Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/469

Rh "It seems a sin to encourage them," said Tubb.

"It does go against my conscience," agreed Mrs. Saltren.

"Then," argued the captain, "I wouldn't encourage them. Twopence and threepence in the pound is too much."

"I've a mind to return to the country," said Mrs. Saltren; "I don't want to encourage such wickedness."

"And then, ma'am, you can eat the trout fresh."

"Ah, captain! but the capital for pumping?"

Then Captain Tubb cautiously slid one arm round Mrs. Saltren's waist, and said—

"Come, Marianne, with your capital, away from the mutton of town to the trout of the country."

"I should like 'em fresh," said the widow. "We'll pump together for them."

The youthful romance-reader exacts of a novel some love-making, and, to satisfy this reader, I have given this pathetic and romantic scene in full. To this sort of reader, style is nothing, characterisation is nothing, the grammar is nothing—indeed the whole story is nothing if there be in it no love-making.

That is the spice which flavours the dish, and without it the dish is rejected as unpalatable.

To encourage this reader, accordingly, at the outset a chapter was devoted to love-making in tandem, and another to love-making abreast. Only one of those love-affairs has come to a happy conclusion; one was broken off by the breaking-down of Patience Kite's chimney. To make up to the reader for her disappointment, I have inserted this other love-scene, and have introduced it near the end of my book to stimulate the jaded appetite to finish it.

Is it false to nature? Only those will say so who are ignorant of country courtships. Oh, for a Dionysian ear through which to listen to—not the sighs of prisoners, but the coo