garibaldi” up to the last catastrophe at Aspromonte,—as he wore a medal or two, and could sport a decoration, though only a “civilian,”—it was evident, and well known, in fact, that Steve Lidyard was one of that gallant band of Englishmen who had volunteered to fight in a cause not their own, save that “Liberty” is a watchword which rings across the world, and has therefore a significance to every Englishman’s sense to which his heart responds in an instant, and in no passive manner either. Steve Lidyard, it is seen from my exordium, is therefore a man of some mark; and I shall now proceed with his narrative, which, according to a phrase now in vogue, is “awful to relate.”
“So it is my turn, is it?” said Steve. “Well, I’ll astonish your weak nerves, if you have any, which I assume at once,—'nerves’ being quite a fashionable disease; so I’ll give you an episode of one of my adventures when ‘out with Garibaldi.’
“I pass over our entrance into Palermo,” continued Steve, after some little introductory matter, “over excursions into the wild country towards the mountains, sometimes in pursuit of the flying enemy, sometimes in small detachments being driven back and pursued in return; and as you may recollect that ‘Bombina,’ son ‘Bomba,’ had put the place under martial law, all the nameless atrocities peculiar to the soldiery of Ferdinand were committed; but all this is beside the subject of my relation, so we will pull up at once, and try back.
“I had some curiosity to see a little of the country inland, of which not much appeared to be known, and before long the opportunity was offered me. I had under me a party of a dozen men, plucky fellows every one, and crack shots into the bargain. With these I had some very ticklish business to perform.
“Some brigands, miscreant cut-throats imported from Calabria, mixed up with others of Ferdinand’s broken and half — disorganised troops, were scattered hither and thither, making now as they best could for any Sicilian port favourable to the Bourbons, where they