Page:The Smart Set (Volume 1).djvu/448

116 world odorous with the breath of sulphur-tinted primroses peeping forth from hedgerow and coppice; a world of hedges white with May, of purple moors, and hillsides yellow with the golden blossoms of the gorse; a world sweet with the voice of the rising lark and of the cuckoo calling all day long from the blossoming orchards of early Spring, and of the nightingale breaking its heart in the coverts.

But it is a queer world, because, until we near the end of the book, everything goes wrong. The machinery runs only with continual jars and hitches, and one breakdown is no sooner repaired than another much worse occurs. All of a sudden, apparently for no better reason than that there are only a few pages of the book left to read, the heroine begins to talk; the members of her family who have not died begin to pass the crisis safely; her brother begins to reform; the family fortunes begin to mend; everybody in the book, old or young, rich or poor, bachelor, spinster or widow, is married off; the heroine's absent lover comes home an earl, although three lives stood between him and the title when he went away; and so the heroine herself goes happily to church, and is at last settled in life.

A queer world. But who would have it different?

HE HUSBAND—My dear, I hear that Mr. Highflyer is flirting with you.

—Well, what of it?

—Oh, nothing. Only, when he gets tired of it, don't come to me and expect to be sympathized with.