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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




'It is on the nineteenth. Don't forget the day.'

He met her eyes in such a way that, if she were woman, she
must have seen it to mean as plainly as words: 'Do I look as
if I could forget anything you say?'

She must, indeed, have understood much more by this time--the
whole of his open secret. But he did not understand her.
History has revealed that a supernumerary lover or two is
rarely considered a disadvantage by a woman, from queen to
cottage-girl; and the thought made him pause.



XIV.

When she was gone he went on with the drawing, not calling in
Dare, who remained in the room adjoining. Presently a servant
came and laid a paper on his table, which Miss Power had sent.
It was one of the morning newspapers, and was folded so that
his eye fell immediately on a letter headed 'Restoration or
Demolition.'

The letter was professedly written by a dispassionate person
solely in the interests of art. It drew attention to the
circumstance that the ancient and interesting castle of the De
Stancys had unhappily passed into the hands of an iconoclast
by blood, who, without respect for the tradition of the
county, or any feeling whatever for history in stone, was
about to demolish much, if not all, that was interesting in
that ancient pile, and insert in its midst a monstrous
travesty of some Greek temple. In the name of all lovers of
mediaeval art, conjured the simple-minded writer, let
something be done to save a building which, injured and
battered in the Civil Wars, was now to be made a complete ruin
by the freaks of an irresponsible owner. Her sending him the
paper seemed to imply that she required his opinion on the
case; and in the afternoon, leaving Dare to measure up a wing
according to directions, he went out in the hope of meeting
her, having learnt that she had gone to the village. On
reaching the church he saw her crossing the churchyard path
with her aunt and Miss De Stancy. Somerset entered the
enclosure, and as soon as she saw him she came across.

'What is to be done?' she asked.

'You need not be concerned about such a letter as that.'

'I am concerned.'

'I think it dreadful impertinence,' spoke up Charlotte, who
had joined them. 'Can you think who wrote it, Mr. Somerset?'

Somerset could not.

'Well, what am I to do?' repeated Paula.

'Just as you would have done before.'

'That's what _I_ say,' observed Mrs. Goodman emphatically.

'But I have already altered--I have given up the Greek court.'

'O--you had seen the paper this morning before you looked at
my drawing?'

'I had,' she answered.

Somerset thought it a forcible illustration of her natural
reticence that she should have abandoned the design without
telling him the reason; but he was glad she had not done it
from mere caprice.

She turned to him and said quietly, 'I wish YOU would answer
that letter.'

'It would be ill-advised,' said Somerset. 'Still, if, after
consideration, you wish it much, I will. Meanwhile let me
impress upon you again the expediency of calling in Mr.
Havill--to whom, as your father's architect, expecting this
commission, something perhaps is owed--and getting him to
furnish an alternative plan to mine, and submitting the choice
of designs to some members of the Royal Institute of British
Architects. This letter makes it still more advisable than
before.'

'Very well,' said Paula reluctantly.

'Let him have all the particulars you have been good enough to
explain to me--so that we start fair in the competition.'

She looked negligently on the grass. 'I will tell the
building steward to write them out for him,' she said.

The party separated and entered the church by different doors.
Somerset went to a nook of the building that he had often
intended to visit. It was called the Stancy aisle; and in it
stood the tombs of that family. Somerset examined them: they
were unusually rich and numerous, beginning with cross-legged
knights in hauberks of chain-mail, their ladies beside them in
wimple and cover-chief, all more or less coated with the green
mould and dirt of ages: and continuing with others of later
date, in fine alabaster, gilded and coloured, some of them
wearing round their necks the Yorkist collar of suns and
roses, the livery of Edward the Fourth. In scrutinizing the
tallest canopy over these he beheld Paula behind it, as if in
contemplation of the same objects.

'You came to the church to sketch these monuments, I suppose,
Mr. Somerset?' she asked, as soon as she saw him.

'No. I came to speak to you about the letter.'

She sighed. 'Yes: that letter,' she said. 'I am persecuted!
If I had been one of these it would never have been written.'
She tapped the alabaster effigy of a recumbent lady with her
parasol.

'They are interesting, are they not?' he said. 'She is
beautifully preserved. The gilding is nearly gone, but beyond
that she is perfect.'

'She is like Charlotte,' said Paula. And what was much like
another sigh escaped her lips.

Somerset admitted that there was a resemblance, while Paula
drew her forefinger across the marble face of the effigy, and
at length took out her handkerchief, and began wiping the dust
from the hollows of the features. He looked on, wondering
what her sigh had meant, but guessing that it had been somehow
caused by the sight of these sculptures in connection with the
newspaper writer's denunciation of her as an irresponsible
outsider.

The secret was out when in answer to his question, idly put,
if she wished she were like one of these, she said, with
exceptional vehemence for one of her demeanour--

'I don't wish I was like one of them: I wish I WAS one of
them.'

'What--you wish you were a De Stancy?'

'Yes. It is very dreadful to be denounced as a barbarian. I
want to be romantic and historical.'

'Miss De Stancy seems not to value the privilege,' he said,
looking round at another part of the church where Charlotte
was innocently prattling to Mrs. Goodman, quite heedless of
the tombs of her forefathers.

'If I were one,' she continued, 'I should come here when I
feel alone in the world, as I do to-day; and I would defy
people, and say, "You cannot spoil what has been!"'

They walked on till they reached the old black pew attached to
the castle--a vast square enclosure of oak panelling occupying
half the aisle, and surmounted with a little balustrade above
the framework. Within, the baize lining that had once been
green, now faded to the colour of a common in August, was
torn, kicked and scraped to rags by the feet and hands of the
ploughboys who had appropriated the pew as their own special
place of worship since it had ceased to be used by any
resident at the castle, because its height afforded convenient
shelter for playing at marbles and pricking with pins.

Charlotte and Mrs. Goodman had by this time left the building,
and could be seen looking at the headstones outside.

'If you were a De Stancy,' said Somerset, who had pondered
more deeply upon that new wish of hers than he had seemed to
do, 'you would be a churchwoman, and sit here.'

'And I should have the pew done up,' she said readily, as she
rested her pretty chin on the top rail and looked at the
interior, her cheeks pressed into deep dimples. Her quick
reply told him that the idea was no new one with her, and he
thought of poor Mr. Woodwell's shrewd prophecy as he perceived
that her days as a separatist were numbered.

'Well, why can't you have it done up, and sit here?' he said
warily.

Paula shook her head.

'You are not at enmity with Anglicanism, I am sure?'

'I want not to be. I want to be--what--'

'What the De Stancys were, and are,' he said insidiously; and
her silenced bearing told him that he had hit the nail.

It was a strange idea to get possession of such a nature as
hers, and for a minute he felt himself on the side of the
minister. So strong was Somerset's feeling of wishing her to
show the quality of fidelity to paternal dogma and party, that
he could not help adding--

'But have you forgotten that other nobility--the nobility of
talent and enterprise?'

'No. But I wish I had a well-known line of ancestors.'

'You have. Archimedes, Newcomen, Watt, Telford, Stephenson,
those are your father's direct ancestors. Have you forgotten
them? Have you forgotten your father, and the railways he
made over half Europe, and his great energy and skill, and all
connected with him as if he had never lived?'

She did not answer for some time. 'No, I have not forgotten
it,' she said, still looking into the pew. 'But, I have a
predilection d'artiste for ancestors of the other sort, like
the De Stancys.'

Her hand was resting on the low pew next the high one of the
De Stancys. Somerset looked at the hand, or rather at the
glove which covered it, then at her averted cheek, then beyond
it into the pew, then at her hand again, until by an
indescribable consciousness that he was not going too far he
laid his own upon it.

'No, no,' said Paula quickly, withdrawing her hand. But there
was nothing resentful or haughty in her tone--nothing, in
short, which makes a man in such circumstances feel that he
has done a particularly foolish action.

The flower on her bosom rose and fell somewhat more than usual
as she added, 'I am going away now--I will leave you here.'
Without waiting for a reply she adroitly swept back her skirts
to free her feet and went out of the church blushing.

Somerset took her hint and did not follow; and when he knew
that she had rejoined her friends, and heard the carriage roll
away, he made towards the opposite door. Pausing to glance
once more at the alabaster effigies before leaving them to
their silence and neglect, he beheld Dare bending over them,
to all appearance intently occupied.

He must have been in the church some time--certainly during
the tender episode between Somerset and Paula, and could not
have failed to perceive it. Somerset blushed: it was
unpleasant that Dare should have seen the interior of his
heart so plainly. He went across and said, 'I think I left
you to finish the drawing of the north wing, Mr. Dare?'

'Three hours ago, sir,' said Dare. 'Having finished that, I
came to look at the church--fine building--fine monuments--two
interesting people looking at them.'

'What?'

'I stand corrected. Pensa molto, parla poco, as the Italians
have it.'

'Well, now, Mr. Dare, suppose you get back to the castle?'

'Which history dubs Castle Stancy. . . . Certainly.'

'How do you get on with the measuring?'

Dare sighed whimsically. 'Badly in the morning, when I have
been tempted to indulge overnight, and worse in the afternoon,
when I have been tempted in the morning!'

Somerset looked at the youth, and said, 'I fear I shall have
to dispense with your services, Dare, for I think you have
been tempted to-day.'

'On my honour no. My manner is a little against me, Mr.
Somerset. But you need not fear for my ability to do your
work. I am a young man wasted, and am thought of slight
account: it is the true men who get snubbed, while traitors
are allowed to thrive!'

'Hang sentiment, Dare, and off with you!' A little ruffled,
Somerset had turned his back upon the interesting speaker, so
that he did not observe the sly twist Dare threw into his
right eye as he spoke. The latter went off in one direction
and Somerset in the other, pursuing his pensive way towards
Markton with thoughts not difficult to divine.

From one point in her nature he went to another, till he again
recurred to her romantic interest in the De Stancy family. To
wish she was one of them: how very inconsistent of her. That
she really did wish it was unquestionable.



XV.

It was the day of the garden-party. The weather was too
cloudy to be called perfect, but it was as sultry as the most
thinly-clad young lady could desire. Great trouble had been
taken by Paula to bring the lawn to a fit condition after the
neglect of recent years, and Somerset had suggested the design
for the tents. As he approached the precincts of the castle
he discerned a flag of newest fabric floating over the keep,
and soon his fly fell in with the stream of carriages that
were passing over the bridge into the outer ward.

Mrs. Goodman and Paula were receiving the people in the
drawing-room. Somerset came forward in his turn; but as he
was immediately followed by others there was not much
opportunity, even had she felt the wish, for any special mark
of feeling in the younger lady's greeting of him.

He went on through a canvas passage, lined on each side with
flowering plants, till he reached the tents; thence, after
nodding to one or two guests slightly known to him, he
proceeded to the grounds, with a sense of being rather lonely.
Few visitors had as yet got so far in, and as he walked up and
down a shady alley his mind dwelt upon the new aspect under
which Paula had greeted his eyes that afternoon. Her black-
and-white costume had finally disappeared, and in its place
she had adopted a picturesque dress of ivory white, with satin
enrichments of the same hue; while upon her bosom she wore a
blue flower. Her days of infestivity were plainly ended, and
her days of gladness were to begin.

His reverie was interrupted by the sound of his name, and
looking round he beheld Havill, who appeared to be as much
alone as himself.

Somerset already knew that Havill had been appointed to
compete with him, according to his recommendation. In
measuring a dark corner a day or two before, he had stumbled
upon Havill engaged in the same pursuit with a view to the
rival design. Afterwards he had seen him receiving Paula's
instructions precisely as he had done himself. It was as he
had wished, for fairness' sake: and yet he felt a regret, for
he was less Paula's own architect now.

'Well, Mr. Somerset,' said Havill, 'since we first met an
unexpected rivalry has arisen between us! But I dare say we
shall survive the contest, as it is not one arising out of
love. Ha-ha-ha!' He spoke in a level voice of fierce
pleasantry, and uncovered his regular white teeth.

Somerset supposed him to allude to the castle competition?

'Yes,' said Havill. 'Her proposed undertaking brought out
some adverse criticism till it was known that she intended to
have more than one architectural opinion. An excellent stroke
of hers to disarm criticism. You saw the second letter in the
morning papers?'

'No,' said the other.

'The writer states that he has discovered that the competent
advice of two architects is to be taken, and withdraws his
accusations.'

Somerset said nothing for a minute. 'Have you been supplied
with the necessary data for your drawings?' he asked, showing
by the question the track his thoughts had taken.

Havill said that he had. 'But possibly not so completely as
you have,' he added, again smiling fiercely. Somerset did not
quite like the insinuation, and the two speakers parted, the
younger going towards the musicians, who had now begun to fill
the air with their strains from the embowered enclosure of a
drooping ash. When he got back to the marquees they were
quite crowded, and the guests began to pour out upon the
grass, the toilets of the ladies presenting a brilliant
spectacle--here being coloured dresses with white devices,
there white dresses with coloured devices, and yonder
transparent dresses with no device at all. A lavender haze
hung in the air, the trees were as still as those of a
submarine forest; while the sun, in colour like a brass
plaque, had a hairy outline in the livid sky.

After watching awhile some young people who were so madly
devoted to lawn-tennis that they set about it like day-
labourers at the moment of their arrival, he turned and saw
approaching a graceful figure in cream-coloured hues, whose
gloves lost themselves beneath her lace ruffles, even when she
lifted her hand to make firm the blue flower at her breast,
and whose hair hung under her hat in great knots so well
compacted that the sun gilded the convexity of each knot like
a ball.

'You seem to be alone,' said Paula, who had at last escaped
from the duty of receiving guests.

'I don't know many people.'

'Yes: I thought of that while I was in the drawing-room. But
I could not get out before. I am now no longer a responsible
being: Mrs. Goodman is mistress for the remainder of the day.
Will you be introduced to anybody? Whom would you like to
know?'

'I am not particularly unhappy in my solitude.'

'But you must be made to know a few.'

'Very well--I submit readily.'

She looked away from him, and while he was observing upon her
cheek the moving shadow of leaves cast by the declining sun,
she said, 'O, there is my aunt,' and beckoned with her parasol
to that lady, who approached in the comparatively youthful
guise of a grey silk dress that whistled at every touch.

Paula left them together, and Mrs. Goodman then made him
acquainted with a few of the best people, describing what they
were in a whisper before they came up, among them being the
Radical member for Markton, who had succeeded to the seat
rendered vacant by the death of Paula's father. While talking
to this gentleman on the proposed enlargement of the castle,
Somerset raised his eyes and hand towards the walls, the
better to point out his meaning; in so doing he saw a face in
the square of darkness formed by one of the open windows, the
effect being that of a highlight portrait by Vandyck or
Rembrandt.

It was his assistant Dare, leaning on the window-sill of the
studio, as he smoked his cigarette and surveyed the gay groups
promenading beneath.

After holding a chattering conversation with some ladies from
a neighbouring country seat who had known his father in bygone
years, and handing them ices and strawberries till they were
satisfied, he found an opportunity of leaving the grounds,
wishing to learn what progress Dare had made in the survey of
the castle.

Dare was still in the studio when he entered. Somerset
informed the youth that there was no necessity for his working
later that day, unless to please himself, and proceeded to
inspect Dare's achievements thus far. To his vexation Dare
had not plotted three dimensions during the previous two days.
This was not the first time that Dare, either from
incompetence or indolence, had shown his inutility as a house-
surveyor and draughtsman.

'Mr. Dare,' said Somerset, 'I fear you don't suit me well
enough to make it necessary that you should stay after this
week.'

Dare removed the cigarette from his lips and bowed. 'If I
don't suit, the sooner I go the better; why wait the week?' he
said.

'Well, that's as you like.'

Somerset drew the inkstand towards him, wrote out a cheque for
Dare's services, and handed it across the table.

'I'll not trouble you to-morrow,' said Dare, seeing that the
payment included the week in advance.

'Very well,' replied Somerset. 'Please lock the door when you
leave.' Shaking hands with Dare and wishing him well, he left
the room and descended to the lawn below.

There he contrived to get near Miss Power again, and inquired
of her for Miss De Stancy.

'O! did you not know?' said Paula; 'her father is unwell, and
she preferred staying with him this afternoon.'

'I hoped he might have been here.'

'O no; he never comes out of his house to any party of this
sort; it excites him, and he must not be excited.'

'Poor Sir William!' muttered Somerset.

'No,' said Paula, 'he is grand and historical.'

'That is hardly an orthodox notion for a Puritan,' said
Somerset mischievously.

'I am not a Puritan,' insisted Paula.

The day turned to dusk, and the guests began going in relays
to the dining-hall. When Somerset had taken in two or three
ladies to whom he had been presented, and attended to their
wants, which occupied him three-quarters of an hour, he
returned again to the large tent, with a view to finding Paula
and taking his leave. It was now brilliantly lighted up, and
the musicians, who during daylight had been invisible behind
the ash-tree, were ensconced at one end with their harps and
violins. It reminded him that there was to be dancing. The
tent had in the meantime half filled with a new set of young
people who had come expressly for that pastime. Behind the
girls gathered numbers of newly arrived young men with low
shoulders and diminutive moustaches, who were evidently
prepared for once to sacrifice themselves as partners.

Somerset felt something of a thrill at the sight. He was an
infrequent dancer, and particularly unprepared for dancing at
present; but to dance once with Paula Power he would give a
year of his life. He looked round; but she was nowhere to be
seen. The first set began; old and middle-aged people
gathered from the different rooms to look on at the gyrations
of their children, but Paula did not appear. When another
dance or two had progressed, and an increase in the average
age of the dancers was making itself perceptible, especially
on the masculine side, Somerset was aroused by a whisper at
his elbow--

'You dance, I think? Miss Deverell is disengaged. She has
not been asked once this evening.' The speaker was Paula.

Somerset looked at Miss Deverell--a sallow lady with black
twinkling eyes, yellow costume, and gay laugh, who had been
there all the afternoon--and said something about having
thought of going home.

'Is that because I asked you to dance?' she murmured. 'There-
-she is appropriated.' A young gentleman had at that moment
approached the uninviting Miss Deverell, claimed her hand and
led her off.

'That's right,' said Somerset. 'I ought to leave room for
younger men.'

'You need not say so. That bald-headed gentleman is forty-
five. He does not think of younger men.'

'Have YOU a dance to spare for me?'

Her face grew stealthily redder in the candle-light. 'O!--I
have no engagement at all--I have refused. I hardly feel at
liberty to dance; it would be as well to leave that to my
visitors.'

'Why?'

'My father, though he allowed me to be taught, never liked the
idea of my dancing.'

'Did he make you promise anything on the point?'

'He said he was not in favour of such amusements--no more.'

'I think you are not bound by that, on an informal occasion
like the present.'

She was silent.

'You will just once?' said he.

Another silence. 'If you like,' she venturesomely answered at
last.

Somerset closed the hand which was hanging by his side, and
somehow hers was in it. The dance was nearly formed, and he
led her forward. Several persons looked at them
significantly, but he did not notice it then, and plunged into
the maze.

Never had Mr. Somerset passed through such an experience
before. Had he not felt her actual weight and warmth, he
might have fancied the whole episode a figment of the
imagination. It seemed as if those musicians had thrown a
double sweetness into their notes on seeing the mistress of
the castle in the dance, that a perfumed southern atmosphere
had begun to pervade the marquee, and that human beings were
shaking themselves free of all inconvenient gravitation.

Somerset's feelings burst from his lips. 'This is the
happiest moment I have ever known,' he said. 'Do you know
why?'

'I think I saw a flash of lightning through the opening of the
tent,' said Paula, with roguish abruptness.

He did not press for an answer. Within a few minutes a long
growl of thunder was heard. It was as if Jove could not
refrain from testifying his jealousy of Somerset for taking
this covetable woman so presumptuously in his arms.

The dance was over, and he had retired with Paula to the back
of the tent, when another faint flash of lightning was visible
through an opening. She lifted the canvas, and looked out,
Somerset looking out behind her. Another dance was begun, and
being on this account left out of notice, Somerset did not
hasten to leave Paula's side.

'I think they begin to feel the heat,' she said.

'A little ventilation would do no harm.' He flung back the
tent door where he stood, and the light shone out upon the
grass.

'I must go to the drawing-room soon,' she added. 'They will
begin to leave shortly.'

'It is not late. The thunder-cloud has made it seem dark--see
there; a line of pale yellow stretches along the horizon from
west to north. That's evening--not gone yet. Shall we go
into the fresh air for a minute?'

She seemed to signify assent, and he stepped off the tent-
floor upon the ground. She stepped off also.

The air out-of-doors had not cooled, and without definitely
choosing a direction they found themselves approaching a
little wooden tea-house that stood on the lawn a few yards
off. Arrived here, they turned, and regarded the tent they
had just left, and listened to the strains that came from
within it.

'I feel more at ease now,' said Paula.

'So do I,' said Somerset.

'I mean,' she added in an undeceiving tone, 'because I saw
Mrs. Goodman enter the tent again just as we came out here; so
I have no further responsibility.'

'I meant something quite different. Try to guess what.'