Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/97

went on, and every year he grew a little more dry, and precise, and rich, and increased in goods, and his wife became more blooming, more animated, and more sought after. They had no children, and no angel either of life or death came down to trouble the pool, with healing on his wings.

The Austins had a pretty seaside cottage near their relations in Green Street, and coming down to it one Saturday of torrid summer, they found the little place immensely interested about the two ladies who had taken Carr’s corner at the North End. As to Mrs. Damon, she was easily classified. Was not her name written in the sacred books of Debrett? Her husband was a naval officer of distinction; her sister was married to the heir of a dukedom; there was a large fortune coming to them some day, and they always travelled with two servants—a married couple, the man acting as butler, and the wife as lady’s maid and superintendent of the nursery. All this information Green Street possessed as if by instinct, and was quite prepared to admire and even idolize Mrs. Damon as far as she would allow it. It was true that Clare did not altogether look like the ideal daughter of a hundred earls as she pottered about the beach after her children in a waterproof perfectly green with