A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

"I cannot understand it," said the duke. "During her first year in society she seemed animated and interested. I believe I even once spoke sharply to her for dancing twice with Captain Rodney Alnwick."

"You were quite right," said the duchess. "I spoke to her myself about him. He was entirely ineligible in every particular. But that all passed by. I thought she liked him a little, and I was glad when he exchanged his regiment and went off to India. A ne'er-do-well family, if an old one."

"We must bring together the best partis," said the duke, "and she may fancy some one. I long to see her settled, and to have grandchildren about me."

The guests came; and among them, calm, gracious, lovely, went Lady Estelle, untouched by adoration, a goddess moving in a nimbus of her own impregnable repose.

There was a dinner-party given for the Bishop of Lansdown, and, as usual, the bishop was full of stories, and told them well.

"I remember," said Lady Estelle, "before we went abroad, you told me some story that interested me – something about a child – "

"No doubt – about the child left at Mark Brace's door."

"Perhaps that might be it. I suppose it has been claimed."

"Not at all. Mark has it yet, and shows himself a most honest man in his care of it."

"Ah! In what way?"

"He not only adores the child, but he rears it delicately, and he means to educate her."

"Yes? And can one be educated at Brakebury?" said the soft, caressing, languid, scarcely interested voice.

"The child is very young yet. She goes in a little donkey-carriage to a really nice little school, kept by two ladies in reduced circumstances. When she gets too old for that school, Mark means to find a better one for her."

"Quite thoughtful of him; and the child is pretty?"

"More pretty than I can tell you. I am sure she is nobly born. I saw her after service the day I held confirmation."

"And her parents have never been found?" asked the duchess.

"No; and surely never will be. Great care has been taken to secure secrecy, and Mark feels bound to maintain it."

"I do not know but it may be quite as well," said her grace; and then dinner was announced.

CHAPTER V

"I WANT TO BE JUST LIKE YOU."

"My dear Estelle," said the Duchess of Downsbury, "I had hoped that with returning health you would have more earnestness and animation – be more like your early self."

"Possibly my early self was a great simpleton, mamma, and as for animation, most girls are overdoing that. Calmness, what you call indifference, may be my style. Don't you think people like it, mamma?"

"Your style is simply perfection," said her grace, "and there are two or three eligible men here just now who plainly think so; if you could only give them a little encouragement."

"I'm quite sick of eligible men, mamma. Is it ten or a dozen that I have 'declined with thanks?' I do not give them encouragement because they offer themselves soon enough without it. They don't interest me."

"And what will interest you?" asked the perplexed duchess.

Lady Estelle waved to and fro, in a meditative manner, her feather fan, as if considering what she could desire.

"I believe, now I think of it, it would interest me to go and see that child the Bishop of Lansdown told us of."

"My dear, that is not a nice story at all. It is suspicious."

"But the Braces are very proper people, and the child may be a very nice child. Brakebury village belongs to us, and I think I never was there. In fact, I have never been over half our estate, nor do I know any of our people."

"It is hardly necessary that you should, Estelle."

"Because I am not a son and heir, mamma, that is not my fault. I think I should rather have been a boy than a girl. As a boy I might have found something to interest me."

She was relapsing into indifference.

"We will go and see the child by all means," said the duchess, hastily. "To-morrow at eleven the carriage shall be ready, and your father will accompany us; he wishes to look over the estate a little."

At noon next day the ducal party were whirling over the broad, level Downsbury roads toward the home of honest Mark Brace, who, all unconscious of coming honor drove his team afield, while Patty guided her household affairs in their usual shining order.

It was Saturday and there was no school for the little ones. Mattie, in brown linen dress, was trotting about after her mother, helping here and there, active and useful. Little Beauty was making bouquets for herself; dressed in white, because white she would wear continually, and decorated with a sash and shoulder knots; and deprived of these ornaments she shrieked vigorously.

"And this," said Lady Estelle, as they drove up, "is Brackenside. I did not know it was so pretty. A fit place for a romance."

Honest Mark, abashed but happy, was anything but a hero of romance as he came up to greet his duke.

"Good-morning, Mr. Brace," said the duchess, frankly. "We have heard so much of your little foster-child, your fairy changeling, that we drove over to hear her story and to see her. We would like, also, to see your wife and your own little girl."

Mark Brace told the story in his matter-of-fact way, as he ushered the guests in the seldom-used parlor, the pride of Patty's soul.

"It is not half so romantic a story as I thought," yawned Lady Estelle; "but let us see the child since we are here."

Mark withdrew to summon his family.

"Goodness, mamma!" drawled Estelle, "what a stiff, hideous place; framed samplers and horsehair chairs. I should die of it. It is well we are not all born alike."

She lost herself in contemplation of a tall, eight-day clock.

Enter Mark, leading Mattie, and Mrs. Brace carrying the golden-haired mystery.

The child was beautiful as our dreams of angels. One small hand rested on Patty's shoulder, the other hung in a graceful curve; her large, clear, smiling eyes met her august guests, sweet and unabashed. The duchess raised her hands.

"She is perfectly angelic!"

"A true fairy," said the duke, taking the child from Patty, and standing her, as a thing to be admired, on the table.

"What is your name, my dear?"

"Doris," said the child, with a gracious little inclination of the head, extending her hand with ease, as if she had now found suitable acquaintances.

Fair, pearly fair, her cheeks and lips mantled with the dainty bloom of the wild rose; her hair like spun gold, flowing over her molded shoulders; her eyes large, shining as stars under dark brows and lashes, fearless, free, not a trace of rustic embarrassment; taper fingers, ears like small pink shells, true child of the nobles, set now among her peers.