Joseph Fisher - "Landholding In England"

P. G. Wodehouse - "A Prefect's Uncle"

G. A. Henty - "In Freedom's Cause"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Life of John of Barneveld, 1610"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: A Laodicean

T >> Thomas Hardy >> A Laodicean




When he had left them, Paula informed her aunt whose company
they had been sharing. Her aunt began expostulating with
Paula for not telling Mr. Somerset what they had seen of his
son's movements. 'It would have eased his mind at least,' she
said.

'I was not bound to ease his mind at the expense of showing
what I would rather conceal. I am continually hampered in
such generosity as that by the circumstance of being a woman!'

'Well, it is getting too late to search further tonight.'

It was indeed almost evening twilight in the streets, though
the graceful freestone spires to a depth of about twenty feet
from their summits were still dyed with the orange tints of a
vanishing sun. The two relatives dined privately as usual,
after which Paula looked out of the window of her room, and
reflected upon the events of the day. A tower rising into the
sky quite near at hand showed her that some church or other
stood within a few steps of the hotel archway, and saying
nothing to Mrs. Goodman, she quietly cloaked herself, and went
out towards it, apparently with the view of disposing of a
portion of a dull dispiriting evening. The church was open,
and on entering she found that it was only lighted by seven
candles burning before the altar of a chapel on the south
side, the mass of the building being in deep shade.
Motionless outlines, which resolved themselves into the forms
of kneeling women, were darkly visible among the chairs, and
in the triforium above the arcades there was one hitherto
unnoticed radiance, dim as that of a glow-worm in the grass.
It was seemingly the effect of a solitary tallow-candle behind
the masonry.

A priest came in, unlocked the door of a confessional with a
click which sounded in the silence, and entered it; a woman
followed, disappeared within the curtain of the same, emerging
again in about five minutes, followed by the priest, who
locked up his door with another loud click, like a tradesman
full of business, and came down the aisle to go out. In the
lobby he spoke to another woman, who replied, 'Ah, oui,
Monsieur l'Abbe!'

Two women having spoken to him, there could be no harm in a
third doing likewise. 'Monsieur l'Abbe,' said Paula in
French, 'could you indicate to me the stairs of the
triforium?' and she signified her reason for wishing to know
by pointing to the glimmering light above.

'Ah, he is a friend of yours, the Englishman?' pleasantly said
the priest, recognizing her nationality; and taking her to a
little door he conducted her up a stone staircase, at the top
of which he showed her the long blind story over the aisle
arches which led round to where the light was. Cautioning her
not to stumble over the uneven floor, he left her and
descended. His words had signified that Somerset was here.

It was a gloomy place enough that she found herself in, but
the seven candles below on the opposite altar, and a faint sky
light from the clerestory, lent enough rays to guide her.
Paula walked on to the bend of the apse: here were a few
chairs, and the origin of the light.

This was a candle stuck at the end of a sharpened stick, the
latter entering a joint in the stones. A young man was
sketching by the glimmer. But there was no need for the blush
which had prepared itself beforehand; the young man was Mr.
Cockton, Somerset's youngest draughtsman.

Paula could have cried aloud with disappointment. Cockton
recognized Miss Power, and appearing much surprised, rose from
his seat with a bow, and said hastily, 'Mr. Somerset left to-
day.'

'I did not ask for him,' said Paula.

'No, Miss Power: but I thought--'

'Yes, yes--you know, of course, that he has been my architect.
Well, it happens that I should like to see him, if he can call
on me. Which way did he go?'

'He's gone to Etretat.'

'What for? There are no abbeys to sketch at Etretat.'

Cockton looked at the point of his pencil, and with a
hesitating motion of his lip answered, 'Mr. Somerset said he
was tired.'

'Of what?'

'He said he was sick and tired of holy places, and would go to
some wicked spot or other, to get that consolation which
holiness could not give. But he only said it casually to
Knowles, and perhaps he did not mean it.'

'Knowles is here too?'

'Yes, Miss Power, and Bowles. Mr. Somerset has been kind
enough to give us a chance of enlarging our knowledge of
French Early-pointed, and pays half the expenses.'

Paula said a few other things to the young man, walked slowly
round the triforium as if she had come to examine it, and
returned down the staircase. On getting back to the hotel she
told her aunt, who had just been having a nap, that next day
they would go to Etretat for a change.

'Why? There are no old churches at Etretat.'

'No. But I am sick and tired of holy places, and want to go
to some wicked spot or other to find that consolation which
holiness cannot give.'

'For shame, Paula! Now I know what it is; you have heard that
he's gone there! You needn't try to blind me.'

'I don't care where he's gone!' cried Paula petulantly. In a
moment, however, she smiled at herself, and added, 'You must
take that for what it is worth. I have made up my mind to let
him know from my own lips how the misunderstanding arose.
That done, I shall leave him, and probably never see him
again. My conscience will be clear.'

The next day they took the steamboat down the Orne, intending
to reach Etretat by way of Havre. Just as they were moving
off an elderly gentleman under a large white sunshade, and
carrying his hat in his hand, was seen leisurely walking down
the wharf at some distance, but obviously making for the boat.

'A gentleman!' said the mate.

'Who is he?' said the captain.

'An English,' said Clementine.

Nobody knew more, but as leisure was the order of the day the
engines were stopped, on the chance of his being a passenger,
and all eyes were bent upon him in conjecture. He disappeared
and reappeared from behind a pile of merchandise and
approached the boat at an easy pace, whereupon the gangway was
replaced, and he came on board, removing his hat to Paula,
quietly thanking the captain for stopping, and saying to Mrs.
Goodman, 'I am nicely in time.'

It was Mr. Somerset the elder, who by degrees informed our
travellers, as sitting on their camp-stools they advanced
between the green banks bordered by elms, that he was going to
Etretat; that the young man he had spoken of yesterday had
gone to that romantic watering-place instead of studying art
at Caen, and that he was going to join him there.

Paula preserved an entire silence as to her own intentions,
partly from natural reticence, and partly, as it appeared,
from the difficulty of explaining a complication which was not
very clear to herself. At Havre they parted from Mr.
Somerset, and did not see him again till they were driving
over the hills towards Etretat in a carriage and four, when
the white umbrella became visible far ahead among the outside
passengers of the coach to the same place. In a short time
they had passed and cut in before this vehicle, but soon
became aware that their carriage, like the coach, was one of a
straggling procession of conveyances, some mile and a half in
length, all bound for the village between the cliffs.

In descending the long hill shaded by lime-trees which
sheltered their place of destination, this procession closed
up, and they perceived that all the visitors and native
population had turned out to welcome them, the daily arrival
of new sojourners at this hour being the chief excitement of
Etretat. The coach which had preceded them all the way, at
more or less remoteness, was now quite close, and in passing
along the village street they saw Mr. Somerset wave his hand
to somebody in the crowd below. A felt hat was waved in the
air in response, the coach swept into the inn-yard, followed
by the idlers, and all disappeared. Paula's face was crimson
as their own carriage swept round in the opposite direction to
the rival inn.

Once in her room she breathed like a person who had finished a
long chase. They did not go down before dinner, but when it
was almost dark Paula begged her aunt to wrap herself up and
come with her to the shore hard by. The beach was deserted,
everybody being at the Casino; the gate stood invitingly open,
and they went in. Here the brilliantly lit terrace was
crowded with promenaders, and outside the yellow palings,
surmounted by its row of lamps, rose the voice of the
invisible sea. Groups of people were sitting under the
verandah, the women mostly in wraps, for the air was growing
chilly. Through the windows at their back an animated scene
disclosed itself in the shape of a room-full of waltzers, the
strains of the band striving in the ear for mastery over the
sounds of the sea. The dancers came round a couple at a time,
and were individually visible to those people without who
chose to look that way, which was what Paula did.

'Come away, come away!' she suddenly said. 'It is not right
for us to be here.'

Her exclamation had its origin in what she had at that moment
seen within, the spectacle of Mr. George Somerset whirling
round the room with a young lady of uncertain nationality but
pleasing figure. Paula was not accustomed to show the white
feather too clearly, but she soon had passed out through those
yellow gates and retreated, till the mixed music of sea and
band had resolved into that of the sea alone.

'Well!' said her aunt, half in soliloquy, 'do you know who I
saw dancing there, Paula? Our Mr. Somerset, if I don't make a
great mistake!'

'It was likely enough that you did,' sedately replied her
niece. 'He left Caen with the intention of seeking
distractions of a lighter kind than those furnished by art,
and he has merely succeeded in finding them. But he has made
my duty rather a difficult one. Still, it was my duty, for I
very greatly wronged him. Perhaps, however, I have done
enough for honour's sake. I would have humiliated myself by
an apology if I had found him in any other situation; but, of
course, one can't he expected to take MUCH trouble when he is
seen going on like that!'

The coolness with which she began her remarks had developed
into something like warmth as she concluded.

'He is only dancing with a lady he probably knows very well.'

'He doesn't know her! The idea of his dancing with a woman of
that description! We will go away tomorrow. This place has
been greatly over-praised.'

'The place is well enough, as far as I can see.'

'He is carrying out his programme to the letter. He plunges
into excitement in the most reckless manner, and I tremble for
the consequences! I can do no more: I have humiliated myself
into following him, believing that in giving too ready
credence to appearances I had been narrow and inhuman, and had
caused him much misery. But he does not mind, and he has no
misery; he seems just as well as ever. How much this finding
him has cost me! After all, I did not deceive him. He must
have acquired a natural aversion for me. I have allowed
myself to be interested in a man of very common qualities, and
am now bitterly alive to the shame of having sought him out.
I heartily detest him! I will go back--aunt, you are right--I
had no business to come. . . . His light conduct has rendered
him uninteresting to me!'



III.

When she rose the next morning the bell was clanging for the
second breakfast, and people were pouring in from the beach in
every variety of attire. Paula, whom a restless night had
left with a headache, which, however, she said nothing about,
was reluctant to emerge from the seclusion of her chamber,
till her aunt, discovering what was the matter with her,
suggested that a few minutes in the open air would refresh
her; and they went downstairs into the hotel gardens.

The clatter of the big breakfast within was audible from this
spot, and the noise seemed suddenly to inspirit Paula, who
proposed to enter. Her aunt assented. In the verandah under
which they passed was a rustic hat-stand in the form of a
tree, upon which hats and other body-gear hung like bunches of
fruit. Paula's eye fell upon a felt hat to which a small
block-book was attached by a string. She knew that hat and
block-book well, and turning to Mrs. Goodman said, 'After all,
I don't want the breakfast they are having: let us order one
of our own as usual. And we'll have it here.'

She led on to where some little tables were placed under the
tall shrubs, followed by her aunt, who was in turn followed by
the proprietress of the hotel, that lady having discovered
from the French maid that there was good reason for paying
these ladies ample personal attention.

'Is the gentleman to whom that sketch-book belongs staying
here?' Paula carelessly inquired, as she indicated the object
on the hat-stand.

'Ah, no!' deplored the proprietress. 'The Hotel was full when
Mr. Somerset came. He stays at a cottage beyond the Rue
Anicet Bourgeois: he only has his meals here.'

Paula had taken her seat under the fuchsia-trees in such a
manner that she could observe all the exits from the salle a
manger; but for the present none of the breakfasters emerged,
the only moving objects on the scene being the waitresses who
ran hither and thither across the court, the cook's assistants
with baskets of long bread, and the laundresses with baskets
of sun-bleached linen. Further back towards the inn-yard,
stablemen were putting in the horses for starting the flys and
coaches to Les Ifs, the nearest railway-station.

'Suppose the Somersets should be going off by one of these
conveyances,' said Mrs. Goodman as she sipped her tea.

'Well, aunt, then they must,' replied the younger lady with
composure.

Nevertheless she looked with some misgiving at the nearest
stableman as he led out four white horses, harnessed them, and
leisurely brought a brush with which he began blacking their
yellow hoofs. All the vehicles were ready at the door by the
time breakfast was over, and the inmates soon turned out, some
to mount the omnibuses and carriages, some to ramble on the
adjacent beach, some to climb the verdant slopes, and some to
make for the cliffs that shut in the vale. The fuchsia-trees
which sheltered Paula's breakfast-table from the blaze of the
sun, also screened it from the eyes of the outpouring company,
and she sat on with her aunt in perfect comfort, till among
the last of the stream came Somerset and his father. Paula
reddened at being so near the former at last. It was with
sensible relief that she observed them turn towards the cliffs
and not to the carriages, and thus signify that they were not
going off that day.

Neither of the two saw the ladies, and when the latter had
finished their tea and coffee they followed to the shore,
where they sat for nearly an hour, reading and watching the
bathers. At length footsteps crunched among the pebbles in
their vicinity, and looking out from her sunshade Paula saw
the two Somersets close at hand.

The elder recognized her, and the younger, observing his
father's action of courtesy, turned his head. It was a
revelation to Paula, for she was shocked to see that he
appeared worn and ill. The expression of his face changed at
sight of her, increasing its shade of paleness; but he
immediately withdrew his eyes and passed by.

Somerset was as much surprised at encountering her thus as she
had been distressed to see him. As soon as they were out of
hearing, he asked his father quietly, 'What strange thing is
this, that Lady De Stancy should be here and her husband not
with her? Did she bow to me, or to you?'

'Lady De Stancy--that young lady?' asked the puzzled painter.
He proceeded to explain all he knew; that she was a young lady
he had met on his journey at two or three different times;
moreover, that if she were his son's client--the woman who was
to have become Lady De Stancy--she was Miss Power still; for
he had seen in some newspaper two days before leaving England
that the wedding had been postponed on account of her illness.

Somerset was so greatly moved that he could hardly speak
connectedly to his father as they paced on together. 'But she
is not ill, as far as I can see,' he said. 'The wedding
postponed?--You are sure the word was postponed?--Was it
broken off?'

'No, it was postponed. I meant to have told you before,
knowing you would be interested as the castle architect; but
it slipped my memory in the bustle of arriving.'

'I am not the castle architect.'

'The devil you are not--what are you then?'

'Well, I am not that.'

Somerset the elder, though not of penetrating nature, began to
see that here lay an emotional complication of some sort, and
reserved further inquiry till a more convenient occasion.
They had reached the end of the level beach where the cliff
began to rise, and as this impediment naturally stopped their
walk they retraced their steps. On again nearing the spot
where Paula and her aunt were sitting, the painter would have
deviated to the hotel; but as his son persisted in going
straight on, in due course they were opposite the ladies
again. By this time Miss Power, who had appeared anxious
during their absence, regained her self-control. Going
towards her old lover she said, with a smile, 'I have been
looking for you!'

'Why have you been doing that?' said Somerset, in a voice
which he failed to keep as steady as he could wish.

'Because--I want some architect to continue the restoration.
Do you withdraw your resignation?'

Somerset appeared unable to decide for a few instants. 'Yes,'
he then answered.

For the moment they had ignored the presence of the painter
and Mrs. Goodman, but Somerset now made them known to one
another, and there was friendly intercourse all round.

'When will you be able to resume operations at the castle?'
she asked, as soon as she could again speak directly to
Somerset.

'As soon as I can get back. Of course I only resume it at
your special request.'

'Of course.' To one who had known all the circumstances it
would have seemed a thousand pities that, after again getting
face to face with him, she did not explain, without delay, the
whole mischief that had separated them. But she did not do
it--perhaps from the inherent awkwardness of such a topic at
this idle time. She confined herself simply to the above-
mentioned business-like request, and when the party had walked
a few steps together they separated, with mutual promises to
meet again.

'I hope you have explained your mistake to him, and how it
arose, and everything?' said her aunt when they were alone.

'No, I did not.'

'What, not explain after all?' said her amazed relative.

'I decided to put it off.'

'Then I think you decided very wrongly. Poor young man, he
looked so ill!'

'Did you, too, think he looked ill? But he danced last night.
Why did he dance?' She turned and gazed regretfully at the
corner round which the Somersets had disappeared.

'I don't know why he danced; but if I had known you were going
to be so silent, I would have explained the mistake myself.'

'I wish you had. But no; I have said I would; and I must.'

Paula's avoidance of tables d'hote did not extend to the
present one. It was quite with alacrity that she went down;
and with her entry the antecedent hotel beauty who had reigned
for the last five days at that meal, was unceremoniously
deposed by the guests. Mr. Somerset the elder came in, but
nobody with him. His seat was on Paula's left hand, Mrs.
Goodman being on Paula's right, so that all the conversation
was between the Academician and the younger lady. When the
latter had again retired upstairs with her aunt, Mrs. Goodman
expressed regret that young Mr. Somerset was absent from the
table. 'Why has he kept away?' she asked.

'I don't know--I didn't ask,' said Paula sadly. 'Perhaps he
doesn't care to meet us again.'

'That's because you didn't explain.'

'Well--why didn't the old man give me an opportunity?'
exclaimed the niece with suppressed excitement. 'He would
scarcely say anything but yes and no, and gave me no chance at
all of introducing the subject. I wanted to explain--I came
all the way on purpose--I would have begged George's pardon on
my two knees if there had been any way of beginning; but there
was not, and I could not do it!'

Though she slept badly that night, Paula promptly appeared in
the public room to breakfast, and that not from motives of
vanity; for, while not unconscious of her accession to the
unstable throne of queen-beauty in the establishment, she
seemed too preoccupied to care for the honour just then, and
would readily have changed places with her unhappy
predecessor, who lingered on in the background like a candle
after sunrise.

Mrs. Goodman was determined to trust no longer to Paula for
putting an end to what made her so restless and self-
reproachful. Seeing old Mr. Somerset enter to a little side-
table behind for lack of room at the crowded centre tables,
again without his son, she turned her head and asked point-
blank where the young man was.

Mr. Somerset's face became a shade graver than before. 'My
son is unwell,' he replied; 'so unwell that he has been
advised to stay indoors and take perfect rest.'

'I do hope it is nothing serious.'

'I hope so too. The fact is, he has overdone himself a
little. He was not well when he came here; and to make
himself worse he must needs go dancing at the Casino with this
lady and that--among others with a young American lady who is
here with her family, and whom he met in London last year. I
advised him against it, but he seemed desperately determined
to shake off lethargy by any rash means, and wouldn't listen
to me. Luckily he is not in the hotel, but in a quiet cottage
a hundred yards up the hill.'

Paula, who had heard all, did not show or say what she felt at
the news: but after breakfast, on meeting the landlady in a
passage alone, she asked with some anxiety if there were a
really skilful medical man in Etretat; and on being told that
there was, and his name, she went back to look for Mr.
Somerset; but he had gone.

They heard nothing more of young Somerset all that morning,
but towards evening, while Paula sat at her window, looking
over the heads of fuchsias upon the promenade beyond, she saw
the painter walk by. She immediately went to her aunt and
begged her to go out and ask Mr. Somerset if his son had
improved.

'I will send Milly or Clementine,' said Mrs. Goodman.

'I wish you would see him yourself.'

'He has gone on. I shall never find him.'

'He has only gone round to the front,' persisted Paula. 'Do
walk that way, auntie, and ask him.'

Thus pressed, Mrs. Goodman acquiesced, and brought back
intelligence to Miss Power, who had watched them through the
window, that his son did not positively improve, but that his
American friends were very kind to him.

Having made use of her aunt, Paula seemed particularly anxious
to get rid of her again, and when that lady sat down to write
letters, Paula went to her own room, hastily dressed herself
without assistance, asked privately the way to the cottage,
and went off thitherward unobserved.

At the upper end of the lane she saw a little house answering
to the description, whose front garden, window-sills, palings,
and doorstep were literally ablaze with nasturtiums in bloom.

She entered this inhabited nosegay, quietly asked for the
invalid, and if he were well enough to see Miss Power. The
woman of the house soon returned, and she was conducted up a
crooked staircase to Somerset's modest apartments. It
appeared that some rooms in this dwelling had been furnished
by the landlady of the inn, who hired them of the tenant
during the summer season to use as an annexe to the hotel.

Admitted to the outer room she beheld her architect looking as
unarchitectural as possible; lying on a small couch which was
drawn up to the open casement, whence he had a back view of
the window flowers, and enjoyed a green transparency through
the undersides of the same nasturtium leaves that presented
their faces to the passers without.

When the latch had again clicked into the catch of the closed
door Paula went up to the invalid, upon whose pale and
interesting face a flush had arisen simultaneously with the
announcement of her name. He would have sprung up to receive
her, but she pressed him down, and throwing all reserve on one
side for the first time in their intercourse, she crouched
beside the sofa, whispering with roguish solicitude, her face
not too far from his own: 'How foolish you are, George, to
get ill just now when I have been wanting so much to see you
again!--I am so sorry to see you like this--what I said to you
when we met on the shore was not what I had come to say!'

Somerset took her by the hand. 'Then what did you come to
say, Paula?' he asked.

'I wanted to tell you that the mere wanton wandering of a
capricious mind was not the cause of my estrangement from you.
There has been a great deception practised--the exact nature
of it I cannot tell you plainly just at present; it is too
painful--but it is all over, and I can assure you of my sorrow
at having behaved as I did, and of my sincere friendship now
as ever.'