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 CONTENTS

P A R T O N E Style as Choice
LESSON ONE U n d e r s t a n d i n g Style
LESSON TWO Correctness

P A R T T W O Clarity
LESSON THREE Actions
LESSON FOUR Characters
LESSON FIVE Cohesion a n d Coherence
LESSON SIX Emphasis

P A R T T H R E E Grace
LESSON SEVEN Concision
LESSON EIGHT Shape
LESSON NINE Elegance

P A R T F O U R Clarity of Form
LESSON TEN Motivating Coherence
LESSON ELEVEN Global Coherence

P A R T FIVE Ethics
LESSON TWELVE The Ethics of Style

Appendix: Punctuation
Glossary
Suggested Answers
 PREFACE

Most people won't realize that writing is a craft.

You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else.
—KATHERINE ANNE PORTER

T H E N I N T H EDITION
What's New
The obvious change to this ninth edition of Style is a new subtitle:
no longer Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace but just Lessons in ...
To avoid changing the title of past editions, I added material under
the headings of epilogue, appendix, and afterword, creating a
hodge-podge of a book. In the interest of straightening out this
disorder, I've turned the two epilogues into lessons and put them
before the lesson on ethics.
I have also made substantive changes. I have replaced the ethi-
cal analysis of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address with an analysis
of the Declaration of Independence. In this new analysis, I make the
same point I did about the Second Inaugural: We should under-
stand how gifted writers manipulate the language of their argument
and thereby our responses to its logic and substance, and consider
the ethical implications of that manipulation.
I have added new material.
To Lesson 2, I've added a reference list of real and alleged
errors so that readers can find a discussion of them more easily.
I've also added a note suggesting that while the so-called rule
about not beginning a sentence with because makes no sense, it is
stylistically sound advice.
To Lesson 8, I've added a section on how to work quotations
into the flow of a sentence gracefully and how to punctuate
around quotation marks.
To Lesson 10 (formerly the second epilogue), I've added mat-
erial on introductions, a new section on diagnosing and revising
introductions, and a new section on conclusions.
 To Lesson 11, I've added a note on paragraphs that might dis-
concert some teachers, but that I think takes a realistic view about
their structure.
To Lesson 12 on ethics, I've added a section on plagiarism.
Most treatments of the subject focus on the actions that constitute
it, but this book is based on how readers make judgments, so I
discuss plagiarism from the readers' point of view: what makes
them suspect it, so that honest writers can avoid the mistaken per-
ception of it.
To the appendix on punctuation, I've added a section on artful
sentence fragments and on apostrophes, and highlighted more occa-
sions where choices in punctuation have stylistic consequences.
In several lessons, I've added a new feature called "Quick Tip."
These offer short bits of practical advice about how to deal with
some common problems.
I've also done a lot of line editing. After twenty-five years of
revising this book, you'd think by this time I'd have it right, but
there always seem to be sentences that make me slap my forehead,
wondering how I could have written them.

What's the Same

This ninth edition aims at answering the same questions I asked
in the earlier ones:
• What is it in a sentence that makes readers judge it as they do?
• How do we diagnose our own prose to anticipate their
judgments?
• How do we revise a sentence so that readers will think better
of it?
The standard advice about writing ignores those questions. It
is mostly truisms like Make a plan, Don't use the passive, Think of
your audience—advice that most of us ignore as we wrestle ideas
out onto the page. When I drafted this paragraph, I wasn't think-
ing about you; I was struggling to get my own ideas straight. I did
know that I would come back to these sentences again and again
(I didn't know that it would be for more than twenty-five years),
and that it would be only then—as I revised—that I could think
about you and discover the plan that fit my draft. I also knew that
as I did so, there were some principles I could rely on. This book
explains them.
PRINCIPLES, N O T PRESCRIPTIONS
Those principles may seem prescriptive, but that's not how I
intend them. I offer them as ways to help you predict how readers
will judge your prose and then help you decide whether and how
to revise it. As you try to follow those principles, you may write
more slowly. That's inevitable. Whenever we reflect on what we
do as we do it, we become self-conscious, sometimes to the point
of near-paralysis. It passes. And you can avoid some of it if you
remember that these principles have less to do with drafting than
with revision. If there is a first principle of drafting, it is to ignore
most of the advice about how to do it.

SOME PREREQUISITES
To learn how to revise efficiently, though, you must know a few
things:
• You should know a few grammatical terms: SUBJECT, VERB,
NOUN, ACTIVE, PASSIVE, CLAUSE, PREPOSITION, a n d COORDINATION.
All grammatical terms are capitalized the first time they
appear and are defined in the text or in the Glossary.
• You have to learn new meanings for two familiar words: TOPIC
a n d STRESS.
• You will have to learn a few new terms. Two are important:
NOMINALIZATION and METADISCOURSE; three are useful: RESUMPTIVE
MODIFIER, SUMMATIVE MODIFIER, and FREE MODIFIER. Some stu-
dents object to learning new words, but the only way to avoid
that is never to learn anything new.
Finally, if you read this book on your own, go slowly. It is not
an amiable essay to read in a sitting or two. Take the lessons a few
pages at a time, up to the exercises. Do the exercises, edit someone
else's writing, then some of your own written a few weeks ago,
then something you wrote that day.
Over the last twenty-five years, I have been gratified by the
reception of Style. To those of you who have sent me comments
and responses—thank you. I'm also pleased that the first edition
created a new topic in linguistic studies: metadiscourse. The few
pages devoted to that topic in the first edition have led to scores of
articles and even a few books. A web search for metadiscourse
generated 42,000 hits. Style has had a good run, and I am grateful
to those of you who have found it helpful. All comments on this
edition are welcome.
An Instruction Manual is available for those who are interested
in the scholarly and pedagogical thinking that has gone into Style.
PRINCIPLES AND AIMS
This book rests on two principles: it is good to write clearly, and
anyone can. The first is self-evident, especially to those who must
read a lot of writing like this:
An understanding of the causal factors involved in excessive drinking
by students could lead to their more effective treatment.
But that second principle may seem optimistic to those who want
to write clearly, but can't get close to this:
We could more effectively treat students who drink excessively if we
understood why they do.
Of course, writing fails for reasons more serious than unclear
sentences. We bewilder readers when we can't organize complex
ideas coherently (an issue I address in Lesson 11). And they won't
even read what we've written unless we motivate them to (an issue
I address in Lesson 10). But once we've formulated our claims, or-
ganized supporting reasons, grounded them on sound evidence,
and motivated readers to read attentively, we must still express it
all clearly, a difficult task for most writers and a daunting one for
many.
It is a problem that has afflicted generations of writers who
have hidden their ideas not only from their readers, but some-
times even from themselves. When we read that kind of writing in
government regulations, we call it bureaucratese; when we read it
in legal documents, legalese; in academic writing that inflates
small ideas into gassy abstractions, academese. Written deliber-
ately or carelessly, it is a language of exclusion that a democracy
cannot tolerate. It is also a problem with a long history.

A SHORT HISTORY OF U N C L E A R WRITING

The Past
It wasn't until about the middle of the sixteenth century that writ-
ers of English decided that it was eloquent enough to replace
Latin and French in serious discourse. But their first efforts were
written in a style so complex that it defeated easy understanding:
If use and custom, having the help of so long time and continuance
wherein to [re]fine our tongue, of so great learning and experience
 which furnish matter for the [re]fining, of so good wits and judgments
which can tell how to refine, have griped at nothing in all that time,
with all that cunning, by all those wits which they won't let go but
hold for most certain in the right of our writing, that then our tongue
has no certainty to trust to, but write all at random.
—Richard Mulcaster, The First Part of the Elementary, 1582

Within a century, a complex style h a d spread to the writing of

scientists (or, as they were called, natural philosophers). As one
complained,
Of all the studies of men, nothing may sooner be obtained than this
vicious abundance of phrase, this trick of metaphors, this volubility
of tongue which makes so great a noise in the world.
—Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal Society, 1667

W h e n this continent was settled, writers could have estab-

lished a new, d e m o c r a t i c prose style, neither noisy n o r voluble,
b u t simple a n d direct. In fact, in 1776, the plain w o r d s of T h o m a s
Paine's Common Sense helped inspire o u r Revolution:
In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain
arguments, and common sense.
Sad to say, he sparked n o revolution in o u r national prose
style.
By the early n i n e t e e n t h century, J a m e s F e n i m o r e Cooper was
complaining a b o u t o u r writing:
The love of turgid expressions is gaining ground, and ought to be cor-
rected. One of the most certain evidences of a man of high breeding,
is his simplicity of speech: a simplicity that is equally removed from
vulgarity and exaggeration. . . . Simplicity should be the firm aim, af-
ter one is removed from vulgarity. . . . In no case, however, can one
who aims at turgid language, exaggerated sentiments, or pedantic ut-
terances, lay claim to be either a man or a woman of the world.
—James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat, 1838

Unfortunately, in abusing t h a t style, Cooper a d o p t e d it. H a d he

followed his o w n advice, he might have written,
We should discourage those who love turgid language. A well-bred
person speaks simply, in a way that is neither vulgar nor exaggerated.
No one can claim to be a man or woman of the world who exagger-
ates sentiments or deliberately speaks in ways that are turgid or
pedantic.
 About fifty years later, M a r k Twain w r o t e w h a t we n o w think
is classic American prose. He said this a b o u t Cooper's style:
There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper
could write English, but they are all dead now—all dead but Louns-
buiy [an academic who praised Cooper's style], . . . [He] says that
Deerslayer is a "pure work of art." . . . [But] Cooper wrote about the
poorest English that exists in our language, and . . . the English of
Deerslayer is the very worst tha[t] even Cooper ever wrote.
As m u c h as we all a d m i r e Twain's directness, few of u s emulate it.

The Present
In the best-known essay on m o d e r n English style, "Politics a n d the
English Language," George Orwell anatomized the turgid language
of politicians, bureaucrats, academics, and other such windy
speakers and writers:
The keynote [of a pretentious style] is the elimination of simple verbs.
Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a
verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to
some general-purposes verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In
addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to
the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by
examination of instead of by examining).

But as Cooper did, in abusing that style Orwell a d o p t e d it. He

could have written m o r e concisely:
Pretentious writers avoid simple verbs. Instead of using one word,
such as break, stop, kill, they turn the verb into a noun or adjective,
then tack onto it a general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form,
play, render. They use the passive voice everywhere instead of the
active, and noun constructions instead of gerunds (by examination
instead of by examining).
If the best-known critic of a turgid style could n o t resist it, we
ought n o t be surprised t h a t politicians a n d academics e m b r a c e it.
On the language of the social sciences:
A turgid and polysyllabic prose does seem to prevail in the social
sciences. . . . Such a lack of ready intelligibility, I believe, usually has
little or nothing to do with the complexity of thought. It has to do
almost entirely with certain confusions of the academic writer about
his own status.
—C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination
On the language of medicine:
It now appears that obligatory obfuscation is a firm tradition within
the medical profession. . . . [Medical writing] is a highly skilled,
calculated attempt to confuse the reader. . . . A doctor feels he
might get passed over for an assistant professorship because he wrote
his papers too clearly—because he made his ideas seem too simple.
—Michael Crichton, New England Journal of Medicine

On the language of law:

In law journals, in speeches, in classrooms and in courtrooms,
lawyers and judges are beginning to worry about how often they have
been misunderstood, and they are discovering that sometimes they
can't even understand each other.
—Tom Goldstein, New York Times

On the language of science:

There are times when the more the authors explain [about ape com-
munication], the less we understand. Apes certainly seem capable of
using language to communicate. Whether scientists are remains
doubtful.
—Douglas Chadwick, New York Times

Most of u s first c o n f r o n t t h a t kind of writing in textbook sen-

tences like this one:
Recognition of the fact that systems [of grammar] differ from one
language to another can serve as the basis for serious consideration
of the problems confronting translators of the great works of world
literature originally written in a language other than English.
In a b o u t half as m a n y words, that means,
When we recognize that languages have different grammars, we can
consider the problems of those who translate great works of litera-
ture into English.
Generations of students have struggled with dense writing,
m a n y thinking they weren't s m a r t e n o u g h to grasp a writer's deep
ideas. S o m e have b e e n right a b o u t that, b u t m o r e could have
b l a m e d the writer's inability (or refusal) to write clearly. Many
students, sad to say, give up; sadder still, others learn not only to
read t h a t style b u t to write it, inflicting it on the next generation of
readers, thereby sustaining a 450-year-old tradition of u n r e a d a b l e
writing.
SOME PRIVATE CAUSES OF UNCLEAR WRITING
If unclear writing has a long social history, it also has private
causes. Michael Crichton mentioned one: some writers plump up
their prose to impress those who think that complicated sen-
tences indicate deep thinking. And in fact, when we want to
hide the fact that we don't know what we're talking about, we
typically throw up a tangle of abstract words in long, complex
sentences.
Others write graceless prose not deliberately but because they
are seized by the idea that writing is good only when it is free of
errors that only a grammarian can explain. They approach a blank
page not as a space to explore new ideas, but as a minefield to
cross gingerly. They creep from word to word, concerned less with
their readers' understanding than with their own survival. I ad-
dress that issue in Lesson 2.
Others write unclearly because they freeze up, especially when
they are learning to think and write in a new academic or profes-
sional setting. The afflicted include not just undergraduates taking
their first course in economics or psychology, but graduate stu-
dents, businesspeople, doctors, lawyers—anyone writing on a new
topic for unfamiliar and therefore intimidating readers.
As we struggle to master new ideas, most of us write worse
than we do when we write about things we understand better. If
that sounds like you, take heart: you will write more clearly once
you more clearly understand your subject and readers.
But the biggest reason most of us write unclearly is that we
don't know when others think we do, much less why. What we
write always seems clearer to us than it does to our readers, be-
cause we can read into it what we want them to get out of it. And
so instead of revising our writing to meet their needs, we send it
off the moment it meets ours.
In all of this, of course, there is a great irony: we are likely to
confuse others when we write about a subject that confuses us.
But when we also read about a confusing subject written in a
complex style, we too easily assume that its complexity signals
deep thought, and so we try to imitate it, compounding our al-
ready confused writing.
This book shows you how to avoid that trap, how to read your
own writing as others will, and, when you should, how to make it
better.
O N WRITING AND REWRITING
A warning: if you think about the principles offered here as
you draft, you may never draft anything. Most experienced
writers get something down on paper or up on the screen as
fast as they can. Then as they rewrite that first draft into some-
thing clearer, they understand their ideas better. And when
they understand their ideas better, they express them more
clearly, and the more clearly they express them, the better they
understand them . . . and so it goes, until they run out of energy,
interest, or time.
For a fortunate few, that moment comes weeks, months, even
years after they begin. (Over the last twenty-five years, I've wres-
tled this book through dozens of drafts, and there are parts I still
can't get right.) For most of us, though, the deadline is closer to to-
morrow morning. And so we have to settle for prose that is less
than perfect, but as good as we can make it. (Perfection is the
ideal, but a barrier to done.)
So use what you find here not as rules to impose on every sen-
tence as you draft it, but as principles to help you identify already-
written sentences likely to give your readers a problem, and then
to revise those sentences quickly.
As important as clarity is, though, some occasions call for
more:
Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms,
though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are;
but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and
year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation," a struggle against
the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.
—John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

Few of us are called upon to write a presidential address, but in

even our modest prose, some of us take a private pleasure in writ-
ing a shapely sentence, regardless of whether anyone will notice.
If you enjoy not just writing a sentence but crafting it, you will
find suggestions in Lesson 9. In Lessons 10 and 11, I go beyond the
clarity of individual sentences to discuss the coherence of a whole
document. Writing is also a social act that might or might not
serve the best interests of readers, so in Lesson 12, I address some
issues about the ethics of style. In an Appendix, I discuss styles of
punctuation.
 Many years ago, H. L. Mencken wrote this:
With precious few exceptions, all the books on style in English are by
writers quite unable to write. The subject, indeed, seems to exercise a
special and dreadful fascination over school ma'ams, bucolic college
professors, and other such pseudoliterates. . . . Their central aim, of
course, is to reduce the whole thing to a series of simple rules—the
overmastering passion of their melancholy order, at all times and
everywhere.
Mencken was right: no one learns to write well by rule, espe-
cially those who cannot feel or think or see. But I know that many
who do see clearly, feel deeply, and think carefully can't write sen-
tences that make their thoughts, feelings, and visions clear to oth-
ers. I also know that the more clearly we write, the more clearly
we see and feel and think. Rules help no one do that, but some
principles can.
Here they are.
UNDERSTANDING CORRECTNESS
To a careful writer, nothing is more important than choice, but in
some matters, we have none—we can't put the after a NOUN, as in
street the (capitalized words are defined in the Glossary). But we
choose when we can. For example, which of these sentences
would you choose to write if you wanted readers to think you
wrote clearly?
1. Lack of media support was the cause of our election loss.
2. We lost the election because the media did not support us.
Most of us choose (2).
Unlike clarity, though, correctness seems a matter not of
choice, but of obedience. When the American Heritage Dictionary
says that irregardless is "never acceptable" (except, they say, for
humor), our freedom to choose it seems at best academic. In mat-
ters of this kind, we choose not between better and worse, but be-
tween right and utterly, irredeemably, unequivocally Wrong.
Which, of course, is no choice at all.
But that lack of choice does seem to simplify things: "Correct-
ness" requires not sound judgment but only a good memory. If we
remember that irregardless is always Wrong, it ought not rise to an
even subconscious level of choice. Some teachers and editors
think we should memorize dozens of such "rules":
• Never begin a sentence with and or but.
• Never use double negatives.
• Never split INFINITIVES.
It is, however, more complicated than that. Some rules are
real—if we ignore them, we risk being labeled at least unschooled:
our verbs must agree with subjects; our pronouns must agree with
their referents. There are many others. But some often repeated
rules are less important than many think; some are not even real
rules. And if you obsess over them all, you hinder yourself from
writing quickly and clearly. That's why I address "correctness"
now, before clarity, because I want to put it where it belongs—
behind us.
RULES OF GRAMMAR AND THE BASIS OF
T H E I R AUTHORITY

Opinion is split on the social role of rules of g r a m m a r . To some,

they are just a n o t h e r device t h a t the Ins use to control the Outs by
stigmatizing their language a n d thereby discourage their social
and political aspirations. To others, the rules of S t a n d a r d English
have been so refined by generations of e d u c a t e d speakers a n d
writers t h a t they are n o w a force of n a t u r e a n d therefore observed
by all the best writers of English—or at least should be.

Correctness as Historical Accident

B o t h views are correct, partly. For centuries, those governing o u r
affairs have used g r a m m a t i c a l "errors" to screen out those unwill-
ing or u n a b l e to acquire the habits of the schooled middle class.
But they are w r o n g to claim that those rules were devised for that
end. S t a n d a r d f o r m s of a language originate in accidents of geog-
r a p h y a n d e c o n o m i c power. W h e n a language h a s different re-
gional dialects, t h a t of the m o s t p o w e r f u l speakers usually be-
comes the m o s t prestigious a n d the basis f o r a nation's "correct"
writing.
Thus if some geographical accident h a d p u t Scotland closer to
E u r o p e t h a n L o n d o n is, a n d if its capital, E d i n b u r g h , h a d b e c o m e
the center of Britain's economic, political, a n d literary life, we
would speak a n d write less like Shakespeare a n d m o r e like the
Scottish poet Bobby Burns:

Correctness as Unpredictability
Conservatives, on the other hand, are right that m a n y rules of Stan-
dard English originated in efficient expression. For example, we n o
longer use all the endings that o u r verbs required a thousand years
ago. We now omit present tense inflections in all but one context
(and we don't need it there):

But critics on the right are wrong when they claim that Stan-
dard English has been refined by the logic of educated speakers
and writers, and so must by its very nature be superior to the de-
based language of their alleged social inferiors.
True, many rules of Standard English do reflect an evolution to-
ward logical efficiency. But if by logical we mean regular and there-
fore predictable, then Standard English is in many ways less logical
than nonstandard English. For example, the Standard English
contraction in I'm here, aren't ? is aren't. But what could be more
unpredictably ungrammatical than the full form, I am here, are
I not? Logically, we should contract am + not to amn't, which is
in fact one historical source of the nonstandard ain't (the other is
are + not). So the standard aren't I is less logical than the historically
predictable but socially stigmatized ain't I. We could cite a dozen
examples where the violation of a rule of Standard English reflects
a logical mind making English grammar more consistent.
But it is, of course, the very inconsistency of Standard English
that makes its rules so useful to those who would use them to dis-
criminate: to speak and write Standard English, we must either be
born into it or invest years learning it (along with the values of its
speakers).

Here's the point: Those determined to discriminate will

seize on any difference. But our language seems to reflect the
quality of our minds more directly than do our ZIP codes, so
it's easy for those inclined to look down on others to think
that grammatical "errors" indicate mental or moral defi-
ciency. But that belief is not just factually wrong; in a democ-
racy like ours, it is socially destructive. Yet even if logic
predicts ain't, so much greater is the power of social conven-
tion that we avoid it, at least if we hope to be taken seriously
when we write for serious purposes.
THREE K I N D S OF R U L E S

These corrosive social attitudes about correctness have been en-

couraged by generations of grammarians who, in their zeal to cod-
ify "good" English, have confused three kinds of "rules":

Real Rules
Real rules define what makes English English: ARTICLES must pre-
cede nouns: the book, not book the. Speakers born into English
don't think about these rules at all when they write, and violate
them only when they are tired or distracted.

Social Rules
Social rules distinguish Standard English from nonstandard: He
doesn't have any money versus He don't have no money. Schooled
writers observe these rules as naturally as they observe the Real
Rules and think about them only when they notice others violat-
ing them. The only writers who self-consciously try to follow them
are those not born into Standard English and striving to rise into
the educated class.

Invented Rules
Finally, some grammarians have invented a handful of rules that
they think we all should observe. These are the rules that the
grammar police enforce and that too many educated writers ob-
sess over. Most date from the last half of the eighteenth century:
Don't split infinitives, as in to quietly leave.
Don't end a sentence with a PREPOSITION.

A few date from the twentieth century:

Don't use hopefully for I hope, as in Hopefully, it won't rain.
Don't use which for that, as in a car which I sold.

For 250 years, grammarians have accused the best writers of vio-
lating rules like these, and for 250 years the best writers have ig-
nored them. Which is lucky for the grammarians, because if writ-
ers did obey all the rules, grammarians would have to keep
inventing new ones, or find another line of work. The fact is, none
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 As he stood for a moment looking out upon the sea, which was
one mass of silvery ripples, he heard himself called by name. He
looked up. The Gobellis had a private sitting-room facing the Digue
on the ground floor, and the Baroness was leaning out of the open
window, and beckoning to him.
“Won’t you come in and ’ave a whiskey and soda?” she asked.
“The Baron ’as ’is own whiskey ’ere, real Scotch, none of your nasty
Belgian stuff, ’alf spirits of wine and ’alf varnish! Come along! We’ve
got a jolly little parlour, and my little friend ’Arriet Brandt shall sing to
you! Unless you’re off on some lark of your own, eh?”
“No! indeed,” replied Ralph, “I was only wondering what I should
do with myself for the next hour. Thank you so much! I’ll come with
pleasure.”
And in another minute he was seated in the company of the Baron
and Baroness and Harriet Brandt.
 CHAPTER VI.
The day had heralded in the Bataille de Fleurs and all Heyst was
en fête. The little furnished villas, hired for the season, were all built
alike, with a balcony, on the ground floor, which was transformed into
a veritable bower for the occasion. Villa Imperatrice vied with Villa
Mentone and Villa Sebastien, as to which decoration should be the
most beautiful and effective, and the result was a long line of arbours
garlanded with every sort of blossom. From early morning, the
occupants were busy, entwining their pillars with evergreens,
interspersed with flags and knots of ribbon, whilst the balustrades
were laden with growing flowers and the tables inside bore vases of
severed blooms. One balcony was decorated with corn, poppies and
bluets, whilst the next would display pink roses mixed with the
delicate blue of the sea-nettle, and the third would be all yellow silk
and white marguerites. The procession of charrettes, and the Bataille
itself was not to commence till the afternoon, so the visitors crowded
the sands as usual in the morning, leaving the temporary owners of
the various villas, to toil for their gratification, during their absence.
Margaret Pullen felt sad as she sat in the hotel balcony, watching the
proceedings on each side of her. She had intended her baby’s
perambulator to take part in the procession of charrettes, and had
ordered a quantity of white field-lilies with which to decorate it. It was
to be a veritable triumph—so she and Miss Leyton had decided
between themselves—and she had fondly pictured how lovely little
Ethel would look with her fluffy yellow hair, lying amongst the
blossoms, but now baby was too languid and ill to be taken out of
doors, and Margaret had given all the flowers to the little Montagues,
who were trimming their mail-cart with them, in their own fashion. As
she sat there, with a pensive, thoughtful look upon her face, Harriet
Brandt, dressed in a costume of grass-cloth, with a broad-brimmed
hat, nodding with poppies and green leaves, that wonderfully
became her, on her head, entered the balcony with an eager, excited
appearance.
 “O! Mrs. Pullen! have you seen the Baroness?” she exclaimed.
“We are going to bathe this morning. Aren’t you coming down to the
sands?”
“No! Miss Brandt, not to-day. I am unhappy about my dear baby! I
am sure you will be sorry to hear that she has been quite ill all night
—so restless and feverish!”
“O! she’ll be all right directly her teeth come through!” replied
Harriet indifferently, as her eyes scanned the scene before them.
“There’s the Baroness! She’s beckoning to me! Good-bye!” and
without a word of sympathy or comfort, she rushed away to join her
friends.
“Like the way of the world!” thought Margaret, as she watched the
girl skimming over the sands, “but somehow—I didn’t think she
would be so heartless!”
Miss Leyton and her fiancé had strolled off after breakfast to take
a walk, and Mrs. Pullen went back to her own room, and sat down
quietly to needlework. She was becoming very anxious for Doctor
Phillips’ arrival; had even written to England to ask him to hurry it if
possible—for her infant, though not positively ill, rejected her food so
often that she was palpably thinner and weaker.
After she had sat there for some time, she took up her field
glasses, to survey the bathers on the beach. She had often done so
before, when confined to the hotel—it afforded her amusement to
watch their faces and antics. On the present occasion, she had no
difficulty in distinguishing the form of the Baroness Gobelli, looking
enormous as, clad in a most conspicuous bathing costume, she
waddled from her machine into the water, loudly calling attention to
her appearance, from all assembled on the sands, as she went. The
Baron, looking little less comical, advanced to conduct his spouse
down to the water, whilst after them flew a slight boyish figure in
yellow, with a mane of dark hair hanging down her back, which
Margaret immediately recognised as that of Harriet Brandt.
She was dancing about in the shallow water, shrieking whenever
she made a false step, and clinging hold of the Baron’s hand, when
Margaret saw another gentleman come up to them, and join in the
ring. She turned the glasses upon him and saw to her amazement
that it was her brother-in-law. Her first feeling was that of annoyance.
There was nothing extraordinary or improper, in his joining the
Baroness’s party—men and women bathed promiscuously in Heyst,
and no one thought anything of it. But that Ralph should voluntarily
mix himself up with the Gobellis, after Elinor’s particular request that
he should keep aloof from them, was a much more serious matter.
And by the way, that reminded her, where was Elinor the while?
Margaret could not discern her anywhere upon the sands, and
wondered if she had also been persuaded to bathe. She watched
Captain Pullen, evidently trying to induce Miss Brandt to venture
further into the water, holding out both hands for her protection,—she
also saw her yield to his persuasion, and leaving go of her hold on
the Herr Baron, trust herself entirely to the stranger’s care. Mrs.
Pullen turned from the window with a sigh. She hoped there were not
going to be any “ructions” between Ralph and Elinor—but she would
not have liked her to see him at that moment. She bestowed a silent
benediction, “not loud but deep” on the foreign fashion of
promiscuous bathing, and walked across the corridor to her friend’s
room, to see if she had returned to the Hotel. To her surprise, she
found Miss Leyton dismantled of her walking attire, soberly seated at
her table, writing letters.
“Why! Elinor,” she said, “I thought you were out with Ralph!”
The young lady was quite composed.
“So I was,” she answered, “until half an hour ago! But as he then
expressed his determination to bathe, I left him to his own devices
and came back to write my letters.”
“Would he not have preferred your waiting on the sands till he
could join you again?”
“I did not ask him! I should think he would hardly care for me to
watch him whilst bathing, and I am sure I should not consent to do
so!”
 “But everybody does it here, Elinor, and if you did not care to go
down to the beach, you might have waited for him on the Digue.”
“My dear Margaret, I am not in the habit of dancing attendance
upon men. It is their business to come after me! If Ralph is eager for
another walk after his dip, he can easily call for me here!”
“True! and he can as easily go for his walk with any stray
acquaintance he may pick up on the sands!”
“O! if he should prefer it, he is welcome to do so,” replied Elinor,
resuming her scribbling.
“My dear Elinor, I don’t think you quite understand Ralph! He has
been terribly spoilt, you know, and when men have been
accustomed to attention they will take it wherever they can get it! He
has come over here expressly to be with you, so I think you should
give him every minute of your time. Men are fickle creatures, my
dear! It will take some time yet to despoil them of the idea that
women were made for their convenience.”
“I am afraid the man is not born yet for whose convenience I was
made!”
“Well! you know the old saying: ‘Most women can catch a man, but
it takes a clever woman to keep him.’ I don’t mean to insinuate that
you are in any danger of losing Ralph, but I think he’s quite worth
keeping, and, I believe, you think so too!”
“And I mean to keep him!” replied Miss Leyton, as she went on
writing.
Margaret did not venture to give her any further hints, but returned
to her own room, and took another look through her spyglass.
The bathers in whom she was interested had returned to their
machines by this time, and presently emerged, “clothed and in their
right minds,” Miss Brandt looking more attractive than before, with
her long hair hanging down her back to dry. And then, that occurred
which she had been anticipating. Captain Pullen, having taken a
survey of the beach, and seeing none of his own party there, climbed
with Harriet Brandt to where they were high and dry above the tide,
and threw himself down on the hot, loose sand by her side, whilst the
Baron and Baroness with a laughing injunction to the two young
people, to take care of themselves, toiled up to the Digue and
walked off in another direction.
When they all met at déjeuner, she attacked her brother-in-law on
the subject.
“Have you been bathing all this while?” she said to him, “you must
have stayed very long in the water!”
“O! dear no!” he replied, “I wasn’t in above a quarter of an hour!”
“And what have you been doing since?”
“Strolling about, looking for you and Elinor!” said Captain Pullen.
“Why the dickens didn’t you come out this lovely morning?”
“I could not leave baby!” cried Margaret shortly.
“And I was writing,” chimed in Elinor.
“Very well, ladies, if you prefer your own company to mine, of
course I have nothing to say against it! But I suppose you are not
going to shut yourselves up this afternoon!”
“O! no. It is a public duty to attend the Bataille de Fleurs. Have you
bought any confetti, Ralph?”
“I have! Miss Brandt was good enough to show me where to get
them, and we are well provided. There is to be a race between lady
jockeys at the end of the Digue too, I perceive!”
“What, with horses?”
“I conclude so. I see they have railed in a portion of ground for the
purpose,” replied Captain Pullen.
“’Ow could they race without ’orses?” called out the Baroness.
Harriet Brandt did not join in the conversation, but she was gazing
all the while at Ralph Pullen—not furtively as she had done the day
before, but openly, and unabashedly, as though she held a
proprietary right in him. Margaret noticed her manner at once and
interpreted it aright, but Miss Leyton, true to her principles, never
raised her eyes in her direction and ignored everything that came
from that side of the table.
Mrs. Pullen was annoyed; she knew how angry Elinor would be if
she intercepted any telegraphic communication between her lover
and Miss Brandt; and she rose from the table as soon as possible, in
order to avert such a catastrophe. She had never considered her
brother-in-law a very warm wooer, and she fancied that his manner
towards Miss Leyton was more indifferent than usual. She took one
turn with them along the Digue to admire the flower-bedecked villas,
which were in full beauty, and then returned to her nursery, glad of
an excuse to leave them together, and give Elinor a chance of
becoming more cordial and affectionate to Ralph, than she had yet
appeared to be. The lovers had not been alone long, however,
before they were waylaid, to the intense disgust of Elinor, by Harriet
Brandt and her friend, Olga Brimont.
Still further to her annoyance, Captain Pullen seemed almost to
welcome the impertinent interference of the two girls, who could
scarcely have had the audacity to join their company, unless he had
invited them to do so.
“The charrettes are just about to start!” exclaimed Harriet. “O! they
are lovely, and such dear little children! I am so glad that the Bataille
de Fleurs takes place to-day, because my friend’s brother, Alfred
Brimont, is coming to take her to Brussels the day after to-morrow!”
“Brussels is a jolly place. Mademoiselle Brimont will enjoy herself
there,” said Ralph. “There are theatres, and balls and picture-
galleries, and every pleasure that a young lady’s heart can desire!”
“Have you been to Brussels?” asked Harriet.
“Yes! when I was a nasty little boy in jacket and trousers. I was
placed at Mr. Jackson’s English school there, in order that I might
learn French, but I’m afraid that was the last thing I acquired. The
Jackson boys were known all over the town for the greatest
nuisances in it!”
“What did you do?”
 “What did we not do? We tore up and down the rue Montagne de
la Cour at all hours of the day, shouting and screaming and getting
into scrapes. We ran up bills at the shops which we had no money to
pay—we appeared at every place of amusement—and we made
love to all the school-girls, till we had become a terror to the school-
mistresses.”
“What naughty boys!” remarked Miss Brandt, with a side glance at
Miss Leyton. She did not like to say all she thought before this very
stiff and proper young English lady. “But Captain Pullen,” she
continued, “where are the confetti? Have you forgotten them? Shall I
go and buy some more?”
“No! no! my pockets are stuffed with them,” he said, producing two
bags, of which he handed Harriet one. Her thanks were conveyed by
throwing a large handful of tiny pieces of blue and white and pink
paper (which do duty for the more dangerous chalk sugar-plums) at
him and which covered his tweed suit and sprinkled his fair hair and
moustaches. He returned the compliment by flying after her
retreating figure, and liberally showering confetti upon her.
“O! Ralph! I do hope you are not going to engage in this horse-
play,” exclaimed Elinor Leyton, “because if so I would rather return to
the Hotel. Surely, we may leave such vulgarities to the common
people, and—Miss Harriet Brandt!”
“What nonsense!” he replied. “It’s evident you’ve never been in
Rome during the Carnival! Why, everyone does it! It’s the national
custom. If you imagine I’m going to stand by, like a British tourist and
stare at everything, without joining in the fun, you’re very much
mistaken!”
“But is it fun?” questioned Miss Leyton.
“To me it is! Here goes!” he cried, as he threw a handful of paper
into the face of a passing stranger, who gave him as good as she
had got, in return.
“I call it low—positively vulgar,” said Miss Leyton, “to behave so
familiarly with people one has never seen before—of whose
antecedents one knows nothing! I should be very much surprised if
the mob behaved in such a manner towards me. Oh!”
The exclamation was induced by the action of some young épicier,
or hotel garçon, who threw a mass of confetti into her face with such
violence as almost for the moment to blind her.
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Ralph Pullen with his healthy British lungs, as
he saw her outraged feelings depicted in her countenance.
“I thought you’d get it before long!” he said, as she attempted to
brush the offending paper off her mantle.
“It has not altered my opinion of the indecency of the custom!” she
replied.
“Never mind!” he returned soothingly. “Here come the charrettes.”
They were really a charming sight. On one cart was drawn a boat,
with little children dressed as fishermen and fisherwomen—another
represented a harvest-field, with the tiny haymakers and reapers—
whilst a third was piled with wool to represent snow, on the top of
which were seated three little girls attired as Esquimaux. The mail-
carts, and perambulators belonging to the visitors to Heyst were also
well represented, and beautifully trimmed with flowers. The first prize
was embowered in lilies and white roses, whilst its tiny inmate was
seated in state as the Goddess Flora, with a wreath twined in her
golden curls. The second was taken by a gallant Neapolitan
fisherman of about four years old, who wheeled a mail cart of pink
roses, in which sat his little sisters, dressed as angels with large
white wings. The third was a wheel-barrow hidden in moss and
narcissi, on which reposed a Sleeping Beauty robed in white tissue,
with a coronal of forget-me-nots.
Harriet Brandt fell into ecstasies over everything she saw. When
pleased and surprised, she expressed herself more like a child than
a young woman, and became extravagant and ungovernable. She
tried to kiss each baby that took part in the procession, and thrust
coins into their chubby hands to buy bonbons and confetti with.
Captain Pullen thought her conduct most natural and unaffected; but
Miss Leyton insisted that it was all put on for effect. Olga Brimont
tried to put in a good word for her friend.
“Harriet is very fond of children,” she said, “but she has never seen
any—there were no children at the Convent under ten years of age,
so she does not know how to make enough of them when she meets
them. She wants to kiss every one. Sometimes, I tell her, I think she
would like to eat them. But she only means to be kind!”
“I am sure of that!” said Captain Pullen.
“But she should be told,” interposed Elinor, “that it is not the
custom in civilised countries for strangers to kiss every child they
meet, any more than it is to speak before being introduced, or to
bestow their company where it is not desired. Miss Brandt has a
great deal to learn in that respect before she can enter English
Society!”
As is often the case when a woman becomes unjust in abusing
another, Miss Leyton made Captain Pullen say more to cover her
discourtesy, than, in other circumstances, he would have done.
“Miss Brandt,” he said slowly, “is so beautiful, that she will have a
great deal forgiven her, that would not be overlooked in a plainer
woman.”
“That may be your opinion, but it is not mine,” replied Miss Leyton.
Her tone was so acid, that it sent him flying from her side, to battle
with his confetti against the tribe of Montagues, who fortunately for
the peace of all parties, joined their forces to theirs, and after some
time spent on the Digue, they returned, a large party, to the Hotel.
It was not until they had sat down to dinner, that they remembered
they had never been to see the lady jockey race.
“He! he! he!” laughed Madame Gobelli, “but I did, and you lost
something, I can tell you! We ’ad great difficulty to get seats, but
when we did, it was worth it, wasn’t it, Gustave?”
“You said so, mein tear!” replied the Baron, gravely.
 “And you thought so, you old rascal! don’t you tell me! I saw your
wicked eyes glozing at the gals in their breeches and boots! There
weren’t any ’orses, after all, Captain Pullen, but sixteen gals with
different-coloured jackets on and top boots and tight white breeches
—such a sight you never saw! Gustave ’ere did ’ave a treat! As for
Bobby, when I found we couldn’t get out again, because of the
crowd, I tied my ’andkerchief over ’is eyes, and made him put ’is ’ead
in my lap!”
“Dear! dear!” cried Ralph, laughing, “was it as bad as that,
Madame?”
“Bad! my dear boy! It was as bad as it could be! It’s a mercy you
weren’t there, or we shouldn’t ’ave seen you ’ome again so soon!
There were the sixteen gals, with their tight breeches and their short
racing jackets, and a fat fellow dressed like a huntsman whipping
’em round and round the ring, as if they were so much cattle! You
should ’ave seen them ’op, when he touched ’em up with the lash of
’is whip. I expect they’ve never ’ad such a tingling since the time their
mothers smacked ’em! There was a little fat one, there! I wish you
could ’ave seen ’er, when ’e whipped ’er to make ’er ’urry! It was
comical! She ’opped like a kangaroo!”
“And what was the upshot of it all? Who won?” asked Ralph.
“O! I don’t know! I got Gustave out as soon as I could! I wasn’t
going to let ’im spend the whole afternoon, watching those gals
’opping. There were ’is eyes goggling out of ’is ’ead, and his lips
licking each other, as if ’e was sucking a sugar-stick—”
“Mein tear! mein tear!” interposed the unfortunate Baron.
“You go on with your dinner, Gustave, and leave me alone! I saw
you! And no more lady jockey races do you attend, whilst we’re in
this Popish country. They ain’t good for you.”
“I’m very thankful that I have been saved such a dangerous
experiment,” said Captain Pullen, “though if I thought that you would
tie your handkerchief over my eyes, and put my head in your lap,
Madame, I should feel tempted to try it as soon as dinner is over!”
 “Go along with you, you bad boy!” chuckled the Baroness, “there’s
something else to see this evening! They are going to ’ave a
procession of lanterns as soon as it’s dark!”
“And it is to stop in front of every hotel,” added Harriet, “and the
landlords are going to distribute bonbons and gâteaux amongst the
lantern-bearers.”
“O! we must not miss that on any account!” replied Captain Pullen,
addressing himself to her in reply.
Margaret and Elinor thought, when the time came, that they should
be able to see the procession of lanterns just as well from the
balcony as when mingled with the crowd, so they brought their work
and books down there, and sat with Ralph, drinking coffee and
conversing of all that had occurred. The Baroness had disappeared,
and Harriet Brandt had apparently gone with her—a fact for which
both ladies were inwardly thankful.
Presently, as the dusk fell, the procession of lanterns could be
seen wending its way from the further end of the Digue. It was a very
pretty and fantastical sight. The bearers were not only children—
many grown men and women took part in it, and the devices into
which the Chinese lanterns had been formed were quaint and clever.
Some held a ring around them, as milkmaids carry their pails—
others held crosses and banners designed in tiny lanterns, far above
their heads. One, which could be seen topping all the rest, was
poised like a skipping-rope over the bearer’s shoulders, whilst the
coloured lanterns swung inside it, like a row of bells. The members
of the procession shouted, or sang, or danced, or walked steadily, as
suited their temperaments, and came along, a merry crowd, up and
down the Digue, stopping at the various hotels for largesse in the
shape of cakes and sugar-plums.
Ralph Pullen found his eyes wandering more than once in the
direction of the Baroness’s sitting-room, to see if he could catch a
glimpse of her or her protégée (as Harriet Brandt seemed to be now
universally acknowledged to be), but he heard no sound, nor caught
a glimpse of them, and concluded in consequence that they had left
the hotel again.
 “Whoever is carrying that skipping-rope of lanterns seems to be in
a merry mood,” observed Margaret after a while, “for it is jumping up
and down in the most extravagant manner! She must be dancing! Do
look, Elinor!”
“I see! I suppose this sort of childish performance amuses a
childish people, but for my own part, I think once of it is quite
enough, and am thankful that we are not called upon to admire it in
England!”
“O! I think it is rather interesting,” remarked Margaret, “I only wish
my dear baby had been well enough to enjoy it! How she would have
screamed and cooed at those bright-coloured lanterns! But when I
tried to attract her attention to them just now, she only whined to be
put into her cot again. How thankful I shall be to see dear Doctor
Phillips to-morrow!”
The procession had reached the front of the Hotel by this time,
and halted there for refreshment. The waiters, Jules and Phillippe
and Henri, appeared with plates of dessert and cakes and threw
them indiscriminately amongst the people. One of the foremost to
jump and scramble to catch the falling sweetmeats was the girl who
carried the lantern-skipping rope above her head, and in whom
Ralph Pullen, to his astonishment, recognised Harriet Brandt. There
she was, fantastically dressed in a white frock, and a broad yellow
sash, with her magnificent hair loose and wreathed with scarlet
flowers. She looked amazingly handsome, like a Bacchante, and her
appearance and air of abandon, sent the young man’s blood into his
face and up to the roots of his fair hair.
“Surely!” exclaimed Margaret, “that is never Miss Brandt!”
“Yes! it is,” cried Harriet, “I’m having the most awful fun! Why don’t
you come too? I’ve danced the whole way up the Digue, and it is so
warm! I wish the waiters would give us something to drink! I’ve eaten
so many bonbons I feel quite sick!”
“What will you take, Miss Brandt?” asked Captain Pullen eagerly,
“limonade or soda water?”
 “A limonade, please! You are good!” she replied, as he handed her
the tumbler over the balcony balustrades. “Come along and dance
with me!”
“I cannot! I am with my sister and Miss Leyton!” he replied.
“O! pray do not let us prevent you,” said Elinor in her coldest voice;
“Margaret was just going upstairs and I am quite ready to
accompany her!”
“No, no, Elinor,” whispered Mrs. Pullen with a shake of her head,
“stay here, and keep Ralph company!”
“But it is nearly ten o’clock,” replied Miss Leyton, consulting her
watch, “and I have been on my feet all day! and feel quite ready for
bed. Good-night, Ralph!” she continued, offering him her hand.
“Well! if you two are really going to bed, I shall go too,” said
Captain Pullen, rising, “for there will be nothing for me to do here
after you’re gone!”
“Not even to follow the procession?” suggested Miss Leyton, with
a smile.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” he rejoined crossly. “Am I the sort of man to
go bobbing up and down the Digue amongst a parcel of children?”
He shook hands with them both, and walked away rather sulkily to
his own quarter of the hotel. But he did not go to bed. He waited until
some fifteen minutes had elapsed, and then telling himself that it was
impossible to sleep at that hour, and that if Elinor chose to behave
like a bear, it was not his fault, he came downstairs again and
sauntered out on the sea front.
It was very lonely there at that moment. The procession had
turned and gone down to the other end again, where its lights and
banners could be seen, waving about in the still summer air.
“Why shouldn’t the girl jump about and enjoy herself if she
chooses,” thought Ralph Pullen. “Elinor makes no allowances for
condition or age, but would have everyone as prim and old-maidish
as herself. I declare she gets worse each time I see her! A nice sort
of wife she will make if this kind of thing goes on! But by Jingo! if we
are ever married, I’ll take her prudery out of her, and make her—
what? The woman who commences by pursing her mouth up at
everything, ends by opening it wider than anybody else! There’s
twice as much harm in a prude as in one of these frank open-hearted
girls, whose eyes tell you what they’re thinking of, the first time you
see them!”
He had been strolling down the Digue as he pondered thus, and
now found himself meeting the procession again.
“Come and dance with me,” cried Harriet Brandt, who, apparently
as fresh as ever, was still waving her branch of lanterns to the
measure of her steps. He took her hand and tried to stop her.
“Haven’t you had about enough of this?” he said, “I’m sure you
must be tired. Here’s a little boy without a lantern! Give him yours to
hold, and come for a little walk with me!”
The touch of his cool hand upon her heated palm, seemed to
rouse all the animal in Harriet Brandt’s blood. Her hand, very slight
and lissom, clung to his with a force of which he had not thought it
capable, and he felt it trembling in his clasp.
“Come!” he repeated coaxingly, “you mustn’t dance any more or
you will overtire yourself! Come with me and get cool and rest!”
She threw her branch of lanterns to the boy beside her
impetuously.
“Here!” she cried, “take them! I don’t want them any more! And
take me away,” she continued to Ralph, but without letting go of his
hand. “You are right! I want—I want—rest!”
Her slight figure swayed towards him as he led her out of the
crowd, and across a narrow street, to where the road ran behind all
the houses and hotels, and was dark and empty and void. The din of
the voices, and the trampling of feet, and the echo of the songs still
reached them, but they could see nothing—the world was on the
Digue, and they were in the dusk and quietude together—and alone.
Ralph felt the slight form beside him lean upon his shoulder till
their faces almost touched. He threw his arm about her waist. Her
hot breath fanned his cheek.
“Kiss me!” she murmured in a dreamy voice.
Captain Pullen was not slow to accept the invitation so confidingly
extended. What Englishman would be? He turned his face to Harriet
Brandt’s, and her full red lips met his own, in a long-drawn kiss, that
seemed to sap his vitality. As he raised his head again, he felt faint
and sick, but quickly recovering himself, he gave her a second kiss
more passionate, if possible, than the first. Then the following
whispered conversation ensued between them.
“Do you know,” he commenced, with his head close to hers, “that
you are the very jolliest little girl that I have ever met!”
“And you—you are the man I have dreamt of, but never seen till
now!”
“How is that? Am I so different from the rest of my sex?”
“Very—very different! So strong and brave and beautiful!”
“Dear little girl! And so you really like me?”
“I love you,” said Harriet feverishly, “I loved you the first minute we
met.”
“And I love you! You’re awfully sweet and pretty, you know!”
“Do you really think so? What would Mrs. Pullen say if she heard
you?”
“Mrs. Pullen is not the keeper of my conscience. But she must not
hear it.”
“O! no! nor Miss Leyton either!”
“Most certainly not Miss Leyton. She is a terrible prude! She would
be awfully shocked!”
“It must be a secret,—just between you and me!” murmured the
girl.
“Just so! A sweet little secret, all our own, and nobody else’s!”
 And then the fair head and the dark one came again in
juxtaposition, and the rest was lost in—Silence!
 CHAPTER VII.
Doctor Phillips had not been in the Hôtel Lion d’Or five minutes
before Margaret Pullen took him upstairs to see her baby. She was
becoming terribly anxious about her. They encountered Captain
Ralph Pullen on the staircase.
“Hullo! young man, and what have you been doing to yourself?”
exclaimed the doctor.
He was certainly looking ill. His face was chalky white, and his
eyes seemed to have lost their brightness and colour.
“Been up racketing late at night?” continued Doctor Phillips. “What
is Miss Leyton about, not to look after you better?”
“No, indeed, Doctor,” replied the young man with a smile, “I am
sure my sister-in-law will testify to the good hours I have kept since
here. But I have a headache this morning—a rather bad one,” he
added, with his hand to the nape of his neck.
“Perhaps this place doesn’t agree with you—it was always rather
famous for its smells, if I remember aright! However, I am going to
see Miss Ethel Pullen now, and when I have finished with her, I will
look after you!”
“No, thank you, Doctor,” said Ralph laughing, as he descended the
stairs. “None of your nostrums for me! Keep them for the baby!”
“He is not looking well,” observed Doctor Phillips to Margaret, as
they walked on together.
“I don’t think he is, now you point it out to me, but I have not
noticed it before,” replied Margaret. “I am sure he has been living
quietly enough whilst here!”
The infant was lying as she had now done for several days past—
quite tranquil and free from pain, but inert and half asleep. The
doctor raised her eyelids and examined her eyeballs—felt her pulse
and listened to her heart—but he did not seem to be satisfied.
 “What has this child been having?” he asked abruptly.
“Having, Doctor? Why! nothing, of course, but her milk, and I have
always that from the same cow!”
“No opium—no soothing syrup, nor quackeries of any kind?”
“Certainly not! You know how often you have warned me against
anything of the sort!”
“And no one has had the charge of her, except you and the nurse
here? You can both swear she has never been tampered with?”
“O! I think so, certainly, yes! Baby has never been from under the
eye of one or the other of us. A young lady resident in the hotel—a
Miss Brandt—has often nursed her and played with her, but one of
us has always been there at the time.”
“A Miss—what did you say?” demanded the doctor, sharply.
“A Miss Brandt—a very good-natured girl, who is fond of children!”
“Very well then! I will go at once to the pharmacien’s, and get a
prescription made up for your baby, and I hope that your anxiety may
soon be relieved!”
“O! thank you, Doctor, so much!” exclaimed Margaret “I knew you
would do her good, as soon as you saw her!”
But the doctor was not so sure of himself. He turned the case over
and over in his mind as he walked to the chemist’s shop, wondering
how such a state of exhaustion and collapse could have been
brought about.
The baby had her first dose and the doctor had just time to wash
and change his travelling suit before they all met at the dinner-table.
Here they found the party opposite augmented by the arrival of
Monsieur Alfred Brimont, a young Brussels tradesman, who had
come over to Heyst to conduct his sister home. He was trying to
persuade Harriet Brandt to accompany Olga and stay a few days
with them, but the girl—with a long look in the direction of Captain
Pullen—shook her head determinedly.
 “O! you might come, Harriet, just for a few days,” argued Olga,
“now that the Bataille de Fleurs is over, there is nothing left to stay
for in Heyst, and Alfred says that Brussels is such a beautiful place.”
“There are the theatres, and the Parc, and the Quinçonce, and
Wauxhall!” said young Brimont, persuasively. “Mademoiselle would
enjoy herself, I have no doubt!”
But Harriet still negatived the proposal.
“Why shouldn’t we make up a party and all go together,”
suggested the Baroness, “me and the Baron and Bobby and ’Arriet?
You would like it then, my dear, wouldn’t you?” she said to the girl,
“and you really should see Brussels before we go ’ome! What do you
say, Gustave? We’d go to the Hôtel de Saxe, and see everything! It
wouldn’t take us more than a week or ten days.”
“Do as you like, mein tear,” acquiesced the Baron.
“And why shouldn’t you come with us, Captain?” continued
Madame Gobelli to Ralph. “You don’t look quite the thing to me! A
little change would do you good. All work and no play makes Jack a
dull boy! ’Ave you been to Brussels?”
“I lived there for years, Madame, and know every part of it!” he
replied.
“Come and renew your acquaintance then, and take me and ’Arriet
about!! The Baron isn’t much good when it comes to sight-seeing,
are you, Gustave? ’E likes ’is pipe and ’is slippers too well! But
you’re young and spry! Well! is it a bargain?”
“I really could not decide in such a hurry,” said Ralph, with a
glance at Margaret and Elinor, “but we might all go on to Brussels
perhaps, a little later on.”
“I don’t think you must buoy up the hopes of the Baroness and
Miss Brandt with that idea,” remarked Miss Leyton, coldly, “because I
am sure that Mrs. Pullen has no intention of doing anything of the
sort. If you wish to accompany Madame Gobelli’s party, you had
better make your arrangements without any reference to us!”