Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/250

Rh egg. The house and garden was too small to make money out of: but at once, almost, Cedar Court loomed on a not distant horizon. Jane tumbled downstairs: but she, so to speak, tumbled into possession of the garden room.

They could not afford an expert gardener and bailiff: and Destiny took them to Madame Tussauds, and behold, embodied in Mr. Dix, the perfect bailiff and gardener. Old Mr. Rochester threatened to become an embarrassment: and at once he retired to Thibet.

They had no servant really attached to their interests: but before they had time to feel this deeply, behold Gladys. They desired competent servants: and Forbes and Stanley were added to their staff. Mrs. Adela Dadd happened: but then so, directly afterwards, did Mrs. Doveton. The three greedy sisters went away without paying: but they were succeeded by the Thorntons and by Mr. Tombs, who did pay.

This sort of luck does, beyond doubt, attend on some people, and it transcends all other blessings. That is why we say, "It is better to be lucky than rich." Cæsar had this sort of luck; Napoleon had it; Jane and Lucy had it. But this sort of luck is a bridge that sooner or later gives way. Napoleon met Blucher at Waterloo; Cæsar, even at the base of Pompey's statue, met a greater than Blucher; and Jane and Lucy felt, almost from the first, that in Miss Antrobus they had met a personality that, as gipsies would say, "crossed their luck."

A vague but undeniable sense of uneasiness persisted in and through and under and over the pleasant days that now followed each other at Cedar Court. It was not a strong feeling, not an overpowering discomfort; it did not destroy pleasure, but it leavened it. Quietly, persistently, unceasingly it bored its way into everything. It was like a slight toothache which the will may decide to ignore but which goes on all the same in that hinterland of the subconscious where the will has no sovereignty.

The thing could not be put into words. It was as elusive as a bird's song or a flower-scent. All you could say about it