WRECKED IN PORT.

A SERIAL STORY BY THE AUTHOR OF "BLACK SHEEP."

BOOK II.

CHAPTER XIII. CLOUDING OVER.

GERTRUDE CRESWELL was not wrong in
her supposition that Mr. Benthall intended
asking her to become his wife. It is not
often that mistakes are made in such
matters, despite all we read of disappointed
maidens and blighted hopes. Life is so
very practical in this portion of the
nineteenth century that, except in very rare
cases, even love affairs scarcely care to avail
themselves of a halo of romance, of that
veil of mystery and secrecy which used to
be half the charm of the affair. "The bashful
virgin's sidelong looks of love" are now
never seen, in anything like good society,
where the intention of two young persons
to marry is stated as soon as—sometimes
before—they have met, and the
"understanding" between them is fully recognised
by all their friends; while as to the
"matron's glance which would such looks
reprove," it is entirely obsolete, and never
brought into play, save when the bashful
virgins bend their sidelong looks of love on
good-looking young paupers in the government
offices or the army—a proceeding
which it is but fair to say the bashful
virgins "of the period" very rarely indulge
in. Gertrude Creswell was as unlike a
"girl of the period," in the present
delightful acceptation of that phrase, as can
well be imagined—that is to say, she
was modest, frank, simple, honest, and
without guile; but she was a woman, and
she knew perfectly that she had engaged
George Benthall's attention and become the
object of his affection, although she had
had no previous experience in the matter.
They had lived such quiet lives, these
young ladies, and had slid so tranquilly
from the frilled-trouser-wearing and
les-graces-playing period of childhood to the
long skirts, croquet, and flirtation of
marriageable age, that they had hardly thought
of that largest component part of a girl's
day-dream, settling in life. There was
with them no trace of that direct and
unmistakable line of demarcation known as
"coming out," that  mountain-ridge
between the cold dreary Switzerland of
lessons, governesses, mid-day dinner,
back-board, piano practice, and early bed; and
the lovely glowing Italy of balls, bouquets,
cavaliers, croquet, Park, Row, crush-room,
country-house, French novel, and cotillon
at five A.M. So Gertrude had never had a
love affair of any kind before, but she was
very quiet about it, and restrained her
natural tendency to gush, principally for
Maud's sake. She thought it might seem
unkind in her to make a fuss, as she
described it, about her having a lover before
Maud, who was as yet unsuited with that
commodity. It puzzled Gertrude
immensely, this fact of her having proved
attractive to any one while Maud was by; she
was accustomed to think so much of her
elder sister, on whom she had endeavoured
to model herself to the best of her ability,
that she could not understand any one
taking notice of her while her sister was
present. Throughout her life, with her
father, with her mother, and now with her
uncle, Gertrude Creswell had always played
the inferior part to her sister; she was
always the humble confidante in white
muslin to Maud in Tilburina's white satin,
and in looks, manner, ability, or disposition,
was not imagined to be able to stand any
comparison with the elder girl.

But Mr. Benthall, preferring Gertrude,