71

My Coal-Black Beard.

BY PERCY FITZGERALD.

I Do not recall a greater surprise than when one evening, on the grand stair of the Grand Hotel at Pumpington-on-Sea, where even the guests feel grand, I encountered that little, graceful, sprightly and sparkling figure. A snatch of her laughter, spontaneous as a bird's chirrup, had startled me, even before I had seen the figure, like some tune long unheard, and which we have often vainly striven to recover. The next moment the delicate transparency of the cheeks was glowing with a shell-like pink, simply from the unexpectedness of the meeting. Never was seen so petite and graceful and perfectly shaped a little creature. On both sides there was confusion as well as surprise, and certainly pleasure. Contrast there certainly was, as one of the meeters was tall, broad, and decorated with a coal-black magnificent beard, which the owner flattered himself was the admiration of all who saw it. A truly remarkable adornment; which, were there competitors for such things, would certainly take, or would have taken, the large gold medal. For alas, it is no longer in being! Cutting down a beard is like cutting down a tree.

I must confess that it was the charming Dorinda that first put me in conceit with this adornment, and I noticed her soft eyes often settled on it with an expression half of wonder, and half of admiration. My beautiful coal-black beard' she called it; with a pardonable anticipation of possession. I had never been compli mented on the adornment before, and indeed noticed that rather attracted hostile glances from those of my own sex. Was it surprising, then, that something of PRIDE began to take possession of me, in connection with this adornment, akin to the feeling with which the Chinaman or Tartar regards his tail?

Now, between this sweet little being and the owner of the beard there had been, some five years before, quite a romance. The scene had been a country house, where we had been on a visit for more than a month, and where at the end of the period things had, as it were, come to a crisis, and we found that we were made for each other. In short, we were ready to put out to sea in what was no more than a little punt, without provisions or even a stock of clothes, and with nothing but love on board. All this was settled,

as far as we were concerned, the punt ready,-when the next unexpected step in the transaction was a letter from a guardian whom we had both forgotten, written in the most insulting terms, and dated from foreign parts, whither he had at once carried his ward. From her too came a little letter of a rueful kind, accepting the situation under pressure of force majeure. The guardian, according to report, was a Quilp-like personage, of a raging temper, and the little lady might as well resist an ogre. So there it all ended for ever!' that is, for five years, until, as I have said, the Grand Pumpington Hotel brought us together.

Need I say what followed? She was there with a mature female friend. Kindly but stupid, she would have been a nuisance to others under other conditions. But I found myself regarding her tenderly, much as a lad from school regards the fairy queen in spangles on the stage. As a matter of course, the amiable little boy-god brought his bellows to work on the smouldering embers, and, in the three blissful weeks that followed, blew them up into a roaring flame. She was indeed a tempting and irresistible little personage, full of what in another would be called romance, but which with her was reality; a steady purpose and firmness surprising in one so young, but overlaid with colour and gilding, and looking every bit as well as romance. There was in her too a little air of old fashion or rather quaintness, to which corresponded her name, which was Dorinda-Dorinda Robinson; and here she was now at the hotel whither she had been sent, with her maid, for the sea-bathing. It was perhaps scarcely fair, under these unprotected circumstances, to renew the old state of things; but for the young there is no logic, and the little gentleman with the bellows was blowing hard all the time; so very soon matters were restored to the status quo ante, as diplomatists call it, of five years before, and this without the slightest apprehension of difficulties being in the way. That was taking the worst side, but the charming Dorinda had great confidence in herself. She would get the ferocious guardian into good-humour, and then coax him out of a consent. But it was a delicate matter. It was his way, his peculiar way, that if he took the slightest offence, or was in any way 'put out' by a particular person, nothing would ever bring him round;' so we must take care. Of course there are many people who are affected in the same way, and do not forgive being put out;' but he was invariable in his conduct, and never was known to forgive the party who put him out.'

Thus we lived on in our Fool's Paradise, when it came to pass that on a little festival, the bewitching Dorinda's birthday, I had set off by the railway to the big town, about ten miles away,