TWO STRANGERS
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
NEW YORK
R. F. FENNO AND COMPANY
112 FIFTH AVENUE
{6}
Copyright, 1895
R. F. FENNO AND COMPANY
| CHAPTER I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX. |
CHAPTER I.
“And who is this young widow of yours whom I hear so much about? Iunderstand Lucy’s rapture over any stranger; but you, too, mother—”
“I too—well, there is no particular witchcraft about it; a nice youngwoman has as much chance with me as with any one, Ralph—”
“Oh, if it’s only a nice young woman—”
“It’s a great deal more,” said Lucy. “Why, Miss Jones at the school is anice young woman—don’t you be taken in by mother’s old-fashionedstilts. She is a darling—she is as nice as nice can be. She’s pretty,and she’s good, and she’s clever. She has read a lot, and seen a lot,and been everywhere, and knows heaps and heaps of people, and yet justas simple and as nice as if she had{8} never been married, never had ababy, and was just a girl like the rest of us—Mother! there is nothingwrong in what I said?” Lucy suddenly cried, stopping short and blushingall over with the innocent alarm of a youthfulness which had not beentrained to modern modes of speech.
“Nothing wrong, certainly,” said the mother, with a half smile;“but—there is no need for entering into all these details.”
“They would have found out immediately, though,” said Lucy, with alowered voice, “that there was—Tiny, you know.”
The scene was a drawing-room in a country house looking out upon whatwas at this time of year the rather damp and depressing prospect of apark, with some fine trees and a great breadth of very green, verymossy, very wet grass. It was only October, though the end of the month;and in the middle of the day, in the sunshine, the trees, in all theirvaried colors, were a fine sight, cheerful and almost exhilarating,beguiling the eye; but now the sun was gone, the leaves were falling inlittle showers whenever the faintest breath{9} of air arose, and where thegreen turf was not veiled by their many colored remnants, it was greenwith that emerald hue which means only wet; one knew as one gazed acrossit that one’s foot would sink in the spongy surface, and wet, wet wouldbe the boot, the skirt which touched it; the men in theirknickerbockers, or those carefully turned up trousers—which we hear arethe fashion in the dryest streets of Paris and New York—suffere