She and I | Page 9

call up old scenes and circumstances to your memory? To this day,
the mere sight of a fuchsia will bring back to my mind Lady Dasher's
little drawing-room; and I can fancy myself sitting in the old easy-
chair by the window, and listening to that morbid lady's chit-chat.
Presently my lady came in, pale and melancholy, as usual, and with her
normal expression of acutest woe.
"Dear me, Mr Lorton! how very ill you are looking, to be sure. Is there
not consumption in your family?"
"Not that I'm aware of, Lady Dasher, thank you," I replied; "but how
well you are looking, if one may judge by appearances."
"Ah!" she sighed with deep sadness, "appearances, my young friend,
are very deceptive. I am not well--far from it, in fact. I believe, Mr
Lorton, that I am fast hastening to that bourne from whence no traveller
ever returns. I would not be at all surprised to wake up some morning
and find that I was dead!"
"Indeed!" I said, for the fact she hinted at would have been somewhat
astonishing to a weak-minded person. I then tried to change the
conversation from this sombre subject to one I had more at heart; but it
was very hard to lead her on the track I wished. "We had a good
congregation to-day, Lady Dasher, I think," said I; "the church seemed
to be quite crammed."
"Really, now; do you think so? I did not consider it at all a large
gathering. When poor dear papa was alive, I've seen twice the number
there, I am certain. You may say that the falling off is due to the hot
weather and people going out of town, but I think it is owing to the
spread of unbelief. We are living in terrible times, Mr Lorton. It seems
to me that every one is becoming more atheistic and wicked every day.
I don't know what we shall come to, unless we have another deluge, or
something of that sort, to recall us to our senses!"
Fortunately at this juncture, before Lady Dasher, could get into full

swing on her favourite theological hobby-horse--the degeneracy of the
present age--Bessie and Seraphine entered the room. The conversation
then became a trifle livelier, and we discussed the weather, the fashions,
and various items of clerical gossip.
I discreetly asked if they had seen any new faces in church. But no;
neither of them had, it was evident, seen my ladies in half-mourning,
about whom I was diffident of inquiring directly.
Were any fresh people coming to reside in the neighbourhood that they
had heard of?
"No," said Lady Dasher, with a melancholy shake of her head. "No;
how should they? It is not very likely that any new residents would
come here! The place may suit poor people like me, but would not take
the fancy of persons having plenty of money to spend, who can select a
house where they like. Ah! the miseries of poverty, Mr Lorton, and to
be poor but proud! I hope you will never have my bitter experience, I'm
sure!"--with another sad shake of her head, and an expression on her
face that she was pretty certain that I would one day arrive at the same
hollow estimate of life as herself. "No," she continued, "no new people
are at all likely to come here. I saw Mr Shuffler yesterday, and asked if
that house which he has to let in The Terrace were yet taken, but he
said, `not that he knew of;' he had `heard of nobody coming'--had I? I
assure you he was quite impertinent about it. He would not have
spoken to me so uncivilly had poor dear papa been alive, I know! But it
is always the way with that class of people:--they only look upon you
in the light of how much you are worth!"
"Oh, ma!" said Bessie Dasher, "I think Mr Shuffler very civil and polite.
He always makes me quite a low bow whenever he sees me."
"Ah! my dear," said her mother, "that's because you are young and
pretty, as I was once. He never bows to me as he used to do when your
grandpapa lived."
After a little more harping on the same string, the conversation drooped;
and, as none of them could give me any further information towards

assisting my quest, I took my leave of Lady Dasher and her daughters,
in a much less buoyant frame of mind than when I had first thought of
my visit an hour or so previously.
I had made certain that they would know something of the mysterious
ladies in half-mourning; consequently, I was all the more disappointed.
However, they had given me one hint; I would ask Shuffler himself, on
the