BLACK SHEEP!

By THE AUTHOR OF "LAND AT LAST," "KISSING THE ROD,"
&c. &c.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER XI. ANOTHER RECOGNITION.

THE same day which had witnessed the departure
from Homburg of Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers,
and the commencement of the journey which
had London for its destination, beheld that city
in an unusually agreeable aspect in point of
weather. The sun was warm and bright; the
sadness and sweetness of autumn filled the air,
and lent their poetical charm to the prosaic
streets, and impressed themselves sensibly and
unacknowledged upon the prosaic dwellers
therein. People who had no business or
pleasure, or combination of both, to call them
abroad, went out on that day, and rode or drove,
or walked, because the rare beauty and charm
of the day imperatively required such homage.
Women and children were out in the Parks, and,
but for the fallen leaves upon the ground, and
the peculiar sigh which made itself heard now
and again among the trees—a sound which the ear
that has once learned to distinguish it never
fails to catch when the summer is dead—the
summer might be supposed to be still living.

The brightest thoroughfare in London,
Piccadilly, was looking very bright that autumn
day, with all the windows of the few houses
which can lay claim to anything of the beauty
of grandeur glittering in the sun, and an
astounding display of carriages, considering the
season, enlivening the broad sloping road. The
Green Park was dotted over with groups of
people, as in the summer-time, and along the
broad path beyond the iron railings, solitary
pedestrians walked or loitered, unmolested by
weather, just as it suited their fancy. The few
and far-between benches had their occupants, of
whom some had books, some cigars, and some
babies. Perambulators were not wanting, neither
were irascible elderly gentlemen to swear at
them. It was happily too hot for hoops.

This exceptional day was at its best and
brightest when Harriet Routh came down the
street in which she lived, crossed Piccadilly, and
entered the Park. She was, as usual, very
plainly dressed, and her manner had lost none
of its ordinary quietude. Nevertheless, a close
observer would have seen that she looked and
breathed like a person in need of free fresh air,
of movement, of freedom; that though the
scene, the place in which she found herself, was
indifferent to her, perhaps wholly unobserved
by her, the influence upon her physical condition
was salutary. She did not cross the grass,
but walked slowly, and with her eyes turned
earthwards, along the broad path near the railings.
Occasionally she looked up, and lifted
her head, as if to inhale as much as possible of
the fresh air, then fell into her former attitude
again, and continued her walk. Her face
bore an expression of intense thought—the look
of one who had brought a subject out with her
in her mind, which subject she was resolved to
think out, to look at in every aspect, to bring
to a final decision. She kept a straight, clear
course in her walk, looking neither to the right
nor to the left, pondering deeply, as might have
been seen by the steady tension of her low
white forehead and the firm set of her lips.
At last she paused, when she had traversed the
entire length of the walk several times, and
looked about her for an unoccupied seat. She
descried one, with no nearer neighbour than
the figure of a boy, not exactly ragged, but very
shabby, extended on the grass beside it, resting
on his elbows, with a fur cap pulled down over
his eyes, leaving the greater portion of a tangled
head exposed to view, and a penny illustrated
journal, whose contents, judging by the intentness
with which he was devouring them, must
have been of a highly sensational character,
stretched out on the ground before him. Harriet
took no notice of the boy, nor did he perceive
her, when she seated herself on the bench by
which he lay. She sat down noiselessly, folded her
hands, and let her head fall forward, looking
out with the distant absorbed gaze which had
become habitual to her. She sat very still, and never
for a moment did the purpose in her face relax.
She was thinking, she was not dreaming.

After a while, she looked at her watch, and
rose. At the first step which she made on the
grass, and towards the railings, her silk dress
rustled over the outspread paper from which the
boy was reading. She looked down,
apologetically; the boy looked up angrily, and then
Mr. James Swain jumped up, and made the
movement which in his code of manners passed
for a bow to Harriet.

"Ah, is it you, Jim?" she said. "Are you
not busy to-day?"