"Forethought always comes in a head's length, Mr. Smyth. Now, if you could only gain a pocket edition of the winning hand, your surveys would yield you a gold mine," said his hostess, gaily.

"Instead of as now, a few promissory notes," laughed Smyth.

"The gentlemen have been envying you your monopoly of Mrs. Gower, Mr.

Cobbe," said lively Mrs. Smyth, in an undertone; "she is an awful flirt, you had better take care of yourself," she added, mischievously.

"I mean to," he said savagely, and with latent meaning, adding, "she is as fickle as her clime; I hope," he said, endeavoring to control himself, "all you ladies are not so heartless."

"Oh, no; we are as constant as the sun, compared to her," she said, half jokingly.

"Would you be so to me," he said thickly, and coming near her.

"Go away, Mr. Cobbe; don't look at me like that, you awful man," she whispered, laughingly.

"When may I call, you are the right sort of woman," he continued, persistently.

"Will says so, any way," she said, archly.

"Say to-morrow," he persisted.

"Will!" she cried, mischievously, "Mr. Cobbe's compliments, and desires to know when he will find you in your sanctum, he wishes to smoke the pipe of peace with you."

"Hang it," thought Cobbe, "she has no ambition beyond Will; give me the Australian women after all."

"Almost any evening, Cobbe, I am always good for a smoke; but my wife says I'd better retrench, the house of Smyth is increasing so rapidly; good-night."

"May I see you home, Mrs. St. Clair?" asked Mr. Cobbe, fervidly.

"It would be too sweet--but oh!" and her arm above the elbow is rubbed, for the boy Noah has pinched her severely, saying,

"I'll tell papa."

At this juncture Thomas appeared, saying, a coupe had arrived for Mrs.

St. Clair and Master Noah.

"I must see you to-morrow, Mrs. Gower, after office hours," said Cobbe, adding, on meeting the sharp eye of Mrs. Dale, "I have something very particular to tell you."

"Say the day after, Mr. Cobbe, please; I shall endeavor to restrain my curiosity so long, even though I am a woman."

"No, no, I must see you to-morrow at five p.m.," he said, impulsively.

"The yeas have it this time, Mr. Cobbe. Mrs. Gower belongs to us for to-morrow," said Mrs. Dale, drawing her wrap about her, over her cream-silk robe, slashed with blue velvet, and laced amid innumerable b.u.t.tonholes, her innocent look only apparent while, in reality, she is dissecting him, "our kind hostess does some of the lions with us to-morrow afternoon; the evening, she spends with us at the Queen's."

"Yes, we have no end of a bill for to-morrow," said Mr. Dale; "the Normal School, Mount Pleasant Cemetery, office of the _Mail_, and the University of Toronto."

At this there was a transformation scene, the face of Mr. Cobbe changing like a flash from inane sulkiness to jubilant triumph.

"To the University! then Mrs. Gower will tell you what a paradise we enjoyed, when I alone was her companion there," he said, with excitement; and having previously made his adieu, he departed, chuckling inwardly at his parting shot, and thinking for once she is nonplussed.

"She is too high-spirited to sleep comfortably to-night, if so, she'll dream of me in spite of herself."

"What a funny man!" exclaimed Mrs. Dale, "reminds me of a Jack on wires.

If I were in your place, Mrs. Gower, I'd hand him over to his mother to bring up over again; till to-morrow, farewell."

"_Au revoir_, dear."

"Good night, Mrs. Gower," said Buckingham, with a firm hand-clasp; "your evenings leave one nothing to wish for, save for their continuance."

"If your words have life, prove them by coming again; good night."

CHAPTER VII.

ACROSS THE SEA TO A WITCH'S CALDRON.

Broadlawns, on the outskirts of Bayswater, London, England, on the evening Charles Babbington-Cole, from Toronto, Canada, is expected, is all aglow with lights; its exterior a goodly spectacle with its many windows. A long, low, rambling house, the front relieved by cornice and architrave, and an immense portico from which white stone steps, wide and worn by many feet, lead to the lawns and gardens, which are gay with bright flowers, intersected with old-fashioned serpentine walks; one would call it not inaptly a garden of roses, such were their number, such their variety and beauty. Great ma.s.ses of rhododendrons, with the fragrant honeysuckle, sweet-briar, and lauristina lent perfume to the air. Some fine oaks, with beech and graceful locusts, gave beauty to the lawns; stone stables, with farm and carriage houses at the back, with paved court-yard, and kitchen-garden luxuriant in growth, a very horn of plenty.

"A lovely spot, an ideal home," said numerous pa.s.sers-by to and from the modern Babylon. Alas! that the interior should be a very _inferno_; in the library are a.s.sembled the family, for a family talk.

Miss Villiers, to whom did we not give precedence, would trample on some one to gain first place. Timothy Stone, her maternal uncle, and Elizabeth Stone, his sister and Aunt to Miss Villiers; the latter by sheer strength of will, since her babyhood, has ruled at Broadlawns, even though, owing to disastrous speculation, the whole family were penniless, save for the large fortune of her step-mother, Miss Villiers lived for, moved and had her being for kingdom. Intensely selfish, and totally devoid of feeling, an apt pupil of her aunt and uncle, she regards all sentiment, romance or disinterested acts of kindness as mawkish, unpractical foolishness.

A word of her looks. In height, five feet two, round shoulders slightly high, thin spare figure, a brunette in coloring; stony eyes of piercing blackness, always cold and searching as though planted closely in the forehead to read one through, as to whether any of her dark secrets have been discovered; a hook nose, thin, determined lips; hair black as the wing of a raven; the back of her head covered with short, snake-like curls, the front was drawn back in straight bands, thus giving prominence to features already too uncla.s.sically so.

As far as a man can be said to resemble a woman, so did, in looks and character, Timothy Stone his niece, save that his once coal-black hair is now white; his fishy eyes sunken, though keen as a razor; in height, five feet ten; of spare, alert figure, active as a prize racer, knowing as the jockey who rides him.

Elizabeth Stone is an older counter-part of her niece, save that she wears that fashionable mantle of to-day--the cloak of religion, in which, unlike her brother, she is so comfortable as never to allow it to fall from her angular shoulders.

The library, an old-fashioned, cold looking room, furnished in black oak, everything being in spotless order, from books biblical and secular, to Aunt Elizabeth's hands, folded just so on her stiff gown of black silk, as to cause one to long for _deshabille_ somewhere other than in the principles of those present.

"The only one whom we have to fear is Sarah Kane, and you, Margaret, _will_ keep her about the place in spite of all I can say," said her uncle, in crabbed tones; "mark my words, you are housing a rod for your own back by your abominable self-will."

"I am no fool; did I dismiss her I should convert her into a deadly enemy at once; but, as I have before had occasion to remark, Uncle Timothy, that, thanks to your tuition and blood, I am quite able to take care of myself, and minus your interference."

"Don't squabble with her, Timothy, when the man Providence is sending her as a husband may be in our midst at any moment; as you heard at the hotel, he is now in the city."

"Oh bosh, Elizabeth, keep that tone under your church hymnal, as I do; between ourselves it is slightly out of place," and he smiled sarcastically.

"No, Timothy, in spite of the sinful example you set me, I shall keep my lamp trimmed and burning; providence is very good to us in laying low of fever, at Montreal, Hugh Babbington-Cole, thus giving him time to repent, as also preventing his presence at the wedding of Margaret."

"At which you have been making mountains of mole hills," said her brother, grimly. "Babbington-Cole could not possibly remember what Margaret and Pearl looked like in eighteen-seventy."

"Your memory is as usual convenient, Timothy, relentless time would have shown him the difference in years, of a girl just of age, and a woman of thirty-nine."

"Enough, Aunt Elizabeth," interrupted her niece, pale with rage, "I simply won't allow you to allude to the subject of ages; if I am to play the role of twenty-one, the sooner I get into the part the better for us all; we all serve our own ends in this game, self-interest is, and ever has been, our strongest motive. For myself, I hate Pearl Villiers as I hated my step-mother before her, and I shall not willingly leave Broadlawns merely because we have no income to keep it up, when, by personating my step-sister--fortunately of my own Christian, as well as surname, thanks to the British habit of perpetuating family names--I gain the wherewithal to either remain in this peaceful English home,"

she said, ironically, "or roam across seas with the husband or crank I am about to wed--a crank! to revolve the wheels of fortune, while I leave you both here like a pair of cooing doves. You, Aunt Elizabeth, gain your revenge on Mr. Babbington-Cole for his preference for my step-mother to yourself; oh, you needn't wince, my ears have been put to their proper use. You, Uncle, were spurned by my angel step-mother, you, pining not for her, but her yellow sovereigns, so...."

"You are a witch, Margaret; how the d----l did you find it out?"