Book Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: St. James's Magazine. AUGUST, 1879. Hubert Maitlajvd's Wraith. A NOVEL. By FELIX HOLLAND. CHAPTER XVII. PHILIP OUT OF HIS ELEMENT. JHILIP arose and exchanged the troubled dreams -of night for those of day. The unrest which had seized on him was merging to despair. The exubera t gladness of Mr. Scroggs failed to cheer him, and escapii. from the house he found himself wandering under the elms of Kensington Gardens. All day long he remained there, sometimes lying listlessly on the grass, some4 s sauntering through the shady avenues, playing, with a poor forced smile, with the children who were about, or deciphering names which idiot youths had carved in the smooth bark of beeches twenty, forty, sixty years ago? names which ironic Nature had preserved longer than many a fashionable fame that dainty lips have bruited under their shadows. Sometimes a school-girl or governess would pass and glance shyly at the beautiful boy's face, he heeding them not. When evening came he returned to the Crown and Candle. He took down the violin, and played the dolefulest airs of a dozen doleful operas, and naturally failing to escape his distracting thoughts by such efforts, he again strolled out into the twilight. But there was no peace, the demon jealousy had seized on him, and he wandered up and down the road as aimless and restless as the first stray autumn leaves that rustled at his feet. VOL. XXXVI H Soon he was startled by the sound of approaching wheels, and, stepping aside, a light carriage whirled swiftly by, not so swiftly, however, but that he had time to recognize Emily Aldair. She greeted him with a sad sweet smile, and a little flutter of her tiny gloved hand, which the speed of the horses prevented his returning, and the next moment was far away in the twiligh...