Page:A Legend of Camelot, Pictures and Poems, etc. George du Maurier, 1898.djvu/189

 falter in his just intent, and be foiled of his own set purpose at the eleventh hour!

For lo! he sinks him on his bended knee, and respectfully ventures to intercede on behalf of his most unhappy young friend, Mrs. John Spratt; he pleads her youth, her inexperience, the blindness of a silly, fatuous husband, the glittering baits and lures of a heartless, hollow world. He furthermore points out that the natural consequences of such a career as hers, if duly set forth, would quite too awfully harrow his gentle readers' feelings, and might very possibly, moreover, prove unfit for publication in his light and innocent page!

And behold! the generous plea prevails, and Poetical Justice, that greatest of all the Great Unpaid, tempers herself with mercy, and "sheathes her flaming brand!"

The Spratts are now comfortably settled at Acacia Lodge, a trim, well-built modern suburban residence, semi-detached, with gas and water laid on, Tobin's ventilators, Morris's papers, bath-room, scullery, lawn, summer-house, and all the latest improvements!

Truly, our heaviest troubles are often our best friends, and we ought to make a good deal more of them than we generally do. At all events, Jack's failure proved a very good friend to Jack; for it not only brought home to him, before it was too late, the fact that he was no genius, and that his early success had been a fluke, and that his twopenny-halfpenny Art was but "the milder echo of an echo mild;" but it also brought his grandfather to his side again, and the fatted calf was killed, and the reconciliation complete.

Now, this facetious old Philistine, who was over ninety, had taken it into his head that his was a critical time of life, and that he required, for a few years at least, some rest from the cares of his trade; and it was arranged that the emporium in St. Mary Axe (a very genteel and snug little business) should be managed by Jack, whose property it would eventually become; and that Spratt Senior should spend the remainder of his days in peace under the same roof as his grand- and great-grandchildren, and be the object of their loving care as long as it should please Heaven to spare him.

Mrs. Spratt, a wiser, if not a sadder woman, is once more the brightest ornament of her home; her locks have grown again in all their sable splendour, the roses and lilies are blooming once more in her cheeks, and she is as plump and hearty as when she used to darn the family socks, ever so many months ago. It is once more to darn the family socks (she says) that she has given up the hollow world; but this must be taken figuratively, for there is always an unlimited supply of those useful articles from St. Mary Axe.

She has exchanged her spinning-wheel for a sewing-machine, and her skipping-rope for a lawn-tennis racket, which she plies with unerring grace and precision. And if she still reads the old tales of chivalry aloud, it is only for the benefit of the twins, who are just rising five, and therefore of an age most keenly to appreciate those beautiful legends.

She dresses just like any of her neighbours, only better, and her stately beauty is much admired. Indeed, when she walks (no longer mobbed) with her ruddy children (no longer quaint and old-fashioned) in the Zoological Gardens, and Spratt Senior, that nice, clean, respectable old gentleman, leaning on her arm, they form a picture of English middle-class domestic felicity which it does the intelligent foreigner good to see.

She never alludes to the hollow world but to speak of the folly of its men and the vanity of its women in terms of scorn and detestation, untinged, let us hope, with either envy or regret; and if she does take in the fashionable prints, it is only for the sake of their political opinions, and the graces of their literary style.

And she has always a bright smile for Jack when he comes home from business; and he is never without some elegant little article in the way of underclothing, bright-coloured and of delicate texture, either for the twins or herself. 88