28999	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 28999-h.htm or 28999-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28999/28999-h/28999-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28999/28999-h.zip) Transcriber's note: See the end of the text for a list of possible misprints in the original that have been changed. DAISY'S AUNT by E. F. BENSON Thomas Nelson and Sons London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Leeds, and New York Leipzig: 35-37 Konigstrasse. Paris: 61 Rue des Saints Peres. First Published May 1910. +--------------------------------------+ | | | _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ | | | | THE | | PRINCESS SOPHIA | | | | Price 7d. net | | | | In this work faithful realism | | and a true vein of poetic romance | | are subtly blended. | | | +--------------------------------------+ CONTENTS Chapter I. 7 Chapter II. 27 Chapter III. 42 Chapter IV. 56 Chapter V. 70 Chapter VI. 79 Chapter VII. 95 Chapter VIII. 110 Chapter IX. 118 Chapter X. 147 Chapter XI. 165 Chapter XII. 182 Chapter XIII. 197 Chapter XIV. 215 Chapter XV. 227 Chapter XVI. 240 Chapter XVII. 247 Chapter XVIII. 263 Chapter XIX. 277 Chapter XX. 286 Chapter XXI. 293 Chapter XXII. 308 Chapter XXIII. 320 Chapter XXIV. 333 Chapter XXV. 344 Chapter XXVI. 357 Chapter XXVII. 365 DAISY'S AUNT. CHAPTER I. Daisy Hanbury poked her parasol between the bars of the cage, with the amiable intention of scratching the tiger's back. The tiger could not be expected to know this all by himself, and so he savagely bit the end of it off, with diabolical snarlings. Daisy turned to her cousin with a glow of sympathetic pleasure. "What a darling!" she said. "He didn't understand, you see, and was perfectly furious. And it cost pounds and pounds, and I've spent all my allowance, and so I can't buy another, and my complexion will go to the dogs. Let's go there, too; the dingoes are absolutely fascinating. We'll come back to see these angels fed." Gladys laughed. "Daisy, you have got the most admirable temper," she said. "I should have called that brute any names except 'darling' and 'angel.'" "I know you would, because you don't understand either it or me. I understand both perfectly. You see, you don't love fierce wild things--things that are wicked and angry, and, above all, natural. I don't mind good, sweet, gentle things, like--oh, like almost everybody, if only they are sweet and good naturally. But generally they are not. Their sweetness is the result of education or morality, or something tedious, not the result of their natures, of themselves. Oh, I know all about it! Gladys, this parasol is beyond hope. Let's conceal it in the bushes like a corpse." Daisy looked round with a wild and suspicious eye. "There's a policeman," she said. "I'm sure he'll think that I have murdered my own parasol. Oh, kind Mr. Policeman--there, that softened him, and he's looking the other way." Gladys gave a little shriek of dismay as Daisy thrust her parasol into a laurustinus. "Oh! but the handle, and the ribs!" she cried. "It only wanted a new point, and--and to be recovered. Daisy, I never saw such extravagance. You mustn't leave it. I'll have it done up for you." "That's angelic of you," said Daisy; "but will you carry it for me in the meantime? It's that that matters. I couldn't be seen going about even at the Zoo with a parasol in that condition. I should have to explain to everybody exactly how it happened, which would take time." "But of course I'll carry it for you," said Gladys. Daisy considered this noble offer. "It's quite too wonderful of you," she said, "but I don't think I could be seen with you if you were carrying it. No; come to the dogs. Oh, Gladys, you are sweet and good and gentle quite, quite naturally, and I adore you." The dingoes were rewarding, and Daisy instantly curried favour with their keeper, and learnt about their entrancing habits; afterwards the two went back to see the lions fed before leaving. The tiger which had ruined her parasol proved to have the most excellent appetite, which much relieved Daisy's mind, as she feared that the point, which he seemed to have completely eaten, might have spoilt his dinner. She hurried breathlessly down the line as the huge chops of raw meat were passed in and snatched up by the animals, absorbed and radiant. Gladys, as always, followed where the other led, but was conscious of qualms. These she concealed as best she could. "Oh, I want to say grace for them all," said Daisy at the end. "I _do_ hope they are pleased with their dinners. Are the keepers fair, do you think? There was a dreadful amount of bone in my parasol-tiger's dinner, if you understand. Gladys, I don't believe you loved it. How stupid of you! You don't quite understand; you don't know how nice it is to be greedy instead of gentle. Do try. Oh, no, let's go out by this gate." "But we shall have to walk miles before we get a cab," said Gladys. "I know; that's why. It will make us late for Aunt Alice's tea-party. I hate tea-parties." "But mother asked me to be back by five," said Gladys. "Did she? Did she really?" asked Daisy. "Indeed she did." "Oh, well, then of course we'll drive back, though I did want to walk. But it can't possibly be helped. We must drive. It is such a pity not to do as you are asked. I always do, except when Willie asks me to marry him." They got into their hansom and bowled silently down the dry grey road. All June was in flower in the pink pyramids of the chestnut-trees, and was already beginning to bleach the colour out of the long coarse grass in the open spaces of the Park. There swarms of girls and boys rioted ecstatically; here the more lucky, in possession of a battered bat and a ball begrimed with much honourable usage, had set up three crooked sticks to serve as wickets, and played with an enthusiasm that the conditions of the game might justly have rendered difficult of achievement. The one thing certain about the ball was that it would not come off the baked, uneven ground at the angle at which it might be expected. It might shoot, or on pitching might tower like a partridge, and any ball pitched off the wicket might easily take it; the only thing quite certain was that a straight ball (unless a full pitch) would not. Above, the thick dusky blue of a fine summer day in London formed a cloudless dome, where the sun still swung high on its westering course. In front of the distances that dusky pall was visible, and the houses at the edge of the Park were blurred in outline and made beautiful by the inimitable dinginess of the city. But Gladys had no eye for all this; she was burning to know what was the latest development in the Willie affair, but her whole-hearted affection for her cousin was a little touched by timidity, and she did not quite like to question her. For Daisy, in spite of her charm, was a little formidable at times; at times she would have moods of entrancing tenderness; she could comfort or appeal, just as she could take the most sympathetic pleasure in the fact that a fierce tiger was annoyed at her amiable intentions, and had spoilt her best parasol. But at other times there was something of the tiger in her--that, no doubt, was why she understood this one so well--which made Gladys a little shy of her. She had often, so to speak, bitten off the end of her cousin's parasol before now, and Gladys did not appreciate that as much as Daisy had just done. So in silence she looked a little sideways at that brilliant, vivid face, flushed with the swift blood of its twenty-two years, that looked so eagerly from its dark grey eyes on to the activity of the playing children. But silences were generally short when Daisy was present, and she proceeded to unfold herself with rapidity and all the naturalness of which she deplored the lack in the gentle, good people. "Oh! how they are enjoying themselves," she said, "with really no material at all. Gladys, think what a lot of material a person like me wants to make her enjoy herself! It really is shocking. My gracious, what an ugly child that is! Don't look at it; you never should look at ugly things--it's bad for the soul. Yes, I want such a lot to make me happy--all there is, in fact--and poor darling Willie hasn't got all there is. He's the sort of man I should like to marry when I am forty-three. Do you know what I mean? He would be quite charming if one were forty-three. He's quite charming now, if it comes to that, and I'm dreadfully fond of him, but he thinks about me too much; he's too devoted. I hear his devotion going on tick, tick, all the time, like the best clocks. That's one reason for not marrying him." "I don't think it's a good one, though," remarked Gladys. "Yes, it is. Because a man always expects from his wife what he gives her. He would be absolutely happy living with me on a desert island; but--I know it's true--he would tacitly require that I should be absolutely happy living with him on a desert island. Well, I shouldn't--I shouldn't--I shouldn't. I should not! Is that clear?" "Quite." "Very well, then, why did you say it wasn't? Oh, yes, I know I am right. And he would always see that I was well wrapped up, and wonder whether I wasn't a little pale. I can't bear that sort of thing. No doubt it's one way of love; but I must say I prefer another. I daresay the love that is founded on esteem and respect and affection is a very excellent thing, but it's one of those excellent things which I am quite willing to let other people have and enjoy. It's like--like Dresden china; I am sure it is quite beautiful, but I don't want any myself. I wish you would marry Willie yourself, darling. Don't mind me." They rattled out over the cobblestones of the gate into Baker Street, and plunged into the roaring traffic. Daisy had still a great deal to say, and she raised her voice to make it heard above the intolerable clatter of motor 'buses and the clip-clop of horses' hoofs. "Besides, as I said, I want such a lot of things. I'm hard and worldly and disgusting; but so it is. I want to be right at the top of the tree, and if I married Willie I should just be Mrs. Carton, with that decaying old place in Somerset; very nice and intensely respectable, but that's all. It's quite a good thing to be nice and respectable, but it's rather a vegetable thing to be, if you are nothing else. I must be an animal at least, and that's why I'm playing 'Animal Grab.'" Gladys looked--as was indeed the case--as if she did not quite understand this surprising statement. "I'm very slow, I know," she said, "but----" "Yes, darling, you are, but you do know what I mean, though you don't know you know it. I've often seen you wondering about it. Oh, that motor 'bus is going to run into us! It isn't; how can you be so nervous? It cleared us by at least a quarter of an inch. Yes, 'Animal Grab.' Now 'yes' or 'no,' do you know what I mean, or don't you?" Gladys trembled under these direct assaults. But she thought "yes" was more likely to be favourably received than "no," and so allowed herself to say "yes." But it proved to be a vain hope that Daisy would thereupon go on and explain. That was so like Daisy; she never did what you hoped or expected she might. Gladys on this occasion, with her pink, timorous face and general air of discouragement, prayed that Daisy might not trouble about her, but just go on talking. It is true that Daisy did talk next, but, instead of expounding, she rapped out a question. "So you do know," she said. "Then what is it?" Gladys shut her eyes for a moment to encourage bravery. "I suppose it means that you are thinking whether you will marry Lord Lindfield or not," she said. Daisy, however peremptory, was not a bully. "How did you guess that, dear?" she asked. "It wasn't very difficult. It couldn't have been, you see, or I shouldn't have guessed it. But he has been--well, a good deal interested in you, hasn't he, and you----" "Do you mean I've encouraged him?" asked Daisy, with an inquisitorial air. "No, I mean just the opposite. You've rather snubbed him." Gladys made a huge demand on her courage. "But you've snubbed him in such a way that it comes to the same thing as if you had encouraged him," she said. Daisy considered this. "I think you've got a horrid mind, Gladys," she said at length. "If I encourage somebody you tell me I am flirting, and if I discourage him you tell me it comes to the same thing. And you do me an injustice. I haven't snubbed or discouraged him. I've--I've remained neutral, until I could make up my mind. Do you think he cares for me? I really don't know whether he does or not. I can always tell with the gentle, good people like Willie, and it is gentle, good people whom I see most. Oh!" Daisy gave a great sigh, and leant out over the folded door of the hansom. "I'm not sure if I want to marry Lord Lindfield or not," she said, "but I'm perfectly certain that I don't want him to marry anybody else. I think I should like him always to remain wanting to marry me, while I didn't want to marry him. I'm dreadfully glad you think that I can snub or encourage him, because that means that you think he cares. I should be perfectly miserable if I thought he didn't." "I don't think you need be miserable," said Gladys. "I'm not. Oh, there's the Prime Minister; I shall bow. That was a failure. He looked at me like a fish. How rude the Cabinet makes people! The Cabinet always goes about with the British Empire pick-a-back. At least, it thinks the British Empire is pick-a-back. The Empire doesn't. About Lord Lindfield. He's turning grey over the temples, and I think that is so frightfully attractive. Of course, he's awfully old; he must be nearly forty. He's dining to-night, isn't he? Then I shall arrange the table. Yes, you needn't look like that. I shan't make him take me in. He's supposed to be wicked, too. Oh, Gladys, it is so nice if men go playing about, and then fall in love with me. It's worth heaps of the other kind. Oh, don't look shocked; it is silly to look shocked, and so easy." The hansom waited for a moment at the junction of Orchard Street and Oxford Street, and the innumerable company of locomotives sped by it. Motors shot by with a whirr and a bubbling, hansoms jingled westwards, large slow vans made deliberate progress, delaying the traffic as some half-built dam impedes the course of flowing water till it finds a way round it, and through the streams of wheels and horses pedestrians scuttled in and out like bolted rabbits. The whole tide of movement was at its height, and the little islands in mid-street were crowded with folk who were cut off, it would seem, by the rising flood-water from all communication with the shore, with but remote chance of escape. Then an omnipotent policeman stepped out into the surging traffic, held up a compelling and resistless hand, and at his gesture the tides, more obedient to him than to Canute, ceased to flow, and the cross-movement began, which permitted Daisy and her cousin to cross the stream. But whether it was that the stoppage in their passage made a corresponding halt in her thoughts, or whether, as was more likely, she had said all that she meant to say on the subject of Lord Lindfield, she began, just as they started to move again, on something widely different. "And Aunt Jeannie comes to-morrow," she said, "which is quite delightful. For I do believe I've missed her every single day since she went away a year ago. And if I do that, you may depend upon it that she is very nice indeed. As a rule, I like people very much when they are there, and I get along excellently without them when they are not." "Quite--quite true," said Gladys, with a touch of acidity. "It's much the most sensible plan," continued Daisy, perceiving, but completely ignoring, the tone. "It does no good to miss people, and, as I say, I seldom do it. But I always miss Aunt Jeannie. I should like to see her every day of my life. It would be dreadful to see most people every day, though I like them so much when I do see them. Oh, Gladys darling, don't look as if you were in church! You can't take things lightly, you know." "And you can't take them in any other way," remarked Gladys. "Oh, but I can; it is only that I don't usually choose to. It is a great blessing I don't take every one seriously. If I took Willie seriously, I should find him a great bore; as it is, I think he is quite charming, and I should certainly marry him if I were fifty." "It was forty-three just now," said Gladys. "Yes; but being with you has made me grow older very quickly," said Daisy. Gladys laughed; with Daisy it was very true that "c'est le ton qui fait la musique," and the same words which in another tone could have wounded her, now merely amused. It had taken her a long time to get used, so to speak, to this brilliant, vivid friend, who turned such an engaging smile on the world in general, and shone with supreme impartiality on the wicked and the good, and to know her, as she knew her now, with greater thoroughness than she knew herself. Ethically, if Gladys had been put to the question on her oath, she would have had to give the most unsatisfactory account of her friend, and, to sum up all questions in one, it would have come to this--that she believed Daisy to be quite heartless. But, humanly, there was in Daisy much to take the place of that profound organ. She had the joy of life and the interest in life to a supreme degree, and though she resolutely turned her back on anything disagreeable or ugly, her peremptory dismissal of such things was more than made up for by her unbounded welcome of all that pleased her. You had only to please her (and she was very ready to be pleased), and she poured sunlight on you. And Gladys, who was naturally rather shy, rather slow to make friends, rather reticent, soon grasped this essential fact about Daisy, and having grasped it, held tightly to it. She felt she would not readily go to Daisy if she was in trouble, but there was no one to whom she would hurry with such certainty of welcome if she was happy. And though, no doubt, sympathy, to be complete, must feel for sorrow as keenly as it feels for joy, yet a nature that feels keenly for joy and turns its back on sorrow is perhaps quite as fine a one as that which, though it may be an excellent comforter, is rather of the nature of a wet blanket when a happy soul appeals to it for sympathy. And on joy, whether her own or that of another, Daisy never turned her back. She delighted in the happiness of others. CHAPTER II. Daisy's father and mother had both died when she was quite young, and not yet half-way through the momentous teens. For seven years after that she had lived with her mother's sister, the inimitable Aunt Jeannie, whom she wished to see every day. But though she had passed seven years with her, she had barely seen her aunt's husband. It was his death, a year ago, that had sent her to the Nottinghams, for Aunt Jeannie in a crisis of nerves had been ordered abroad for a year, and was now on the point of return, and, having returned, was to stay with Lady Nottingham for the indefinite period which may be taken up by the finding of a suitable house. Daisy knew there had been trouble at the back of all this. Uncle Francis, Aunt Jeannie's husband, had been called an invalid, and she gathered that his ill-health was something not to be openly alluded to. Morphia was connected with it, a "habit" was connected with it, and since this was somehow disagreeable, she had long ago so successfully banished it from her thoughts that her curiosity about it was a thing without existence. Certainly he made Aunt Jeannie very unhappy, but Aunt Jeannie, who was such a dear, and so young still--not more than thirty, for she was the youngest of a family of whom Daisy's mother was the eldest--had been always sedulous to hide disquietude from her niece. And it was entirely characteristic of Daisy to be grateful for having it all hid from her, and not even in thought to conjecture what it was all about. During this year of separation from Aunt Jeannie, in which, as she had said (and Daisy, with all her faults and limitations, was a George Washington for truth), she had missed her every day, she had always looked forward to her return, and, though she liked being with Lady Nottingham very much, knew that she would ultimately go back to the unrivalled other aunt again with the intensest satisfaction. But of late the prospect of going back, or living with any aunt at all, had receded into at least a middle distance. There was no doubt in her own mind (though she liked the absence of doubt to be endorsed by her cousin) that Lord Lindfield had been extremely attentive to her for the last month or so. He had committed dreadful social crimes, such as throwing over an engagement already made and nearly due, when he found that she would be at some house to which he was subsequently invited. And somehow (that was the charm of him, or part or it), though he upset dinner-tables right and left, nobody really minded. Match-making London, which includes the larger part of that marriageable city, even when they were personally affronted and inconvenienced, smiled sympathetically when they heard what his movements on the night he ought to have dined with them had been. He did even worse than that; he had once, indeed, omitted to send the excuse of a subsequent engagement, and everybody had waited a quarter of an hour for him to put in a belated appearance. And when he did not his hostess had remarked that he must be "picking daisies," and the procession had gone dinner-wards with a widowed girl. It turned out to be true, did this conjecture of the hostess. He had dined "quietly" that night at Lady Nottingham's, and had played "old maid" afterwards, as bridge was universally voted to be far too intellectual. And Daisy took huge pleasure in such facts as these, stealthily conveyed to her by one if not more of her innumerable girl friends. For though there was no doubt that many dutiful mothers would have liked their daughters to marry Lord Lindfield, yet when he declared himself by signs as unmistakable as this, they neither felt nor communicated any ill-humour. He was picking daisies; very well, the sooner he plucked the particular one the better. Daisy was so pleasant; no wonder, after all, that he wished for her. And she too, quite soon, would join the ranks of the match-makers, and be immensely kind to everybody else. Yet if only Katie or Elsie or Nellie---- But it was no use thinking about that. Daisy, once settled, would certainly do her best for those to whom fortune must pay a "subsequent" visit. Lady Nottingham purred approval over the girls on their punctual return, before any of her guests had arrived. She was rather stout and very comfortable. Behind her stoutness and her comfort there beat a heart of gold, and an extremely acute brain, which was not always allowed for, was alert and watchful. A heart of gold is considered as not incompatible with comfort and stoutness, but nobody who had not come to grips with her, or been her ally in some affair that called for diplomacy or tact, knew how excessively efficient her brain was. She had, too, the supreme gift of only sending into action as much of it as was required to do the work, and never made elaborate plans when something simple would do as well. All this combined to make not only a character that was lovable, but a friend whose wisdom might be depended on, and Daisy was eminently right in valuing her aunt's counsel and advice. She sought it, indeed, this evening, in the quiet half-hour that intervened between the departure of the tea-party guests and the time when it was necessary to dress for dinner. Lady Nottingham was resting in her room when Daisy went to her, ostensibly (and quite truly) to get the list of those who were coming to dinner that night in order to arrange the table. But though she would have gone there in any case for that reason, another and far more essential one lay behind it. She wanted, indeed, to get her aunt's opinion on the point she had herself talked to Gladys about that afternoon, and sound her as to her opinion about Lord Lindfield. The sorting of people to see who would take whom in to dinner, with abstracted frownings over the map of the table, seemed to Daisy an admirable accompaniment for disjointed questions, and one which would give her an adventitious advantage, since at any moment she could be absorbed in the task she was so kindly occupying herself with, and be silent over it, if a reply was in any way inconvenient. This sort of diplomacy, though not exactly habitual with Daisy, seemed to her sufficiently acute and blinding, and she sat on the floor with a peerage, the list of the guests, a sheet of paper and a pencil, and began at once, while Lady Nottingham "rested" on the sofa against which Daisy leant her back. "Oh, what nice people!" said Daisy. "Can't they all take me in? Willie Carton, Jimmie, Lord Lindfield, Mr. Braithwaite, and Lord Pately. Dear Willie! I suppose he ought to take me in. Do you mind whether you sit at the end of the table or in the middle of the middle, Aunt Alice? Middle of the middle always works out more easily. All right. Dear Willie!" The diplomat, who is known to be a diplomat, is at once under a heavy handicap. Daisy was instantly detected, and Lady Nottingham, since there was no direct question to reply to, preserved silence. Then, after a sufficient pause, she asked,-- "Have you settled about Willie, dear?" "Ye-es. It will be better if he takes Gladys in." "Then he's settled for," said Lady Nottingham, turning over a page in her book. This did not suit Daisy; she had meant to make Aunt Alice ask leading questions, instead of which she only gave the most prosaic answers. She sighed. "Poor Willie!" she said. Aunt Alice laughed quietly and comfortably. "Dearest Daisy," she said, "as you want to tell me about Willie, why don't you do so? I suppose you want me to ask instead. Very well, it makes no difference. I imagine he has proposed again to you, and that you have refused him, and want to be quite sure I think you are wise about it. You see, you said, 'Dear Willie' first, and 'Poor Willie' afterwards. What other inference could a reasonable woman like me draw? If you hadn't wanted to talk about it, you would have said neither the one nor the other. Hadn't you better begin?" Daisy laughed. "I think you are a witch," she said. "Oh, one moment; the table is coming right. Yes, and me at the end." "And Lord Lindfield on your left," said Lady Nottingham, without looking up. That was the end of Daisy's diplomacy. "You would have been burnt at the stake two hundred years ago, darling Aunt Alice," she said. "I should have helped to pile the faggots." "What a good thing I wasn't born earlier," said she. Then for a moment she thought intently; what she wanted to say next required consideration. "Daisy dear," she said, "I wanted to talk to you also, and if you had not been so very diplomatic I should have begun." "Oh, I wish I had waited," said Daisy. "Yes. But it makes no difference. What you want is my advice to you as to whether you should accept Lord Lindfield. I quite agree with you that he is going to propose to you. Otherwise he has been flirting with you disgracefully, and I have never known him flirt with a girl before." Lady Nottingham put her book quite completely down. She wanted to convey certain things quite clearly but without grossness. "Now, Daisy, you are very young," she said, "but in some ways you are extremely grown-up. I mean, I think you know your own mind very well. I wish very much that your Aunt Jeannie had come back sooner, because she is about nine times as wise as I, and could have advised you instead of me. As it is, since I think you may have to settle a very important question any day, I have got to give you the best advice I can. I think he will propose to you, as I said, any day; indeed, I feel quite certain of it, else it would be abominable in me to talk to you about it at all. Therefore, do make up your mind before he does. Don't say, when he does, that you are not sure, that you must take time to consider it. There is no reason why a girl should not say 'yes' or 'no' at once, unless the question comes as an entire surprise, which it does not do except in second-rate novels like this one." Lady Nottingham dropped the condemned volume on the floor. "In real life," she said, "every girl sees long before a man proposes whether he is likely to do so, and should know quite well what she is going to say. And I think you intend to say 'yes.' You must, however, be quite sure that, as far as you can tell, you are making a wise choice. "Now, I am not going to shock you, but very likely I am going to make you think you are shocked. You are not really. The fact is, you are not in love with him, but he attracts you with an attraction that is very often in the same relation to love as the bud is to the flower. He has the sort of attraction for you that often contains the folded immature petals of the full flower. You wanted to ask me some series of questions which would lead up to that answer. And then you wanted to ask me one further question, which was whether that was enough to say 'yes' on. And my answer to that is 'yes.'" The diplomacy in Daisy was quite completely dead. All this, so easy to the mature woman, seemed a sort of conjuring-trick to her. It was thought-reading of the most advanced kind, the reading of thoughts that she had not consciously formulated. And the soothsayer proceeded:-- "You have seen the advantages of such a marriage clearly enough. You are ambitious, my dear, you want to have a big position, to have big houses and plenty of money, and to take no thought of any material morrow. That is an advantage; it is only the stupid people, who call their stupidity unworldly, who think otherwise. But the great point is not to keep 'to-morrow' comfortable, but to keep an everlasting 'to-day.' You must be sure of that. Whatever the years bring--and Heaven knows what they will bring--you should feel now, when you consider whether you will accept him or not, that they can bring no difference to you. You must be unable to conceive of yourself at seventy as different from yourself now with regard to him. What is that music-hall song? 'We've been together now for forty years.' It expresses exactly what a girl should feel forty years before. "And now for a thing more difficult to say. Lord Lindfield has--has knocked about a good deal. Sooner or later you will know that, and it is infinitely better that you should know it sooner, for it seems to me almost criminal that girls should be left to find that sort of thing out for themselves when it is too late. Mind, I do not say that he will knock about again. The fact that he is quite certainly intending to propose to you shows that he does not mean to. But he is not bringing a boy's first love to a girl." Lady Nottingham leant forward and stroked Daisy's head. "My dear, how brutal this must sound," she said. "But I am the least brutal of women. Assure yourself of that. And I have told you all there is to tell, as far as I know, but I should have blamed myself if I had told you less. And here is Hendon, and it is time for us to dress." Daisy got up and kissed her aunt with a quick, trembling caress. "I think you are a perfect darling," she said. CHAPTER III. The Dover boat, midday service, was on the point of starting from the quay at Calais, and luggage was being swung on to it in square trucks, the passengers having already embarked. The day before a midsummer storm had vexed the soul of the silver streak, which had turned to a grey pewter streak of a peculiarly streaky nature, with white tops to the waves that slung themselves over the head of the pier. Cabin-boys and stewards were making horrible dispositions of tinware, and the head steward was on the verge of distraction, since the whole world seemed to have chosen this particular day to return to England, and the whole world, with an eye on the Channel, desired private cabins, which were numerically less than the demand. At the moment he was trying to keep calm before the infuriated questions of a Frenchwoman who believed herself to be speaking English. "Mais que faire?" she said. "I have ordered, and where is it? It is not, you tell me. I cannot be seeck with the canaille on the deck. I wish reservée. If not, I shall not go, and charge the company." "Yes'm," said the steward. "Cabin-ticket, ma'am? Cabin No. 9. Show the lady to cabin No. 9." Cabin No. 9 had heard these volubilities with sympathy, and a little secret amusement impossible to avoid if one were ever so little humorous, and lingered a moment while her maid went on to the cabin followed by a porter carrying small luggage. "But I demand a cabin," continued this deeply-wronged lady. "C'est mon droit, si je la demande. Where is the capitan? Fetch him to me. Bring him. Oh, mon Dieu, the deck--to be seeck on the deck!" Mrs. Halton, who was No. 9, called to her maid, and then spoke to the Frenchwoman. "But I will gladly let you have my cabin," she said. "I do not mind the sea. I shall be quite happy on deck. Indeed it is no kindness. Very likely I should not have gone into my cabin at all." The poor lady nearly wept with joy, and would willingly have paid Mrs. Halton ten times the amount the private cabin had cost; but that lady refused to make a start in trading at this time in her life, and having secured a sheltered corner watched for a little the inboarding of the passengers, but soon lost herself in her own reflections. Ah, but how pleasant they were! She was coming home after a year abroad which had begun in widowhood and loneliness and misery and shattered health, and was now returning, restored and comforted, to her friends and all that made life so engrossingly pleasant a business. No one deserved friends more thoroughly than she, and she was rich in that priceless capital of human affection. Sorrows and trials she had had in plenty in her life, but these the sweetness of her nature had transformed, so that from being things difficult to bear, she had built up with them her own character. Sorrow had increased her own power of sympathy; out of trials she had learnt patience; and failure and the gradual sinking of one she had loved into the bottomless slough of evil habit had but left her with an added dower of pity and tolerance. So the past had no sting left, and if iron had ever entered into her soul it now but served to make it strong. She was still young, too; it was not near sunset with her yet, nor even midday, and the future that, humanly speaking, she counted to be hers was almost dazzling in its brightness. For love had dawned for her again, and no uncertain love, wrapped in the mists of memory, but one that had ripened through liking and friendship and intimacy into the authentic glory. He was in England, too; she was going back to him. And before very long she would never go away from him again. Her place on deck had been wisely chosen, and, defended by the row of cabins at her back, she could watch in a dry windlessness the jovial riot of the seas. Now the steamer would stagger to some cross-blow of the waves; now, making a friend of them, swerved into a trough of opalescent green, and emerged again to take, like some fine-spirited horse, the liquid fence, flecked with bubbles, that lay in its course. The wind that had raised this gale still blew from the westward, and on the undefended deck great parcels of water, cut off from their seas, fell in solid lumps that resolved themselves into hissing streams. And Daisy--Daisy occupied no small portion of her thoughts. A year ago she was on the threshold of womanhood, and at such critical periods Aunt Jeannie knew well that a year may confirm existing tendencies or completely alter them, bringing to light strands of character that had been woven below the surface. For many reasons she had a peculiar tenderness towards this dear niece. For seven rather dreadful years Daisy had lived with her, and during these Jeannie had never remitted her efforts to conceal from her that which had darkened her own life. She believed (quietly, under her breath) that those efforts had been successful; she hoped anyhow that Daisy did not know of, did not even guess at, the underlying tragedy. For Daisy, all these years, had been in the seedtime of her life, and Mrs. Halton, rightly or wrongly, quite firmly believed that the young years of those who are to become men and women are best spent if during them they can be brought to learn the joy of life, while its possible tragedies are kept as far from them as may be. For, in general, the habit of joy is the best weapon with which to fight sorrow when sorrow comes. To expect the best of everything and everybody, and to go on doing so, is the best antidote for disappointments. To expect the worst, to think that disappointment is the usual outcome, is to be already unnerved for it. Life is best encountered with a sanguine heart. Such, at any rate, was the creed of her who sat now on the deck of this labouring steamer as it ploughed its passage home, where were her friends and her lover. The tarpaulin had proved unnecessary, for she was sheltered by the deck-buildings from spray. Her book was also unnecessary, for she was more congenially occupied in this pleasant web of thought, and she sat there in her big fur cloak--for the wind of their motion made the air feel cold--with eyes that looked outwards, yet brooded inwardly, April-eyes, that were turned towards the summer that was coming. And all the past was poured into that, even as the squalls and tempests of winter are transmuted into and feed the luxuriance of June-time. The sorrow and the pain that were past had become herself; they were over, but their passage had left her more patient, more tolerant, more loving. The deck was nearly empty, and but few of the more valiant walked up and down the sheltered swaying boards; but these, as often as they passed, looked again at her. Her mouth and chin were half lost and buried in the furry collar of her cloak, but above them was that fine, straight nose, just a little tip-tilted, the great brown eyes, and black hair growing low on the brow. Had her mouth been visible, a man would have said, "This is a woman," but without that he would very likely have said, "This is a girl," so young and so full of expectancy was her face. Yet had he looked twice at eyes and smooth, flushed cheeks alone, he would have said, "This is a woman," for though the joy of life beamed so freshly in her eyes, behind that there lurked something of its transmuted sorrows. Her expectancy was not that of ignorance; she knew, and still looked forward. Under the lee of the English shore the sea abated, and she came on to the top deck from which they would disembark, and looked eagerly along the pier, telling herself that her expectations that she would see a certain figure there were preposterous, and yet cherishing them with a secret conviction. And then she knew that they were not preposterous at all; that it could not have been otherwise. Of course he had come down to Dover to meet her, and as she left the boat she was taken into his charge at once. "Oh, Victor, how nice of you," she said. "I didn't expect you would come all the way down here a bit." He held her hand, "but as long as all may, or so very little longer." But there was much that passed between them in that "very little longer." "Nor did I expect to come," he said. "I only came." She smiled at him. "Ah, that's so like you," she said. They waited with talk of commonplaces as to her journey and the crossing till Jeannie's maid came off the boat with her attendant baggage-bearer, and then went towards the train. They were the sort of people to whom a railway guard always touches his cap, and this duly occurred. Victor Braithwaite, however, had on this occasion already been in consultation with him, and they were taken to a compartment he had caused to be reserved. On principle Jeannie felt bound to remonstrate. "You are so extravagant," she said. "I know exactly what that means: you have paid for four places." "Three," he said. "You have paid for your own. And if you say a word more I shall get another compartment for your maid." Jeannie laughed. "My lips are dumb," she said. "Ah! it is good to see you." She was for the moment deprived of that particular blessing, for he went out again to get a tea-basket, and Jeannie leant back in her seat, feeling, in spite of her remonstrance, that exquisite pleasure that comes from being looked after, from having everything done for you, not from a man's mere politeness, but from his right (he, the one man) to serve the one woman. In all he did he was so intensely efficient and reliable; the most casual trivial detail, if entrusted to him, took place as by some immutable natural law. He would return in the shortest possible time, yet without hurry, with the tea-basket, while half that crowd of jostling, distracted passengers outside would have to go without. And it was not otherwise in things that were far from trivial. When he told her he loved her she knew that she stood on an unshakable rock, against which nothing could prevail. There was not a woman in the world, she felt, as safe as she. Well she knew what lay beneath his quietness and undemonstrativeness, a trust how complete, a love how strong. The train started, then he leant forward to her from his seat opposite and took both her hands. "My dearest," he said, and kissed her. And then there was silence for a little. "And your plans," he said at last--"your immediate plans, I mean? You go to Lady Nottingham's in town now, don't you?" "Yes; and you? Will you be in town?" A smile just smouldered in his eyes. "Well, just possibly," he said. "I hope we may meet now and then. She has asked me down to Bray the day after to-morrow for Whitsuntide. Shall I go?" Jeannie laughed. "I won't pretend not to know what that means," she said. "It means to ask whether I am going. What shall we do? I suppose the house will be full, whereas we might have a sort of dear little desert island all to ourselves if we stopped in town, as everybody will be away. I should not object to that in the least. But, Victor, if Alice wants me, I think I had better go down with her. There aren't really any people in the world except you and me, but they think there are." Her brown eyes softened again. "I think that is an ungrateful and selfish speech of mine," she said. "I am sorry; I don't deserve my friends." "I like the ungrateful and selfish speech," said he. "Then I present you with it. Yes, I think we had better go down there. I long to see Alice again, and Daisy. Dear Daisy, have you seen her lately?" "As one may say that one has seen a meteor. She has flashed by." "Ah, Daisy shall not flash by me. She must flash to me, and stop there, burning. Oh, look, it is the month of the briar-rose. See how the hedges foam with pink blossom. And the fields, look, knee-deep in long grasses and daisies and buttercups. I am home again, thank Heaven. I am home. Home met me on the pier, my darling--the heart of home met me there." "And you did not expect it in the least?" he asked. "You said so, at any rate." "Did I really? What very odd things one says! It is lucky that nobody believes them." CHAPTER IV. They parted at Victoria, and Mrs. Halton drove straight to Lady Nottingham's, leaving her maid to claim and capture her luggage. She had not known till she returned to London how true a Londoner she was at heart, how closely the feel and sense of the great grey dirty city was knit into her self. For it was the soil out of which had grown all the things in her life which "counted" or were significant; it had been the scene of all her great joys and sorrows, and to-day all those who made up her intimate life, friends and lover, were gathered here. There were many other places in the world to which she felt grateful: sunny hillsides overlooking the spires of Florence; cool woods on the Italian Riviera through which stirred the fresh breezes off the dim blue sea below; galleries and churches of Venice, and the grey-green stretches of its lagoons. To all these her debt of gratitude was deep, for it was in them, and through their kindly sunny aid, that during the last year she had recaptured peace and content. But her gratitude to them was not of the quality of love; she felt rather towards them as a patient feels towards the doctors and nurses to whose ministrations he owes his return of health and the removal of the fever which, while it lasted, came between himself and the whole world, making all things strange and unreal. And then, just for a moment, a little shudder passed over her as she thought of the sharp-edged, shining streets of Paris through which she had passed with downcast, averted eyes that morning, going straight from station to station and hating every moment of her passage. It was hard to forgive Paris for associations which it held for her of a certain fortnight; it was hard to believe even now that those bitter and miserable hours contained no more than the pain by which it was necessary that a dear and erring soul should be taught its lessons. But at heart she did not doubt that, though she could not forgive Paris for being the scene of those infinitely sad and pitiful memories. Then she shook those thoughts off; they concerned that past which was absolutely dead in so far as it was painful and bitter, and lived only in the greater tenderness and pity of which her own soul was so full. There was an affectionate little note of greeting and welcome for her from Lady Nottingham, which was at once given her, and even as she read it somewhere overhead a door opened, and like a whirlwind Daisy descended. "Oh, Aunt Jeannie," she cried, "how heavenly! Oh, it is quite good enough to be true. You darling person! I have never liked anything nearly as much as this minute." Daisy made a sort of Bacchante of herself as she took her aunt up to the drawing-room, dancing round her, and ever and again rushing in upon her for another kiss. "And I managed everything too beautifully," she said. "Aunt Alice wasn't sure if she wouldn't put off an engagement in order to be here when you arrived, and I said she oughtn't to. I put it on moral grounds, and packed her and Gladys off. And I didn't care half a row of pins for moral grounds, I only just wanted to get the first half-hour with you all to myself. And if you aren't pleased at my plan I shall burst into several tears." Aunt Jeannie took the dear face between her hands. "I couldn't have thought of a better plan myself," she said, "and, as you know, I am rather proud of my plans when I really give my mind to them. Oh, Daisy, it _is_ good to see you! I don't think a day has passed without my just longing to have a glimpse at you." "Oh, is that all?" said Daisy. "I know a day hasn't passed without my longing to have many glimpses." "You dear child! You shall have such a lot. And what a lot you will have to tell me; I shall want to know exactly what you have done, and whether you've been wise and good and kind, and what new friends you have. I shall want to see them all, and make friends with them all. And I shall want to know all your plans. Just think, Daisy, it's a year since I saw you." "I know, but I don't believe it. Oh, Aunt Jeannie, you must come down to Bray for Whitsuntide. Gladys and I go to-morrow just to look round and see that everything is all right, and you and Aunt Alice are to come the next day with all the party, and it will be such fun. Oh! I've got such a lot to tell you." Daisy paused a moment. "I think I mean quite the opposite," she said. "I don't think that I've anything whatever to tell you that's of the very smallest importance. I only just want to babble and be glad. I am glad, oh, so frightfully glad! You are the nicest aunt that anybody ever had." Daisy poured out tea for her aunt, and considering her admission that she had nothing to say, made a very substantial job of it. Yet all the time she was talking with a reservation, having clearly made up her mind not to mention Lord Lindfield's name. She felt sure, if she did, Aunt Jeannie would see that she mentioned him somehow differently from the way in which she mentioned others, and these first moments of meeting, for all the sincerity of her joy to see her, struck her as not suitable for confidences. "Another reason why I wanted half an hour with you," she said, "is that I am dining out to-night, and shan't see you. It is quite too disgusting, but I couldn't help myself; and if one dines out one probably dances, you know, so after this I shan't see you at all till to-morrow. Oh, Aunt Jeannie, what a nice world it is! I am glad I happened to be born. And you are looking so young, I can't think why everybody doesn't want to marry you at once. They probably do." Mrs. Halton's engagement was at present a secret, for it was still only just a year since her husband's death, and though that had been a release merciful both to him and her, her wisdom had rightly decided that the event should not be announced yet. They were to be married in the autumn, and the news need not be made public immediately. One reservation she had made, namely, that she would tell Lady Nottingham; but Daisy, even Daisy, must not know at present. She laughed. "They have a remarkable power of keeping their desires to themselves, then," she said. "Dover pier"--and she smiled inwardly as she said it--"was not thick with aspirants for my rather large hand. But as we are on the subject, Daisy, what about Mr. Carton?" Daisy looked at her imploringly. "Oh, don't!" she said. "There is nothing more to tell you than what I have written to you. He's so much too good for me that I should feel uncomfortably inferior, which is never pleasant. Oh, Aunt Jeannie, what a fraud I am! That isn't the reason a bit--and the reason is simply that I don't want to. It sounds so easy to understand, doesn't it, when it's stated like that, but poor darling Willie finds it so difficult to grasp. I had to say it all over again three times last Monday. It isn't that I feel inferior to him. If I did, it might mean that I was in love with him, because people always say that they aren't the least worthy when they fully intend to marry each other. No. I don't want to, that's all; and if I am to be an old maid with a canary--well, I shall be an old maid with a canary, which I shall instantly sell, because they make such a row, don't they? Do you think we might talk about something else?" It was scarcely necessary for Daisy to add the last sentence, for without pause she proceeded to do so. At the back of her mind Mrs. Halton felt that there was something behind this, but since Daisy clearly did not desire to speak of it, she would be committing the crime--almost unpardonable between friends--of attempting to force a confidence, if she showed the slightest eagerness to hear more or even let her manner betray that she thought there was more to be heard. Besides, she had her own secret from Daisy. It would be a meanness to deny to others the liberty she claimed herself. Lady Nottingham came in soon after this, and before long the two girls had to go and dress for their dinner. Daisy, in the highest spirits, rushed in again to say good-night to the aunts before starting, a ravishing figure. "Good-night, darling Aunt Jeannie," she cried. "Yes, my frock is nice, isn't it?--and it cost twopence-halfpenny! Wasn't it a cheap shop? Silver has gone down in value, you see, so much, and green was always cheap. It's too heavenly to think that I shall come back to the house where you are. Usually I hate coming back from balls." A cab was waiting for them, and Daisy pulled the window down with a jerk. "She's a darling!" she exclaimed, "and I want to tell her everything, Gladys, yet not one word did I say about Lord Lindfield. I have a perfectly good reason as to why I did not in my own mind, but it doesn't happen to be the right one. I say to myself that I wish to tell her nothing until there is really something to tell. But that isn't the real reason. Do you generally have a good reason _and_ a real reason? I always do. Then you can use either and satisfy anybody. I think I must be a hypocrite. The real reason is that I think she would see that I wasn't in love with him. Well, I'm not--but I'm going to be. I shall tell her then." "Is he going to be at the Streathams to-night?" asked Gladys. "Yes, of course. That's why I am going. If he wasn't, I should say I was ill, and stop at home with Aunt Jeannie. Darling, if you look shocked I shall be sick! Every girl wants to see the man she intends to marry as often as possible. But most girls don't say so; that is why, as a sex, we are such unutterable humbugs. Men are so much more sensible. They say, 'She's a ripper!' or 'a clipper!'--or whatever is the word in use--'and I shall go and call on that cad of a woman with whom she is dining on Thursday next, in order to be asked to dinner.' That's sensible; there's no nonsense about it. But girls pretend it happens by accident. As if anything happened by accident! They plot and scheme in just the same way, only they aren't frank about it. We want to marry certain men just as much as they want to marry us, and yet we pretend they do it all. You pretend. You try to look shocked because I don't. Here we are! Oh, do get out! No, you needn't hurry. He's coming up the pavement now. If you get out quick he won't see us--me, I mean!" This slogging diplomacy was successful. Lord Lindfield got opposite the house exactly as Daisy stepped out of the cab. "Hullo, Miss Daisy!" he said. "What stupendous luck! Thought I was going into the wilderness to-night like the children of Israel--and here you are! Jove!" He had taken off his hat, and stood bare-headed as he handed her out of the cab, exposing that fascinating greyness above the temples which Daisy had spoken of. A face clean-shaven and so bubblingly good-humoured that all criticism of his features was futile appeared below, but a reader of character might easily guess that if once that bubbling good-humour were expunged, something rather serious and awkward might be left. But the good-humour seemed ineradicable; no one could picture his face without it. In other respects, he was very broad, but of sufficient height to carry off the breadth without giving the appearance of being short. A broken front tooth, often exposed by laughter, completed the general irregularity of his face. The fascinating greyness was accompanied by a tendency to high forehead, due probably to incipient baldness rather than to abnormal intellectual development. "I don't know what Jove has got to do with it," said Daisy; "but if he is responsible, I think it is delightful of him. I am glad you are here. I thought I was going into the wilderness too. Oh, I think you have met my cousin." He had met Gladys about a hundred times, so Daisy was quite right, and they shook hands gravely. That ceremony over, he turned to Daisy again without pause. "Dance, too, isn't there?" he said. "I shan't know a soul. I never do. Do dance with me sometimes, out of pity's sake, Miss Daisy--just now and then, you know." Daisy gave an altogether excessive florin to the cabman, who held it in the palm of his hand, and looked at it as if it were some curious botanical specimen hitherto unknown to him. "And one usually says 'Thank you!'" she observed.--"Yes, Lord Lindfield, let's dance now and then." CHAPTER V. Their dancing now and then chiefly assumed the less violent form of dancing, namely, sitting in as sequestered places as they could find. There was nothing very sequestered, as the house was rather small and the guests extremely numerous, and they sat generally in full view of the whole world, Daisy being occasionally torn away by other partners and being annexed again by him on the earliest possible occasion. In such absences, though the good-humour of his face showed no sign of abatement, he became extremely distrait, failed to recognize people he knew quite well, and took up his stand firmly at the door of the ballroom, where he could observe her and be at hand as soon as she was disengaged again. Their hostess, Mrs. Streatham, was a very rich and gloriously pushing woman, with no nonsense about her, and but little sense. She was engaged in pushing her way steadily upwards through what is known as the top-crust of society, and if she wanted anybody particularly to come to her house, gave him or her the choice of some six dinners and ten lunches, further facilitating matters by requesting the desired object to drop in any time. It was Lord Lindfield's first appearance at her house, and she was already pinning him down for a further lunch some time next week, with a grim tenacity of purpose that made it difficult to evade her. He did not propose to leave his post of observation at the ballroom door till this dance came to an end; and as she had as good a right there (since it was her own house) as he, it was likely that she would get her way. He had begun--which was a tactical error--by saying he was not free till the end of the week, and this gave her an advantage. She gave her invitation in a calm, decided manner--rather in the manner of a dentist making appointments. "Thursday, Friday, or Saturday will suit me equally well, Lord Lindfield," she was saying. "I shall have a few people to lunch on all those days, and you can take your choice. Shall we say Friday?" "It's awfully kind of you," said he, "but I'm really not quite sure about Friday. I rather think I'm already engaged." "Saturday, then," said Mrs. Streatham, "at one-thirty." "Very kind of you, but I'm away for the week-end, and shall probably have to leave town in the morning." "Then let us make it Thursday," said Mrs. Streatham. "And if two o'clock suits you better than half-past one, it is equally convenient. That will be delightful." At the moment the dance came to an end, and Lindfield, to his dismay, saw Daisy leaving by a further door. "Very good of you," he said. "I'll be sure to remember. Excuse me." Mrs. Streatham was quite ready to excuse him now, since she had her hook in him, and went on to Gladys, who was just passing out. "Miss Hinton," she said, "do lunch with me on Thursday next. Lord Lindfield is coming, and, I hope, a few more friends. Or Friday would suit me equally well. I hope Miss Hanbury will come too. Would you ask her?--or perhaps it is safer that I should send her a note. Thursday, then, at two.--Ah! Lord Quantock, I have been looking for you all evening. Pray lunch here on Thursday next. Lord Lindfield and Miss Hinton, and that very pretty Daisy--let me see, what is her name?--oh, yes!--Daisy Hanbury are coming. Or, if you are engaged that day, do drop in on Friday at the same time." Lord Lindfield meantime had found Daisy and firmly taken her away from her partner. Before now, as has been said, the affair was a matter of common discussion, and her engagement believed to be only a matter of time; to-night it looked as if the time would be short. "And I'm coming down to Bray this week-end," he said, going on at the point at which their conversation was interrupted. "It was so good of Lady Nottingham to ask me. You've got such nice aunts! I expect that accounts for a lot in you. Ever seen my aunts, Miss Daisy? They've got whiskers, and take camomile." "It sounds delicious, and I'm sure I should love them," said Daisy.--"So sorry, Mr. Tracy, but I seem to have made a mistake, and I'm engaged for the next. So very stupid of me.--I know, Lord Lindfield; isn't Aunt Alice a darling? But, although I adore her, I think I adore Aunt Jeannie more. Do you know her--Mrs. Halton?" Lindfield gave a little appreciative whistle. "Know her? By Jove! I should think I did. So she's your aunt, too! I never heard such luck! But she's a bit young to be an aunt, isn't she?" Daisy laughed. "She began early. She was my mother's sister, but ever so much younger. She was an aunt when she was eight. My eldest sister, you know----" "Didn't know you had one." "Very likely you wouldn't. She died some years ago, and before that she didn't live in England. She was married to a Frenchman. But Aunt Jeannie--isn't she an angel? And she came back from Italy, where she has been for a whole year, only to-day. It's the nicest thing that has happened since she went away." "You mean that was nice?" "Oh, don't be so silly! It is quite clear what I mean. You'll see her next week; she is coming down to Bray." "Wonder if she'll remember me? The people I like most hardly ever do. Rather sad! I say, Miss Daisy, I'm looking forward to that visit to Bray like anything. I don't know when I've looked forward to anything so much. Are you good at guessing? I wonder if you can guess why?" The room where they sat had somewhat emptied of its tenants, since the next dance had just begun, and something in his tone, some sudden tremble of his rather deep voice, some brightness in those merry grey eyes, suddenly struck Daisy, and just for the moment it frightened her. She put all her gaiety and lightness into her reply. "Ah, but clearly," she said, "it is quite easy to guess. It is because you will see Aunt Jeannie again. You have told me as much." "Not quite right," he said, "but pretty near. Bother! Here's that woman coming to ask me to lunch again." The good humour quite vanished from his face as Mrs. Streatham came rapidly towards them. She had so much to think about with all her invitations that she very seldom remembered to smile. And it was without a smile that she bore rapidly down upon them. "Oh, Miss--Miss Hanbury," she said, "do come to lunch on Thursday next at one-thirty--or is it two, Lord Lindfield? Yes, two. Lord Lindfield is coming, and I hope one or two other friends." "Why, that is charming of you," said Daisy. "I shall be delighted." "And do persuade Lady Nottingham to come, will you not?" continued Mrs. Streatham. "She is your aunt, is she not?" Somehow the moment had passed, but Daisy, as she stood talking, felt that something new had come to her. She had seen Tom Lindfield for a moment in a new light: for that second she felt that she had never known him before. He struck her differently, somehow, and it was that which momentarily had frightened her, and caused her to make that light, nonsensical reply. But next moment she saw that it was not he who had altered, it was herself. All this was very faint and undefined in her own mind. But it was there. CHAPTER VI. Jeannie Halton, going up to her bedroom that night, felt very keenly that ineffable sense of coming home which makes all the hours spent in alien places seem dim and unreal. She could hardly believe that it was she who had been so long away from so many friends, still less that it was she who, a year ago, tired and weary, had gone southwards in search of that minimum of health and peace which makes existence tolerable. Yet that time abroad could never have become dim to her, since it was there, in the winter spent in Rome, that her old friendship with Victor Braithwaite had ripened into intimacy and burst into love. Rome would always be knit into her life. It was not only in affairs of the mind and affections that her perception was acute. Like most highly-organized people, her body, her fine material senses, were vivid messengers to her soul; and as she went upstairs she contrasted with a strong sense of content her purely physical surroundings with those in which she had lived for the last forty-eight hours. For two days and nights she had been hurried across Europe, over the jolt and rattle of the racing wheels; by day the blurred landscape, wreathed in engine-smoke, had streamed by her; by night she had seen nothing but the dull, stuffed walls of her sleeping compartment, and it was an exquisite physical pleasure to have the firm, unshaken floor underfoot, to be surrounded by the appointments of a beautiful house, to be able to move of one's own volition again, and not to be taken like a parcel in a van from one end of Europe to the other. And how delicious also it was to be clean, to have revelled in soap and water, instead of being coated and pelted at by dust and coal-grime! On the surface of life this was all pleasant; it all added to her sense of security and well-being. She had enjoyed a charming evening, which was not nearly over yet, since Alice was coming to her room for a talk--no little talk, no few good-night words, but a real long talk, which should wipe off the arrears of a twelve months' abstinence. Alice had demurred at first, saying she knew that journeys were fatiguing things, but Mrs. Halton had truthfully said that she had never felt less tired. For when one is happy there is no time to be fatigued; being happy engrosses the whole attention. It was early yet also, scarcely after ten, for two or three old friends only, a party of women, had dined, and these had gone away early, with the fatigue of the traveller in their minds. Mrs. Halton had let that pass; the fact was that to-night she wanted above all things to talk to Lady Nottingham. There was one thing--a very big one--which she meant to tell her, and there was also a great deal she wished to learn. Lady Nottingham followed her after a minute or two; and a maid bearing a tray with an enormous jug of hot water and a glass followed Lady Nottingham, for she was one of those people who seem to keep permanently young by always doing the latest thing. Just now there was a revival of hot-water drinking, and with avidity (as if it tasted nice) Lady Nottingham drank hot water. "Excellent thing, Jeannie," she said. "Can't I persuade you to try? You dear person, I don't know that I will even attempt to. It might have some effect on you, and I don't want anything to have any effect on you. I prefer you exactly as you are. Now I want to make myself quite comfortable, in order that I may enjoy myself as much as possible, and then you shall tell me all that has happened to you this last year.--No, Hendon, you needn't wait up. Yes; plenty of hot water. Go to bed." "Let me pull the blinds up and open the windows," said Jeannie; "I want to let London in. Ah! Clip-clop! Clip-clop! Girls and boys going to dances, and falling in love with one another, and keeping the world young. God bless them!" She leant out into the soft warm night a moment, and then turned back into the room again, her face so brimming with happiness and youth that Alice for a moment was almost startled. "They or something else seems to have kept you young, you dear!" she said. "And now sit down and tell me all about yourself from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot. You are so tall, too, Jeannie; it will take a nice long time." Jeannie sat down. "So it is 'me next,' is it, as the children say?" she asked. "Very well, me. Well, once upon a time, dear, a year ago, I was an old woman. I was twenty-nine, if you care to know, but an old woman. For the measure of years is a very bad standard to judge by; it tells you of years only which have practically nothing to do with being old or young. Well, the old woman of twenty-nine went away. And to-day she came back, a year older in respect of years, since she is thirty now, but, oh! ever so much younger, because---- Do you guess at all?" Lady Nottingham put down her hot water. "Ah! my dear," she said, "of course I guess. Or rather I don't guess; I know. There is somebody. It is only Somebody who can interfere in our age and our happiness. Who is it?" "No; guess again," said Jeannie. But again it was hardly a case of guessing. Lady Nottingham knew quite well who it was, who in those years of Jeannie's married life had been her constant and quiet support and stand-by, and who had found his reward in the knowledge that he helped her to bear what had to be borne. "Victor Braithwaite," she said, without pause. "Oh, Jeannie, is it so? You are going to marry him? Oh, my darling, I am so glad. What a happy man, and how well he deserves it!" Lady Nottingham was stout and comfortable; but with extraordinary alertness she surged out of her chair to kiss Jeannie, and upset the table on which was her glass and her boiling water, breaking the one and deluging the carpet with the other--a perfect Niagara of scalding fluid. She paid not the least attention to the rising clouds of steam nor to the glass which crashed on to the floor and was reduced to shards and exploded fragments. "My dear, how nice!" she said. "And he has been in love with you so long! He will have told you that now, but I insist on the credit of having seen it also. He behaved so splendidly, and was such a good friend to you, without ever letting you see--for I will wager that you did not--that he loved you." "No, I never knew until he told me," said Jeannie, simply. "Of course you didn't, because he is a nice man and you are a nice woman. Oh, Jeannie, don't you hate those creatures who keep a man dangling--wives, I mean--who like knowing that a man is eating his poor silly heart out for them, who don't intend to lead--well, double lives, and yet keep him tied to their apron-strings? Such vampires! They put their dreadful noses in the air the moment he says something to them that he shouldn't, and all the time they have been encouraging him to say it! They are flirts, who will certainly find themselves in a very uncomfortable round of the Inferno! I should torture them if I were Providence! I am sure Providence would prefer---- Dear me, yes." Alice kissed her again. "Isn't it so?" she demanded, vehemently. "About flirts? Why, of course. A flirt is a woman who leads a man on and leads him on, and then suddenly says, 'What do you mean?' Surely we need not discuss them." Lady Nottingham went over to the window-seat. "No, I know we need not," she said. "I was led away. Darling, Victor Braithwaite is coming to Bray on Saturday. Did you ever hear of anything more apt? Till this moment I was not sure that you would ever marry him, though I longed for you to do so. You shall have a punt all to yourselves--a private particular punt--and he shall--well, he shall punt you about. Oh, Jeannie, I too love the youth of the world." Jeannie drew her chair a little nearer to the window-seat, in which Lady Nottingham had taken her place after the catastrophe of the hot water. "I know. He told me he was coming to Bray to-day." "Oh, he met you at Victoria?" she asked. "No, dear; a little further down the line--at Dover, in fact. Yes, Alice, his was the first face I saw as we came alongside. And how my heart went out to him! What a good homecoming it has been, and how absolutely unworthy I feel of it! You have no idea how I used to rebel and complain in--in those past years, wondering what I had done to have my life so spoilt. Spoilt! Yes, that was the word I used to myself, and all the time this was coming nearer." "Tell me more, dear." "About him?" asked Jeannie. "About him and you." "Well, all the autumn I was on the Italian lakes. Oh, Alice, such dreadful months, and all the more dreadful because of the maddening beauty of the place. I looked at it. I knew it was all there, but I never saw it; it never went inside me, or went to make part of me. I was very sleepless all that time, and depressed with a blackness of despair. And as I got stronger in physical health, the depression seemed more unbearable, because, in all probability, so many years lay before me, and nothing in life seemed the least worth while. I often thought of you, and often--every day--of Daisy, longing, in a way, to see you both, but knowing that it would be no use if I did, for you would have been to me like the corpses, the husks of what I loved once. And I did not see any possibility of getting better or of getting out of this tomb-like darkness. It was like being buried alive, and getting more alive from week to week, so that I grew more and more conscious of how black the tomb was. Every now and then the pall used to lift a little, and that, I think, was the worst of all." Lady Nottingham laid her plump, comfortable hand on Jeannie's. "You poor darling!" she said. "And you would not let either Daisy or me come to you. Why did you not?" "Because there are certain passages, I think, which the human soul has to go through alone. Dear Alice, you don't know all that went to make up the gloom of those dreadful months! There was one thing in particular that cast a blacker shadow than all the rest. I hope you will never know it. It concerns some one who is dead, but not my husband. It was that which made the darkness so impenetrable. I know you will not ask me about it. But, as I said, when the pall lifted a little, that was the worst of all, because then, for a moment it might be, or for an hour or two, I knew that life and youth and joy were just as dominant and as triumphant as ever in the world, and that it was I who had got on the wrong side of things, and saw them left-handed, and could be only conscious of this hideous nightmare of suffering." Jeannie paused again, pushing back the thick coils of black hair from her forehead. "Quite little things would make the pall lift," she said. "Once it was the sudden light of the sun shining on one of those red sails; once it was the sight of a little Italian contadina dancing with her shadow on the white sunny road, all by herself, for sheer exuberance of heart; once it was a man and a maid sitting close to each other in the dusk, and quietly singing some little love-song, so--so dreadfully unconscious of the sorrow of the world. Oh, that was bad--that was dreadful! Just one little verse, and then in the darkness they kissed each other. I knew they were darlings, and I thought they were devils. And once Victor wrote to me, saying that he was passing through on his way to Venice and Rome, and asking if he might come to see me. I did not answer him even; I could not. "But during all those weeks I suppose I was getting better, and when I went south to Rome in November, though I still could not look forward or contemplate the future at all, I knew better how to deal with the present hour and the present day. There was no joy in them, but there was a sort of acquiescence in me. If life--as seemed the only possible thing--was to be joyless for me, I could at least behave decently. Also a certain sort of pride, I think, came to my help. I felt that it was bad manners to appear as I felt--just as when one has a headache one makes an effort to appear more brilliantly well than usual. One doesn't like people to know one has a headache, and in the same way I settled that I didn't like them to know I had a heartache. "Victor was in Rome. The manager of the branch of their banking business there had died suddenly, and he had gone to take his place till some one could be sent out from England. The new man arrived there some ten days or so after I did; but he still stayed on, for one morning I saw him in the Forum, and another day I passed him driving. All he knew was that I had not answered the letter which he wrote to me when I was on Como, and he made no further attempt to see me. But he did not leave Rome. And then one day I wrote to him, as I was bound to do, saying that I had not answered his letter because I believed then that I could not; but that if he would forgive that, and come to see me---- "Oh, Alice, it is being such a long story. But there is little more. He came, and I asked him if he was stopping long in Rome, and he said his plans were uncertain. And then--so gradually that I scarcely knew it was happening--he began to take care of me; and gradually, also, I began to expect him to do so. He tells me I was not tiresome; I can't believe him. "And then--how does it happen? Nobody knows, though it has happened so often. One day I saw him differently. I had always been friends with him, and in those bad years I had always relied on him; but, as I say, one day I saw him differently. I saw the man himself--not as he struck me, but as he was. That is just it, dear Alice. 'How he struck me' was left out, because I was left out. And then I knew I loved him. And--and that is all, I think." Lady Nottingham gave a long, appreciative sigh. "I think it is _the_ nicest story," she said--"and it's all true. Oh, Jeannie, I am such a match-maker, and it is so pleasant to be forestalled. I asked him down to Bray simply in order to promote this, and now I find it has been promoted already. But the punt will be useful all the same." Jeannie joined her friend in the window-seat. "Yes, just the same," she said. CHAPTER VII. There was silence for a little while. An hour had passed since they began to talk, but it was still short of midnight, and the hansoms and motors still swept about the square like a throng of sonorous fireflies. Just opposite a big house flared with lit windows, and the sound of the band came loudly across the open space, a little mellowed by the distance, but with the rhythm of its music intact. "Oh, I could get into a ball-dress and go and dance now for lightness of heart," said Jeannie. "But I won't; I will do something much nicer, and that is I will hear from you the news of your year. Now it is 'you next.' Tell me all you have done and been and thought of. And then I shall want to know all about Gladys and all about Daisy. I talked to Daisy--or, rather, she talked to me--for half an hour this afternoon, but I don't think she got absolutely 'home' in her talk. I had the impression that she was showing me the dining-room and drawing-room, so to speak. She did not sit with me in my bedroom or in hers as we are sitting now. The only talk worth calling a talk is when you put your feet on the fender and tuck up your skirt and put the lights out--figuratively, that is. One must be taken into privacy. Daisy wasn't very private. You have got to be. Now, dear Alice, about yourself first." Alice sighed again--not appreciatively this time. "There's very little to say. I am rather lazier than I was, and Daisy and Gladys--Daisy chiefly--make all arrangements. I send them out to dances alone, because they always find a chaperon of some kind; and you know, Jeannie, I don't like hot rooms and supper. I weave plenty of plans still, and they mostly come off, but I don't go to superintend the execution of them. I don't think I have any very private life; if I had you should at once be admitted. I think a great deal about the people I like best. I try occasionally to straighten out their affairs for them. I want all girls to marry suitable men, and all men to marry suitable girls. I think, indeed, that the only change in me has been that I take a rather wider view than I used to of the word suitable. You see, I am an optimist, and I can't help it; and I believe that most people are kind and nice. Oh, I don't say that it is not great fun being critical and seeing their absurdities and their faults, but I fancy that if one wants to increase the sum of comfort and happiness in the world, it is better to spend one's time in trying to see their charms and their virtues. Dear me, what dreadful commonplaces I am saying! However, that is my very truthful history for the last year: I want to make people jolly and comfortable and happy, but, if possible, without standing about in extremely hot rooms with the band playing into one's ear at the distance of three inches." Jeannie laughed. "I don't think that is at all a bad history," she said. "That is just the sort of history which I hope will be written of me by-and-by. Oh, Alice, I don't want any more troubles and crises--I don't! I don't!--even if they are good for one. Sometimes I wonder if there is some envious power that is always on the look-out, some Nemesis with a dreadful wooden eye that waits till we are happy and then puts out a great bony hand and knocks us over or squeezes us till we scream. 'Oh, Nemesis,' I feel inclined to say, 'do look the other way for a little bit.' Yes, I just want Nemesis to leave my friends and me alone for a little." "Ah! but Nemesis is looking the other way with great fixedness, it seems to me," said Lady Nottingham. "She may be dabbing away at other people, but you must be just, Jeannie; she hasn't been dabbing at any of us lately." "Oh, hush! Don't say it so loud," said Jeannie. "She may hear and turn round." Alice laughed. "No such thing," she said. "But Nemesis will certainly send you a headache and a feeling of being tired to-morrow morning if I sit up talking to you any longer." She half rose, but Jeannie pulled her back into the window-seat again. "Oh, no; don't go yet," she said. "I am not the least tired, and it is so dull going to bed. I hoard pleasant hours; I make them last as long as possible, and surely we can lengthen out this one for a little more. Besides, you have not told me one word about Daisy yet; and, as I said, though I had half an hour's talk with her, I feel as if she hadn't taken me into her room. All the private history she gave me was that Willie Carton still wanted to marry her, and she still did not want to marry him." Lady Nottingham considered this for a moment in silence, wondering whether, as Daisy had not spoken to her aunt about Lord Lindfield, she herself was under any tacit bond of secrecy. But, scrupulous though she was, she could not see any cause for secrecy. Jeannie interrupted her silence. "Is there somebody else?" she said. Again Lady Nottingham thought over it. "I can't see why I shouldn't tell you," she said, "since half London knows, and is waiting quite sympathetically and agreeably for him to ask her. She consulted me about it only this afternoon, and I think when he does--I don't say if, because I feel sure he will--I think that when he does she will accept him. I advised her to, and I think she agreed. His name----" "Ah, but perhaps Daisy wants to tell me his name herself," interrupted Jeannie again. "Perhaps she wants to keep it as a surprise for me. Don't tell me his name, Alice. Tell me all about him, though not enough to enable me to guess. And tell me about Daisy's feelings towards him. Somehow I don't think a girl should need advice; she should know for herself, don't you think?" "Not always. Sometimes, of course, a girl is definitely, even desperately, in love with a man before she marries--but, Jeannie, how often it is the other way! She likes him, she thinks he will be kind to her, she wants to be married, she has all the reasons for marrying except that of being in love. And such marriages so often turn out so well; some even turn out ideally. My own did. But in some circumstances I think a girl is right to ask advice." Jeannie smiled. "I think yours is an admirably sensible view, dear," she said, "and I confess freely that there is heaps to be said for it. But I am afraid I am not sensible over a thing like love. I think sense ought to be banished." "So do the lower classes think," remarked Lady Nottingham, rather acutely, "and the consequence is that the gravest problem that has ever faced the nation has arisen." "Oh, I take it, he is not one of the unemployed?" said Jeannie. "He is, but the top end of them." "Oh, go on, dear; tell me all about him," said Jeannie. "Well, he is rich--I suppose you might say very rich--he has a title; he has an old and honoured name." "Oh, I want something more important than all that," said Jeannie. "The old and honoured name is all very well, but is he continuing to make it honoured? To be honoured yourself is far more to the point than having centuries full of honoured ancestors. Is he satisfactory? I can easily forgive the ancestors for being unsatisfactory." "I am sure he is a good fellow," said Lady Nottingham. Jeannie got up and began walking up and down the room. "Do you know, that is such an ambiguous phrase!" she said. "Every man is a good fellow who eats a lot and laughs a lot and flirts a lot. Is he that sort of good fellow? Oh! I hate milksops. I needn't tell you that; but there are plenty of good fellows whom I should be sorry to see Daisy married to." There had started up in Jeannie's mind that memory of Paris, which had made her hurry through and away from the town; there had started up in her mind also that which had been so hard to get over in the autumn, that of which she had spoken to Alice Nottingham, only to tell her that she hoped she would never speak of it. These two were connected. They were more than connected, for they were the same; and now a fear, fantastic, perhaps, but definite, grew in her mind that once again these things were to be made vivid, to pass into currency. "Is he that sort of good fellow?" she asked. There was trouble in her voice and anxiety, and Lady Nottingham was startled. It was as if some ghost had come into the room, visible to Jeannie. But her answer could not be put off or postponed. "Something troubles you, dear," she said. "I can't guess what. Yes, he is that sort of good fellow, I suppose; but don't you think you generalize too much, when you class them all together? And don't you judge harshly? Cannot a man have--to use the cant phrase--have sown his wild oats, and have done with them? Mind, I know nothing definite about those wild oats, but before now it has been a matter of gossip that he has been very--very susceptible, and that women find him charming. It is disgusting, no doubt. But I fully believe he has done with such things. Is he not to have his chance in winning a girl like Daisy, and becoming a model husband and father? Don't you judge harshly?" Jeannie paused in her walk opposite her friend, and stood looking out into the warm, soft night. "Yes, perhaps I judge harshly," she said, "because I know what awful harm a man of that sort can do. I am thinking of what a man of that sort did do. He was no worse than others, I daresay, and he was most emphatically a good fellow. But the woman concerned in it all was one I knew and loved, and so I can't forgive him or his kind. You and I have both known lots of men of the kind, have found them agreeable and well-bred and all the rest of it; and, without doubt, many of them settle down and become model husbands and model fathers. But I am sorry--I am sorry. If only Daisy had cared for Willie Carton! And she does not love this man, you say?" "He attracts and interests her; she finds great pleasure in his company; she wants to marry him. I am not what you would call a worldly woman, Jeannie, but I think she is wise. It is an excellent match, and in spite of what you say about so-called 'good fellows,' he is a good fellow." Jeannie's face had grown suddenly rather white and tired. She felt as if Nemesis were slowly turning round in her direction again. She sat down by her dressing-table and drummed her fingers on it. "Yes, no doubt I judge harshly," she repeated, "and no doubt, also, there is a particular fear in my brain, quite fantastic probably and quite without foundation. I have a 'good fellow' in my mind whose--whose 'good-fellow proceedings' touched me very acutely. I want, therefore, to know the name of this man. I can't help it; if Daisy wants it to be a surprise for me, she must be disappointed. You see what my fear is, that the two are the same. So tell me his name, Alice." There was something so desperately serious in her tone that Lady Nottingham did not think of reassuring her out of her fears, but answered at once. "Lord Lindfield," she said. The drumming of Jeannie's fingers on the table ceased. She sat quite still, looking out in front of her. "Lord Lindfield?" she asked. "Tom Lindfield?" "Yes." Jeannie got up. "Then thank Heaven she doesn't love him," she said. "It is quite impossible that she should marry him. Since you began to tell me about this man I was afraid it was Tom Lindfield, hoping, hoping desperately, that it was not. She can never marry him, never--never! What are we to do? What are we to do?" "There is some reason behind this, then, that I don't know?" asked Alice. "Of course there is. I must tell you, I suppose. We must put our heads together and plan and plan. Oh, Alice, I hoped so much for peace and happiness, but it can't be yet, not until we have settled this." "But what is it? What is it?" asked Lady Nottingham. A hansom jingled round the corner and stopped just below at the front door. "The girls are back," said Jeannie. "Daisy is sure to come and see if I am up. I wonder why they are home so early. You must go, dear Alice. I will tell you about it to-morrow. I am so tired, so suddenly and frightfully tired." Lady Nottingham got up. "Yes, I will go," she said. "Oh, Jeannie, you are not exaggerating things in your mind? Can't you tell me now?" "No, my dear, it would take too long. Ah, there is Daisy." A gentle tap sounded at the door; it was softly opened, and Daisy, seeing the light inside, came in. "Ah, but how wicked of you, Aunt Jeannie," she said, "when you told me you were going to bed early. Yes, we are early too, but it was stupid and crowded, and so Gladys and I came away. Oh, you darling, it is nice to know you are here! But how tired you look!" "Yes, dear, I am tired," said Jeannie. "I was just sending Aunt Alice away. And you must go away too. But it was dear of you just to look in to say good-night." When the two had gone Jeannie sat down again in the window, her head resting on her hands, thinking vividly, intently. "Thank Heaven she does not love him!" she said at length. CHAPTER VIII. The geography of breakfast at Lady Nottingham's was vague and shifting. Sometimes it all happened in the dining-room, sometimes, and rather oftener, little of it happened there, but took place, instead of on that continent, in the scattered islands of bedrooms. Gladys, however, was generally faithful to the continent, and often, as happened next morning, breakfasted there alone, while trays were carried swiftly upstairs to the bedrooms of the others. She alone of the inmates of the house had slept well that night. But she always slept well, even if she had the toothache. Daisy had not slept at all well. It would be nearer the mark, indeed, to say that she had not even lain awake at all well, but had tossed and tumbled in a manner unprecedented. There was no wonder that it was unprecedented, since that which caused it had not occurred before to her. She had left the dance quite early, dragging Gladys away, because she had got something to think about which absorbed her. She had never been really absorbed before, though it was a chronic condition with her to be intensely and violently interested in a superficial manner. But this went deeper; from the springs of her nature now there came forth something both bitter and sweet, and tinged all her thoughts and her consciousness. In herself, as she lay awake that night hearing the gradual diminuendo of the noises of traffic outside, till, when she thought there would be a hush, the crescendo of the work of the coming day began, she felt no doubt as to what this was which absorbed her and kept sleep so far aloof from her eyelids. It had started from as small a beginning as a fire that devastates a city, reducing it to desolation and blackened ash. A careless passenger has but thrown away the stump of a cigarette or a match not entirely extinguished near some inflammable material, and it is from no other cause than that that before long the walls of the tallest buildings totter and sway and fall, and the night is turned to a hell of burning flame. Not yet to her had come the wholesale burning, there was not yet involved in it all her nature; but something had caught fire at those few words of Lord Lindfield's; the heat and fever had begun. Well she knew what it was that ailed her. Hitherto love was a thing that was a stranger to her, though she was no stranger to intense and impulsive affection like that which she felt for Aunt Jeannie. But how mysterious and unaccountable this was. It seemed to her that the phenomenon known as "love at first sight," of which she had read, was a thing far less to be wondered at. There a girl meets some one she has not seen before whom she finds holds for her that potent spell. That could be easily understood; the new force with which she comes in contact instantly exercises its power on her. But she, Daisy, had come across this man a hundred times, and now suddenly, without apparent cause, she who thought she knew him so well, and could appraise and weigh him and settle in her own mind, as she had done after her talk to Lady Nottingham the afternoon before, whether she would speak a word that for the rest of her life or his would make her fate and destiny, and fashion the manner of her nights and days, found that in a moment some change of vital import had come in turn on her, so that she looked on him with eyes of other vision, and thought of him in ways as yet undreamt of. This was disquieting, unsettling; it was as if the house in which she dwelt--her own mind and body--which she had thought so well-founded and securely built--was suddenly shaken as by an earthquake shock, and she realized with a touch of panic-fear that outside her, and yet knit into her very soul, were forces unmanifested as yet which might prove to be of dominant potency. Then, suddenly, her mood changed; their power was frightening no longer, they were wholly benignant and life-giving. It was not an earthquake shock that had frightened her, it was but the first beam of some new-rising sun that had struck on to the darkness of the world in which she had lived till now. She was smitten "by the first beam from the springing East," she who had never known before what morning was, or how fair was the light which it pours on to the world. And this morning beam was for her; it had not struck her fortuitously, shedding its light on her and others without choice. It had come to shine into her window, choosing that above all others. It was she that the first beam sought. It came to gild and glorify her house, her body and mind, the place where her soul dwelt. How blind she had been! There was no difference in him; the difference had been in her alone. She had sat with sealed eyes at her window, or, at the most, with eyes that could but see the shadows and not the sun. Now they saw the sun only; there were no shadows, for the shadows had been but her own blindness. Dawn was in the sky outside; here in the quiet, white-curtained room another dawn had come, not quiet, but with gleam of sun alternating with cloud and tempest, making the beholder wonder what the day would bring forth. * * * * * Aunt Jeannie, too, had lain long awake, but when sleep came it came deeply and dreamlessly, demanding the repair of two nights in the train and the agitation of her talk. She had given orders that she was not to be called till she rang, and when she woke the sun was already high, and the square outside lively with passengers and traffic. But it was with a sense of coming trial and trouble, if not quite of disaster, that she woke. It was disaster she had to avert; she had to think and scheme. But had she known of Daisy's sleepless night, and the cause of that, she would have felt that the anchor which prevented the situation drifting into disaster had been torn up. For the anchor was the belief, as Lady Nottingham had told her, that Daisy was not in love with Tom Lindfield, and by one of fate's little ironies, at the very moment when she was comforting herself last night with that thought it was true no longer. Her sleep had quite restored her, giving vigour to her body and the power of cool reflection to her brain, and when Victor came, according to promise, to see her during the morning there was no hint of trouble in her welcome of him, nor did he guess that any disquieting news had reached her. And his conclusion, though not actually true, was justly drawn, for the peace and the sense of security which she felt in his presence was of a kind that nothing else, except danger and disaster to it itself, could disturb. It was a very tender, a very real part of her nature that was troubled, but the trouble did not reach down into these depths. Nor did she mean to speak of this trouble to him at all; a promise had been made by her to keep it as secret as could be. Hitherto the secret had been completely kept; it had passed the lips of none of the few who knew. But to-day she would be obliged to speak of it to Alice, for her plan to avert disaster was already half formed, but she dared not embark on it alone without counsel from another. For an utterly unlooked-for stroke of fate, supreme in its irony, that Daisy should be meditating marriage with the one man in the world whom it was utterly impossible that she should marry, had fallen, and at all costs the event must be averted. CHAPTER IX. The two girls, as had been already arranged, set off during the morning for the river-side house at Bray, where they would be joined next day by Lady Nottingham and the rest of her party; and Aunt Jeannie, returning home shortly before lunch, found that Daisy and Gladys had already gone, and that the hour for her consultation with her friend was come. For the situation admitted of no delay: in a sky that till yesterday had been of dazzling clearness and incomparable serenity there had suddenly formed this thunder-cloud, so to speak, hard, imminent, menacing. It was necessary, and immediately necessary (such was the image under which the situation presented itself to her mind), to put up a lightning-conductor over Daisy's room. It was the nature of the thunder-cloud that she had now to make known to Lady Nottingham: that done, between them they had to devise the lightning-conductor, or approve and erect that one which she had already designed in her mind during the sleepless hours of the night before. It was of strange design: she hardly knew if she had the skill to forge it. For the forging had to be done by her. They lunched together, and immediately afterwards went to Lady Nottingham's sitting-room, where they would be undisturbed, for she had given orders that neither the most urgent of telephones nor the most intimate of callers were to be admitted. They drank their coffee in silence, and then Jeannie got up. "I have got to tell you, Alice," she said, "about that which only yesterday I said I hoped I should never be obliged to speak of to anybody. I suppose the envious Fates heard me; certainly the words were scarcely out of my mouth before the necessity arose. What I have got to tell you about is that which all last autumn was harder for me to get over, I think, than all that I had been through myself. Only yesterday I believed it to be all dead; I believed it to be at most a memory from which time had already taken the bitterness. But I was completely and signally wrong. It is dead no longer; it is terribly alive, for it has had a resurrection which would convert a Sadducee. It is connected with the reason why Daisy can never marry Tom Lindfield. It is more than connected with it; it is the reason itself." Jeannie had begun to speak standing by the fireplace and facing the full light of the window, but here she moved, and wheeling a chair with its back to the light, sat down in it. She wanted to be a voice and no more--a mere chronicle of a few hard, dry, irrevocable facts, things that had happened, and could not be altered or softened. There was no comment, no interpretation to be made. She had just to utter them; Alice Nottingham had just to hear them. "You may have to give me time, my dear," she said, "for it will be as much as I can do, I am afraid, just to get through with the telling of it. Yes, I am already frightening you, I know. I do that on purpose, because I want to prepare you for a story that must shock and disturb you very much. I wondered last night whether I could manage without telling you, whether I could spare your hearing it all, but I find I can't. I can't act alone in this, on my own responsibility. Perhaps you may be able to think of some plan which will make mine unnecessary, and I would give a great deal for that to happen. But some plan must be made and carried out. Something has to be done." She covered her face with her hands for a moment, then took them away, and spoke, slowly and carefully, so that there might be no need for further explanation of what she said. "Of course you remember Diana, Daisy's sister," she said, "though you would remember her more as a name than as a person, for I think you never knew her at all well. She married very early, you know; she married that nice Frenchman, Monsieur Dupré. After that she lived abroad till the time of her death. The fact of that you will certainly remember, though it is now some years since it happened. Where are we? Yes, 1908. Then Diana died in 1903, five years ago. So at least we were told at the time. It was in 1903 that we, all of us, you, Daisy, and I, believed that Diana died." Jeannie gave a long sigh. "My story of why Daisy cannot marry Tom Lindfield has begun, dear Alice," she said, "for Diana did not die then. She lived for four years after that, and died last autumn only, in my arms, thank God! I thank God, my dear, that she died, and I thank God that I was with her. There was no one else, not her husband even." Alice Nottingham turned on her a face that was puzzled, and was beginning to get frightened. "But what does it all mean?" she said. "It is very disquieting, very strange, but what does it lead to? Daisy--Tom Lindfield." "I am telling you as shortly as I can," said Jeannie. "Do not interrupt me, dear. It was last autumn she died, not five years ago as we had supposed. Five years ago she was--was found out, if you understand--she was found to have been living with another man not her husband. He learned that, and he forgave her, for he adored her with a tender, unwavering devotion that is very rare. She was to him like a child who has been naughty and must be forgiven. Then in a few weeks only after that she fell again. Even then he did not divorce her, or make her bear the shame and publicity of what she had done; he simply let her go." Jeannie was still speaking slowly and quietly, as if reading out some report which had to be mastered by her friend. But on the words "let her go" her voice trembled a little. But then she again recaptured the completeness of her self-control. "Whether that was wise or not," she said, "whether it might not have been better if he had let Diana bear the punishment that human law has ordained for those poor things who behave as she behaved, we need not inquire. Nor need I tell you the details of how it was all managed, which I learned from Diana so few weeks before she died last year. It is sufficient for me to say that they left their home near Amiens together, ostensibly for a long foreign travel. After some weeks he sent home the news of her sudden death; he sent the news also to us in England. You were told, I and Daisy were told. And Diana, poor, poor Diana, went and lived in Paris." Again the bravely-suppressed emotion made Jeannie's voice to quiver. "That is what I mean when I said that M. Dupré let her go," she said. "Often I think it was a barbarous kindness. He could not live with her any more--the fact that he loved her so much made that impossible--and he had either to divorce her or--or let her vanish into the glittering crowd of those who--who are made like that. He chose the latter: he accounted for her disappearance by the news, sent to Amiens and sent to us in England, that she had died. "So five years ago Diana went to Paris, and for a time lived, not with the man who had taken her from her husband, but with another. During her married life she had lived in that beautiful country-house of his near Amiens, seldom going to Paris, and no one apparently ever found out who she really was. Then----" Again Jeannie paused--paused a long time; and before she spoke she put her hands over her eyes, as if to shut out some dreadful vision. "Then she left that man," she said, "and lived with another. You know him; I know him; Daisy also." It was as if Lady Nottingham had caught sight of that which made Jeannie cover her eyes, for she winced and drew back. "Don't--don't!" she said; "I can't bear that, please, Jeannie!" At the sound of the beseeching voice Jeannie recovered all her self-control. She was wanted; Alice wanted her for comfort. "Oh, my dear, you must not be afraid," she said. "We have to face the facts and not be afraid of them, but do our best, and see how we can arrest or alter the train of their consequences. It was he--Tom Lindfield." Again she paused, and again continued, speaking quietly. "I knew nothing of all this till a little over a year ago," she said; "for even as M. Dupré had wished to spare Diana shame and publicity, so, I suppose, he wished to spare us the knowledge of what Diana had done, and it was thus that neither you nor Daisy nor I knew anything of it. I think perhaps he ought to have told us--told you and me, anyhow. But he did not, and it is of no use to think what we should have done if he had. But rather more than a year ago Diana herself wrote to me--wrote me a pitiful, heart-breaking letter. I thought at first it must be some grim practical joke, though I could not imagine who had played so cruel a trick, or why the trick had been played at all. But it was Diana's handwriting, and she enclosed a photograph of herself, which I have now. It was impossible to mistake that: nothing could mar her beauty; and then it was signed and dated in her own hand. She wrote to say that she had been ill, that she was getting rapidly worse--it was of consumption, perhaps you remember, that her mother died--and she wanted to know if I would come to her. She wanted to tell me everything, and, thank God, she wanted me. So it was there that I went when I left England last year. "I stayed with her till she died in that little gilded flat. And during that month she told me everything. It--it was a long story, Alice, and it was all set to one shameful tune. And I was not shocked; that would have made my being with her quite useless, to begin with, but, also, I did not feel inclined to be shocked. She was so like a child--a child that has gone wrong, if you will, but still a child. Whether she was ashamed or not I hardly know, for after she had told me of it all we never once spoke of it again. Certainly she wished, as passionately as she was capable in her poor dying state of wishing anything, that she should not bring shame or sorrow on others. Of all others that she wished to spare, most of all she wished to spare Daisy; and--a promise to a dying person is a very solemn thing--I promised that I would do all that lay in my power so that Daisy should not know. Till yesterday I thought that promise would never come up. But it has. Daisy must not conceivably marry him. Also, she must not know why. There is our crux. "And one word more, in justice to him," she added. "I am convinced he does not to this day know who it was with whom he lived in Paris. He knew me, for instance, and liked me; and I am sure he would not have lived with her knowing who she was. Oh, but, Alice, the misery, the sorrow of it all! You don't know. You weren't with Diana at the end. And I loved her. And I think her--her going so utterly wrong like that made me love her more. The pity of it! The hopeless, helpless sorrow of it! She did not want to die----" Jeannie's voice choked for a moment. "She wanted life, she wanted love, poor child. She was like some beautiful wild thing, without law. She didn't think. She never loved her husband, who adored her. She didn't think. And she died frightened--frightened at what might be in front of her. As if the Infinite Tenderness was not in front of her! As if Jesus Christ, the Man of many sorrows, was not there! Oh, Alice, how can we judge?" "Ah, my dear, we don't judge," said she. "Anyhow, no judgment of ours has any effect. It is done with as far as she is concerned." Jeannie's face suddenly brightened into a semblance of a smile. It was veiled, but it was but the flesh that veiled it; at the core it was wholly loving. "Then we are content to leave dear Diana in the hands of the Infinite Pity?" she said. "That must be certain before we can talk further." "But with my whole heart," said Lady Nottingham. Again there was silence; and in that Jeannie openly dried the tears that were on her face. She had been crying: there was no question about that. "I had to tell you, dear Alice," she said at length. "I could not bear it alone. You see why it is impossible, beyond the bounds of speech, that Daisy should marry him. You see also why I thank Heaven that she does not love him. At all costs, also, Daisy must not know why it is impossible. That was my promise to Diana when she was dying. I would do anything within my power and the stretched-out limits of it to prevent her knowing. Diana, poor darling, wished for that. It was the last request she made. It is sacred to me, as sacred as my honour." "Do you mean to tell him?" asked Alice. "I hope not to. I want to keep poor Diana's secret as close as can be. And I am not in the least certain, from what I know of him, that it would do any good. If he wants Daisy, do you think a man like that would let that stand in his way? No, we must do better than that. Now, is he in love with her?" "I can't say. It is clear, however, that he wants to marry her. He has been in love so many times that one doubts if he has been in love at all. There was----" "Oh, spare me the list of his conquests. He has been in love many times. That is sufficient." "Sufficient for what?" "For the plan that has occurred to me as possible. I don't say it is easy; I don't say it is nice; but we want, above all things, to keep poor Diana's dreadful secret, to let no one, if possible--and, above all, Daisy--know that it was her sister who lived those years in Paris, and in that manner." Jeannie got up. "Clearly the easiest way of arriving at what we want is to make Daisy think that he has only been flirting with her," she said--"that he is not serious. It will hurt the poor child, I know; but if she were in love with him, which you think she is not, it would hurt her far, far more. Therefore, we must waste no time. Any day, any moment, she may fall in love with him. He is extremely attractive." "Do you mean you will tell Daisy that he has only been flirting with her?" asked Alice. "No, that would do no good. She would not believe it. Besides, any day also he may propose to her. No, it must be more convincing than that. She must see that which convinces her that he is not in earnest. We must make him, if we can, under Daisy's very nose, flirt with somebody else. We must make him neglect her. I don't know if it can be done, but we must try. At least, I can think of no other plan which will not involve telling Daisy all that we want to keep from her." "But how--who?" asked Alice. "He is coming to Bray--Lord Lindfield, I mean?" "Yes; he is coming to-morrow evening with the others." Jeannie paused in front of a mirror, looked long at herself, and spoke to her image there. "Yes, passable yet--just passable yet," she said to herself. Lady Nottingham got up and came across the room to her. "Jeannie, what do you mean?" she asked. "What is it you mean?" Jeannie turned round quickly. "Ah! you guess," she said. "I don't say it is nice; I shan't like myself much, I can promise you. But it is not so long since he ran after me a good deal. Perhaps you remember the fact. He didn't receive much encouragement then. Well, I mean that he shall do it again. This time he shall receive much more encouragement. I will make it very easy for him. I will help him a great deal now. I will flirt with him all the time at Bray. Flirt--yes. Oh, it is not a nice word, and flirts are not nice people, as we settled only yesterday. We settled they were not worth talking about. But I am going to be one now--and a bad one, too--under Daisy's very nose. Perhaps I shan't succeed, but I shall do my best; and if I don't succeed, we must try to think of something else. But I want Daisy to see how easily and readily he makes love to a woman. I want her to see herself slighted and neglected. I want her to be hurt--and finally to be angry, to be furious, to see that he means nothing. Then, provided only she is not in love with him now, she will hate and despise him." Jeannie spoke rapidly, excitedly, her face flushing. "Or do you think it is a forlorn hope, Alice?" she said. "Am I but flattering myself that I am not quite _passée_ yet? Oh, it is a heavy handicap, I know, for a woman of my age to try to cut out a brilliant young girl, and one who is beautiful; and, as you have told me, he never, as far as you know, flirted with a girl. Well, that proves he likes women best." "Ah! but you can't do it, Jeannie," broke in Lady Nottingham. "Think of what you will appear to Daisy; think of your own self-respect; think of Victor. What will he make of it all? It is too dangerous." "I have thought of all those things," said Jeannie. "I have weighed and balanced them; and they seem to me lighter than that promise I made to Diana. I may have to tell Victor; about that I don't know, but I shall do my utmost not to. It may not be necessary, for, Alice, I think he trusts me as utterly as I trust him. I think that if I saw him running after some other woman I should feel there must be some explanation, and I hope I should not ask him for it, or think he was faithless to me. And I believe he has that trust in me also. I don't know. If he demands to know what it all means I shall tell him, because if you are asked anything in the name of love it is not possible to refuse. Heaven knows, this is a desperate measure! But show me any other that has a chance of success and will still keep Diana's secret. This may fail; one cannot be sure of any plan going right. But show me any other plan at all, and from the bottom of my heart I will thank you." Lady Nottingham shook her head. "I can think of no other plan," she said; "but I can't approve of this one. You are playing with serious things, Jeannie; you are playing with love and other people's souls. Diana did not mean you to do anything like this in order to keep your promise to her." "No, poor child! One does not easily see the consequences of one's acts, or how they go on long after they are committed, bringing joy or sorrow to others. Oh, Alice, there is such a dreadful vitality about evil. Acts that one thinks are all over and dead have an awful power of coming to life again. What one has done never dies. It may be forgiven--Heaven grant it may be forgiven--but it exists still in the lives of others." "But it is not as if she were alive," said the other, "or as if she could suffer for it." Jeannie shook her head. "Ah, my dear," she said, "to my mind that is a reason the more for keeping my promise. Living people can defend themselves to some extent, or you can appeal to them and make them see, perhaps, that such a promise involves more than it is reasonable to demand. But the dead, Alice! The dead are so defenceless!" Lady Nottingham was silent, knowing that it is useless to argue over questions of feeling; for no amount of reasoning, however admirable, can affect a question about which the heart has taken sides. And after a moment Jeannie went on:-- "And it is not the dead alone," she said. "There is Daisy also to consider. Had I made no promise at all, I think I would do anything as distasteful and odious to me as that which I am going to do, for the sake of keeping that dreadful knowledge from her. Alice, think if you had had a sister like that! Could you ever get rid of the poison of it? And it is an awful thing to let a young soul be poisoned. When we grow older, we get, I suppose, better digestions; poisons affect us less. That is the worst of growing old." Again she paused. "And now, dear--as they say at the end of sermons--let us talk no more about it. You will see me in an odious rôle down at Bray; but it will be something to know that you are aware it is a rôle, an odious rôle assumed for a good purpose. I shall seem detestable to Daisy, and she will not be able to believe her eyes, until she is forced to. I shall seem charming to him, Tom Lindfield, until at the end, when, as we hope, Daisy is convinced, I shall turn round like the flirt and say, 'What do you mean?' I shall seem odious to myself, but I do not believe I shall seem odious to Victor. I think he will know there is something he does not understand. Perhaps I shall do it all very badly, and not succeed in detaching him at all from Daisy. It is true I have not had much practice, for I assure you I am not a flirt by nature. Oh, Alice, can't you think of any other plan? I can't, and I have thought so hard. Have you got a very large party? I don't want a full house to witness this disgusting performance. I shall have to be so cheap. I wish Victor was not going to be there. At least, I am not sure. I think he will see he does not understand. It is bad luck, you know, that of all men in the world this should be the one whom Daisy thinks about marrying. Now let us dismiss it altogether." Lady Nottingham felt a certain sense of injustice. "Dear Jeannie," she said, "you have done all the talking, and, having expressed your views, you say, 'Let us dismiss it altogether.' By all means, if you choose; but I haven't had a chance. You have prophesied success to your scheme; I prophesy disaster. You are not fitted for your rôle; you will break down long before you accomplish anything. You will see Daisy looking at you with reproach; you will see Victor looking at you with wonder; you will see Lord Lindfield looking at you with--with admiration. You won't be able to bear any of those things, least of all the last. You will have some involuntary shudder of horror at him, or you will obey your heart and run to comfort Daisy, and give it all away. Yours is one of the schemes that don't come off, because they are unthinkable." But Jeannie interrupted again. "You mustn't discourage me," she said, "because I want all the spirits I am capable of to carry it through. It has to be done with a light heart, else it will deceive nobody. And so, my dear, to-morrow you will say 'good-bye' to me, and have a sort of wraith of me instead for a little while. Oh, Alice, I hope it won't take very long!" The intense heat of the afternoon had a little abated, and after tea the two drove out for a while, returning early in order to dine and go to the opera. It began at eight, and Jeannie, after her year's sojourn in the country, demanded a full dose, and they arrived before the beginning of the first act. Outside it was still not quite the hour of sunset, and the streets and houses were gilded by the soft reddish glow of the superb summer evening. At the porch of the opera-house were a few men standing about, clearly waiting for friends, and for that purpose examining the disembarking carriages. As the two got out, one of these gently but quite firmly shouldered his way towards them. "Looking out for an acquaintance, I find a friend, Lady Nottingham," he said. "That's my luck all over.--Why, Mrs. Halton! Have you the smallest remembrance of me?" Jeannie had seen him, and for one moment of weakness and indecision had tried to pass by without seeming to recognize him. But it was impossible to ignore this, and though she had hoped her rôle would not begin till to-morrow, it was clear now that she must start to-day. "Why, but how charming to see you, Lord Lindfield," she said. "I am delighted. I am only just home, you know--or perhaps you don't, for why should you? Do leave your acquaintance in the lurch, now you have found a friend--it would have been prettier of you, by the way, to have said two friends--and join us. Alice dear, carry Lord Lindfield off under your cloak to the box. Kidnap him." "Jove! yes, I'll be kidnapped," said he. "Kidnap me quick, please, Lady Nottingham, because I see Mrs. Streatham's carriage. Too late; she sees me. May I come up for--for an hour or two, after the first act?" "Not for an hour, for two," said Jeannie, as Mrs. Streatham waved her hand to him, but without a smile, for she was busy wondering who Mrs. Halton was, and whether there was a chance of getting her to dine two or three times during the next week. Mrs. Streatham used her friends and acquaintances much as a clematis uses the wires or trellis put up for it. She strongly and firmly climbed along them (without ever letting go), to find fresh friends and acquaintances. "Who was that charming-looking woman you were talking to, Lord Lindfield," she said, "with Lady Nottingham? By the way, you lunch with us on Thursday, do you not?" "Mrs. Halton," said he. "Really! That sweetly pretty Miss--Miss Hanbury's aunt? Are she and Lady Nottingham in the stalls? They might like to come to my box instead. It is so far more comfortable in a box. Will you ask them? I do know Lady Nottingham. She dined with us last year--at least, I asked her." "They have a box of their own," said he. "Ah, what a pity! Let us go in. I expect a few friends this evening, but they will find their way. It is such a pity to miss a note of 'Faust.' Oh, I see, it is 'Lucia.' That is by Gounod too, is it not?" Three hours later they were all standing in the vestibule waiting for the arrival of carriages. Mrs. Streatham had been unable to arrange anything definite with regard to Mrs. Halton lunching with her, but had just said she would write, and hope to find her disengaged the week after next, when her carriage was bawled out. Lord Lindfield shut her firmly into it, with profuse thanks, and returned to the others. Crowds of people--some of whom, apparently, Mrs. Streatham did not know by sight--had swarmed into her box during the evening, and he had spent most of it in Lady Nottingham's without any sense of deserting his hostess, since it was impossible even to stand in her box, far less sit down. Then Lady Nottingham's carriage had come up too, and he put them into it. "Till to-morrow, then," said Jeannie. "I am looking forward to it immensely. You lunch with us first, and then take me to the concert." The motor bubbled and slid off, and she put down the window. "It moves," she said laconically. CHAPTER X. Lady Nottingham's house at Bray was one of those styleless nondescript river-side residences which, apart from the incomparable beauty of their surroundings, have a charm of their own, elusive but distinct. Originally it had been no more than a couple of cottages, thatched and low-eaved, but her husband in his lifetime had dealt with these so successfully by building out a dining-room with bedrooms above on one side, a drawing-room and billiard-room, again with bedrooms above, on the other, and a long row of servants' rooms and offices, that now it was commodious enough to take in a tolerably large party in extreme comfort. It is true that he might have built something quite as commodious at far less expense by pulling down the old and beginning again, but, on the other hand, the amusement and employment he got out of it was cheap at the additional price. The house stood screened from the river by a thick-set hawthorn hedge, inside which was a garden of a couple of acres in extent, in which was combined the charm of antiquity with the technique of skilful modern gardening. Unlike many English gardens, which are laid out to be active in, this was clearly a place for the lazy and the lounger. There were no tennis courts, no croquet lawns, no place, in fact, where any game could be played that demanded either extent or uniformity of surface. A wavy, irregular lawn, all bays and angles and gulfs of green, was fitted into the headlands and promontories of garden beds, as the sea is fitted into the land; but the voyager never got to open sea, so to speak, but was always turning round corners into other gulfs. It was impossible to imagine a place less formally laid out, or one, considering the extent of it, where you could walk so short a way in the same direction. There were no straight lines anywhere, an omission fatal in the eyes of a formalist, but paths, broad paths of grass, or narrower paths of old paving-stone, meandered about in a manner that could hardly fail to please. On each side of such paths were garden beds, no mere ribbons, but wide, deep spaces of well-nourished earth, where just now June made jungle. Here you could sit and become part of the general heat and fragrance, and lose your identity in summer, or, moving a little, find a tree, no shrub, but a big living elm in tower of leaf and panoply of spreading bough, to be cool under. Pigeons from the big dovecot in front of the house afforded to a leisure mind a sufficiency of general conversation, or formed a cooing chorus of approval if anybody wished to talk himself; but one thing clearly prohibited in these warm, green places was to be active. The actively inclined had to pass through the gate in the hedge, and there, by turning to the left, they would find a back-water with a whole village of boat-houses. There, to suit the measure of their activity, they could equip themselves with the required materials; there were punts at their disposal, or they could take unto themselves a canoe, or a portly, broad-beamed ark, or risk themselves in outriggers of extreme length and uncertain stability. The house itself afforded no less scope for the various inclinations of its inhabitants. There was a charming drawing-room where any one could sit up, take notice, and be formal. There was an immense billiard-room, with an alcove containing a couple of card tables, so far away from the billiards that the sound of cannons reached the ear of the bridge-player in a manner that could not disconcert; while for wet days and the more exuberantly inclined there was a squash-racquet court where any amount of exercise could be enjoyed with the smallest possible expenditure of time. The two original cottages had been run together, and a hall now comprised the whole ground floor of both. Wooden joists of the floors above made parallels down the ceiling, and it was still lit through the small-paned windows of the original cottages, through the squares of which the landscape outside climbed up and down over the ridges of the glass. At one end was the fireplace, which had once been a kitchen-range; but that removed, a large open hearth, burning a wood fire when fires were necessary, was flanked by two settles within the chimney-space. At the other end, and facing it, the corresponding kitchen range of the second cottage had also been cleared out, but the chimney above it had been boarded in, and a broad, low settee ran round the three sides of it. Above this settee, and planted into the wall, so that the heads of those uprising should not come in contact with the shelves, was a bookcase full of delectable volumes, all fit to be taken down at random, and opened at random, all books that were familiar friends to any who had friends among that entrancing family. Tennyson was there, and all Thackeray; Omar Khayyam was there, and Alice in Wonderland; Don Quixote rubbed covers with John Inglesant, and Dickens found a neighbour in Stevenson. But this was emphatically a room to sit down in, not to move about in, for the levels of the floor were precarious, and a sudden step would easily disconcert those who tried to make a promenade of it. It was as inactive in tendency as the garden. Outside the house was charmingly irregular. The billiard-room with the bedrooms above it was so markedly Queen Anne that it was impossible to believe it could be Queen Anne. Nor was it, for it was Queen Victoria. Then came the cottage section, which had a thatched roof, on which grew wallflowers and the pink pincushions of valerian, and following that was a low, stern line of building containing kitchens and servants' rooms, which made no pretence to be anything except that which it was. But over pseudo-Queen Anne, genuine George I. cottages, and frankly Edwardian kitchens, there rose a riot of delectable vegetation. White jasmine and yellow jasmine strove together like first cousins who hate each other, jackmanni and tropæolum were rival beauties, and rambler roses climbed indifferently about, made friends where they could, and when they found themselves unable, firmly stabbed their enemies and strangled their remains. Charming, however, as it all was, it had no mood to suggest. It but accentuated the moods of those who came there, and by its very vagueness and softness reflected the spirits of its visitors. It was impossible to imagine a place more conducive to foster and cherish a man's inclinations; to the lover it would be a place ideal for a honeymoon, to the studious an admirable study. In the Italian phrase the whole place was _simpatico_; it repeated and crooned over to every one the mood in which he came to it. And if a lover would find it an adorable setting for his beloved and himself, so, too, it would mock and rail in sympathy with one who was cynical and bitter. But since most people are not in any particular mood, and when they come into the country require light and agreeable diversion, Lord Nottingham had been quite right in providing so ample a billiard-room, so engaging a library, so varied a fleet of river-craft. Daisy and Gladys had come down here the day before Lady Nottingham and the rest of the party were to arrive, and they found plenty to occupy them. The house had not been used since Easter, and wore that indescribable look of uninhabitableness which results from a thorough house-cleaning. Everything, even in the irregular hall, looked angular and uncomfortable; chairs were set square to tables; tables were set at mathematically precise angles; blinds were all drawn down exactly four inches from the tops of the windows; and all the books were in their shelves. It was all too tidy to have been lived in, and, therefore, too tidy to live in, and it took Daisy nearly an hour to take the chill off the room, as she put it, though the heat here was nearly as intense as it had been in town. Gladys, who was no good at this subtle business of restoring life to a dead room, occupied herself with writing out the names of the guests very neatly on cards, which she then, with equal neatness, affixed to the doors of their rooms. Daisy paused at the end of this hour and surveyed the room with satisfaction. "For one who has till so lately been a corpse it isn't bad," she said. "Don't you see the difference, Gladys? It was like a refrigerator before. Yes, let's have tea at once, shall we, and then go out? There's lots more to do. We must pick great boughs of laburnum and beech for all the big vases. Gardeners are no good at that; nor are you, dear, for that matter. You tell them to pick boughs, and they pick button-holes." "I hate picking flowers at all," said Gladys. "They are so much nicer where they are." Daisy poured out tea. "I know you think that," she said, "and I entirely disagree. Whenever you see flowers in a house you think what a pity they are not growing in the garden; whereas, whenever I see flowers in a garden, it seems to me such a pity they are not in the house. Of course, when the house is quite, quite full, I don't mind the rest remaining in the garden." Gladys laughed. "I think that's like you," she said. "You want to use things on the whole, and I on the whole want to let them enjoy themselves." "That sounds as if you thought yourself a perfect saint of unselfishness and me a greedy pig," remarked Daisy. "If you don't come to tea I shall eat all the strawberries. Perhaps you wish they had never been picked, and left to rot on their stems by way of enjoying themselves." Gladys finished the last name on her packet of cards for guests' rooms. "No, I don't go as far as that," she said, "because I like the taste of them, which you can't get at unless you eat them. Now flowers look much nicer when they are growing." "Yes, but they are not yours so much when they are growing," said Daisy. "I like them in my house, in my vases. Yes, I suppose I am greedy. Oh, I am going to enjoy myself these next few days. All the people I like best are coming, and they mostly like me best. That is such an advantage. Wouldn't it be awful to like somebody very much and find he didn't like you? What a degrading position! Oh dear, what a nice world!" "More than usual?" "Much more. I'm dreadfully happy inside. Don't you know how you can be immensely happy outside and not really be happy at all? But when you are happy inside you are happy altogether, and don't mind a wet day or going to the dentist's one scrap. Isn't it funny how one gets happy inside all in a moment? I suppose there is a cause for everything, isn't there? Ugh! there's an earwig. Oh, it's going your way, not mine. I wonder what the cause of earwigs is. I wish they would find it out and reason it away." Gladys put an empty inverted teacup over the earwig. "What made you happy inside?" she asked. "Well, darling Aunt Alice started it two afternoons ago when we came back from the Zoo. I had a delightful talk, and she gave me some excellent advice. She quite realized that I wasn't exactly what most people would call being in love with him, but she advised me anyhow to make up my mind whether I would say 'yes' or 'no,' and recommended 'yes.' And so I did make up my mind, and the very next day, do you know, Gladys, when I dragged you away from the ball so early----" "Because you had a headache," said Gladys, ruthlessly. She had been enjoying herself, and still a little resented Daisy's imperious order to go away. "You needn't rub it in, darling. Well, that very night something happened to me that frightened me at first. I began to feel quite differently about him." Daisy got up quickly. "I've been so dreadfully happy ever since," she said, "although sometimes I've felt quite miserable. Do you see the difference, or does it sound nonsense? Let me explain. I've only felt miserable, but I was happy. Gladys, I do believe it's It. It does make one feel so infinitesimal, and so immense." Gladys looked up quickly at her cousin. Whatever It was, this was certainly a Daisy who was quite strange to her--Daisy with a strange, shy look in her eyes, half exulting in this new feeling, half ashamed of it. "I hardly slept at all that night," she said, "and yet the night didn't seem in the least long. And I don't think I wanted to sleep except now and then when I felt miserable. And I believe it's the same thing that makes me feel miserable which makes me so happy. Gladys, I shall be so shy of him to-morrow when he comes here that he will probably think I'm in the sulks. And he's coming early probably, before any of the others--before lunch, in fact." Gladys got up. "Oh, Daisy, I don't think you ought to have arranged that," she said. "Do you mean he will find just you and me here?" Daisy laughed. "He needn't find you unless you like," she said. "And I didn't exactly arrange it. I told him you and I would be alone here, and he asked if he might get down early. I couldn't exactly forbid him; besides, darling, I didn't want to." "Mother wouldn't like it," said Gladys. "So please don't tell her," remarked Daisy. "I hate vexing people. She won't find out either. We shall go on the river or something, and come back after the rest of the people have arrived. You are so old-fashioned, Gladys; besides, it isn't certain that he will come. He only said he would if he could. But he is the sort of man who usually can when he wishes." "I ought to tell mother," said Gladys. "I know, but you won't." Daisy laughed again, and then suddenly, without reason, her spirits fell. "Oh dear, what a little beast I have been!" she said. "I did arrange that he should come, Gladys; at least, I made it imperative that he should ask if he might, and now it seems so calculating and cold-blooded. Girls like whom I used to be till--till about forty-eight hours ago are such brutes. They plot and scheme and entrap men. Pigs! I almost hope he won't come. I do, really. And yet that wouldn't do either, for it would look as if he had found me out and was disgusted with me. I believe you are all wrong, both you and Aunt Alice, and that he doesn't care for me in the least. He has flirted with half London. It isn't his fault; women have always encouraged him, just as I have done. What beasts we are!" "Oh, well, come and pick boughs of laburnum," said Gladys. "Let's go and do something. We've been indoors all the afternoon." "But I don't want to pick boughs of laburnum," said Daisy. "Why should we do the gardener's work? I want to cry." "Very well, cry," said Gladys. "Oh, Daisy, I'm not a brute. I am so sorry you feel upset. But you know you are very happy; you have told me so. I should like to be immensely sympathetic, but you do change so quickly, I can't quite keep up. It must be very puzzling. Do you suppose everybody is like you when she falls in love?" "And I wish I was dead," said Daisy, violently, having arrived at that dismal conclusion by some unspoken train of thought. "I wish I was a cow. I wish I was a boy." "But you can't be a cow or a boy," said Gladys, gravely, "and you don't really wish you were dead." Daisy suddenly had a fit of the giggles, which before long infected her cousin also, and they both lay back in their chairs in peals of helpless laughter. Now and then one or other would recover a little, only to be set off again by the temporarily hopeless case, and it was not till they had laughed themselves tired that the fit subsided. Daisy mopped her streaming eyes. "L-let's pick laburnum," she said at length. "How silly you are! But it would save such a lot of trouble to be a cow. If I laugh any more I shall be sick." "Come into the garden, then," said Gladys. "Oh dear! I didn't mean _that_. Don't laugh again, Daisy; it does hurt so dreadfully." CHAPTER XI. Whatever might prove to be the conduct of others, it seemed clear next morning that the weather meant to do all in its power to help Daisy to have a happy time, and another hot and cloudless day succeeded. The girls intended originally to lunch at one, since that gave a longer afternoon; but at one, since nobody had appeared, it seemed wiser to put off lunch till half-past, since that was the hour at which they lunched in London. Eventually they sat down alone to a meal even more belated. But at present nothing could touch or mar Daisy's happiness. "It is much better that he shouldn't come," she said, with an air of decision. "I daresay Aunt Alice wouldn't like it, though it couldn't have been supposed to be my fault. Very likely his motor has broken down; he told me it usually did." She laughed quite naturally; there was no sting in his absence. "In fact, he told me he usually sent it on ahead," she said, "and started walking after it about half an hour later. In that way, by the time he arrived his chauffeur had generally put it to rights again, and he got in." "Then he ought to be here in half an hour," remarked Gladys. "Yes. Shall we have lunch kept cold for him? It would be hot by the time he arrived if we didn't. Oh, Gladys, I believe you are laughing at me. How horrid of you!" "Not in the least. But I am rather glad he didn't come. I hate concealing things from mother." Daisy put her nose in the air. "Oh, you needn't have worried. He would have been quite certain to have told Aunt Alice himself." "You didn't think of that yesterday," said Gladys. "No. What disgusting salad! I believe it's made of turnip-tops. I'm very glad he didn't come to lunch." "Men are so greedy about their food," said Gladys. "I don't mind what I eat." "Evidently, since you can eat that. Oh, Gladys, I don't mean to be cross, but when you say things on purpose to annoy me it would be such bad manners in me not to appear to be annoyed. Do you think his motor has broken down? Fancy him tramping down the Bath road on a day like this! He hates walking unless he is going to kill something. He was charged by a rhinoceros once. If you try to shoot them and miss, they charge. How awfully tiresome of them! He killed it afterwards, though. It was quite close. You never heard anything so exciting." Gladys laughed. "Oh, Daisy," she said, "you told me that before, and you said it was so hard to know what to say if you didn't know a rhinoceros from a hippopotamus. And now you find it too exciting." "Well, what then?" said Daisy, with dignity. "I think one ought to take an interest in all sorts of subjects. It is frightfully suburban only to be interested in what happens in your own parish. Somebody said that the world was his parish." "I don't know what parish Grosvenor Square is in," said Gladys, parenthetically. Somehow Daisy, in this new mood, was far less formidable than the glittering crystal which had been Daisy up till now. She seemed to have rubbed shoulders with the world, instead of streaking the sky above it. Her happiness, you would say, even in the moment of its birth, had humbled and softened her. Gladys found she had not the slightest fear of being snapped up. Several times during lunch Daisy had snapped, but she had snapped innocuously. They had finished now, and she rose. "I expect him in about an hour," said Daisy, rather magisterially. "Let us finish the flowers. I love flowers in my bedroom, don't you? Do let us put a dish of them in everybody's bedroom. It looks so welcoming. Books, too; everybody likes a book or two in his room. It's so easy to do little things like that, and people appreciate it enormously. There's the whole of the afternoon before us; nobody will arrive till the five o'clock train." "But I thought you said you expected him----" began Gladys. "Darling, pray don't criticize my last remark but three. Every remark becomes obsolete as soon as another remark is made." * * * * * Daisy's last conjecture was correct, and it was not till after five, when tea had been laid on the broad, creeper-covered verandah to the east of the house, that any one appeared. Then, however, they appeared in large numbers, for most of Lady Nottingham's guests had chosen the train she recommended to travel by. Every one, in fact, arrived by it with the exception of Jeannie Halton and Lord Lindfield. "I knew Jeannie would miss it," Lady Nottingham said, "but as she was equally certain she would not the thing had to be put to the proof. Daisy darling, how are you? She insisted on being taken to the symphony concert; at least, she didn't so much insist as Lord Lindfield insisted on taking her. They were to meet us at Paddington, and in case--Jeannie went so far as to provide for that contingency--in case they missed it, he was to drive her down in his motor." Victor Braithwaite, who had come with the party, joined in. "I know that motor," he said. "It can do any journey the second time it tries, but no journey the first time. He took me the other day from Baker Street to South Audley Street, and it stuck in the middle of Oxford Street." Jim Crowfoot helped himself largely to strawberries, and turned to Daisy. He was a slim, rather small young man, with a voice some two sizes too large for him. He was supposed to be rather a good person to have in the house, because he never stopped talking. Had it been possible to cover him over with a piece of green baize, like a canary, when one had had enough, he would have been even more desirable. "I suppose that's what they mean by second thoughts being the best," he said. "It isn't usually the case; at least, I find that if ever I think right, it's always when I don't give the matter any consideration. I came down here without considering that I promised to dine with Mrs. Streatham this evening, and it was an excellent plan." Mrs. Beaumont broke in. Her plan was always to be tremendously appreciative of everybody for two sentences, in order to enhance the effect of the nasty things she said of everybody the moment afterwards. It set the nasty things off better. "I think every one is too horrid about our dear kind Mrs. Streatham," she said. "She is the most hospitable woman I know, and you, for instance, Jim, go and eat her cutlets and then laugh at her. She asked me to dine with her next Friday, but I said I couldn't, as I remembered I was already engaged. When I looked at my book I found it was with her that I had already promised to dine. I like being asked twice; it shows one is really wanted." "Oh, we're all really wanted," said Jim. "But we don't always want the people who want us. That is the tragedy. If you'll ask me to dinner once, Mrs. Beaumont, I will transfer two of Mrs. Streatham's invitations to you." "There you are again! You are not kind. It would upset her table." "Not at all. Her husband would dine downstairs, and her daughter would dine upstairs. That is the advantage of having a family. You can always make things balance." "I have a family," said she, "and that is exactly why my bank-book won't balance. But when I overdraw I always threaten to transfer my account. Bankers will stand anything but that, won't they, Mr. Braithwaite? Let us go and stroll. Dear Jim always talks so loud that I can't hear myself think. And if I don't hear myself think I don't know what I shall say next. Do tell me, was it on purpose, do you think, that Mrs. Halton and Lord Lindfield missed their train? I may be quite wrong, but didn't you think that Alice said it as if she had rather expected it?" "Surely, she said she expected it." "How interesting! What a heavenly garden! I only have just met Mrs. Halton. Every one says she is too fascinating." "She is perfectly charming," said he. "Is that the same thing?" "Oh, not at all; you may be perfectly charming without being the least fascinating. No man ever wants to marry a perfectly charming woman; they only think it delightful when one of their friends does so." Daisy had heard most of this as the two left the verandah and strolled off down the garden, and the effect that it had on her was to make her label Mrs. Beaumont as "horrid." She was quite aware that three-quarters of the ordinary light conversation that went on between people who were not friends but only acquaintances was not meant to be taken literally, and that no one of any perception took it otherwise. Tribute to Aunt Jeannie's charms had been paid on both sides; the woman had heard of her as "too fascinating," Victor had found her charming. Daisy herself, from her own point of view, could find no epithet too laudatory, and she endorsed both the "fascinating" and the "charming." But she was just conscious that she would have preferred that Victor should have called her fascinating, and Mrs. Beaumont charming, rather than that it should have been the other way about. But it was not because Mrs. Beaumont called her fascinating that Daisy labelled that unconscious lady as horrid; it was because she had made the suggestion that Lord Lindfield and her aunt had missed the train on purpose, in order, so it followed, that they should drive down together in the motor whose second thoughts were so admirable. Daisy scorned the insinuation altogether; she felt that she degraded herself by allowing herself to think of it. But that had been clearly implied. The group round the tea-table had dispersed, and she easily found herself next Aunt Alice. "Everything is in order, dear Aunt Alice," she said, "and Gladys has worked so hard. But I don't think I should have come down yesterday if I had known there was a symphony concert this afternoon. What did they have?" "Brahms, I think," said Lady Nottingham, vaguely. "There is Brahms, isn't there? Neither Jeannie nor Lord Lindfield quite knew. They went to see." "But when did they settle to go and see?" asked Daisy. "Last night, I think. Oh, yes, at the Opera last night.--Yes, Mr. Crowfoot, of course you may have another cup. Sugar?--He came to my box--Lord Lindfield, I mean--and was so delighted to meet your Aunt Jeannie again.--Yes, I put in one lump, Mr. Crowfoot. Is that right?" Lady Nottingham certainly succeeded admirably in the lightness of touch she gave to the little speech. She knew, as well as if Daisy had told her in so many words, the sort of feeling that had dictated Daisy's rather catechism-questions about the manner of Jeannie and Lindfield settling to go to the concert, and what there was at the concert. But the lightness of touch was not easy; she knew quite well, and did not fail to remember, that a few days ago only she had advised Daisy to have her answer ready when (not "if") Lord Lindfield proposed to her. He had certainly not done so, but Daisy had evidently not expected him to go to a concert with her aunt and miss his train and drive down with her. She had no reason to suppose that anything that could be called jealousy was as yet existent in Daisy's mind. She only, perhaps, wanted to know exactly what had happened. Jim Crowfoot had only paused like a bird on the wing, pouncing on morsels of things to eat, and having got his second cup of tea he flew off again instantly to Mrs. Majendie, whom he was regaling with a shrill soliloquy. Thus for a moment Daisy and Aunt Alice were alone at the tea-table. Daisy dropped into a chair at Lady Nottingham's side. "I am so glad he likes Aunt Jeannie," she said in her best and quickest style, "and that she likes him. I suppose they do like each other, since they go to a concert together and miss a train together. You never miss trains with people you don't like, do you, Aunt Alice? I was rather afraid, do you know, that Aunt Jeannie wouldn't like him. I am so glad I was wrong. And they knew each other before, did they?" Lady Nottingham paused a moment. She never devoted, as has been said, more of her brain than was necessary to deal with the subject in hand, but it appeared to her that a good deal of brain was required here. Daisy, poor undiplomatic Daisy, had tried so hard in this rapid, quick-witted little speech to say all the things she knew she ought to feel, and which, as a matter of fact, she did not feel. Superficially, it was no doubt delightful that Aunt Jeannie should like Tom Lindfield; it was delightful also that he should like her. The speech was all quite correct, quite sincere as far as it went, but if one took it further it was all quite insincere. She said all that the surface felt in order to conceal what she really felt. And the light reply again was not easy to Lady Nottingham. She had considered Jeannie's plan in all its bearings, and neither then nor now could she think of a better plan. But already Daisy was watching; she said it was so nice that the two should be friends. She meant it, as far as it went, but no further. She would have to learn to mean it less and less; she would have to dislike and then to hate the idea of their being friends, if Jeannie's plan was to succeed. She would also have to hate one, anyhow, if not both, of the two whom she liked so much. The curtain had gone up on a tragic little farce. It was in order to avoid a tragedy, however, that the farce had been planned. It was in order to save Daisy that she was being sacrificed now. Lady Nottingham took up Daisy's last question. "Oh, yes, they have known each other for years," she said, helping the plan forward. "They met quite like old friends. I was completely out of it last night. We were just us three in the box, and I was the 'shadowy third.'" Daisy stamped, figuratively speaking, on what was in her mind, and compelled her loyalty to triumph. "I don't wonder at everybody simply loving Aunt Jeannie," she said. "We all do, don't we? But I don't love Lord Lindfield's motor. I do hope they will be in time for dinner. Otherwise the table is absolutely upset, and I shall have to settle it all over again. Isn't it rather inconsiderate of them, Aunt Alice? I think they ought to have caught their train, whether it was Brahms or not." But the loyalty was an effort. Lady Nottingham felt that, and applauded the effort. "Poor Daisy!" she said, speaking in these two words her unspoken thought. "It is too bad of them to give you more trouble." "Oh, I don't mind just arranging the table again," said Daisy, quickly. CHAPTER XII. A rearrangement of the table proved to be necessary, since at half-past eight Lord Lindfield's motor had not yet been heard of. But in spite of the absentees, it was a hilarious party that sat down. Some had been on the river, some had strolled about the garden, and all were disposed to enjoy themselves immensely. Jim Crowfoot had not ceased talking at all, and showed at present not the slightest sign of doing so. He took Daisy in to dinner. "They are probably sitting by the roadside," he said, "singing Brahms to each other, while the chauffeur lies underneath the car hammering it, with his feet just sticking out, and trying to screw the throttle into the waste-pipe of the carburetter. Why does nobody invent a motor car without a carburetter? It is always that which is at the root of the trouble. And the shades of evening will thicken, and they will sing louder and louder, as night draws on, to check their rising sensations of cold and hunger and fear, while the chauffeur swiftly and firmly reduces the car to scrap-iron. I think it is so interesting when somebody doesn't arrive. Their absence gives rise to so many pleasing conjectures. What are we going to do to-morrow, Miss Daisy?" "Oh, nothing, I hope," said she. "Why? Do you want to do anything?" "No, but if I was expected to do anything, I wished to know the worst at once. What I like best of all is to sit in a chair and not read. The chair ought to be placed at some railway station, and a succession of people should be provided to run by me with heavy bags in their hands just missing their trains. The next best thing to doing nothing yourself is to observe everybody else trying to do something, like catching trains, and not succeeding. My uncle once missed eight trains in one day, and then tried to commit suicide. But next day he caught nine trains and a motor 'bus, which reconciled him to living, which he is still doing." "Are you sure he was your uncle?" asked Daisy. "Not quite; but it is much better style to say a thing happened to your uncle than to confess that you made it up. If you make things up people expect you to write a novel or something, whereas nothing can be expected from you if you say it happened to your uncle. I haven't got any uncles. That is such a good thing; I can't be an anxiety to them. And nobody is an anxiety to me." The dining-room looked towards the front of the house, and Daisy turned suddenly. "Ah! surely that is the crunch of a motor on the gravel," she said. "I expect it is they." That it was a motor was at once put beyond the region of doubt by a succession of loud hoots, and in a couple of minutes Jeannie appeared in the doorway. "Dear Alice," she said, "I apologize most abjectly; at least, the motor apologizes. Lord Lindfield made it apologize just now at the top of its voice. Didn't you hear it? Don't scold us. We missed the train by about twenty minutes, as it is always best to do things thoroughly. Shall we dress, or may we come into dinner just as we are?" Jeannie looked radiantly round while chairs and places were being laid for them, shaking hands with those nearest her, smiling at others, and kissing her hand across the table to Daisy. The swift movement--it had been extremely swift for the last ten miles after the car had got to work again--and the change from the cool night air into this warm bright room had brought the blood to her cheeks, and gave a wonderful sparkle and youthfulness to her face, and she sat down at the top of one of the sides of the table with Lord Lindfield between her and Alice. "And we are so hungry," she said; "for the last half-hour we have talked of nothing but food. I couldn't look at the pink after-glow of the sunset because it reminded me of strawberry fool, and Lord Lindfield nearly burst into tears because there was a cloud shaped like a fish. And we had no tea, you see, because we were missing our train at tea-time." Dinner went on its usual way after this, and Daisy succeeded in giving a less distracted attention to Jim Crowfoot, for up till their arrival she knew that she had really been thinking about them only. She still felt a little hurt that instead of coming down here early to-day Lord Lindfield had been prevented from doing that only by his subsequent engagement to take Aunt Jeannie to a concert; but very likely he had thought over his half promise to arrive early, and seen, which was indeed the case, that it was not quite a usual thing to do. No doubt that was it; no doubt he would explain it to her afterwards, and Daisy settled in her own mind that she would at once admit the reasonableness of it, though she would let it appear that she was a little disappointed. And she was delighted that Aunt Jeannie liked him; she had said that before to Lady Nottingham, but it was truer now than when she had said it. For she had been conscious then of something in her own mind that did not agree with the speech; she had been glad that Aunt Jeannie liked him, but she would have been quite equally glad if she did not. It was not quite a nice feeling; there was something in common between it and jealousy, and it had required a certain effort, which she had gladly made, to put it away from her. That she had done. From where she sat she could just see him at the head of the table, side by side with Lady Nottingham; but she let herself look at him no more than she looked, with but casual glances, at any of the others. But it was very often that she heard, and allowed herself to listen for, that great boisterous laugh which contained so much enjoyment. Her rare glances in his direction, however, told her that it was Aunt Jeannie to whom he was talking, for after a word or two to Lady Nottingham just after he came in they had had no further conversation together. It was clear, then, that he liked Aunt Jeannie. That was a good thing also. The door from the dining-room was at that end of the room at which he was sitting, and Daisy, on her way out, had to pass close to him. He had not finished his talk with her aunt even then, for they both stood by their chairs, she waiting till others had passed out. But as Daisy came up he saw her. "Why, Miss Daisy," he said, "haven't seen or heard you all dinner-time. Been practising for a future incarnation as a mouse or some dumb animal? Well, this is jolly, isn't it? And Mrs. Halton's forgiven me for having a motor that breaks down, on condition of my getting one that doesn't." "Daisy darling," said Aunt Jeannie, putting her arm round the girl's waist, "how are you? You must take my side. After having stuck for an hour on a perfectly flat road, is it unreasonable that I couple my forgiveness with a new car?--You shall have our ultimatum afterwards, Lord Lindfield. Daisy may make harder conditions than I, and if she does, I shall certainly adopt them. Now, do look bored pretty soon, and come out of the dining-room quickly. It is barbarous this separation of the sexes after dinner. You don't stop behind after breakfast to drink tea." The others had passed out, and Daisy and Mrs. Halton brought up a rather detached rearguard. The rest had gone straight out of the house into the verandah, where they had had tea, for the night was exquisitely soft and warm, and they followed them there. "Ah! such a concert, Daisy," said Jeannie. "I wish you could have been there. And such a ludicrous drive as we had. It is so pleasant meeting Tom Lindfield again; we were great friends a year or two ago, and I think we are great friends still. But, my dear, our drive! We went for the first hour well inside the four-miles-an-hour limit, and eventually stuck on a perfectly flat road. Then the chauffeur chauffed for an hour or two, and after that we came along a shade above the fifty-miles-an-hour limit. Our limitations were our limits throughout. And such nonsense as we talked!" "Oh, do tell me," said Daisy. "Nonsense is the only thing I care to hear about." "I couldn't. I can't remember anything. I only know I laughed quite enormously and causelessly. Ah, here they all are.--Alice, what a divine place, and how it has grown up? Like Daisy. I was telling her about my ridiculous drive with Lord Lindfield." Jeannie sat down in a big basket-chair and became suddenly silent. She felt queerly tired; she felt also rather sick at heart, and looking at Daisy, she could not bear the thought of the trouble and disquietude she must bring to the girl whom she so loved. She had saddled herself with a load that already galled her, though she had barely taken it up, and even as she spoke of her ludicrous drive there came to her mind an aspect of it, namely, the purpose for which she had driven down with him, which was not ludicrous at all. And here, in this starlit garden, with friends on all sides of her, it seemed an incredible thing that she had got to sow suspicion and discord. Trouble and sorrow seemed so remote, so utterly alien. Security and serenity had here their proper home; it was a place of pleasantness and friends and rest. She felt much inclined to yield to its influences, to put off the execution of her scheme, saying to herself that it was wiser to think over it again, and see if there was not, as surely there must be, some other possibility of detaching Daisy from the man whom it seemed certain she would otherwise marry, and whom it was quite impossible she should marry. Even now Daisy was standing near her, trusting her so implicitly, loving her so well. That love and trust, so intensely dear to her, she had to risk disturbing; indeed, it was scarcely a risk she ran, it was a certainty she courted. However quietly and well she did her part it was impossible that Daisy should not see that she was encouraging Tom Lindfield, was using a woman's power of attraction to draw him towards her. True, Daisy had not as yet told her that she expected to marry him; officially, as far as Daisy was concerned, she herself was ignorant of that. But supposing Daisy confided in her? There was nothing more likely. Within the next four-and-twenty hours Daisy would quite certainly see that her aunt was very intimate with Lord Lindfield. That very intimacy would encourage Daisy to tell her. Or, on the other hand, Lord Lindfield, while still thinking that she was only a very pleasant, sympathetic woman, might tell her his hopes with regard to Daisy. That was a very possible stage in the process of his detachment. Yet she knew that personally she could make no better plan than that which she had already begun to carry out. She had thought over it, and thought over it, and one consideration remained paramount, namely, that Daisy must never know why this marriage was so unthinkably impossible. If he proposed to her, it seemed certain that she would accept him. In that case she would have to be told. Clearly, then, his proposal must be averted. She could find no other plan to avert that than the one she was pursuing, and already, partly to her relief, partly to an added sense of the meanness of her own rôle, she believed that his detachment would not be so difficult to manage. He had responded very quickly and readily to her advances; he had come to the concert with her and was delighted to miss the train, having told her also that he had "thought" of going down early to Bray. He had said no more than that, and she had quite legitimately laughed at the idea of his spending the day alone with two girls, had professed herself as pleased to have upset so preposterous an arrangement. Yet this, too, though she was glad to have stopped it, added to her heart-sickness. He would not have made such an arrangement unless Daisy had allowed it. And if Daisy permitted him to come down to spend the day with her and Gladys, it surely implied that Daisy wanted very much to see him. But Lady Nottingham had told her that Daisy was not in love with him. That was still an anchor of consolation. All this was no effort of consecutive thought which required to be reasoned out. It was all in front of her, spread out like a landscape, to be grasped in a moment. There was Victor, too.... Daisy moved a step nearer her chair. "It's three days since you got back, Aunt Jeannie," she said, "and I haven't had a real word with you yet. May I come and talk to you this evening when we go up to bed? I have such heaps to say." This was too dangerous. At any cost Jeannie wanted to avoid an intimate conversation with Daisy. She had her work to do, and she did not think she could go through with it if Daisy told her in her own dear voice what she already knew. She herself had to be a flirt, had to exhibit this man to Daisy in another light, to make her disgusted with him. That was a hard row to hoe; she did not want it made more difficult. Luckily, even as Daisy spoke, an interruption came. The sound of men's voices sounded from an open door. "My darling, how I long to talk to you," she said, "or, rather, to have you talk to me. But to-night, Daisy, I am so tired. When I can escape and go to my bedroom, I shall just tumble into bed. You look so well, dear, and so happy. You couldn't tell me anything nicer than that. Ah! here are the men. Let us multiply ourselves." CHAPTER XIII. Lord Lindfield had carried out Jeannie's instructions to the letter, and after the women had left the dining-room had relapsed into a state of supreme boredom. It had not been a difficult task; his boredom was quite genuine, for he did not in the least wish to talk to Victor Braithwaite or to listen to Jim Crowfoot, or pass the wine to two or three other men. He wanted to tell Daisy how impossible it had been to get down earlier in the day; he wanted also to tell Mrs. Halton what a jolly drive they had had together. It had been jolly; there was no question whatever about it. She had been so delightful, too, about the breakdown of that wretched motor car. Other women might have been annoyed, and audibly wondered when it was going to start again. But she had not been the least annoyed. She had said, "Oh, I hope it will take a long time to mend! Isn't it heavenly sitting by the roadside like tramps?" They had sat like tramps for an hour or two. She did not look particularly like a tramp, for she had a huge fur cloak on at first, designed originally to defeat the cold wind occasioned by the speed at which they hoped to travel, which up till then had been about three miles an hour. This she had taken off, and sat on a rug taken from the disgraceful car, and treated the whole affair like a huge joke. There never was such a good comrade; if she had been a boy, out on a motor for the first time, she could not have adopted a franker air of amused enjoyment at these accidents of the road. They had made periodic visits to the car and the hammering chauffeur, and then the Great Hunger, about which she had already spoken, had begun. She had confessed to an awful inanition, and had suggested things to eat, till the fact that other people were already sitting down to dine, having had tea, became absolutely unbearable. Then suddenly she had stopped the nonsense and said, "I am so glad that this has happened. Being left in the Bath Road like this makes one know a man better, doesn't it? I always wanted to know you better. Oh, the compliment is ambiguous. I haven't told you yet whether you improve on acquaintance." And then, just as they stopped at the door and the motor hooted its apologies, she turned to him. "What a pity!" she had said. "I hate nice things coming to an end." That particular nice thing had certainly come to an end, but he was firmly determined that there were a quantity of nice things not yet begun. He was genuinely attached to Daisy; he fully intended to ask her to be his wife, and contemplated, in case he was so fortunate as to obtain a "yes" from her, many serene and happy years. And, indeed, he was no coxcomb; he did not fancy that any girl he saw was willing to marry him if he wished to marry her, but at the same time he did not feel that it was in the least likely that Daisy would refuse him. And as he came out after dinner that night, after so successfully looking bored in the dining-room, he had not altered his mind in the least; his intentions were still all fully there. But that was no reason why he should not talk to Mrs. Halton. He was quite capable even of talking to her about Daisy. It was then that the action of the tragic little farce really began. Daisy had heard the sound of his voice before they turned the corner of the house, and by design moved away from her aunt's side to the far end of the verandah, from where a path led down to the edge of the river. The verandah was well lit; there could be no question that when he came round the corner he would see her. There was no question, moreover, in her own mind, that he would join her. Jeannie was sitting at the end of the verandah near to the corner round which they came. Victor Braithwaite stopped on one side of her chair, Lord Lindfield stopped on the other. The latter had looked up, and, Daisy felt sure, had seen her. Then, after a few minutes' chat, Daisy saw her aunt get out of her chair and heard her laugh. "But I challenge you, Lord Lindfield," Daisy heard her say; "and, apart from all chivalrous instincts, if you don't accept my challenge it will be because you know you will be beaten. We will have a game of pool first, and then, when everybody else is tired, you and I will play a serious hundred. You probably think that because I am a woman I can't play games. Very well. I say to that, 'Let us put it to the proof.'--Mr. Braithwaite, come and play pool first, won't you?--Dear Alice, may we go and play pool? Is nobody else coming? Let us begin at once." All this Daisy heard; and once again she saw Lord Lindfield look up towards the end of the verandah where she was standing, and then call some laughing reply after Mrs. Halton, who was already just vanishing indoors. For a couple of steps he followed her, then turned round and came up the verandah towards Daisy. "Mrs. Halton has arranged a regular night of it, Miss Daisy," he said, "and has challenged me to a game of billiards in such a way that I can't refuse. We're going to have a game of pool first. Won't you come and take a hand? You and I will play Mrs. Halton and Braithwaite." "Sides at pool?" asked Daisy. "Why shouldn't we? But probably you think it's stupid to go indoors on such a night. So it is. I would much sooner stroll about or go on the river, but, you see, I can't help myself. Let's go in the punt to-morrow. Please keep a punt for you and me. Put a label on--'You and Me.'" Daisy smiled. She would not have allowed that she needed cheering up at all, but it is a fact that this cheered her up. "Yes, do let us spend all day on the river to-morrow," she said. "But you must go and play your pool now. I don't think I shall come in; it is so heavenly out here." Lord Lindfield wavered; the girl looked enchantingly pretty. "Upon my word, so it is," he said; "and you look just like a summer evening yourself, Miss Daisy. Wonder if I could get some one to take my place at pool before I play a single with Mrs. Halton, and stop out here with you?" Pleasant though the deed would have been to Daisy, his wish and his desire were more essential. She could without struggle forgo the pleasure of being with him, now that he had said that it was this that he preferred. "But indeed you mustn't do anything of the kind," she said. "Aunt Jeannie wants you to play; she asked you. You must go in at once." The fact that Mrs. Halton had carried off two men to the billiard-room left the rest of the party out of the square; but Daisy, quite willing to be the odd unit, strolled very contentedly out along the path that led to the river. The moon had not long risen and shone very large and low in the east, burning dimly and red through the heat haze and vapours from the Thames. The air was very windless, and the river lay like a sheet of grey steel at her feet, save where a little spreading feather of black ripple showed the course of some water-rat. Bats wheeled and dipped like some company of nocturnal swallows, pursuing their minute prey, and uttering their little staccato cries so high in the scale that none but the acute ear could hear them. From the garden, as an occasional whisper of wind lifted the down-dropping leaves of aspen and ash, the air came laden with the scent of damp earth (for since sunset the gardeners had been busy) and the spilt fragrance of sleeping flowers. Or occasionally a little draught would draw from the river itself, and that to Daisy's nostril was of even a more admirable quality, for it smelt of cool running water and nought besides. On the far bank the mists lay in wisps and streamers above the low-lying meadow, and the dark bulk of cattle and horses loomed through them like rocks in a vaporous sea. But a fathom from the ground the air was dry and clear; it was but in a shallow sea that these rocks were submerged, and on this side of the river where Daisy walked the banking-up of the path to form a protection to the garden against the spring and winter floods raised her above these damp breathings of the fruitful earth, and she moved in the clearness and austerity of starshine and moonlight. And not her body only, but her mind and soul walked in a light that was very romantic and wonderful, and seemed somehow to be attuned to this pale mysterious flame of the moon that flooded the heavens. All the dim, intense happiness she first experienced two nights before had blazed up within her into a conflagration, the nature of which there was no mistaking, while the dim and almost intenser doubts and miseries of two nights before she saw now to be but the shadows cast by the first kindling of the other light. Now, as it blazed higher and more triumphantly, the shadows vanished. And though her consciousness of this was so vivid and alert, self-consciousness was almost altogether banished. She no longer made plans for herself in the future, as she had always done till now, seeing herself as the mistress of a great house, and filling that position, as, indeed, she was fitted to do, so well, or seeing herself always kind, always pleasant, always ready to smile on her adorer. Nor did she even see herself as mother of his children. She lost sight of herself altogether just now, and saw him only, but in that different light in which he had appeared so suddenly, so disconcertingly, at the ball two nights ago. And he had wished, had preferred to come out here with her rather than go indoors and play billiards. Daisy, in a sudden mood of that exquisite humbleness which goes with love, blushed with pleasure that it should be so, but told herself that it was an incredible thing. Yet so it was. He would sooner have come out here (for he had said it) and talked to this goose of a girl than be with anybody else, even Aunt Jeannie. Daisy wished she had told Aunt Jeannie on the afternoon of her arrival what was the state of things between her and Lord Lindfield, for it was really rather too much of a good thing that Aunt Jeannie (the darling) should all innocently monopolize him the whole afternoon, drive down with him alone (taking hours and hours over it), and as soon as dinner was over (at which meal she sat next him) take him away to play billiards. But she had let that opportunity slip, and though she had hoped to tell Jeannie about it to-night she would not be able, since her aunt had cried off a bedroom talk on the plea of tiredness. And then, quite suddenly, a thought occurred to Daisy of the most disagreeable kind. Aunt Jeannie had been too tired to talk to her, had meant to slip away and tumble into bed as soon as possible, yet within five minutes of her having made that declaration she had engaged herself to play pool and to follow that up by having a single with Lord Lindfield--an odd programme for a woman who was so fatigued that she was going to slip away and go to bed as soon as possible. Then, almost without pause, Daisy pulled herself together again, banging the door of her mind, so to speak, on that unpleasant thought, and refusing to give it entrance or to hold parley with it. There were fifty explanations, if explanations were required, but for a loyal friend they were not, and Daisy refused to think more of the matter. But all the time some small prying denizen of her subconscious mind was wondering what these explanations could possibly be. This unpleasant little moment, though she had dealt with it as loyally and speedily as she could, had rather spoilt the moonlight saunter--or, at any rate, Daisy was afraid of other similar intrusions, and she went back to the house. There she found the whole party engaged, for the bridge tables had been made up, one in the far end of the billiard-room, one out on the verandah, while the remaining three were still at their pool. Without more than half-conscious intention, Daisy strolled on round the house, meaning to look in at the billiard-room. She had meant to go into the room in the natural, ordinary way, entering by the long French window, which gave on to the path, and would be sure on this warm evening to be open. But she did not do that, and instead, paused opposite the window, but at some little distance from it, so that she herself was probably invisible to eyes looking from that bright light inside into the dusk in which she stood. She wanted, in fact, to see what was going on without being seen. She saw. Aunt Jeannie and Lord Lindfield were standing together by the marking-board, talking about some point which might or might not have been connected with billiards. The pool apparently was over, for Victor Braithwaite had put down his cue and had strolled over to the bridge table. And at that moment Jeannie raised her hand and laid it, just for a second, on the sleeve of Lindfield's shirt, for he was coatless. The action was infinitesimal and momentary, but it looked rather intimate. And then poor Daisy had once more to take herself in hand. Whatever polite name might be found for her present occupation (you could call it strolling in the garden or looking at the moon, if you chose), there was a very straightforward and not very polite name that could be found for it, and that was "spying." She discontinued it, and entered the billiard-room, whistling, like a proper person. The usual thing happened, and everybody became so stupidly and obstinately unselfish that it looked as if there would be no more billiards at all. Lord Lindfield, without pause, said: "By Jove! how lucky, Miss Daisy. You've come in the nick of time. Just finished our pool. Now you and Mrs. Halton shall play a single and I shall mark for you." But it appeared also that if there was a thing Mrs. Halton really enjoyed doing it was marking for other people, and she insisted that Daisy and Lord Lindfield should have a game. Daisy, of course, was equally altruistic, firmly refused to interfere with their previous arrangement, and eventually, a rubber just coming to an end, cut into the bridge table in the far corner of the room. The rubber was fairly rapid, but before the end of it a footman had appeared with the bed-time tray of soda and whisky and lemons, followed by another man with bedroom candles. Mrs. Beaumont, the only other woman in the room besides Daisy and Mrs. Halton, and who had been yawning in a strangled manner during the course of the last two hands, instantly took her candle and departed, and Daisy, with more deliberation, drank some soda-water and looked on at the game for a few minutes. "Daisy dear," said Jeannie, "is it too dreadful and wicked and fast of me to go on playing? I don't care if it is. I must finish the game, and I'm going to win.--Oh, Lord Lindfield, what a fluke! Do you mean to say you are going to count it?" "By Jove! yes; charge three for that.--Miss Daisy, your aunt's giving me an awful hiding! There, I've left them again!" Jeannie, as a matter of fact, was what may be called a very decent country-house player, quite capable of making her twenty-five break more than once in the course of a game. She selected this moment to do it now, and from seventy-six ran out. The other men had strolled out on to the terrace, and Daisy, after congratulations, lit a couple of candles, one for herself, one for her aunt. "I say, Mrs. Halton, we might have one more game," said Lord Lindfield; "it's only half-past ten. Couldn't sleep if I had to finish up with such a whacking." Jeannie's eyes were a-sparkle with enjoyment and triumph. "Have a game with Daisy," she said. "Let me rest on my laurels." Daisy shook her head. "Not to-night," she said. "I really would rather not. Do play again, Aunt Jeannie. I am going to bed; I am, really." "Fifty, then, Lord Lindfield," said Jeannie. Daisy went straight up to her room, still making an effort to banish the thought that Aunt Jeannie had said she was tired, and slowly the house grew quiet. The steps of men going to their rooms tapped along the polished boards of the corridor outside, with now and then the rustle of a dress. Then all was still, and she sat, half-undressed, with a book on her lap that she was not reading, while a couple more quarters chimed from the clock above the stables. At last came the sound of steps again outside; the tap of a rather heavy tread, and with it the rustle of a dress. Then came Lindfield's laugh, merry and unmistakable. "Good-night, Mrs. Halton," he said. "I've had a perfectly ripping time! Never enjoyed a day more." Apparently she had gone down the passage some way, for her voice sounded more distant. "And I also," she said. "Good-night." Then came the sound of two doors shutting. CHAPTER XIV. It was about half-past three in the afternoon of the next day, and house and garden alike wore a rather uncomfortable air of heat fatigue and somnolence. The blinds were down in all the windows that faced south and west, with the object, no doubt, of keeping them cool--a most desirable condition of things, but one, on the present occasion, but imperfectly realized. Nor were things much better to the east of the house, where ran the deep verandah in which they had sat and from which Daisy had strayed the evening before; for the heat came no longer from the honest and scorching rays of the sun, but through a thick blanket of grey cloud, which all morning had been gradually forming over and obscuring the sky. Southwards there was rather an ugly glare in the day, a tawny, coppery-coloured light that spread from low on the horizon, where clouds of thicker and more palpable texture were piled together--clouds with hard edges and angry lights in them. It was certain there was going to be a storm somewhere, and that would be no bad thing, for the air was horribly sultry, and quite distinctly needed clearing. Daisy was always susceptible to atmospheric conditions, and she had gone upstairs after lunch to her room, on the plea, a fairly true one, of thunder-headache. Aunt Jeannie had been eager with sympathy, smelling-salts, and offers to read, but Daisy had quietly rejected all these, saying that it was merely a question of thunderstorm. When the storm broke she would be better; till then smelling-salts would not help her. "It's quite darling of you, Aunt Jeannie," she had forced herself to say at the end, with a cordiality that was somewhat hard to put into her voice; "but, really, I would sooner be alone. It isn't a bad headache either--only just a thunder one." There was a window-seat in her room, well lined with cushions, and looking over the river, and it was here that Daisy was rather uneasily reclining herself. She had first tried lying on her bed, but the room was too airless except close by the window to be tolerable. Partly that, partly (half an hour ago) the sound of voices outside, had made her come over here, and it was to see what was happening to those whom she had heard talking, as well as to get what air there was, that kept her here now. A breath-holding immobility lay over river and garden; no quiver moved in the aspens or shook the leaf-clad towers of the elms and chestnuts. It was as if, instead of being clad in soft and sensitive foliage, they were cast in iron. No note of birds came from the bushes, no ripple broke the metallic hardness of the river, and the reflections of the loose-strife and tall grasses along its edges, and the clump of chestnuts on the little promontory at the corner of the garden, were as clear-cut and unwavering as if they had been enamelled on steel. There was no atmosphere in the day; no mist or haze, in spite of the heat, shrouded or melted the distances; the trees and house-roofs of Maidenhead a mile away seemed as if a stretched-out finger could be laid on them. They were of Noah's Ark size; it was only minuteness that showed their remoteness. There was a punt underneath these chestnuts at the corner of the garden, partly concealed by the low sweep of the boughs. Half an hour ago Daisy had heard Aunt Jeannie's voice below her window saying, "Yes, with pleasure. But we shall be wise not to go far, as I am sure there will be a storm." It was at that that Daisy had left her bed and come across to the window-seat, to see with whom Aunt Jeannie was not going far. But before she had got there another voice had told her who it was. They had not gone far; they had gone about fifty yards from the boathouse. She could see the lines of the punt among the leaves; there was a great pile of crimson cushions and a woman's figure dressed in grey. In front of it sat a man's figure in flannels, with shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Even as Daisy looked, Aunt Jeannie passed him a couple of cushions, and he too sat down on the floor of the punt, close to and facing her. Daisy had said her headache was not bad, and that it was only thunder-headache. Neither of these assertions was quite true. Her headache was bad, and it was not, in the main, thunder-headache at all; it was headache born of trouble and perplexity and struggle. She did not in the least understand what was happening. She had got up early that morning and had gone out before breakfast. Very likely she was out of sorts, and a row on the river in the coolness of the day was exactly the right thing to correct morbid and suspicious impressions, which were founded, so she told herself, not on facts, but on her own bilious interpretation of facts. And, indeed, in the fresh dewy morning she found, when she went out, that her imagination, which had been fairly busy most of the night fitting together, like a Chinese puzzle, the rather disturbing events of the day before, had been riotous and sensational. Lord Lindfield, for instance, it was true, had not come down here early yesterday, as he had suggested, but had gone with Aunt Jeannie to a concert. Clearly his coming down alone to spend the day with two (especially one) girls in the country would have been highly unconventional, and he was very wise not to. So that was disposed of. They had missed their train and motored down instead, arriving half-way through dinner. What of that? Unless she was prepared to aver that there had been no breakdown, what was there to build on here? So that was disposed of. They had played two games of billiards together last night--the second fifty, so it appeared, had been doubled--but why not? Before each game Daisy had been asked if she would not play, and had refused. Then he had said, as they parted on the landing, that he had never enjoyed a day more. And what of that? Did not Daisy herself have "the most heavenly evening I have ever spent" about seven times a week? Like the sensible girl she was, she took her trouble to bits in that early morning row, as one may take the mechanism of a clock to bits, and found there was something faulty in every individual piece of its working. Clearly, therefore, the whole thing, when pieced together again, could not reasonably be considered a reliable clock, since there was something wrong with every single piece of it. But--here was the trouble of it--it seemed to her, when reconstructed and made into one, to keep excellent time, to be thoroughly dependable. Yet, since all its pieces were wrong, she would not accept the whole, and, tossing it overboard, so to speak, settled down for a spell of demon-dispersing exercise. It was still only a little after seven. She had two clear hours to get rid of her blues--for they already had become substantial enough to take this depressing colour--before breakfast. She had returned, it must be confessed, in far more equable spirits; physical exercise had disposed her to a broader and more out-of-door attitude, while her determined effort not to be suspicious and maliciously constructive had done more. Of all people in the world Aunt Jeannie was the least mean or ignoble-minded, and Daisy told herself that she had been measuring her actions by a standard so crooked that it would not lie straight along them. There should be no more such attempts, and no more looking from the dark into windows to see unseen what people were doing inside. Flushed and exhilarated by her row, Daisy's cheeks burnt a shade brighter that moment at the thought that it was indeed she who had done that. It was still half an hour to breakfast-time when she got back to the boat-house, but already the heat of the day was begun, and the smell of the damp coolness of the night dried up. She strolled along the outside of the thick hedge that faced the river, and then, turning the corner, saw in front of her, not twenty yards distant, two figures standing alone together. The woman's two hands clasped those of the man, holding them against her breast. She was speaking softly and eagerly, smiling into his face. Quick as a lizard, Daisy popped back behind the hedge before either seemed to have seen her, and went swiftly to the house. But this was more inexplicable yet--for the two figures she had seen were those of Aunt Jeannie and Victor Braithwaite. There was no questioning the intimacy of their attitude. Yet here again she had seen something she had not been meant to see; she would be a lamentable creature if she let her mind dwell on it, or try to construct its meaning and significance. It was not for her. But if the man's figure had been Lord Lindfield's she would have been less surprised. She had earned an inactive morning by her expedition before breakfast, and announced her set determination to go no further than the elm-trees beyond the rose-garden, and when arrived there to do nothing whatever. From the other side of the table Lord Lindfield rose at this. "Jove, Miss Daisy," he said. "I've been wondering since I got up, what's the matter with me, and now I know it's the need of sitting under a tree and doing nothing. I'll join your party, if you'll let me. Is talking allowed?" "Yes, but nobody need answer. I usually shan't." Jim Crowfoot got up. "I'm not sure if I shall come or not," he said. "I think not. I feel rather inclined for conversation to-day." "Better not come then, old chap," said Lindfield. "There's not much conversation usually when I'm with you. I never get a word in. Nor anybody else." It was impossible to take offence at even this, so pure and friendly was the chaff. It may be said to Jim's credit that he did not even attempt to do so. "What am I to do, then?" he asked. "I can't converse alone.--Mrs. Halton, will you talk to me?" "No, Mrs. Halton's going to write letters all the morning," said Lindfield. "She told me so." Just for a second Daisy allowed herself to think "So he already knew that," but it was but momentary. This mood of drawing inferences from infinitesimal data in other people's conduct was altogether detestable; she must not allow herself to do it. "Yes, I'm going to be a virtuous woman," said Aunt Jeannie.--"Alice dear, will you get a nice dog-chain and fasten me down to a writing-table till I swear to you that I have written to everybody who ever writes to me?" "If you wish, but if I chain you down you sacrifice the fineness of your virtue. You make a virtue of necessity." "No," said Jeannie, "I make a necessity of virtue. I shan't be able to get up. Or is it the same thing?" "You're clearly going to make a morning of it," remarked Lindfield. Jeannie sighed. "An afternoon as well," she said, "If my recollection of the size of a certain packet neatly labelled 'Unanswered' is at all correct." "Shouldn't make a packet of unanswered letters," said Lindfield. "I burn them. Then you can start afresh." CHAPTER XV. The next hour or two had fairly fulfilled the breakfast plans. Daisy, after the tiger accident to her parasol at the Zoo, had fallen back, for country use anyhow, on an immense scarlet contadina umbrella, and had planted herself and this under the elm-tree as soon as breakfast was over. Almost immediately after Lord Lindfield had followed her, with not quite so rigid an interpretation of idleness as Daisy, for she had brought absolutely nothing with her to occupy her hands or her mind, whereas he had a daily paper. "Not a word or a sigh or a sneeze, Miss Daisy," he said, in a whisper, "or we shall be discovered. Not brought anything whatever with you? That's right. Just you yourself." "You forget my parasol," said Daisy, "and it really isn't an insignificant affair." "I know it isn't. I don't like it. It hides too much of you." Daisy laughed. "I suppose that means I have to put it down," she said. "Well, I think it would be kind of you," he said. "You've been hiding yourself too much lately to my mind." Daisy could not let this pass. "Well, I like that," she said. "You threw me over all yesterday, which you said you were going to spend down here; you arrived with Aunt Jeannie in the middle of dinner, and played five thousand up with her afterwards." "Yes, and when I do hope to catch a glimpse of you you hide yourself under a scarlet umbrella," he said. "That's better; thanks awfully." Daisy furled the big umbrella, and threw it down on the grass. For the moment her mind was absolutely at peace again, and went back with a tremulous sense of happiness to the mood of the ball, so few evenings ago. And as she faced him, she thought again that it was a different man from the one she had known, and again saw that the difference was in herself. "We had a great discussion, Mrs. Halton and I," he went on, "when we were sitting like wayside flowers near Ealing yesterday, as to whether people were nicer in the country or in town. I wonder which of us you will agree with." "Oh, with Aunt Jeannie, I expect," said Daisy, not without challenge in her voice. "H'm. That's a nasty one for me. Well, let's put it to the proof, anyhow. We agreed that some people are nicer in town and others in the country, but there we parted company." "Ah, don't tell me," said Daisy. "Let me think." She plucked a long grass stem and drew it through her teeth. "The people one really likes and loves are nicer in the country," she said at length. "The people who just amuse you are nicer in town." "Hurrah!" said he. "That's first-rate! It's what I said myself. Mrs. Halton wouldn't have any of that. She says that she herself is so much nicer in town that she refused to accept such a classification. Else it would mean that none of us liked her. But she stuck to the fact that none of us would like her so much down here." Daisy considered this. "How funny of Aunt Jeannie," she said. "I wonder----" Then a whole collection of the things that poor Daisy had tried to put away from her mind flashed into it again, giving her a feeling of sickness and insecurity. What did it all mean? "I wonder what she meant?" she added, truthfully enough. "Don't know. Here she comes. By Jove! Miss Daisy, how splendid she looks." Aunt Jeannie certainly was looking her very best this morning. She was walking hatless in the blaze of the sun, and somehow the sunlight seemed not so much to shine on her as to shine from her. Flowers, garden, river, sky, sun, were all so much less splendid than she. "I love this heat," she said, "and it saps my moral nature and leaves me a happy animal with no sense of responsibility. Daisy dear, you needn't answer. I won't invade you for long. But I sat down at my table with all the unanswered letters, I looked them through, and determined not to answer one. I'm going to have a holiday from being good. I've been good too long, I think. The joy of virtue palls. But there ought to be wind; there is sun and sky and water and all nice things, except wind. Can't you--what's the phrase?--can't you raise the wind, Lord Lindfield?" Tom Lindfield clicked his finger and thumb together. "Jove! Mrs. Halton," he said, "you always think of the right thing, or make me do so." He jumped up. "I'll order the motor at once," he said. "You and Miss Daisy and I, let's all go out for a run. Old Puffing Billy always goes well up to speed limit the day after he's broken down." Daisy's effort with herself that morning on the river suddenly came to the limits of its energy. Once again she saw everything in that light which she had tried so hard to extinguish. And now there was more added, there were further features in the scene. Aunt Jeannie was too clever for her; with how natural an air she had come out and said that only wind was necessary to make the morning perfect; and how naturally and how unconsciously had he responded to that subtly conveyed suggestion, the very subtlety of which made him believe that he had thought of the plan himself. But outwardly Daisy still was mistress of herself; it was from the inside, not the outside, that her control was beginning to give way. She put up the red umbrella again. "Thanks awfully, Lord Lindfield," she said, "but I can't think of the grilling roads and the dust without putting up my neat little parasol again. But you are too ingenious for words! Aunt Jeannie comes out here and demands wind, and you instantly think of the only plan of giving it her. No, for me the book of verses, or, rather, the newspaper, underneath the bough will last till lunch-time. Has anything happened?" Daisy spoke in the lightest possible tone; it required a woman to hear that beneath the light words a troubled spirit spoke. And Jeannie was sick at heart at the success of her scheme. She had heard at breakfast how these two meant to spend their morning; she was aware that others knew of the situation which existed between them, and would surely avoid the elm-tree by the rose-garden like a plague-stricken spot, and so she had come out here on her hateful mission, interrupting and breaking up their dangerous companionship. She had been prepared to go further than this--to ask, if necessary, point blank, for the use of his car, and hint at the pleasure of his company. Part of that had been spared her; he probably had no inkling of her design in coming out and demanding wind; indeed he thought he had thought of it himself. But Daisy knew. The tragic farce had to preserve the tone required of public performances. "Daisy dear, won't you come?" she asked. "Three is the best company of all, I think." Daisy turned over a leaf of the paper rather too smartly for a public performance. "Indeed, I think I won't, Aunt Jeannie," she said. "I had such a long row before breakfast. I feel frightfully disinclined to move." And she waited to hear Lord Lindfield urge her to come. But he was already half-way towards the house. Daisy just raised her eyes, and saw him already distant, and she felt that which she had often heard of before, but passed over as unintelligible. Now she understood it, for her heart swelled. Aunt Jeannie followed after a general remark or two, to which Daisy could scarcely reply. And after that more trials were in store, for Willie Carton brought his patient presence out under the elm-tree which had promised so well and performed so badly, and lay on the grass and pretended to read a book. It was very stupid of him to come, so Daisy thought, and rather selfish. She had given him so firm an answer, and if he reopened the question again she was determined to speak even more plainly. But he did nothing of the kind, and Daisy, quieting down a little from the tumult of her private thoughts, began to feel a little compassionate. She knew now, in some kind of way, what was going on inside him. She realized the nature of that which brought him out here, to pretend to read a book. He wanted to be near her. And there was something of the pathetic faithfulness of a dog about him--a dog that is beaten and repulsed but never falters, or can falter, in devotion to his master. She had begun to know what that unreasoning devotion meant. "I know the compact of the elm-tree is not to talk or expect answers," said Willie quietly. "Don't let me disturb you." Daisy looked up at him swiftly. "But if I said that you do disturb me?" she said. "Then I should go away," he said. "Oh, Willie, you don't," she said. "Right. Tell me when I do." And then poor Daisy began to have a headache. It got worse, and before long she rose. "What a beastly day," she said. "It is rather," said he. "But it's all right here." "It isn't all right anywhere," said Daisy. "I shall go indoors. I've got a headache." "Wish I could take it," said he. "Oh, don't be foolish. Thanks awfully; I know you mean it. But one can't take other people's burdens, you know. We are all saddled separately, and--and all we can do is to pretend we aren't saddled at all, and make grimaces and pretend to enjoy ourselves. Do pretend--we all pretend." "Oh, I've been pretending a long time," said he. Daisy's headache gave her a stab that was quite unsettling. "Men always think about themselves," she remarked. "Don't answer. It is the elm-tree rule." "I shall answer. Was your remark that men always think about themselves meant to apply to me? I only want to know." Daisy had some little sense of justice left. "No," she said. "I don't think it was." * * * * * The motorists came back very late for lunch, just as the evening before they had come back late for dinner. * * * * * Such was Daisy's morning; and she felt she had a perfect right to a headache. And with her headache she lay in the window-seat of her bedroom and watched the punt, with its crimson spots of cushions, unwaveringly reflected in the surface of the Thames. Above the sky grew darker with the approach of storm, and the light grew more coppery with the rising of that curious cloud out of the south. But still this dreadful clearness of air continued in spite of the growing darkness. Maidenhead was still close and distinct, and closer and more distinct was the punt, where Aunt Jeannie handed Lindfield two crimson cushions. Then in that darkness below the chestnut-tree a match was struck, and he lit a cigarette, and dropped the still flaming vesta into the Thames. Then he shifted his position a little, and sat nearer to that other figure dressed in grey, whose arm was leaning over the side of the punt, and whose hand just dabbled in the water. And then Daisy suddenly hid her face in the cushions of the window-seat and began to sob. CHAPTER XVI. Jeannie, as Daisy had heard, had advised that in view of the approaching storm they should not go far, and it was now about an hour since she and Tom Lindfield had, after this stipulation, gone down to the river. They had taken a punt, and pushed out from the hot, reeking boathouse that smelt strongly of the tar that was growing soft and viscous on its roof beneath the heat of the day, and slid down the backwater towards the river. The weeds here wanted cutting, and they wrapped themselves affectionately round the punt-pole, and dragged their green slender fingers along the bottom of the punt as if seeking to delay its passage. Then for a moment they had found a little coolness as they passed below the chestnut trees that extended their long boughs three-quarters of the way across the backwater, and Jeannie had said,-- "Lord Lindfield, you will certainly get very hot if you punt me up-stream, and we shall probably both get very wet before we get back. Let us stop here." He had been by no means unwilling, and they had tied up. "And sit down," she said; "out of these two thousand cushions I can spare you a few. There, on the bottom of the boat." "I didn't suggest stopping," he said. "You mustn't be sarcastic afterwards over the immense expedition I took you." "I promise not. I don't think I should ever be sarcastic to you, do you know? You would only laugh. The point of sarcasm is to give pain." "And you don't want to give me pain? Hurrah!" "Ah, I'm not sure that a little pain would not be rather good for you. I think you have almost too delightful a time. When did you last not enjoy yourself? And yet I don't know; perhaps you deserve it all. I am sure you give your friends a delightful time though you do have one yourself. Poor Daisy! I am afraid she isn't having a good time this afternoon; she has a headache. I offered sympathy and companionship, but she felt like being alone. Poor Daisy!" Jeannie's voice suddenly died. She meant him to say something about Daisy, but for herself she felt as if she could not go on talking. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought she wasn't looking very brilliant. She should have come out with us for a run in the motor. Jove! it is hot even here. I think it was an excellent plan not to go any further; besides, I want to talk most awfully." A week ago Jeannie had loathed the thought of this man even as, and for the same reason, she loathed the thought of Paris when she passed through it. But at the moment she did not loathe the thought of him at all, nor did she loathe him. She who so loved the sunshine and joy of life could not but like one who took so keen and boyish a pleasure in its pleasantness, and, boylike also, turned so uncompromising a back on all that was unpleasant or even puzzling. He had no use for unpleasantness and no head for puzzles. From an intellectual point of view he might have been called stupid; but intellectual though Jeannie was, she never took her view of life or her estimate of people from that standpoint. Affection and simplicity and good-fellowship were things that seemed to matter to her much more. From the human point of view, then, which does not concern itself with one's neighbour's intellectual qualities any more than it concerns itself with his morals, she had quickly grown to like this simple, pleasant man, who had so good an appetite for the joys of life. And her liking for him made her task far more difficult and far more repulsive to her than she had anticipated. She had thought that as far as he was concerned she would find it perfectly easy to be ruthless, steeling herself to it by the memory of Diana. That memory had not in the least faded, but there had come into the foreground of her life this liking and sympathy for the man who she hoped was to be her victim. It made what she was doing doubly odious to her, and yet, think and puzzle as she might, she could devise no plan but this, which, if it succeeded, would spare Daisy the knowledge that she herself had promised Diana to spare her. As far as things had gone, she was fairly content with what she had accomplished. It was all horrible to her, but the plan was working quite well. He had scarcely seen Daisy since they had come down here, while he had seldom been out of her own company, and it was clear to Mrs. Halton that Daisy was certainly beginning to be puzzled, and, poor child, was beginning to feel hurt and slighted. But there had been as yet no more than a beginning made; Lord Lindfield would have to be far more taken up with herself than he was now, and Daisy, poor dear, would have to be far more deeply wounded and hurt before the thing was accomplished. And already Mrs. Halton felt sick at heart about it all. Yet till a better plan could be thought of she had not to set her teeth, but to smile her best, and flirt, flirt, flirt. There was but one bright spot in the whole affair, and that the few words which she had had with Victor early that morning before breakfast. She had asked him, not pointedly, but in a general way arising out of their talk, what he would think if in some way she completely puzzled him, and acted in a manner that was incomprehensible. And he had laughed. "Why, my darling, what an easy question," he said. "I should know that there was something behind I didn't understand. I should wait for you to tell me about it." "And if I never told you about it?" asked Jeannie. "Then, dear, I should know you had some good reason for that. But I should never ask you, I think, and I know I should never cease to trust you or forget that we are--well, you and me." That was wine to her. CHAPTER XVII. But she liked Lindfield; that made her task so much harder. It was shameful to treat a man like this, and yet--and yet there was still the memory of that dreadful gilded house in Paris and the dying voice of Diana. So once more, and not for the last time, she settled down to the task that was so odious--odious because she liked him. "We shall quarrel, then, I am afraid," she said, "because I want to talk too. We both want to talk--I to you, you to me." He leant over her a moment, since the punt-pole had to be grounded at the stern of the boat, for he had tied the chain in the bow to an unearthed root of the tree. She leant a little sideways away from him, and this was done. It was then she gave him the few cushions out of the two thousand. "Have you got anything very special to say?" she asked. "Because I have, and so I shall begin. Yet I don't know if it is special, except that between friends everything seems to be special." Again Jeannie could not get on for a moment, but she proceeded without notable pause. "The difference between friends and acquaintances is so enormous," she said, "and yet so many people confuse the two. One may meet another person a hundred times and be only an acquaintance; one may meet a person once and be a friend in a minute. Perhaps it is not the same with men. I don't think a man recognizes those who are going to be or are capable of being his friends at the first glance, whereas a woman does. She feels it to the end of her finger-tips." Jeannie gave a quick glance at him, and saw that he was listening with considerable attention. She gave a little sigh, and clasped her hands behind her head. "What an uneconomical world it is," she said, "and what a lot of affection and emotion Nature allows to run to waste. A man sees in some woman the one quality, the one character that he is for ever seeking; he sees that she is in some way the complement of himself, and perhaps the woman merely dislikes him. Or it may happen the other way round. What a waste of noble stuff that means. All his affection is poured away like a stream losing itself in the desert. It does seem a pity." "Jove! yes, and I never thought of that," he said. "There must be a lot of that going on. So much, perhaps, that some day the desert will get quite damp, and then won't it cease to be a desert?" She looked at him rather longer, letting her eyes rest on his. "That is a much more hopeful solution," she said. "Perhaps it doesn't all go to waste. Or shall we say that Nature never throws things away, but puts all these odds and ends of affection in the stock-pot to make soup. But they will make soup for other people. Ah! there was lightning far off. The storm is beginning." They waited in silence, till a long, drowsy peal of thunder answered. "Oh, it is miles away yet," he said. Jeannie arranged her cushions more comfortably. "And yet I rather like Nature's uneconomical habits," she said, "if we settle she is a spendthrift. There is something rather royal and large-handed about it. She is just the same in physical affairs. I saw in some snippety paper the other day that the amount of electricity discharged in a good thunderstorm would be sufficient to light every house in London for five hours, or run all the trains on all the tubes for about the same time. I should think you are rather spendthrift, too, Lord Lindfield." He laughed. "I? Oh, yes. I pour out gallons of affection in all directions. Always have." Again Jeannie smiled at him. "Ah, I like that," she said, softly. "And we won't think it goes to waste. It would be too sad. Go on, tell me about your pouring it out in all directions. I should like to hear about it." Jeannie hated herself as she spoke; she was using all her woman's charm to draw him on, and--a thing which he could not follow, though she knew it well--she was using lightness of touch so that he should not see how much she was in earnest. She had used, too, that sacred name of friendship to encourage him to draw nearer her, for no man could listen to what she had been saying without reading into it some directly personal meaning; clearly the friendship she spoke of concerned him and her, for no woman talks to a man about friendship purely in the abstract unless she is his grandmother. And she was not; nobody could be less like a grandmother, as she sat there, in the full beauty of her thirty years and her ripened womanhood. She was beautiful, and she knew it; she had charm, she was alone on this hot thundery day with him in the punt. Also she meant to use all power that was hers. The plan was to detach him from the girl, and the manner of his detachment was the attachment to her. Daisy must be shown how light were his attachments. Indeed, the handicap of years did not seem so heavy now. She was perfectly well aware that men looked at her as she went by, and turned their heads after she had passed. And this hot, sweltering day, she knew, suited her and the ripe rather Southern beauty of her face, though in others it might only be productive of headache or fatigue. Indeed, it was little wonder that her plan had made so promising a beginning. He moved again a little nearer her, clasping his knees in his hands. "You've talked about friends," he said, "and you are encouraging me to talk about them. It's a jolly word; it means such a jolly thing. And I'm beginning to hope I have found one in this last day or two." There was no mistaking this, nor was there any use in her pretending not to know what he meant; indeed, it was worse than useless, for it was for this she had been working. There was no touch or hint of passion in his voice; he was speaking of friends as a boy might speak. And she liked him. She held out her hand with a charming frankness of gesture. "That is a very good hearing," she said. "I congratulate you. And, Lord Lindfield, it isn't only you I congratulate; I congratulate myself most heartily." He unclasped his knees and took her hand in both his. "Thanks, most awfully," he said. "Friends don't thank each other," she said. "One only thanks people who don't matter. Now go on. I have been doing all the talking these last two days. It is your turn; I want to know much more about you." "I expect you won't like it." "I must be the judge of that. I am willing to risk it." "Well, I told you I wanted to talk most awfully," he said, "and now you've made it so much easier. I expect you know a certain amount about me, as it is. I've had a tremendously good time all my life. People have been very kind to me always. I expect they've been too kind. It's all been so confoundedly pleasant, I have let the years go by without ever thinking of settling down. But there's an awful lot to be said for it. And all my life--I'm thirty-eight already--I've shirked every responsibility under the sun." Jeannie had a sudden sense that in spite of the promising beginning which she had half prided herself on and half loathed herself for, things were going quite completely wrong, and that she had as yet accomplished nothing whatever. It was but a momentary impression, and she had no time to reflect on or examine it, since she had to do her part in this sealed compact of friendship. But she did it with an uncourageous heart. She laughed. "I can't console you over that," she said, "or tell you that you do yourself an injustice, because I have always regarded you as the very type of the delectable and untrammelled life. You don't conform to the English standard, you know, and I expect you have no more acquaintance with your Wiltshire estates and all your people there than you have with the House of Lords. Have you ever taken your seat, by the way? No, I thought not. But, after all, if you don't know the House of Lords, you know London pretty well, and--and Paris." He did not smile now, but looked at her gravely. "Yes, worse luck," he said. Jeannie nodded at him. "Well, well," she said, quietly. "Never mind that now. You were speaking of settling down. Go on about that." "One doesn't settle down alone," he said. And then she knew that, so far, her plan had been a dead failure. His attitude towards her was perfectly clear; they were friends, and as friends should do, he was confiding in her, seeking from her the sympathy and counsel of a friend. "You mean to marry, then?" she asked. "I hope to marry." Once again the lightning flickered in the sky, and the thunder gave a far more immediate response. That big coppery cloud which had been low on the horizon had spread upwards over the heavens with astonishing speed, and even as the thunder crackled a few big drops of rain splashed on the river outside their shelter under the chestnuts. The storm was quickly coming closer, and a big tree, as Jeannie remembered, is not a very desirable neighbourhood under the circumstances. "We had better get home," she said. "There is going to be a storm." He jumped up at once, loosed the chain, and with a few swift strokes took them back into the boathouse. There was no time just then for further conversation, and Jeannie, at any rate, did not wish for it. But it was as she had feared. All that she had done hitherto was nothing; the calamity she wished to avert had not yet been averted. One thing only she had gained at present, the footing of a friend. Already, she was sure, he valued that, and on that she would have to build. But it was a precarious task; she could not see her way yet. Only she knew that such friendship as she had already formed with him was not enough. He was not detached from Daisy yet. For the last forty-eight hours, it is true, he had almost completely left her alone, but that was not enough. He still intended to marry her. Jeannie went straight to her room on gaining the house, under pretence of changing her dress, which even in those few yards across from the boathouse had got wet with the first rain of the storm. But she wanted not that so much as to sit by herself and think. Matters were not so easy as she had hoped, for she knew now that she had let herself believe that by the mere formation of a friendship with her, she could lead him away from Daisy. And now, for the first time, she saw how futile such a hope had been. He could, in the pleasure of this new friendship, be somewhat markedly inattentive to Daisy for a day or two, but it could not permanently detach him. She must seem to offer something more than mere friendship. That he was seriously in love with Daisy she did not wholly believe, but he meant to marry her; he meant, anyhow, to ask her to marry him, and Alice, who knew better than she what Daisy felt, was sure that Daisy would accept him. But something more than a mere flirtation was required; matters, she saw now, had to go deeper than that. She must make herself essential to him, and then, when he knew that she was essential, she would have to turn her back on him. It was not a pretty rôle. There came a gentle tap at the door, and Daisy entered. "Ah! you have come in, Aunt Jeannie," she said. "Did you get caught in the storm?" "Not to speak of. We did not go far. Lord Lindfield offered to take me up to Maidenhead, but, as a matter of fact, we went to the corner of the backwater. Oh, I promised not to laugh at him for the immensity of the expedition, because it was I who proposed stopping under the chestnuts. How charming he is, Daisy! And how is the headache?" "Rather brilliant still, but it will get better. Aunt Jeannie, how quickly you make friends with people." There was something tearing to Jeannie's tender heart about this. Daisy looked so white and tired, and so helpless, she who was usually a perfect well-spring of high spirits and enjoyment. Jeannie longed to take that dear head in her hands and kiss its trouble away, but it was just that which she could not do. This trouble could not be kissed away; it had to be burnt away--by a hand, too, that seemed unconscious of its cruel work. "With him, do you mean?" she asked lightly. "You can scarcely say I have only now been making friends with him. I saw a good deal of him at one time; in fact, he was rather devoted to me. But my eagle eye sees no sign of a return of it. Does yours?" The room was very dark with the blackness of the sky outside, and Jeannie could see Daisy but indistinctly. Then with a wicked flare of lightning it leaped into light, and the thunder rattled round the eaves. But in that moment's flash Jeannie saw Daisy's face again, mute, white, and appealing, and it was intolerable to her. Besides, anything was better and less dangerous than a _tête-à-tête_ with Daisy. At any moment she might tell her about Lord Lindfield and the offer she expected. That would make her part infinitely worse to play; it would make it impossible. At present, anyhow, so far as Daisy knew, she was ignorant of it all. She jumped at the appalling racket overhead. "Oh, I hate thunder--I hate thunder," she said. "Let us come downstairs, Daisy, where there are people. Besides, it is tea-time, is it not? Let us go down. I came straight to my room, and Lord Lindfield, I think, went to his. Alice will be anxious if she thinks we are still out. Listen to the rain. How it will beat the flowers down! Come, dear." "I have hardly had a word with you since you came back, Aunt Jeannie," said Daisy. "I know, dear, but in a house full of people what can one expect? We must have a great talk when we get back to London. Every moment seems occupied here. Dear child, I hope your headache will be better soon. Will you not go and lie down? Or shall I tell Alice you are not well, and won't you have a little dinner quietly in your room by yourself? No? Let us go down, then." CHAPTER XVIII. The storm was violent for an hour or two, but before sunset it had moved away again, and a half-hour of sunshine, washed, clean sunshine, preceded sunset. But somehow the storm had not done its proper work; it had scolded and roared and wept, but it had not quite got the trouble out of the air. There was more to come. The same sense that there was more to come invaded the spirits of Lady Nottingham's guests. She herself was a little distraite, Daisy's headache had left her rather white and tired, Gladys lamented the wreck of the garden, and there was not much life about. Then after dinner it clouded over again, the clouds regathered, lightning began to wink remotely and thunder to grumble, and even Mrs. Halton, whom the sultry heat had so invigorated, according to her own account, that afternoon, was inclined to join in the rather early move to bed. Also, the next day was Sunday, and Sunday was not particularly wanted. The fact of it was felt to be a little depressing, and nobody quite knew what was the matter with everybody else. It is a fact that in every gathering of friends and acquaintances there is some one person who makes _la pluie et le beau temps_, and in this party it was emphatically Jeannie Halton who arranged the weather. The spirits of every person are, to a certain extent, infectious, but the spirits of some few people run through a house like influenza, and there was no doubt that she had, all the evening, been in a rather piano mood. She had not, of course, committed the unpardonable social crime of showing that she was depressed, but she had been a little retrospective, and tended to "remember how" in general conversation, rather than to "hope that." But it must not be supposed that she had behaved in any way outside the lines of normal social intercourse. She had, for instance, just gone out into the garden after dinner with Lord Lindfield, and had quoted the line, "In the darkness thick and hot." It was apt enough and harmless enough, but it had vaguely made him feel that something was a little wrong. Then she had made him and Daisy play billiards together, while she marked for them. She marked with weary accuracy, and said, "Oh, what a beautiful stroke" rather too often to make it credible that she always meant it. And with the rest of the women she had gone up to bed rather early. Tom Lindfield, on the other hand, though he did not feel at all inclined to go to bed early, felt that there was trouble somewhere. He could not date it in the least, nor could he put his finger on the moment when trouble began. Or could he? He asked himself that question several times. Jeannie had been so pleasant and so good a comrade till they had gone out in the punt. Then came the compact of friendship, and somehow at once almost she seemed to slip away from him. He had wanted to tell her much more, to tell her even how in Paris he had been desperately in love, and that what he felt now for Daisy was not that. Somehow that woman in Paris reminded him of Daisy, and yet what two women could be more different than these! She had an apartment in the Rue Chalgrin. It was very much gilded, and yet very simple. That did not occupy him much. What occupied him so much more was that till the storm had begun, till he and Jeannie had run hurriedly to the house, he had found such an extreme content in her society. She had been--for these last thirty hours or so--such an admirable comrade. There was the Brahms concert, the ridiculous motor-drive, the evening at billiards, the morning in the motor, the afternoon in the punt. Then quite suddenly she had seemed to shut up, to enclose herself from him. Yet some little spirit of companionship had escaped her again, when she quoted the line, "In the darkness thick and hot." And then, after that, she had walked back to the house, made him play billiards with Daisy, and had gone upstairs at the earliest possible opportunity. Nobody with the slightest prospect of winning his case could have accused Tom Lindfield of being sensitive in his perceptions, but nobody without the certainty of losing it could have accused him of not being fairly sound in his conclusions. What had happened to Mrs. Halton to make her so different to him (and, for that matter, to everybody else) since four o'clock that afternoon he did not try to decide, since he had no means of knowing. But what he did know was that this was a woman of enchanting moods. At one time she was good comrade, then she was friend, then for some reason she was some sort of shadow of these excellent things. They were there, but they were obscured by something else. And that obscuration rendered her the more enchanting. He did not understand her; she was away somewhere beyond him, and he longed to follow her. All his life women had been to him the most delectable of riddles, and his expressed desire to marry and settle down was perhaps only another statement of the fact that he longed to solve one example of the riddle, one form in which it was presented to him. He felt now that he wished he had married years ago, that he had already become quiet and domesticated. There was a time for youth's fiery passions, its ecstatic uncontent, and there was also most assuredly a time when those fevers should cease. He had so repeatedly told himself that it was time they should cease for him, that of late he had come to believe it. He believed it still, and it was for that reason that he had determined to settle down, to choose, as he had done in his own mind, this pretty and charming girl, much younger than himself, as was right, and ask her to settle down with him. He was not in love with her in any absorbed or tumultuous way, but he meant to do his best to make her happy, and looked forward to being immensely happy himself. All that had seemed very right and reasonable and satisfactory, but to-night, in some way, the mirror of his future tranquillity was disturbed; it was as if little sudden puffs of wind, like those that rustled every now and then through "the darkness thick and hot" outside, ruffled and broke its surface, making it dim and full of shattered images that seemed to have swum up from below. Was it that once again he was beginning to fall in love with Daisy in the old passionate way? But at that moment he was aware that he was not thinking about Daisy at all. All this passed very rapidly through his mind; it was no effort of conscious or reasoned thought, but more as if without volition of his own these pictures had been drawn across his brain, as he stood in the hall while the rustling procession of women went upstairs. And with their going, he became aware that the rest of the evening was likely to be rather boring. It was still not after half-past ten, an hour impossible to go to bed at, impossible, anyhow, to go to sleep at, and he fancied that his own company and his own thoughts were not likely to be very comfortable or very profitable. He did not want to think; he wanted the hours to pass as quickly and unreflectingly as possible until it was morning again. No doubt then things would present themselves in a more normal light. Certainly the events of the day had proved rather exciting and unsettling, or, to be perfectly honest, Jeannie had somehow unsettled him. How quickly their friendship had sprung up! And what had happened then? She seemed to have left him altogether, glided away from him. He strolled back into the billiard-room, where he would find company of some sort, but there already the hour of yawns and fitful conversation had begun, and first one and then another man nodded good-night and left the room. Jim Crowfoot, however, who hated going to bed as much as he disliked getting up, had a brilliant cargo of conversation on board, which he proceeded to unload. The two knew each other well, and when they were left alone conversation rapidly became intimate. "Thunderstorms always are simultaneous with sombreness," he said, "and I sometimes wonder whether it is our sombreness that produces the storm or the storm that produces sombreness. Every one has been sombre to-day, except, perhaps, you, Tom, and the merry widow." "Are you referring to Mrs. Halton?" "I don't know of any other. Lady Nottingham isn't merry. I can't think how you manage to produce so much impression with so little material. I have to talk all the time to produce an impression at all, and then it is usually an unfortunate one." "I think your description of Mrs. Halton as the merry widow is a particularly unfortunate one," remarked Lindfield. "You guessed whom I meant," said Jim. "I know. It was characteristic of you if not of her. You always see people in--in caricature. Besides, I thought Mrs. Halton was anything but merry." "You should know best." "Why?" "Because you have spent the entire day with her, chiefly _tête-à-tête_. Also yesterday." Tom Lindfield was apparently not in a very genial frame of mind to-night. He let this remark pass in silence, and then went back to what Jim had previously said. "You always talk a good lot of rot, old chap," he said, "and I want to know if you were talking rot when you said something about my producing an impression with little material. It sounds pretty good rot, but if you meant something by it, I wish you would tell me what it was. Does it have any special application?" "Yes, certainly. I referred to your 'Veni, vidi, vici' with Mrs. Halton. You laid firm hold of her yesterday, and have not let her go since. I don't imply that she has wanted to go." Jim, in spite of the large quantities of outrageous nonsense which he often talked, had a very fair allowance of brains, and when he chose to talk sense was worth listening to. So, at any rate, Tom Lindfield thought now. "I wish you'd go on," he said, "and just tell me all that is in your mind." "By all means, if you promise not to knock me down or anything. It's just this--that we've all been asking ourselves, 'Is it to be the aunt or the niece?'" "And who has been asking themselves that?" asked Lindfield. "Oh, everybody except, perhaps, Braithwaite and poor wandering Willie. Mrs. Beaumont and Lady Sybil were hard at it when you and Mrs. Halton strolled out after dinner. They tore Mrs. Halton open as you tear open a--a registered envelope. With the same greed, you understand." "Cats!" remarked Lindfield. "Oh, yes. But I like to hear them 'meaow.' Braithwaite didn't; he listened to just one remark and then went away looking black." "What has he got to do with it?" asked Tom. "Oh, he's great friends with the M. W.," said Jim, "and he is one of those nice old-fashioned people who never talk evil of people behind their backs. But where are you to talk evil of people except behind their backs? That's what I want to know. You can't do it in front of their faces, as it would not be polite." "Don't be epigrammatic, there's a good fellow," said Tom. "It only confuses me." "Well, you've confused us. You were supposed to be walking out, so to speak, with Miss Daisy. Instead of which you leave her completely alone, and walk out all the time with Mrs. Halton. Oh, I don't deny that she is running after you. She is; at least, so the cats said. It's confusing, you know; I don't think any one knows where we all are." Lindfield took a turn or two up and down the room, took up a cue, and slapped the red ball into a pocket. "I'm sure I don't know where I am," he said, "but I expect we shall all be in the deuce of a mess before long. About Mrs. Halton running after me, that is absolutely all rot. What brutes women are to each other! And they say, to use your expression, that I've been walking out with Miss Daisy?" "It has been supposed that you were going to ask her to marry you." Lindfield sent one of the white balls after the red. "And they weren't far wrong," he said. "Well, I shall go to bed, Jim. Your conversation is too sensational." "Good-night. Mind you let me know when you have made up your mind," said Jim. CHAPTER XIX. It was this certainty that he had got to make up his mind, whereas till to-day he had believed that his mind was made up, that Lindfield carried upstairs with his bedroom candle. But, unlike that useful article, which could be put out at will, the question refused to be put out, and burnt with a disconcerting and gem-like clearness. It was perfectly true, and he confessed it to himself, that for the last two days he had distinctly preferred to cultivate this wonderful quick-growing friendship which had shot up between him and Jeannie, rather than bring things to a head with Daisy. He had meant while down here to ask her to marry him; now, if he looked that intention in the face, he was aware that though it was still there (even as he had begun to tell Mrs. Halton that afternoon), it had moved away from the immediate foreground, and stood waiting at a further distance. The cats and Jim Crowfoot, he told himself with some impatience, were altogether at fault when they so charmingly said that he had to make up his mind between aunt and niece. It was not that at all; the only question with which the making up of his mind was concerned was whether he was going to ask Daisy now, to-morrow, to be his wife. And the moment he asked himself that question it was already answered. But that he did not know. As always, he was quite honest with himself, and proceeded ruthlessly to find out what had occasioned the postponement of his intention. That was not hard to answer; the answer had already been indirectly given. It was the enchantment of this new friendship which had forced itself into the foreground. That friendship, however, was now agreed upon and ratified, and the postponed intention should come forward again. But these last few hours had made him feel uncertain about that friendship. There was no use in denying it; she had been quite different since they came in from the punt. How maddening and how intoxicating women were! How they forced you to wonder and speculate about them, to work your brain into a fever with guessing what was going on in theirs. He turned over in bed with his face to the wall, and shut his eyes with the firm and laudable intention of not bothering any more about it, but of letting sleep bring counsel. He did intend to ask Daisy to marry him, but he was not quite certain when he should do so. And then there outlined itself behind the darkness of his closed lids Jeannie's face, with its great dark eyes, its mass of hair growing low on the forehead, the witchery of its smiling mouth. So perhaps the cats and Jim Crowfoot, though a little "previous," were not so wrong about the reality of the question on which he must make up his mind. * * * * * Jeannie announced her intention of going to church next morning at breakfast, and Victor Braithwaite, who was sitting by her, professed similar ecclesiastical leanings. Jeannie had apparently completely recovered from the piano mood of the evening before, and commented severely on the Sunday habits of this Christian country. She personally taxed every one who had at present come down with having had no intention whatever of going to church, and her accusations appeared particularly well founded. In the middle of this Lord Lindfield entered. "Good-morning, Lord Lindfield," said Alice. "We are all catching it hot this morning from Jeannie, who has been accusing us by name and individually of being heathens." "Worse than heathens," said Jeannie, briskly.--"Oh, good-morning, Lord Lindfield. I didn't see you.--Worse than heathens, because heathens don't know any better. Alice, you must come. You are a landlady of Bray, and should set an example." "But it is so hot," said Alice, "and I don't take out the carriage on Sunday. I like to give the coachman an--an opportunity of going to church." "You give him fifty-two every year," said Jeannie. "The motor is eating its head off," remarked Lindfield. "I'll drive you. Do come with me, Mrs. Halton." "Oh, thanks, no. I'll walk," she said. "Mr. Braithwaite is coming with me." Jeannie rose as she spoke, and went out through the French window into the garden. "Half-past ten, then, Mr. Braithwaite," she said. Lindfield helped himself to some dish on the side-table. "Can't stand being called a heathen," he said. "I shall go to church too." Victor soon strolled out after Jeannie. "Hang it all, Jeannie!" he said. "I want to go to church with you, and now Tom Lindfield says he is coming. Considering how much--oh, well, never mind." Jeannie looked hastily round, found they had the garden to themselves, and took his arm. "How much he has seen of me, and how little you have," she said. "Quite correct. But it wasn't a difficult guess." "No. We will be cunning, Victor. I said half-past ten quite loud, didn't I? Let us meet in the manner of conspirators at the garden-gate at a quarter-past." They turned towards the house again, and Jeannie detached her arm from his. "Remember your promise, dear," she said. "I am I, and I am yours. Never doubt that." All that day there was no possible cause for his doubting it. The conspirator-plan succeeded to admiration, and Lord Lindfield and Daisy, with a somewhat faint-intentioned Gladys, had waited in the hall till a quarter to eleven. Then it was discovered that Jeannie had not been seen in the house since ten, and Gladys, victorious over her faint intentions, had stopped at home, while Daisy and Lord Lindfield walked rapidly to church, arriving there in the middle of the psalms. Jeannie had been gaily apologetic afterwards. She had not heard at breakfast that anybody except herself and Mr. Braithwaite meant to go to church, and, coming home, she paired herself off with Daisy. At lunch again there were, when she appeared, two vacant places, one between Willie Carton and one of the cats, the other next Lord Lindfield. She walked quietly round the table to take the first of these, instead of going to the nearest chair. For the afternoon there were several possibilities. Jeannie, appealed to, said she would like to go up to Boulter's Lock and see the Ascot Sunday crowd. That, it appeared, was very easy of management, as Lord Lindfield would punt her up. "That will be delightful," said Jeannie. "Daisy dear, I haven't simply set eyes on you. Do let us go up together, and Lord Lindfield will punt us. We will be the blest pair of sirens, of extraordinarily diverse age, and he shall give the apple of discord to one of us. If he gives it you I shall never speak to you again.--Lord Lindfield, will you take us up?" "I shall have two apples," said he. "Then Daisy and I will each of us want both." This had been the last of the arrangements, and it was like Mrs. Halton, such was the opinion of the cats, to manage things like that. There could be no doubt that when the launch and the Noah's Ark and the punt met below Boulter's, it would be found that Daisy had another convenient headache. The three vessels met there. But on the punt were Lord Lindfield and Daisy all alone. Mrs. Halton, it seemed, had stopped at home. There was no explanation; she had simply not come, preferring not to. Nobody could understand, least of all Lord Lindfield. She had swum further away. But Daisy had not had a very amusing time. Punting appeared to monopolize the attention of the punter. CHAPTER XX. All that day and throughout the greater part of the next Jeannie kept up with chill politeness and composure this attitude towards Lord Lindfield, which he, at any rate, found maddening. What made it the more maddening was that to all the rest of the party she behaved with that eager geniality which was so characteristic of her. Only when he was there, and when he addressed her directly, something would come over her manner that can only be compared to the forming of a film of ice over a pool. To an acquaintance merely it would have been unnoticeable; even to a friend, if it had happened only once or twice, it might have passed undetected; as it was, he could not fail to see that it was there, nor could he fail to puzzle his wits over what the cause of it might be. During the day he tried to get a word with her in private, but she seemed to anticipate his intention, and contrived that it should be impossible for the request to be made. Once, however, just after the return that afternoon from Boulter's Lock, he had managed to say to her: "There is nothing the matter, is there?" and with complete politeness she had replied: "I have just a touch of a cold. But it is nothing, thanks." And thereupon she had taken up a newspaper, and remarked to Lady Nottingham that the Eton and Harrow match seemed to have been extraordinarily exciting. Now, no man, unless he is definitely in love with and enthralled by a woman, will, if he has anything which may be called spirit, stand this sort of thing tamely. Lindfield honestly examined himself to see "if in aught he had offended," could find no cause of offence in himself, and then went through a series of conflicting and unsettling emotions. He told himself that for some reason she had wished to get on intimate terms with him, and then, her curiosity or whatever it was being satisfied, she had merely opened the hand into which she had taken his and, so to speak, wiped his hand off. This seemed to him a very mean and heartless proceeding, but there it was. She had clearly done this, and if a woman chose to behave like that to a man the only rejoinder consistent with ordinary dignity and self-respect was to take no notice at all, and dismiss her from his mind. Clearly that was the right thing to do, but instead of doing the right thing he first felt angry, and then sick at heart. Women--those witches--were really rather cruel. They cast a spell over one, and then rode away on their broomsticks, disregarding the poor wretch over whom they had cast it. He was left to go mooning about, until in the merciful course of Nature the spell began to lose its potency and die out. Then, again, he would remember the dignity of man, and repeat to himself his determination to dismiss her and her incomprehensibilities from his mind, and challenge Daisy to some silly game. She, poor wretch, would accept with avidity; but the game, whatever it was, soon seemed to lose its edge and its gaiety. There was something that had clearly gone wrong. Daisy guessed what that was, and her guess was fairly correct. It seemed to her that for a couple of days Aunt Jeannie had, to put it quite bluntly, run after Lord Lindfield. She had pretty well caught him up, too, for Daisy was fair-minded enough to see that he had not been very agile in getting away from her. He had been quite glad to be caught up, and was evidently charmed by her. Then, clearly, about the time of her own headache, something had happened; Daisy could see that. Aunt Jeannie, though positively melting with geniality and charming warmth to everybody else, turned on him a shoulder that was absolutely frozen. Why she had done this Daisy could not help guessing, and her solution was that Jeannie had been tremendously attracted by him, and then suddenly seen that somehow it "wouldn't do." Perhaps at this point the sight that Daisy had caught of her aunt and Victor Braithwaite together in the garden supplied a gap in the explanation. Daisy did not like to think that that was it; for, in truth, if it was, there was no doubt whatever that darling Aunt Jeannie had been flirting. But, as Aunt Jeannie had quite ceased to flirt, Daisy was more than willing to forgive her for the miseries of those two dreadful days; she was even willing to forget. Only Lord Lindfield, it was clear to her, did not quite forget. He was altogether unlike himself. For a little while he would be uproariously cheerful, then his gaiety would go out without a gutter, like a candle suddenly taken out into a gale of wind. And then, perhaps, his eyes would stray about till, for a moment, they fastened on Jeannie, who was probably as entranced by the general joy of life as he had been a minute before. Then he would look puzzled, and then angry, and then puzzled again. Whatever was passing in Jeannie's mind, she concealed it with supreme success, so that nobody could possibly tell that anything was passing there, or that she had any currents going along below the surface. But she had--currents that were going in the direction she had willed to set them; but for all that they flowed in so strong a tide she hated the flowing of them, and hated herself who had set them moving. She was playing a deep game, and one that had required all her wit to invent, and all her tact to play; but during all this Sunday and the day that followed she observed the effect of her moves, and, though hating them, was well satisfied with their result. With the tail of her eye, or with half an ear, even while she was in full swing of some preposterous discussion, punctuated with laughter, with Jim Crowfoot, she could observe Lord Lindfield, could see his perplexity and his anger, could hear his attempts to talk and laugh, as if there was nothing to trouble him; could note, before long, the sudden change in his tone, the short monosyllables of answers, the quenched laugh. He was much with Daisy, but Mrs. Halton did not mind that; indeed, it was as she would have had it, for it was clear how little Daisy had the power to hold him, and it was just that which he was beginning now to perceive. She wanted him to understand that very completely, to have it sink down into his nature till it became a part of him. Yes, her diplomacy was prospering well; already the fruit of it was swelling on the tree. It might be salutary; it was certainly bitter. CHAPTER XXI. Jeannie went that night to Lady Nottingham's room to talk to her. She herself was feeling very tired, not with the sound and wholesome tiredness that is the precursor of long sleep and refreshed awakening, but with the restless fatigue of frayed nerves and disquiet mind that leads to intolerable tossings and turnings, and long vigils through the varying greys of dawn and the first chirrupings of birds. "I have not come for long, dear," she said, "but I had to tell somebody about--about what is happening. It's going so well, too." Alice saw the trouble in Jeannie's face, and, as a matter of fact, had seen trouble in other faces. "I haven't had a word with you," she said, "and I don't know what is happening. You seem to have had nothing to say to Lord Lindfield all day. I thought, perhaps, you had given it up. It was too hard for you, dear. I don't wonder you found you could not compass it." Jeannie gave a little impatient sound; her nerves were sharply on edge. "Dear Alice," she said, "that is not very clever of you. I thought you would see. However, I am quite glad you don't, for if you don't I am sure Daisy doesn't. I am getting a respite from Daisy's--well, Daisy's loathing of me and my methods. She, like you, probably thinks I have given him back to her." Jeannie was prowling up and down the room rather in the manner of some restless caged thing. In spite of her tiredness and her disquietude, it seemed to Lady Nottingham that she had never seen her look so beautiful. She looked neither kind nor genial nor sympathetic, but for sheer beauty, though rather formidable, there were no two words to it. "Sit down, Jeannie," said Alice quietly. "You are only exciting yourself. And tell me about it all. I understand nothing, it seems." Jeannie paused a moment in her walk, and then fell to pacing the room again. "No, I'm not exciting myself," she said, "but it is exciting me. I don't stir myself up by walking; I am merely attempting, not very successfully, to walk my excitement off. Oh, Alice, what wild beasts we are at bottom! Prey! Prey! Prey! It is one of the instincts that we--you and I, nice women--are rarely conscious of; but I doubt whether it is ever quite dormant. Yes, that comes later; I will explain from the beginning. "The beginning of it all was easy," she said. "It is perfectly easy for any woman to capture the attention of a man like that, even when he is seriously thinking of getting married to a girl. There was no difficulty in making him take me to the concert, in making him neglect Daisy those first two days. He liked me immensely, and, oh! Alice, here was the first extra difficulty, I liked him. We became friends. We mentioned the word friend openly as applied to us. And I felt like--like a man who gets a wild bird to sit on his hand and eat out of it, in order to grab it, and if not to wring its neck, to put it into a cage. I meant to put him into a cage, shut the door, and go away. And then yesterday afternoon in the punt, just after we had made our discovery that we were friends, he confided in me. He told me he was going to settle down and marry! Judge of my rage, my disappointment! I saw that all my efforts up till then had been quite useless. He was still meaning to marry, and, as was right, poor dear, he told the news to his friend. Daisy's name did not come in. Something made us break off--a flash of lightning, I think, and the beginning of the storm. I should have found something to divert the conversation otherwise. It was much better, in view of what I have to do, that I should not officially know to whom he hoped to be married." Already the calming effect of telling a trouble to a friend was being felt by Jeannie, and she sat down on the sofa near the window, clasping her hands behind her head, and looking not at Alice, but into the dark soft night. A little rain was falling, hissing among the bushes. "I saw then," she said, "that I had made a stupid mistake. I had thought that by mere friendliness and sympathy and making myself agreeable, and making him admire me (which he did and does), I could get him away from Daisy. I see now how impossible that was. If it is I who am going to take him away, he must feel more than that. He will not leave the girl he intended to marry unless he falls in love in his own manner with some one else. Alice, I believe he is doing so." Jeannie paused a moment. "I hate it all," she said, "but I can't help being immensely interested. Now for the part you don't understand, the part that made you think that I had given it all up. It was a bold game, and, I believe, a correct one. I dropped him--d-r-o-p, drop. Why? Simply in order that he might miss me. Of course, I risked failure. He might have shrugged his shoulders, and wondered why I had taken so much trouble to flirt with him, and gone straight away and resumed operations with Daisy. He did go straight back to Daisy, but do you think they are getting on very nicely? I don't. The more he sees of her now, the more he thinks about me. I don't say he has kind thoughts of me; he is puzzled, _but_ he doesn't dismiss me. He is angry instead, and hurt. That shows he wants me. He will never propose to Daisy while he feels like that." There was a short silence. Then Lady Nottingham said,-- "Do you mean you want to make him propose to you?" "Yes." The monosyllable came very dryly and unimportantly, as if to a perfectly commonplace inquiry. Then Lady Nottingham, in her turn, got up. Jeannie's restlessness and disquiet seemed to have transferred themselves to her. "But it is an intolerable rôle," she said. "You cannot play with love like that. It is playing heads and tails with a man's life, or worse. You are playing with his very soul." "And a month afterwards it will be he who will be playing with another woman's soul," said Jeannie quietly. "You cannot call it love with that sort of man. How many times has he been in love, and what has happened to it all? I am only making myself the chance woman with whom he happens to think himself in love at the time when he proposes to settle down and marry. He shall propose marriage, therefore, to me." Lady Nottingham's air of comfort had quite left her. Her plump, contented face was puckered into unusual wrinkles. "No, no, no," she said. "I can't imagine you act like that, Jeannie. It isn't you." Jeannie's eyes grew suddenly sombre. "Oh, my dear, it is me," she said, "though I am glad it is a me which is a stranger to you. I hope, as a rule, I don't play pitch-and-toss with other men's souls; but there are circumstances--and those have now arisen--in which I see no other way. At all costs to him I will fulfil my promise to Diana. I will do my best that Daisy shall never know. I do not care what it costs him. And yet that is not quite true. I do care, because I like him. But I cannot measure his possible suffering against Daisy's. It is through him that the need of doing this has come. He has got to suffer for it; and I assure you it isn't he alone who pays, it is I also." Jeannie rose. "And I do not yet know if I shall succeed," she said. "He may look with a scornful wonder on my--my somewhat mature charms. He may--though I do not really expect it--still intend to settle down and marry--Daisy. She will accept him, if he does--I have seen enough to know that--and we shall then have to tell her. But I hope that may not happen." She took up her candle. "I must go to bed," she said, "for I am dog-tired. But I don't feel so fretted now I have told you. I wish I did not like him. I should not care if I did not. Good-night, dear Alice." * * * * * All next day until evening Jeannie continued these tactics. Genial, eager, sympathetic with others, she treated Lord Lindfield, whenever it was necessary to speak to him at all, with the unsmiling civility which a well-bred woman accords to a man she scarcely knows, and does not wish to know better. And all day she saw the growing effect of her policy, for all day he grew more perplexed and more preoccupied with her. She gave him no opportunity of speaking with her alone, for she had planned her day and occupations so that she was all the time in the company of others, and hour by hour his trouble increased. Nor did the trouble spare Daisy. Nothing could be clearer to her eye, with such absolute naturalness did Jeannie manage the situation, than that she now, at any rate, was standing quite aloof from Lord Lindfield. A few days ago Daisy had told herself that she was glad her aunt liked him, but it should be added that to-day she was equally glad that Jeannie apparently did not. Yet the trouble did not spare Daisy, for if Aunt Jeannie was utterly changed to Lindfield, he seemed to be utterly changed too. He was grave, anxious, preoccupied, and the meaning of it escaped the girl, even as it had escaped Lady Nottingham. The party had been gradually gathering in the verandah before it was time to dress for dinner that night, and Jeannie, _à propos_ of the dressing-bell, had just announced that a quarter of an hour was enough for any nimble woman, with a competent maid. "She throws things at me, and I catch them and put them on," she said. "If I don't like them I drop them, and the floor of the room looks rather like Carnival-time until she clears up." But the sense of the meeting was against Jeannie; nobody else could "manage," it appeared, under twenty minutes, and Jim Crowfoot stuck out for half an hour. "You've got soft things to put on," he said; "but imagine a stiff shirt-cuff hitting you in the eye when your maid threw it. The floor of my room would look not so much like Carnival-time as a shambles." Lord Lindfield, indeed, alone supported Jeannie. "I want ten minutes," he said; "neither more nor less. Jim, it's time for you to go, else you will keep us waiting for dinner. I see that Mrs. Halton and I will be left alone at ten minutes past eight, and I at a quarter past." Jeannie heard this perfectly, but she turned quickly to Lady Nottingham. "Alice, is it true that you have a post out after dinner?" she said. "Yes? I must go and write a letter, then, before dressing; I particularly want it to get to town to-morrow." She rose and went in. And at that Lindfield deliberately got up too and followed her. She walked straight through the drawing-room, he a pace or two behind, and out into the hall. And then he spoke to her by name. She turned round at that. There was no way to avoid giving a reply, and, indeed, she did not wish to, for she believed that the policy of the last two days had ripened. "Yes, Lord Lindfield?" she said. "Am I ever going to have a word with you again?" he asked. Jeannie leant over the banisters; she had already gone up some six stairs. "But by all means," she said. "I--I too have missed our talks. Things have gone wrong a little? Let us try after dinner to put them straight. We shall find an opportunity." "Thanks," he said; and it was not only the word that thanked her. Jeannie's maid must have been a first-rate hand at throwing, if by that simple process she produced in a quarter of an hour that exquisite and finished piece of apparelling which appeared at half-past eight. True, it was Jeannie who wore the jewels and the dress, and her hair it was that rose in those black billows above her shapely head; and the dress, it may be said, was worthy of the wearer. Still, if this was to be arrived at by throwing things, the maid, it was generally felt, must be a competent hurler. It so happened that everybody was extremely punctual that night, and Jeannie, though quite sufficiently so, the last to appear. Lady Nottingham was even just beginning to allude to the necessary quarter of an hour when she came in. Lord Lindfield saw her first; he was talking to Daisy. But he turned from her in the middle of a sentence, and said,-- "By Gad!" It might have been by Gad, but it was by Worth. Four shades of grey, and pearls. Mrs. Beaumont distinctly thought that this was not the sort of dress to dash into the faces of a quiet country party. It was like letting off rockets at a five o'clock tea. Only a woman could dissect the enormity of it; men just stared. "I know I am not more than one minute late," she said. "Lord Lindfield, Alice has told me to lead you to your doom, which is to take me in.--Alice, they have told us, haven't they?" CHAPTER XXII. It seemed to Lord Lindfield that dinner was over that night with unusual swiftness, and that they had scarcely sat down when they rose again for the women to leave the room. Yet, short though it seemed, it had been a momentous hour, for in that hour all the perplexity and the anger that had made his very blood so bitter to him during these last two days had been charmed away from him, and instead, love, like some splendid fever of the spirit, burned there. Until Jeannie had been friendly, been herself with him again, he had not known, bad as the last two days had been, how deeply and intimately he missed her friendship. That, even that, merely her frank and friendly intercourse, had become wine to him; he thirsted and longed for it, and even it, now that it was restored to him, mounted to his head with a sort of psychic intoxication. Yet that was but the gift she had for the whole world of her friends; what if there was something for him behind all that, which should be his alone, and not the world's--something to which this wine was but as water? At dinner this had been but the side she showed to all the world, but there was better coming. She had promised him a talk that night, and by that he knew well she did not mean just the intercourse of dinner-talk, which all the table might share in, but a talk like those they had had before by the roadside when the motor broke down, or in the punt while the thunderstorm mounted in hard-edged, coppery clouds up the sky. The last thing they had spoken of then was friendship, and he had told her, he remembered, how he hoped to settle down and marry. He hoped that she would of her own accord speak of friendship again; that would be a thing of good omen, for again, as before, he would speak of his hope of settling down and marrying. Only he would speak of it differently now. For him the hour had struck; there was no choice of deliberation possible any more to him. He did not look on the picture of quiet domesticity any more, and find it pleasing; he did not look on himself, count up his years, and settle, with a content that had just one grain of resignation in it, that it was time for him to make what is called a home. He looked at Jeannie, and from the ocean of love a billow came, bore him off his feet, and took him seawards. She, the beauty of her face, the soft curves of her neck, the grace and suppleness of her body, were no longer, as had been the case till now, the whole of the woman whom he loved. Now they were but the material part of her; he believed and knew that he loved something that was more essentially Jeannie than these--he loved her soul and spirit. Late this love had come to him, for all his life he had stifled its possibility of growth by being content with what was more material; but at last it had dawned on him, and he stood now on the threshold of a world that was as new as it was bewildering. Yet, for all its bewilderment, he saw at a glance how real it was, and how true. It was the light of the sun that shone there which made those shadows which till now he had thought to be in themselves so radiant. It was about half-past ten when Jeannie and Lord Lindfield cut out of a bridge-table simultaneously. They had been playing in the billiard-room, and strolled out together, talking. In the hall outside, that pleasant place of books and shadows and corners, Jeannie paused and held out her hand to him. "Lord Lindfield," she said, "I have been a most utter beast to you these last two days, and I am sorry--I am indeed. You have got a perfect right to ask for explanations, and--and there aren't any. That is the best explanation of all; you can't get behind it. Will you, then, be generous and shake hands, and let us go on where we left off?" He took her hand. "That is exactly the condition I should have made," he said. "What?" "That we should go on where we left off. Do you remember what you were talking about?" She had sat down in a low chair by the empty fireplace, and he drew another close up to hers, and at right angles to it. Just above was a pair of shaded candles, so that he, sitting a little further off, was in shadow, whereas the soft light fell full on to her. Had she seen his face more clearly, she might have known that her task was already over, that Daisy had become but a shadow to him, and that he was eager and burning to put the coping-stone on to what she had accomplished. But she remembered the scene in the punt; she remembered that immediately after she had spoken of friendship, he, like a friend, had confided to her his intention of settling down and marrying. This time, therefore, she would speak in a more unmistakable way. "Yes, yes, I remember indeed," she said; "and it was the last good hour I have had between that and this. But I am not blaming you, Lord Lindfield, except, perhaps, just a little bit." He leant forward, and his voice trembled. "Why do you blame me," he asked, "even a little bit?" Jeannie laughed. "No, I don't think I can tell you," she said. "I should get scarlet. Yet, I don't know; I think it would make you laugh, too, and it is always a good thing to laugh. So turn away, and don't look at me when I am scarlet, since it is unbecoming. Well, I blame you a little bit, because you were a little bit tactless. A charming woman--one, anyhow, who was trying to be charming--had just been talking to you about friendship, and you sighed a smile in a yawn, as it were--do you know Browning?--he is a dear--and said: 'I am going to settle down and marry.' Now, not a word. I am going to scold you. Had we been two girls talking together, and had just made vows of friendship, it would have been utterly tactless for the one to choose that exact moment for saying she was going to be married; and I am sure no two boys in similar conditions would ever have done such a thing." Again Jeannie laughed. "It sounds so funny now," she said. "But it was such a snub. I suppose you thought we were getting on too nicely. Oh, how funny! I have never had such a thing happen to me before. So I blame you just a little bit. I was rather depressed already. A thunderstorm was coming, and it was going to be Sunday, and so I wanted everybody to be particularly nice to me." He gave a little odd awkward sort of laugh, and jerked himself a little more forward in his chair. "Mayn't I look?" he said. "I don't believe you are scarlet. Besides, I have to say I am sorry. I can't say I am sorry to the carpet." Jeannie paused for a moment before she replied; something in his voice, though still she could not see his face clearly, startled her. It sounded changed, somehow, full of something suppressed, something serious. But she could not risk a second fiasco; she had to play her high cards out, and hope for their triumph. "You needn't say it," she said. "And so let us pass to what I suggested, and what you would have made, you told me, a condition of your forgiving me. Friendship! What a beautiful word in itself, and what a big one! And how little most people mean by it. A man says he is a woman's friend because he lunches with her once a month; a woman says she is a man's friend because they have taken a drive round Hyde Park in the middle of the afternoon!" Jeannie sat more upright in her chair, leaning forward towards him. Then she saw him more clearly, and the hunger of his face, the bright shining of his eyes, endorsed what she had heard in his voice. Yet she was not certain--not quite certain. "Oh, I don't believe we most of us understand friendship at all," she said. "It is not characteristic of our race to let ourselves feel. Most English people neither hate nor love, nor make friends in earnest. I think one has to go South--South and East--to find hate and love and friends, just as one has to go South to find the sun. Do you know the Persian poet and what he says of his friend: 'A book of verses underneath the bough, A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou Beside me singing in the wilderness, The wilderness were paradise enow.' Ah, that is more my notion of friendship, of the ideal of friendship, the thing that makes Paradise of the desert." He got up quickly and stood before her, speaking hoarsely and quickly. "It does not matter what you call it," he said. "I know what you mean. I call it love, that is all--Jeannie, Jeannie----" He seized both her hands in his roughly, brutally almost, and covered them with kisses. "Ah, it is done!" said Jeannie quickly, and half to herself. Then she rose too, and wrenched her hands from him. "Have you gone mad?" she said. "Stand out of my way, please." But she had not reckoned on the strength of the passion she had raised. For one moment he looked at her in blank astonishment, but he did not move. She could not get by him without violence. Then he advanced a step again towards her, as if he would have caught her to him. Jeannie put both her arms in front of her; she had turned pale to the lips. "Not till you have told me----" "I have nothing to tell you, except that I thought you were a gentleman and a friend. There is some one coming out of the billiard-room." Daisy appeared in the doorway at the moment. "The rubber's over already," she said, "just two hands. Won't you and Lord Lindfield----" She stopped suddenly. It was clear he had not heard her, for, with arms still held out, he faced Jeannie, unconscious of any one but her. "Jeannie----" he began again. Jeannie did not look at him. "Please let me pass," she said.--"No, Daisy, I think I have played enough. I am going upstairs. It is late. I am tired." CHAPTER XXIII. Jeannie went straight to her room. It was done, even as she had said, and her heart bled for her triumph. Yet she did not for a moment repent it. Had it been necessary to do it again, she would again have gone through the same hateful scene, and her scorn of herself weighed light even now with the keeping of the promise she had made by the bedside of Diana. But the thing had been worse than she had anticipated; it was no superficial desire she had aroused in him, but the authentic fire. But that made Daisy the safer: a man was not often in earnest like that. But still the future was unplanned for; she had made her scene, scored her point, and the curtain, dramatically speaking, should have descended. But in real life the curtain did not descend; life insisted that there were no such things as curtains; it made one go on. She knew, too, that Lindfield would not take this as final; she had to think of something which should make it final. In any case she could not contemplate stopping in the house, with him there, and decided to go back to town to-morrow, cutting her stay here short by a day. She would go early, before any one was down; Alice would invent and explain for her. A note, hastily scribbled, settled this. "It is done, Alice," she wrote, "and I feel satisfied and utterly miserable. Daisy does not exist for him. I shall go back to town early to-morrow, dear. Will you make some excuse? I know you will understand." But the more important matter was not settled so easily. She had to show poor Lindfield unmistakably that her rejection of him was quite irrevocable. What interpretation he put on her conduct mattered but little, as long as he clearly understood that. And then a means occurred to her which was quite simple and quite sufficient. She wrote a couple of lines to Victor. "My dearest," she said, "I must go to town early to-morrow, and shall not see you till you come up the day after. And I want you to announce our engagement at once. I should like it to be in the evening papers to-morrow. Tell them yourself down here. I write this in great haste. All love." Jeannie rang for her maid to get these delivered, dismissed her for the night, and sat down to think over what she had done. She was still tremulous from it. To a man she really liked, and to a girl whom she tenderly loved, she had made herself vile, but it was still her sincere hope that neither would ever know the reason for what she had done. They must write her down a flirt; they had every reason for doing so. She rose and looked at herself a moment in the long mirror beside the dressing-table. "You beast!" she said to herself. But there was another thought as well. "Diana, my dear," she said, as if comforting her. * * * * * It had been settled that Jeannie was to live with Lady Nottingham till the end of the season, and the latter had given her two charming rooms in the Grosvenor Square house, so that she could make things home-like about her for the few weeks before she would go down to her own house in the country. Little household gods had arrived and been unpacked while she was in the country, and she occupied herself during this solitary day in London with the arrangement of them. There were not many, for she did not tend to buy, but there were a few "bits of things" which she had got in Rome, a Cinque-cento bas-relief, a couple of Florentine copies of the Della Robbia heads, and some few pieces of Italian needlework. All these took some little time to dispose satisfactorily in the room, and that done, she proceeded to the arrangement of her writing-table. She liked to have photographs there: there was one of Daisy and Diana, two mites of ten years old and four years old, lovingly entwined, Daisy's head resting on her sister's shoulder; there was one of Victor as he was now, and another as he had been when an Eton boy; there were half a dozen others, and among them one of Diana, signed and dated, which Diana had given her hardly more than a year ago in Paris. All this arranging took up the greater part of the day, and she kept herself to her work, forcing her mind away from those things which really occupied it, and making it attend to the manual business of putting books in shelves and pictures on the walls; but about tea-time there was nothing more to occupy her here, and by degrees her thoughts drifted back to Bray and her friends--or were they enemies?--there. It was no use thinking of it or them, for there was nothing more to be contrived or planned or acted, no problem for her to dig at, no crisis to avert. She had finished everything, and there was nothing left for her to do except be silent, and hope perhaps by degrees to win Daisy back again. How Daisy reconstructed things in her own mind Jeannie did not know, and, indeed, the details of such reconstruction she did not particularly want to know. She had taken Lord Lindfield away from the girl, for a mere caprice, apparently, for the love of annexation characteristic of flirts, while all the time she was engaged to Victor Braithwaite. And having made mischief like this, she had run away. It was like a child who, having from sheer wantonness set fire to something, runs to a safe distance and watches it burn. Jeannie had ordered the carriage to come round at six to take her for a drive, and a few minutes before, though it was barely six yet, she had heard something drive up and stop at the door, and supposed that before long her maid would tell her that it was round. Even as she thought this she heard steps come along the passage outside, then her door opened. Daisy entered. She was very pale, but in each cheek there flamed one high spot of colour. She stood quite still by the door for a moment, looking at her aunt, then closed it and advanced into the room. "It is true, then, Aunt Jeannie," she said, "that you are engaged to Victor Braithwaite? I came up from Bray to ask you that, to know it from your own lips." Jeannie did not move, nor did she give Daisy any word of conventional greeting. "It is quite true," she said. Daisy began pulling off her gloves. "I congratulate you," she said. "It came as rather a surprise to me. Aunt Alice told me. I think she understood why it was a surprise to me. I wonder if you do?" Daisy appeared to be keeping a very firm hand on herself. There was no question that she was speaking under some tremendous stress of emotion, but her voice was quite quiet. It trembled a little, but that was all, and it seemed to Jeannie that that tremor was of anger more than of self-pity or sorrow. She was glad--in so far as she was glad of anything--that this was so. "I see you don't answer me," said Daisy, "and, indeed, there is no need. But I want an answer to this question, Aunt Jeannie. Why did you do it? Don't you think I have a right to know that?" For one moment it occurred to Jeannie to profess and to persist in professing that she did not know what Daisy meant. But that would have been useless, and worse than useless--unworthy. In her utter perplexity she tried another tack. "Is it my fault that he fell in love with me?" she said. "Did you not mean him to?" asked Daisy. "And all the time, while you meant him to, you were engaged to Mr. Braithwaite." There was still anger in Daisy's voice. Jeannie felt she could bear that; what she felt she could not bear would be if Daisy broke down. So she encouraged that. "I do not see by what right you question me," she said. "Lord Lindfield fell in love with me; last night he proposed to me. Ask him why he did that." "He did that because you fascinated and dazzled him," said Daisy; "because you meant him to fall in love with you." "Then I wonder you have not more spirit," said Jeannie. "You see how easily he turned from you to me. Can you then believe he was ever in love with you? You may have wanted to marry him; at least----" And then she paused, knowing she had made the most ghastly mistake, and not knowing how to remedy it. Daisy saw her mistake. "Then you did know that it was possible he would ask me to marry him," she said. "I wondered if you knew that. It makes it complete now I know that you did. So it comes to this, that you cut me out just in order to flirt with him. Thank you, Aunt Jeannie, thank you." And then there came into Daisy's voice what Jeannie dreaded to hear; the hard tone of anger died out of it, it became gentle, and it became miserable. She sat down at Jeannie's writing-table, covering her face with her hands. "Oh, I beseech you," she said, "cannot you undo the spell that you cast so easily? Oh, Aunt Jeannie, do, do; and I will forget all that has happened, and--and love you again. I want to do that. But I loved him; it was only quite lately I knew that, but it is so. Have you not enough? Isn't it enough that you will marry the man you love? I did not think you could be so cruel. Do you hate me, or what is it?" Jeannie made a little hopeless gesture with her hands. "Oh, Daisy, I didn't know that you loved him," she said. "Indeed, I did not. But, my dear, he did not love you. How could he have if he behaved as he has behaved?" "You made him," said Daisy. "You----" Then once again anger flamed into her voice. "Ah, what a true friend you have been to me!" she said. "Were you as true a friend to Diana too?" She had taken up one of the photographs, that which represented her and Diana together. "Here we are together," she said, "and we thank you. Here is Diana by herself----" And then she stopped abruptly. Her eye had fallen on the photograph of Diana which she had given only last year to Jeannie. It was signed "Diana, 1907." She drew it out of its frame. "Aunt Jeannie," she said, quickly, "in what year did Diana die?" Jeannie turned to her suddenly at this most unexpected question, and saw what it was that Daisy held in her hand. She made a desperate effort to turn Daisy's attention away at any cost. "Daisy, we were talking about Lord Lindfield," she said. "What reason had he ever given you to make you think he loved you? And has he not given you a strong reason for showing he did not?" Daisy looked at her for a moment, and then back to the photograph. "She died five years ago," she said. "But this is signed 1907, last year." Once again Jeannie tried to turn Daisy's attention. "And if he did fall in love with me, what then?" she said. "You assume it is all my fault." Daisy looked at her steadily a moment, and then back at the photograph. "Yes, yes," she said. "But you were with Diana when she died, were you not? When did she die?" Jeannie covered her face with her hands a moment, thinking intently, and then Daisy spoke again. "Why was I told she died five years ago?" she asked. "You told me so yourself. Were you hiding anything?" Again Daisy paused. "Her husband came to England after her death," she said. "He stopped with you, I remember, when I was living with you." Once again she paused. "Was there something dreadful, something disgraceful?" she asked. "Aunt Jeannie, I must know. I must!" CHAPTER XXIV. Jeannie got up out of her chair, where she had been sitting ever since Daisy entered. Daisy as she spoke had risen also from the writing-table, and, still holding the photograph of Diana in her hand, stood by her. "You must give me a moment, Daisy," she said. "I have got to think. And, my dear, while I am thinking do not try to guess. I can't bear that you should guess. I would sooner tell you than that." Daisy was very white, and the bright spot of anger that burnt in her cheeks when she entered the room had smouldered away. She nodded without spoken reply. Jeannie moved away from Daisy, and sat down in the window-seat at the far end of the room. Already Daisy had guessed that there was something disgraceful. Daisy remembered, too, that after Diana's supposed death her husband had come to England. And then for one moment Jeannie's spirit rose in impotent revolt against the bitter cruelty of this chance by which Daisy had seen Diana's photograph. She herself, perhaps, had been careless and culpable, in putting it on her table; but she had been so preoccupied with all the perplexities of this last week that the danger had not ever so faintly occurred to her. But now by this fatal oversight Daisy had already guessed perilously near the truth. She herself could invent no story to account for these things, and if Daisy was told the whole truth, of which she guessed so much, that other bitterness, the sense that Jeannie had cruelly betrayed her, would be removed. She could comfort Daisy again, and (this was sweet to herself also) show her how she loved her. She had done her very best to keep her promise to Diana, and she had not spared herself in doing so; and now, in spite of her efforts, so hard to make and so ungrudgingly made, half the truth was known to Daisy. It seemed to her that the other half would heal rather than hurt. She went back, and, standing in front of the girl, held out her hands to her. But Daisy made no response to the gesture, and, indeed, moved a little away. That, again, cut Jeannie like a lash, but she knew the pain of it would be only temporary. In a few minutes now Daisy would understand. "I am going to tell you," she said, "and as I tell you, my dear, I want you to keep on thinking to yourself that Diana was your sister, your only sister, and--and that you used to play together and love each other when you were children. And, dear Daisy, you must try to be--not to be a girl only when I tell you this. You are a girl, but you are a woman also, and you must bear this like a woman who is hearing about her sister." Once again Jeannie longed to take Daisy in her arms and tell her, holding that dear head close to her bosom. But it was not time for that yet. "You were told five years ago," she said, "that your sister was dead. She was not, Daisy; she died last year only, soon after I went abroad. And she died in my arms, dear, thank Heaven, because I loved her. And she loved me, Daisy. Oh, darling, you must bear this. I tried to spare you the knowledge, for I promised Diana that, but by ill-chance you have guessed so much that I think it better to tell you all. And you mustn't judge Diana, poor dear, or condemn her. The time has quite gone by for that, and, besides, she was your sister, and at the end the thing she wanted most in all the world was that you should not know. Remember that. Women have a hard time in this world, Daisy. Some are married unhappily, and though Diana's husband loved her very truly and tenderly it was not a happy marriage. At the time when you were told she was dead she was not, but she had left her husband. For the love he bore her he did not divorce her. Yes, dear, it was that." Again Jeannie paused. As the moment came near it was all she could do to get the words out. Yet when Daisy knew all, out of the hurt would come some healing. Jeannie could make her feel how she loved her. "She lived in Paris after she left her husband," she continued. "She lived for a time with the man for whom she deserted him. She wanted love--women do--you and I do. She--she got love. After a while there was another man. Yes, my dear, it was he. We needn't name him any more than we did just now when we spoke of him." Daisy sat quite still for a moment; for all that her face expressed she might never have heard. Then a sudden little tremor shook her, and she tore the photograph of Diana which she held across and across, and threw the fragments on the floor. "Ah, Daisy, you are cruel," said Jeannie. Daisy did not reply, and then suddenly her mouth began to tremble, and tears ready to fall gathered in her eyes. It had hurt her cruelly, and it was but the instinctive rebellion of one in sudden and incontrollable pain that had made her tear the photograph. But, as Jeannie had foreseen, with the hurt came healing. It was not necessary to say any more, for she saw that already Daisy was beginning to understand all that she had thought so incomprehensible, and so vile when it was comprehended, in her, and the comprehension brought with it the knowledge of the love and tenderness from which these things sprang. And this time it was Daisy who held out her hands to Jeannie, but falteringly, as if doubtful whether she dared. But she need not have been afraid; next moment she was clasped close, and with the sense of love surrounding and encompassing her the tears came, and she sobbed her heart out. And even when the tumult of her weeping had abated, it was but disjointedly that the words came. "And so it was because of that, Aunt Jeannie," she whispered, "because you had promised Diana that you would do your best to keep it from me?" "Yes, my darling, but I have failed," said Jeannie. "But how splendidly," whispered Daisy. "I should like to have f-failed like that. And you were content that I should think you a b-beast, and that he should?" "No, dear, not content quite. But it was the best I could think of." "And Mr. Braithwaite?" said Daisy. "Could you be content that he should think so?" Jeannie paused a moment before she replied. What she must say, if she answered this, would hurt Daisy again, but again there was healing there. "I knew he would never think me a beast," she said at length. "I knew he trusted me absolutely." "And I didn't," said Daisy. "No, dear, you didn't. But never mind that." "I can't help minding that. I thought--I thought everything disgusting about you. Oh, Aunt Jeannie, but I did try so much not to! I did try to behave well, to realize that you and he had fallen in love with each other, and that it was neither your fault nor his. But when Aunt Alice told me that you were engaged to Mr. Braithwaite, then I broke down. And when you told me you had known that I hoped to marry Lord Lindfield, then it was complete to my mind. I thought--oh! I have spoilt it all. It can never be the same again. And I did so long for you to come home a week ago. I did love you." Jeannie stroked Daisy's hair gently for a moment or two. "You speak of spoiling love," she said. "That is not easy to do. In fact, it can't be done. So don't have any fears on that point, my darling." Daisy was silent for a while. "And if he asks you why you did it?" she said. Jeannie considered this. "I may have to tell him," she said. "It all depends. Probably you don't understand that." "No; tell me," said Daisy. "If he appeals to me in the name of his love for me, I think I shall have to tell him," said Jeannie. "I don't want to; I shall do my best not to. But there is a claim, that of love, which is dominant. I did not mean him to fall in love with me, dear; I meant him only to be detached from you. But bigger issues, I am afraid, have come in. You must trust me to do the best I can. I think you will trust me, will you not?" Daisy clung closer for a moment, and then she sat up. "Yes. And I haven't even said I am sorry, and I am sure I need not. Aunt Jeannie, I think I want to go away alone for a little. I want, yes, I want to cry a little more, but by myself. Do you understand?" "Yes, my dear. But will you not stop here to-night? You could telegraph to Alice, and you might add that we were friends. She would like to know that." Daisy mopped her eyes. "I like to know it," she said. She got up. Just in front of her were the fragments of the torn photograph. She saw them and half shuddered at them. And Jeannie, all tenderness, knew that things were not right with Daisy yet. There was still another wound which must be healed. "Oh, Daisy!" she said. "You must never let yourself be black and bitter like that. You tore the photograph up; it lies there still." "Oh, I can't touch it," said Daisy. Jeannie looked at her quietly, patiently. "Your sister," she said. "Diana. Have you forgotten what she made me promise? She was so sorry, too; I think she would have given all the world if what she had done could be undone. Not a day passed without her being sorry. Daisy!" Daisy stood quite still for a moment, then she suddenly knelt down on the floor and picked the fragments up, kissing them as she did so. "Oh, poor Di," she said--"poor, poor Di!" CHAPTER XXV. The carriage had waited long before this, but when Daisy left her Jeannie went out for a breath of evening air. London, to her eyes, was looking very hot and tired, a purplish heat-haze hung in the sky, and the grass of the Park was yellow with the scorching of the last week, and grey with dust. Yet somehow it all brought a sense of extraordinary peace and refreshment to Jeannie. She, too, felt mentally hot and tired, but she knew that whatever scene it might be necessary to go through with Tom Lindfield, the worst was over. For, all unwittingly indeed, his had been the fault, and though Jeannie liked him and hated the idea both of his suffering and his possible bitterness and anger against her, all that was in the nature of justice; acts have always their consequences, and those who have committed them must bear what follows. But poor Daisy had done nothing; it was for the fault of others that her soul had been in the grip of resentment, jealousy, and anger, which had embittered and poisoned her days and nights. But that, all at any rate that was bitter in it, had now passed. She saw the meaning of her suffering; it was no longer a blind and wicked force. And though one love had to be left to wither and die in her heart, Jeannie knew well that the love between Daisy and her, which all this week had been blighted, was full of fresh-springing shoots again, which would help to cover over the bare place. Then, for herself, more precious than all was that sense of that great love which, she believed, had never suffered the dimness of a moment's doubt. Victor had seen her acting in a way that was impossible for him to understand, but he had quite refused, so Jeannie believed, to let his mind even ask a why or wherefore, still less conjecture any answer. His own love for her and the absolute certainty of her love for him were things so huge that nothing else could be compared with them. They stood like great mountains, based on the earth but reaching into the heavens, firm and imperishable, and if anything could come between his vision and them, it could be no more than a mist-wreath which would presently pass, and could no more shake or invalidate their stability than the grasses and flowers that waved in the pleasant meadow beneath them. And had Jeannie but known it she would have found more comfort yet in the thought of Daisy, for at this moment Daisy, alone in her room, though weeping a little now and then, was thinking not of herself at all, not even of Lindfield, but of Jeannie. Daisy was generous and warm-hearted to the core, and passionate had been her self-reproach at her complete misunderstanding of her aunt, at her utter failure even to ask herself whether there was not something about it all that she did not understand. How nobly different Victor Braithwaite had been, who, so it seemed, had assumed there must be some undercurrent of which he knew nothing, and was quite content to leave it at that. Jeannie had said she loved him; he wanted nothing more. But Daisy knew also that Jeannie loved her; what she did not know then, but was beginning to know now, was what love meant; how it can bear even to be completely misunderstood by those it loves, if only, in spite of their ignorance and misjudgment, it can help them. To Daisy, hitherto, love had been something assertive; to-day she was learning that it is based on a self-surrender made with the same passionateness as are its conquests. The rest of the party were coming up next day, and it did not surprise Jeannie to find a telegram waiting for her when she came in from Tom Lindfield. He asked if he might call and see her next morning, saying that he would come at twelve unless she put him off. It needed but a moment's reflection to make her decide that in bare justice she could not refuse. She shrank from it; she dreaded the thought of seeing him again, of listening to his just and passionate reproaches; she dreaded also the possibility that she might once again have to give up Diana's secret. But, since he wished it, she must see him. Next morning she told Daisy she expected him, so that there should be no possibility of their meeting by chance on the stairs or in Jeannie's room, and sat waiting for him alone. She could not prepare herself in any way for the interview, since she could not tell in the least what form it would take. She tried not to be afraid, but--but she had treated him abominably. So, at least, he must think, and with perfect justice. He was announced, and came in. As with Daisy yesterday, they did not greet one another. She was sitting at her writing-table, but did not rise, and for a moment he stood opposite her, just looking at her with those blue, boyish eyes which she knew could be so merry, but did not know could be so dumbly, hopelessly sad. Then he spoke, quite quietly. "You ran away unexpectedly, Mrs. Halton," he said. "Yes; I thought it was best." "Miss Daisy also left yesterday. I suppose you have seen her?" he said. "Yes, she spent the night here." "Are you friends?" "Yes." Tom Lindfield sat down on the arm of the low chair opposite the writing-table. "That's the cleverest thing I've ever heard," he said. "I think you owe me something, and I think you ought to tell me how you managed it. If she has forgiven you, perhaps I might." "No. I can't tell you how I managed it," said Jeannie. "You quite refuse?" "Quite." He paused a moment. "I suppose she asked you a certain question," he said, "which I also want to ask you. Is it true you are engaged to that nice fellow--Braithwaite, I mean?" "Quite true." Still quite quietly he got up, took out a cigarette, and looked about for matches. He found some on the chimney-piece, lit his cigarette, and came back to her. "I beg your pardon," he said. "I didn't ask if I might smoke here? Thanks. Mrs. Halton, I don't know if you have ever fallen in love. I have, once." His voice rose a little over this, as if with suppressed anger. Jeannie longed almost that he should get angry. This quietness was intolerable. And she tried to sting him into anger. "I should have thought you had fallen in love more than once," she said. This was no good. "You would have been wrong, then," he said. "I should have thought so too till just lately. But I have just found out that I never loved before. I--I did everything else, but I did not love." "You loved Daisy, do you mean?" she asked. He flamed up for a moment. "Ah, there is no good in saying that," he said, sharply. "What can be the use of it? I met the woman--there is only one--and she led me to believe that she cared for me. And when I told her that I loved her she said she had thought I was a gentleman and a friend." Jeannie felt her heart melt within her. "Yes, yes, I am sorry," she said. "That is no good, I am afraid," said he. "You have got to tell me why you did it. We are man and woman, you and I. I cannot believe you did it out of sheer wantonness, from the desire to make me miserable, and, I am afraid, to some extent, to make Miss Daisy miserable. I don't see what you were to gain by it. Also you risked something since you were engaged all the time to Braithwaite. And the only thing I can think of is that for some reason you wished to get between Miss Daisy and myself. I suppose you thought I had been a bad lot--I daresay I had--and did not want me to marry her. But wasn't that an infernally cruel way of doing it?" Jeannie said nothing, but after a long silence she looked at him. "Have you finished?" she asked. "I have nothing to say to you, no explanation to give." Once again, and more violently, his anger, his resentment at the cruelty of it, boiled over. "No, I have not finished," he said. "I am here to tell you that you have done an infernally cruel thing, for I take it that it was to separate Miss Daisy and me that you did it. You have been completely successful, but--but for me it has been rather expensive. I gave you my heart, I tell you. And you stamped on it. I can't mend it." Then that died out and his voice trembled. "It's broken," he said--"just broken." Jeannie put out her hands towards him in supplication. "I am sorry," she said. "I tell you that is no good," he said, and on the words his voice broke again. "Oh, Jeannie, is it final? Is it really true? For Heaven's sake tell me that you have been playing this jest, trick--what you like--on me, to test me, to see if I really loved you. You made me love you--you taught me what love meant. I have seen and judged the manner of my past life, and--and I laid it all down, and I laid myself down at your feet, so that you and love should re-make me." Jeannie leant forward over the table, hiding her face in her hands. "Oh, stop--for pity's sake stop," she said. "I have had a good deal to bear. I never guessed you would love me like that; I only meant you, at first, to be attracted by me, as you have been by other women. It is true that I was determined that you should not marry Daisy, and I knew that if you really got to love her nothing would stand in your way. I had to make it impossible for you to fall in love with her. It was to save you and her." Jeannie felt she was losing her head; the sight of this man in his anger and his misery confused and bewildered her. She got up suddenly. "I don't know what I am saying," she said. "You said it was to save her and me," he said, quietly. "To save us from what?" She shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I was talking nonsense." "I am very sure you were not. And it is only just that I should know. By my love for you--for I can think of nothing more sacred to me than that--I bid you tell me. It is my right. Considering what you have done to me, it is no more than my right." It had happened as Jeannie feared it might. She felt her throat go suddenly dry, and once she tried to speak without being able. Then she commanded her voice again. "You were in Paris two years ago," she said. "There was a woman there who lived in the Rue Chalgrin. She called herself Madame Rougierre." "Well?" said he. "Daisy's sister," said Jeannie, with a sob. * * * * * She turned away from him as she spoke, and leant against the bookcase behind her table. It was a long time before he moved, and then, still with back turned, she heard him approach her, and he took her hand and kissed it. "I love and I honour you," he said. Jeannie gave one immense sigh. "Oh, Tom," she said, "you are a man!" "It is of your making, then," said he. CHAPTER XXVI. Easter fell late next year, but spring had come early, and had behaved with unusual sweetness and constancy, for from the middle of March to mid-April there had been a series of days from which winter had definitely departed. In most years April produces two or three west-wind days of enervating and languorous heat, but then recollects itself and peppers the confiding Englishman with hail and snow, blown as out of a pea-shooter from the northeast, just to remind him that if he thinks that summer is going to begin just yet he is woefully mistaken. But this year the succession of warm days had been so uninterrupted that Lady Nottingham had made the prodigious experiment of asking a few people down to Bray for a week-end party at Easter itself. She was conscious of her amazing temerity, for she knew well that anything might happen; that the river, instead of being at the bottom of the garden, might so change its mind about their relative positions that in a few hours the garden would be at the bottom of the river, or, again, this bungalow of a house might be riddled and pierced with arctic blasts. But, in spite of these depressing possibilities, she particularly wanted to have a few, a very few, people down for that Sunday. They had all a special connection with Bray. Things had happened there before, and it was a party of healed memories that was to gather there. If, after all, the weather turned out to be hopelessly unpropitious, they could all sit in a ring round the fire, holding each other's hands. She felt sure they would like to do that. Probably there would be a great many _tête-à-têtes_ in various corners, or, if it were warm, in various punts. But she felt sure that they would all hold hands in the intervals of these. Jeannie and Victor had been married in the autumn, and since then they had practically disappeared, surrounded by a glow of their own happiness. They had sunk below the horizon, but from the horizon there had, so to speak, come up a brilliant illumination like an aurora borealis. But Lady Nottingham considered that they had aurora-ed quite long enough. They had no right to keep all their happiness to themselves; it was their duty to diffuse it, and let other people warm their hands and hearts at it. She had written what is diplomatically known as a "strong note" to say so, and she had mentioned that she was not alone in considering that they were being rather selfish. Tom Lindfield thought so too. He openly averred that he was still head-over-ears in love with Jeannie, and he wished to gratify his passion by seeing her again, and having copious opportunities given him of solitary talks with her. He did not object (this was all part of the message that Lady Nottingham sent Jeannie from him) to Victor's coming with her, but he would be obliged if Victor would kindly make up his mind to efface himself a good deal. Otherwise he had better stop away. Tom proposed to come down to Bray for Easter, and would be much obliged if Jeannie would come too. He did not ask her to set aside any other engagements she might have, because he was perfectly well aware that she had no other engagement than that tiresome and apparently permanent one of burying herself in the country with Victor. Jeannie received this letter at breakfast down at their house in Hampshire. She read it aloud to her husband. "What a darling he is," she said. "Victor, I shall go. I love that man." "I know you do. He isn't a bad sort. Do you want me to come too?" "Oh, I shan't go unless you do," said Jeannie, quickly. "Right. It's a confounded nuisance, though, but I suppose you must. How many days do you want to stop there?" "Oh, till Tuesday or Wednesday, I suppose. Perhaps Tom would come back with us here after that." Victor got up and moved round the table, till he stood by his wife's chair. "No, I don't think he will," he said. "Fact is, Jeannie, I asked him to come here a week or two ago, and he wrote me an awfully nice letter back, but said he thought he wouldn't. I didn't tell you before, for there was no use in it. But after that I don't think I should ask him if I were you." Jeannie was silent a moment. "But he wants to see me now," she said. "I know. But I don't think he wants to be with us alone. You understand that, I expect." Jeannie sighed. "Poor Tom!" she said. "Yet I don't know why I say 'poor.' I think he likes life." "I don't think he loves it as you and I do." Jeannie's eyes suddenly filled with tears. "I am awfully sorry for that," she said. "Sometimes I feel frightfully guilty, and then suddenly on the top of that I feel innocent. Oh, to be plain, I feel more than innocent. I feel dreadfully laudable. And then, to do me justice, I put up a little prayer that I may not become a prig or a donkey." He laughed. "Please, don't," he said. "I should not know you. But you made a man of him." "Ah, yes; he has told you that. It is not the case. He made a man of himself." Victor held up his hand. "I don't want to know what happened," he said. "I am quite content to leave it. He became a man, and you were always my beloved." Some backward surge of memory stirred in Jeannie. "Quite always?" she said. "You never wanted to ask me about it?" "No, dear, never," he said. "Not because I was complacent or anything of that kind, but simply because we loved each other." This, then, was the foundation of Lady Nottingham's Easter party. Jeannie and her husband would come, and so, as a corollary, Lord Lindfield would come. Then there would be the newly-engaged couple, namely, Daisy and Willie Carton. Either of them would go, as steel filings go to the magnet, wherever the other was, and without the least sense of compunction Lady Nottingham told each of them separately that the other was coming to her. She had been rather late in doing this, and, as a matter of fact, Willie, no longer hoping for it, had made another engagement. But he did not even frown or consider that. He wrote a cheerful, scarcely apologetic note to Mrs. Beaumont, merely saying he found he could not come. Nature and art alike--and Mrs. Beaumont was a subtle compound of the two--allow much latitude to lovers, and she did not scold him. At this stage in her proceedings Lady Nottingham suddenly abandoned the idea of a party at all. There was Victor and Jeannie, and their corollary, Tom Lindfield; there was Daisy and her corollary, Willie; there was herself. Gladys would be there too, and--and it was necessary to provide light conversation in case everybody was too much taken up with everybody else, and Jim Crowfoot would, no doubt, supply it. A very short telephonic pause was succeeded by the assurance that he would. CHAPTER XXVII. Two days before this little gathering of friends was to assemble Jeannie left Itchen Abbas for town. Victor did not go with her, for the unpunctual May-fly was already on the river, and, since subsequent days had to be abandoned, he preferred to use these. He thought it (and said so) very selfish of Jeannie to go, since who cared what gowns she wore? But it seemed that Jeannie thought this nonsense, and went. Also a tooth, though it did not ache, said that it thought it might, and she arranged an appointment in Old Burlington Street for Saturday afternoon. She would meet Victor down at Bray. The tooth proved a false alarm. It was tapped and probed and mirrored, and she was assured that she need feel no anxiety. So in the elation of a visit to the dentist over, she emerged into the street. There was a willing but unable motor there that puffed and snorted, and did not do anything. And immediately she heard a familiar voice. "Why, Jeannie," it said, "what confounded and stupendous luck! Never thought to meet you here. Going to Bray, aren't you? And so am I. Old Puffing Billy is having his fit here this time. Or do you think he'll have another on the road? I'll go down by train with you, or I'll take you down in Puffing Billy. But we'll go together. By Jove, you look ripping!" Jeannie gave him both her hands. "Oh, Tom," she said, "what fun! Let's go down in Puffing Billy. I've been to the dentist, and there isn't anything." Puffing Billy gave out a volume of blue smoke. "Good old chap," said Tom sympathetically. "Hope he'll stick again on the level.--Is it all right for the present, Stanton?--Get in, Jeannie. Never saw such luck! Who would expect Puffing Billy to break down opposite a dentist's, when you needn't have gone there at all. Jove! it is good to see you." The incredible happened. Once again the car broke down on the level, and once again Stanton had to go upon his belly, like the snake, while his passengers sat on a rug by the wayside. "We shall be late again," said Tom. "Do you know, it is nearly six months since I saw you last?" Jeannie remembered the invitation he had received and refused. "That's your fault," she said. "I know. Your man asked me. Awfully good of him." "Why didn't you come, then?" The inimitable Stanton ceased to be a snake, and, becoming erect, touched his cap. "Car's all right, my lord," he said. "Oh, is it? Get in, then.--I didn't know if you wanted me to come, Jeannie. I'm not sure if I wanted to either. But I expect the two are one. It's funny, isn't it? Try me again." "Well, come back with Victor and me after Bray," she said. "Rather. It's Bray first, though. We shan't be late for dinner after all. What a bore; I like being uniform and consistent. Look here, do promise me a morning or an afternoon or something down there. Just half a day alone with you." She got into the car, he following. "Yes, you dear," she said. "Of course you shall have it. A whole day if you like, morning and afternoon." "Jove! I'm on in that piece. Sure you won't be bored?" "I'll try not." "H'm. You think it will need an effort." Jeannie laughed. "Once upon a time a man went out fishing for compliments--" she began. "And he didn't catch any," said Tom. "Not one. And now we've chattered enough, and you shall tell me all about yourself." * * * * * It was a very quiet and simple history that she heard, and all told it amounted to the fact that he had settled down as he told her nearly a year ago he was thinking of doing, but without marrying. There was little to say, and in that little he was characteristically modest. For the greater part of the year he had been down at his place in Wiltshire, of which he had been so studiously absentee a landlord, and for the first time had taken his place as a big landowner, and that which, with rather a wry face, he alluded to as a "county magnate." It was from other sources that Jeannie knew how modest this account was, and at the end-- "Tom, you're a brick!" she said. He laughed. "Didn't know it," he said. "But the man who went fishing caught something after all, in that case." * * * * * Daisy came into her aunt's room when the women went upstairs that night for a talk. She was radiantly in love, but it was a different Daisy from her who had made so many plans and known her own mind so well a year ago. "I know Willie has a cold," she said, "but men are so tiresome. They won't take reasonable care of themselves. Don't you think he looked rather run down, Aunt Jeannie?" "Not the very slightest, I am afraid." "How horrid of you! Oh, Aunt Jeannie, what a nice world!" Daisy settled herself on the floor by her aunt's chair, and possessed herself of her hand. "And to think that till less than a year ago I was quite, quite blind," she said. "I always loved you, I think, but I am so different now. What has happened, do you think?" "I think you have grown up, my dear," said Jeannie. "I suppose it may be that. I wonder how it happens. Do you think one grows up from inside, or does something come from outside to make one?" "Surely it is a combination of the two. It is with us as it is with plants. From outside comes the rain and the sun, which make them grow, but all the same it is from within that this growth comes, so that they put forth leaves and flowers." Daisy sighed. "What a lot of time I wasted," she said. "To think that Willie was waiting so long before I could see him as he was. Yes, I know what the sun and the rain were in my case. They were you, you darling, when for my sake and poor Diana's you did what you did." "Ah, my dear," said Jeannie, "we need not speak of that." "But I want to just once--just to tell you that it was you who opened my eyes. And it wasn't my eyes alone you opened. It was his too--Tom's, I mean. He knows that, and he told me so." "That is quite enough about me," said Jeannie, with decision. "Daisy, I wish Tom would marry. Can't we find some nice girl for him?" "Oh, we can find a hundred nice girls for him," said Daisy, "and he will respectfully reject them all. He doesn't want any nice girl. Oh, Aunt Jeannie, why shouldn't I say it? He's in love with you. I think he always will be. Some people might call it sad, but I don't think it is at all. The thought of you makes him so tremendously happy." Daisy plaited Jeannie's long white fingers in with her own. "I think it's one of the nicest things that ever happened," she said. "It's like some old legend of a man who has--well, racketed about all his life, and then suddenly finds his ideal, which, though she is quite out of reach, entirely satisfies him. He is so fond of Uncle Victor too. That's so nice of him, and so natural, since Uncle Victor is your husband. It's just what the man in the legend would do." Jeannie gave a long, happy sigh. "Oh, I thank Heaven for my friends," she said. "They thank Heaven for you," said Daisy softly. * * * * * April continued to behave with incredible amiability, and superb and sunny weather blessed Lady Nottingham's rash experiment. Everywhere the spring triumphed; on the chestnut trees below which Jeannie and Lord Lindfield had sat on the afternoon of the thunderstorm last year a million glutinous buds swelled and burst into delicate five-fingered hands of milky green; and on the beech-trunks was spread the soft green powder of minute mosses. The new grass of the year was shooting up between the older spikes, making a soft and short-piled velvet, on which the clumps of yellow crocuses broke like the dancing reflection of sun on water. Daffodils danced, too, in shady places, a company of nymphs, and the celandines were like the burnished gold of some illuminated manuscript of spring. And all these tokens of the renewed and triumphant life of the world were but the setting to that company of happy hearts assembled by the Thames' side. The time of the singing bird had come, and their hearts were in tune with it. The little party, so it had been originally planned, were to disperse on the Wednesday after Easter, but on the Tuesday various secret conferences were held, and with much formality a round-robin was signed and presented to Lady Nottingham, stating that her guests were so much pleased with their quarters that they unanimously wished to stop an extra day. So they stopped an extra day, another day of burgeoning spring, and were very content. Tom was content also next morning, for he went with Jeannie to her home. THE END. * * * * * ESTABLISHED 1798 [Illustration] T. NELSON AND SONS PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS Notes on Nelson's New Novels. _No work of unwholesome character or of second-rate quality will be included in this Series._ The novel is to-day _the_ popular form of literary art. This is proved by the number of novels published, and by the enormous sales of fiction at popular prices. While _Reprints_ of fiction may be purchased for a few pence, _New Fiction_ is still a luxury. The author of a New Novel loses his larger audience, the public are denied the privilege of enjoying his latest work, because of the prohibitive price of 4s. 6d. demanded for the ordinary "six shilling" novel. In another way both author and public are badly served under the present publishing system. At certain seasons a flood of new novels pours from the press. Selection becomes almost impossible. The good novels are lost among the indifferent and the bad. Good service can be done to literature not only by reducing the price of fiction, but by sifting its quality. The number of publishers issuing new fiction is so great, that the entrance of another firm into the field demands almost an apology--at least, a word of explanation. Messrs. Nelson have been pioneers in the issue of reprints of fiction in Library Edition at Sevenpence. The success of _Nelson's Library_ has been due to the careful selection of books, regular publication throughout the whole year, and excellence of manufacture at a low cost, due to perfection of machinery. Nelson's Sevenpenny Library represents the best that can be given to the public in the way of _Reprints_ under present manufacturing conditions. Nelson's New Novels (of which this book is one of the first volumes) represents the same standard of careful selection, excellence of production, and lowest possible price applied to _New Fiction_. The list of authors of Nelson's New Novels for 1910 includes Anthony Hope, E. F. Benson, H. A. Vachell, H. G. Wells, "Q," G. A. Birmingham, John Masefield, Mrs. W. K. Clifford, J. C. Snaith, John Buchan, and Agnes and Egerton Castle. Arrangements for subsequent volumes have been made with other authors of equally high standing. Nelson's New Novels are of the ordinary "six shilling" size, but are produced with greater care than most of their competitors. They are printed in large, clear type, on a fine white paper. They are strongly bound in green cloth with a white and gold design. They are decorated with a pretty end-paper and a coloured frontispiece. All the volumes are issued in bright wrappers. The books are a happy combination of substantial and artistic qualities. A new volume is issued regularly every month. The price is the very lowest at which a large New Novel with good material and workmanship, and with an adequate return to author, bookseller, and publisher, can be offered to the public at the present time. * * * * * _Descriptive Notes on the Volumes for 1910_:-- SECOND STRING. _Anthony Hope._ This brilliant social comedy contains all the qualities which have given Anthony Hope his unique reputation as a historian of modern life. He introduces us to the society of the little country town of Meriton, the tradespeople, the loungers in the inn parlour, the neighbouring farmers and squires, and especially to Harry Belfield, the mirror of fashion in the county and candidate for its representation in Parliament. We see also his former school friend, Andy Hayes, who has returned from lumbering in Canada to make a living at home. The _motif_ of the tale is the unconscious competition of the two friends, of whom Andy is very willing to play "second fiddle," did not character and brains force him to the front. The young squire of Halton is too selfish and capricious to succeed, and in spite of his loyalty to friendship, Andy finds himself driven to take his place both in love and in politics. A host of characters cross the stage, and the scene flits between Meriton and London. The book is so light in touch, so shrewd in its observation, so robust and yet so kindly in its humour, that it must be accorded the highest rank among Anthony Hope's works--which is to say, the first place among modern social comedies. FORTUNE. _J. C. Snaith._ Mr. J. C. Snaith is already known to fame by his historical novels, his admirable cricketing story, his essay in Meredithan subtlety "Brooke of Covenden," and his most successful Victorian comedy "Araminta." In his new novel he breaks ground which has never before been touched by an English novelist. He follows no less a leader than Cervantes. His hero, Sir Richard Pendragon, is Sir John Falstaff grown athletic and courageous, with his imagination fired by much adventure in far countries and some converse with the knight of La Mancha. The doings of this monstrous Englishman are narrated by a young and scandalized Spanish squire, full of all the pedantry of chivalry. Sir Richard is a new type in literature--the Rabelaisian Paladin, whose foes flee not only from his sword but from his Gargantuan laughter. In Mr. Snaith's romance there are many delightful characters--a Spanish lady who dictates to armies, a French prince of the blood who has forsaken his birthright for the highroad. But all are dominated by the immense Sir Richard, who rights wrongs like an unruly Providence, and then rides away. THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY. _H. G. Wells._ If the true aim of romance is to find beauty and laughter and heroism in odd places, then Mr. Wells is a great romantic. His heroes are not knights and adventurers, not even members of the quasi-romantic professions, but the ordinary small tradesmen, whom the world has hitherto neglected. The hero of the new book, Mr. Alfred Polly, is of the same school, but he is nearer Hoopdriver than Kipps. He is in the last resort the master of his fate, and squares himself defiantly against the Destinies. Unlike the others, he has a literary sense, and has a strange fantastic culture of his own. Mr. Wells has never written anything more human or more truly humorous than the adventures of Mr. Polly as haberdasher's apprentice, haberdasher, incendiary, and tramp. Mr. Polly discovers the great truth that, however black things may be, there is always a way out for a man if he is bold enough to take it, even though that way leads through fire and revolution. The last part of the book, where the hero discovers his courage, is a kind of saga. We leave him in the end at peace with his own soul, wondering dimly about the hereafter, having proved his manhood, and found his niche in life. THE OTHER SIDE. _H. A. Vachell._ In this remarkable book Mr. Vachell leaves the beaten highway of romance, and grapples with the deepest problems of human personality and the unseen. It is a story of a musical genius, in whose soul worldliness conquers spirituality. When he is at the height of his apparent success, there comes an accident, and for a little soul and body seem to separate. On his return to ordinary life he sees the world with other eyes, but his clearness of vision has come too late to save his art. He pays for his earlier folly in artistic impotence. The book is a profound moral allegory, and none the less a brilliant romance. SIR GEORGE'S OBJECTION. _Mrs. W. K. Clifford._ Mrs. Clifford raises the old problem of heredity, and gives it a very modern and scientific answer. It is the story of a woman who, after her husband's disgrace and death, settles with her only daughter upon the shore of one of the Italian lakes. The girl grows up in ignorance of her family history, but when the inevitable young man appears complications begin. As it happens, Sir George, the father of the lover, holds the old-fashioned cast-iron doctrine of heredity, and the story shows the conflict between his pedantry and the compulsion of fact. It is a book full of serious interest for all readers, and gives us in addition a charming love story. Mrs. Clifford has drawn many delightful women, but Kitty and her mother must stand first in her gallery. PRESTER JOHN. _John Buchan._ This is a story which, in opposition to all accepted canons of romance, possesses no kind of heroine. There is no woman from beginning to end in the book, unless we include a little Kaffir serving-girl. The hero is a Scottish lad, who goes as assistant to a store in the far north of the Transvaal. By a series of accidents he discovers a plot for a great Kaffir rising, and by a combination of luck and courage manages to frustrate it. From beginning to end it is a book of stark adventure. The leader of the rising is a black missionary, who believes himself the incarnation of the mediæval Abyssinian emperor Prester John. By means of a perverted Christianity, and the possession of the ruby collar which for centuries has been the Kaffir fetish, he organizes the natives of Southern Africa into a great army. But a revolution depends upon small things, and by frustrating the leader in these small things, the young storekeeper wins his way to fame and fortune. It is a book for all who are young enough in heart to enjoy a record of straightforward adventure. LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING. _"Q."_ Sir Oliver Vyell, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, is the British Collector of Customs at the port of Boston in the days before the American Revolution. While there he runs his head against New England Puritanism, rescues a poor girl who has been put in the stocks for Sabbath-breaking, carries her off, and has her educated. The story deals with the development of Ruth Josselin from a half-starved castaway to a beautiful and subtle woman. Sir Oliver falls in love with his ward, and she becomes my Lady and the mistress of a great house; but to the New Englanders she remains a Sabbath-breaker and "Lady-Good-for-Nothing." The scene moves to Lisbon, whither Sir Oliver goes on Government service, and there is a wonderful picture of the famous earthquake. The book is a story of an act of folly, and its heavy penalties, and also the record of the growth of two characters--one from atheism to reverence, and the other from a bitter revolt against the world to a wiser philosophy. The tale is original in scheme and setting, and the atmosphere and thought of another age are brilliantly reproduced. No better historical romance has been written in our times. PANTHER'S CUB. _Agnes and Egerton Castle._ This is the story of a world-famed _prima donna_, whose only daughter has been brought up in a very different world from that in which her mother lives. When the child grows to womanhood she joins her mother, and the problem of the book is the conflict of the two temperaments--the one sophisticated and undisciplined, and the other simple and sincere. The scenes are laid in Vienna and London, amid all types of society--smart, artistic, and diplomatic. Against the Bohemian background the authors have worked out a very beautiful love story of a young diplomatist and the singer's daughter. The book is full of brilliant character-sketches and dramatic moments. TREPANNED. _John Masefield._ Mr. Masefield has already won high reputation as poet and dramatist, and his novel "Captain Margaret" showed him to be a romancer of a higher order. "Trepanned" is a story of adventure in Virginia and the Spanish Main. A Kentish boy is trepanned and carried off to sea, and finds his fill of adventure among Indians and buccaneers. The central episode of the book is a quest for the sacred Aztec temple. The swift drama of the narrative, and the poetry and imagination of the style, make the book in the highest sense literature. It should appeal not only to all lovers of good writing, but to all who care for the record of stirring deeds. THE SIMPKINS PLOT. _George A. Birmingham._ "Spanish Gold" has been the most mirth-provoking of Irish novels published in the last few years, and Mr. Birmingham's new book is a worthy successor. Once more the admirable red-haired curate, "J. J.," appears, and his wild energy turns a peaceful neighbourhood into a hotbed of intrigue and suspicion. The story tells how he discovers in a harmless lady novelist, seeking quiet for her work, a murderess whose trial had been a _cause célèbre_. He forms a scheme of marrying the lady to the local bore, in the hope that she may end his career. Once started on the wrong tack, he works out his evidence with convincing logic, and ties up the whole neighbourhood in the toils of his misconception. The book is full of the wittiest dialogue and the most farcical situations. It will be as certain to please all lovers of Irish humour as the immortal "Experiences of an Irish R. M." THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York. * * * * * Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained as it appears in the book. The following changes have been made: Page 143 she must start to-day." Unexpected closing quote removed Page 203 you musn't do anything musn't changed to mustn't Page 235 "Indeed, I think I won't, Aunt Jeannie,' Single close quote changed to double quotes] 
10797	----	THE WITS AND BEAUX OF SOCIETY BY GRACE AND PHILIP WHARTON EDITED BY JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY, M. P. _And the original illustrations by_ H. K. BROWNE AND JAMES GODWIN TWO VOLS.--VOL. II. 1890 CONTENTS VOL. II. HORACE WALPOLE. The Commoners of England.--Horace's Regret for the Death of his Mother.-- Little Horace in Arlington Street.--Introduced to George I.-- Characteristic Anecdote of George I.--Walpole's Education.--Schoolboy Days.-- Boyish Friendships.--Companionship of Gray.--A Dreary Doom.-- Walpole's Description of Youthful Delights.--Anecdote of Pope and Frederic of Wales.--The Pomfrets.--Sir Thomas Robinson's Ball.--An Admirable Scene.--Political Squibs.--Sir Robert's Retirement from Office.--The Splendid Mansion of Houghton.--Sir Robert's Love of Gardening.--What we owe to the 'Grandes Tours.'--George Vertue.--Men of One Idea.--The Noble Picture-gallery at Houghton.--The 'Market Pieces.'-- Sir Robert's Death.--The Granville Faction.--A very good Quarrel.-- Twickenham.-- Strawberry Hill.--The Recluse of Strawberry.--Portraits of the Digby Family.--Sacrilege.--Mrs. Darner's Models.--The Long Gallery at Strawberry.-- The Chapel.--'A Dirty Little Thing.'--The Society around Strawberry Hill.--Anne Seymour Conway.--A Man who never Doubted.--Lady Sophia Fermer's Marriage.--Horace in Favour.--Anecdote of Sir William Stanhope.--A Paper House.--Walpole's Habits.--Why did he not Marry?-- 'Dowagers as Plenty as Flounders.'--Catherine Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry.--Anecdote of Lady Granville.--Kitty Clive.--Death of Horatio Walpole.--George, third Earl of Orford.--A Visit to Houghton.--Family Misfortunes.--Poor Chatterton.--Walpole's Concern with Chatterton.-- Walpole in Paris.--Anecdote of Madame Geoffrin.--'Who's that Mr. Walpole?'-- The Miss Berrys.--Horace's two 'Straw Berries.'--Tapping a New Reign.--The Sign of the Gothic Castle.--Growing Old with Dignity.-- Succession to an Earldom.--Walpole's Last Hours.--Let us not be Ungrateful. GEORGE SELWYN. A Love of Horrors.--Anecdotes of Selwyn's Mother.--Selwyn's College Days.--Orator Henley.--Selwyn's Blasphemous Freak.--The Profession of a Wit.--The Thirst for Hazard.--Reynolds's Conversation-Piece.--Selwyn's Eccentricities and Witticisms.--A most Important Communication.--An Amateur Headsman.--The Eloquence of Indifference.--Catching a Housebreaker.--The Family of the Selwyns.--The Man of the People.-- Selwyn's Parliamentary Career.--True Wit.--Some of Selwyn's Witty Sayings.--The Sovereignty of the People.--On two kinds of Wit.--Selwyn's Home for Children.--Mie-Mie, the Little Italian.--Selwyn's Little Companion taken from him.--His Later Days and Death. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Sheridan a Dunce.--Boyish Dreams of Literary Fame.--Sheridan in Love.--A Nest of Nightingales.--The 'Maid of Bath.'--Captivated by Genius.-- Sheridan's Elopement with 'Cecilia.'--His Duel with Captain Matthews.-- Standards of Ridicule.--Painful Family Estrangements.--Enters Drury Lane.--Success of the Famous 'School for Scandal.'--Opinions of Sheridan and his Influence.--The Literary Club.--Anecdote of Garrick's Admittance.--Origin of the 'Rejected Addresses.'--New Flights.--Political Ambition.--The Gaming Mania.--Almacks'.--Brookes'.--Black-balled.--Two Versions of the Election Trick.--St. Stephen's Won.--Vocal Difficulties.-- Leads a Double Life.--Pitt's Vulgar Attack.--Sheridan's Happy Retort-- Grattan's Quip.--Sheridan's Sallies.--The Trial of Warren Hastings.-- Wonderful Effect of Sheridan's Eloquence.--The Supreme Effort.--The Star Culminates.--Native Taste for Swindling.--A Shrewd but Graceless Oxonian.--Duns Outwitted.--The Lawyer Jockeyed.--Adventures with Bailiffs.--Sheridan's Powers of Persuasion.--House of Commons Greek.-- Curious Mimicry.--The Royal Boon Company.--Street Frolics at Night.-- An Old Tale.--'All's well that ends well.'--The Fray in St. Giles'.-- Unopened Letters.--An Odd Incident.--Reckless Extravagance,--Sporting Ambition.--Like Father like Son.--A Severe and Witty Rebuke.-- Intemperance.--Convivial Excesses of a Past Day.--Worth wins at last.-- Bitter Pangs.--The Scythe of Death.--Sheridan's Second Wife.--Debts of Honour.--Drury Lane Burnt.--The Owner's Serenity.--Misfortunes never come Singly.--The Whitbread Quarrel.--Ruined.--Undone and almost Forsaken.-- The Dead Man Arrested.--The Stories fixed on Sheridan.--Extempore Wit and Inveterate Talkers. BEAU BRUMMELL. Two popular Sciences.--'Buck Brummell' at Eton.--Investing his Capital.-- Young Cornet Brummell.--The Beau's Studio.--The Toilet.--'Creasing Down.'--Devotion to Dress.--A Great Gentleman.--Anecdotes of Brummell.-- 'Don't forget, Brum: Goose at Four'--Offers of Intimacy resented.-- Never in love.--Brummell out Hunting.--Anecdote of Sheridan and Brummell.--The Beau's Poetical Efforts.--The Value of a Crooked Sixpence.--The Breach with the Prince of Wales.--'Who's your Fat Friend?'--The Climax is reached.--The Black-mail of Calais.--George the Greater and George the Less.--An Extraordinary Step.--Down the Hill of Life.--A Miserable Old Age.--In the Hospice Du Bon Sauveur.--O Young Men of this Age, be warned! THEODORE EDWARD HOOK. The Greatest of Modern Wits.--What Coleridge said of Hook.--Hook's Family.--Redeeming Points.--Versatility.--Varieties of Hoaxing.--The Black-wafered Horse.--The Berners Street Hoax.--Success of the Scheme.-- The Strop of Hunger.--Kitchen Examinations.--The Wrong House.--Angling for an Invitation.--The Hackney-coach Device.--The Plots of Hook and Mathews.--Hook's Talents as an Improvisatore.--The Gift becomes his Bane.--Hook's Novels.--College Fun.--Baiting a Proctor.--The Punning Faculty.--Official Life Opens.--Troublesome Pleasantry.--Charge of Embezzlement.--Misfortune.--Doubly Disgraced.--No Effort to remove the Stain.--Attacks on the Queen.--An Incongruous Mixture.--Specimen of the Ramsbottom Letters.--Hook's Scurrility.---Fortune and Popularity.-- The End. SYDNEY SMITH. The 'Wise Wit.'--Oddities of the Father.--Verse-making at Winchester.-- Curate Life on Salisbury Plain.--Old Edinburgh.--Its Social and Architectural Features.--Making Love Metaphysically.--The Old Scottish Supper.--The Men of Mark passing away.--The Band of Young Spirits.-- Brougham's Early Tenacity.--Fitting up Conversations.--'Old School' Ceremonies.--The Speculative Society.--A Brilliant Set.--Sydney's Opinion of his Friends.--Holland House.--Preacher at the 'Foundling.'--Sydney's 'Grammar of Life.'--The Picture Mania.--A Living Comes at Last.--The Wit's Ministry.--The Parsonage House at Foston-le-Clay.--Country Quiet.-- The Universal Scratcher.--Country Life and Country Prejudice.--The Genial Magistrate.--Glimpse of Edinburgh Society.--Mrs. Grant of Laggan.-- A Pension Difficulty.--Jeffrey and Cockburn.--Craigcrook.--Sydney Smith's Cheerfulness.--His Rheumatic Armour.--No Bishopric.--Becomes Canon of St. Paul's.--Anecdotes of Lord Dudley.--A Sharp Reproof.-- Sydney's Classification of Society.--Last Strokes of Humour. GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON, LORD MELCOMBE. A Dinner-giving lordly Poet.--A Misfortune for a Man of Society.-- Brandenburgh House.--'The Diversions of the Morning.'--Johnson's Opinion of Foote.--Churchill and 'The Rosciad.'--Personal Ridicule in its Proper Light.--Wild Specimen of the Poet.--Walpole on Dodington's 'Diary.'-- The best Commentary on a Man's Life.--Leicester House.--Grace Boyle.-- Elegant Modes of passing Time.--A sad Day.--What does Dodington come here for?--The Veteran Wit, Beau, and Politician.--'Defend us from our Executors and Editors.' SUBJECTS OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS Volume II. "WHO'S YOUR FAT FRIEND?" STRAWBERRY HILL FROM THE THAMES SELWYN ACKNOWLEDGES "THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE" THE FAMOUS "LITERARY CLUB" A TREASURE FOR A LADY--SHERIDAN AND THE LAWYER THEODORE HOOK'S ENGINEERING FROLIC SYDNEY SMITH'S WITTY ANSWER TO THE OLD PARISH CLERK HORACE WALPOLE. The Commoners of England.--Horace's Regret for the Death of his Mother.-- 'Little Horace' in Arlington Street.--Introduced to George I.-- Characteristic Anecdote of George I.--Walpole's Education.--Schoolboy Days.--Boyish Friendships.--Companionship of Gray.--A Dreary Doom.-- Walpole's Description of Youthful Delights.--Anecdote of Pope and Frederic of Wales.--The Pomfrets.--Sir Thomas Robinson's Ball.--An Admirable Scene.--Political Squibs.--Sir Robert's Retirement from Office.--The Splendid Mansion of Houghton.--Sir Robert's Love of Gardening.--What we owe to the 'Grandes Tours.'--George Vertue.--Men of One Idea.--The Noble Picture-gallery at Houghton.--The 'Market Pieces.'-- Sir Robert's Death.--The Granville Faction.--A very good Quarrel.-- Twickenham.--Strawberry Hill.--The Recluse of Strawberry.--Portraits of the Digby Family.--Sacrilege.--Mrs. Darner's Models.--The Long Gallery at Strawberry.--The Chapel.--'A Dirty Little Thing.'--The Society around Strawberry Hill.--Anne Seymour Conway.--A Man who never Doubted.--Lady Sophia Fermor's Marriage.--Horace in Favour.--Anecdote of Sir William Stanhope.--A Paper House.--Walpole's Habits.--Why did he not Marry?-- 'Dowagers as Plenty as Flounders.'--Catherine Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry.--Anecdote of Lady Granville.--Kitty Clive.--Death of Horatio Walpole.--George, third Earl of Orford.--A Visit to Houghton.--Family Misfortunes.--Poor Chatterton.--Walpole's Concern with Chatterton.-- Walpole in Paris.--Anecdote of Madame Geoffrin.--'Who's that Mr. Walpole?'--The Miss Berrys.--Horace's two 'Straw Berries.'--Tapping a New Reign.--The Sign of the Gothic Castle.--Growing Old with Dignity.-- Succession to an Earldom.--Walpole's Last Hours.--Let us not be Ungrateful. Had this elegant writer, remarks the compiler of 'Walpoliana,' composed memoirs of his own life, an example authorized by eminent names, ancient and modern, every other pen must have been dropped in despair, so true was it that 'he united the good sense of Fontenelle with the Attic salt and graces of Count Anthony Hamilton.' But 'Horace' was a man of great literary modesty, and always undervalued his own efforts. His life was one of little incident: it is his character, his mind, the society around him, the period in which he shone, that give the charm to his correspondence, and the interest to his biography. Besides, he had the weakness common to several other fine gentlemen who have combined letters and _haut ton_, of being ashamed of the literary character. The vulgarity of the court, its indifference to all that was not party writing, whether polemical or political, cast a shade over authors in his time. Never was there, beneath all his assumed Whig principles, a more profound aristocrat than Horace Walpole. He was, by birth, one of those well-descended English gentlemen who have often scorned the title of noble, and who have repudiated the notion of merging their own ancient names in modern titles. The commoners of England hold a proud pre-eminence. When some low-born man entreated James I. to make him a gentleman, the well-known answer was, 'Na, na, I canna! I could mak thee a lord, but none but God Almighty can mak a gentleman.' Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards minister to George II., and eventually Lord Orford, belonged to an ancient family in Norfolk; he was a third son, and was originally destined for the Church, but the death of his elder brethren having left him heir to the family estate, in 1698, he succeeded to a property which ought to have yielded him £2,000 a year, but which was crippled with various encumbrances. In order to relieve himself of these, Sir Robert married Catherine Shorter, the granddaughter of Sir John Shorter, who had been illegally and arbitrarily appointed Lord Mayor of London by James II. Horace was her youngest child, and was born in Arlington Street, on the 24th of September, 1717, O.S. Six years afterwards he was inoculated for the small-pox, a precaution which he records as worthy of remark, since the operation had then only recently been introduced by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu from Turkey. He is silent, however, naturally enough, as to one important point--his real parentage. The character of his mother was by no means such as to disprove an assertion which gained general belief: this was, that Horace was the offspring, not of Sir Robert Walpole, but of Carr, Lord Hervey, the eldest son of the Earl of Bristol, and the elder brother of Lord Hervey, whose 'Memoirs of the Court of George II.' are so generally known. Carr, Lord Hervey, was witty, eccentric, and sarcastic: and from him Horace Walpole is said to have inherited his wit, his eccentricity, his love of literature, and his profound contempt for all mankind, excepting only a few members of a cherished and exclusive _clique_. In the Notes of his life which Horace Walpole left for the use of his executor, Robert Berry, Esq., and of his daughter, Miss Berry, he makes this brief mention of Lady Walpole:--'My mother died in 1737.' He was then twenty years of age. But beneath this seemingly slight recurrence to his mother, a regret which never left him through life was buried. Like Cowper, he mourned, as the profoundest of all sorrows, the loss of that life-long friend. 'My mother, when I learn'd that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son? Wretch even then, life's journey just begun.' Although Horace in many points bore a strong resemblance to Sir Robert Walpole, he rarely if ever received from that jovial, heartless, able man, any proof of affection. An outcast from his father's heart, the whole force of the boy's love centred in his mother; yet in after-life no one reverenced Sir Robert Walpole so much as his supposed son. To be adverse to the minister was to be adverse to the unloved son who cherished his memory. What 'my father' thought, did, and said, was law; what his foes dared to express was heresy. Horace had the family mania strong upon him; the world was made for Walpoles, whose views were never to be controverted, nor whose faith impugned. Yet Horace must have witnessed, perhaps with out comprehending it, much disunion at home. Lady Walpole. beautiful and accomplished, could not succeed in riveting her husband to his conjugal duties. Gross licentiousness was the order of the day, and Sir Robert was among the most licentious; he left his lovely wife to the perilous attentions of all the young courtiers who fancied that by courting the Premier's wife they could secure Walpole's good offices. Sir Robert, according to Pope, was one of those who-- 'Never made a friend in private life, And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife. At all events, if not a tyrant, he was indifferent to those circumstances which reflected upon him, and were injurious to her. He was conscious that he had no right to complain of any infidelity on her part, and he left her to be surrounded by men whom he knew to be profligates of the most dangerous pretensions to wit and elegance. It was possibly not unfrequently that Horace, his mother's pet, gleaned in the drawing-rooms of Arlington Street his first notions of that _persiflage_ which was the fashion of the day. We. can fancy him a precocious, old-fashioned little boy, at his mother's apron-string, whilst Carr, Lord Hervey, was paying his devoirs; we see him gazing with wondering eyes at Pulteney, Earl of Bath, with his blue ribbon across his laced coat; whilst compassionating friends observing the pale-faced boy in that hot-house atmosphere, in which both mind and body were like forced plants, prophesied that 'little Horace' could not possibly live to be a man. He survived, however, two sisters, who died in childhood, and became dearer and dearer to his fond mother. In his old age, Horace delighted in recalling anecdotes of his infancy; in these his mother's partiality largely figured. Brought up among courtiers and ministers, his childish talk was all of kings and princes; and he was a gossip both by inclination and habit. His greatest desire in life was to see the king--George I., and his nurses and attendants augmented his wish by their exalted descriptions of the grandeur which he effected, in after-life, to despise. He entreated his mother to take him to St. James's. When relating the incidents of the scene in which he was first introduced to a court, Horace Walpole speaks of the 'infinite good-nature of his father, who never thwarted any of his children,' and 'suffered him,' he says, 'to be too much indulged.' Some difficulties attended the fruition of the forward boy's wish. The Duchess of Kendal was jealous of Sir Robert Walpole's influence with the king: her aim was to bring Lord Bolingbroke into power. The childish fancy was, nevertheless, gratified: and under his mother's care he was conducted to the apartments of the Duchess of Kendal in St. James's. 'A favour so unusual to be asked by a boy of ten years old,' he afterwards wrote in his 'Reminiscences,' 'was still too slight to be refused to the wife of the first minister and her darling child.' However, as it was not to be a precedent, the interview was to be private, and at night. It was ten o'clock in the evening when Lady Walpole, leading her son, was admitted into the apartments of Melusina de Schulenberg, Countess of Walsingham, who passed under the name of the Duchess of Kendal's niece, but who was, in fact, her daughter, by George I. The polluted rooms in which Lady Walsingham lived were afterwards occupied by the two mistresses of George II.--the Countess of Suffolk, and Madame de Walmoden, Countess of Yarmouth. With Lady Walsingham, Lady Walpole and her little son waited until, notice having been given that the king had come down to supper, he was led into the presence of 'that good sort of man,' as he calls George I. That monarch was pleased to permit the young courtier to kneel down and kiss his hand. A few words were spoken by the august personage, and Horace was led back into the adjoining room. But the vision of that 'good sort of man' was present to him when, in old age, he wrote down his recollections for his beloved Miss Berry. By the side of a tall, lean, ill-favoured old German lady--the Duchess of Kendal--stood a pale, short, elderly man, with a dark tie-wig, in a plain coat and waistcoat: these and his breeches were all of snuff-coloured cloth, and his stockings of the same colour. By the blue riband alone could the young subject of this 'good sort of man' discern that he was in the presence of majesty. Little interest could be elicited in this brief interview, yet Horace thought it his painful duty, being also the son of a prime minister, to shed tears when, with the other scholars of Eton College, he walked in the procession to the proclamation of George II. And no doubt he was one of _very_ few personages in England whose eyes Were moistened for that event. Nevertheless, there was something of _bonhommie_ in the character of George I. that one misses in his successor. His love of punch, and his habit of becoming a little tipsy over his private dinners with Sir Robert Walpole, were English as well as German traits, and were regarded almost as condescensions; and then he had a kind of slow wit, that was turned upon the venial officials whose perquisites were at their disgraceful height in his time. 'A strange country this,' said the monarch, in his most clamorous German: 'one day, after I came to St. James's, I looked out of the window, and saw a park, with walks, laurels, &c.; these they told me were mine. The next day Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of _my_ park, sends me a brace of carp out of my canal; I was told, thereupon, that I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's porter for bringing me my _own_ fish, out of my _own_ canal, in my _own_ park!' In spite of some agreeable qualities, George I. was, however, anything but a 'good sort of man.' It is difficult how to rank the two first Georges; both were detestable as men, and scarcely tolerable as monarchs. The foreign deeds of George I. were stained with the supposed murder of Count Konigsmark: the English career of George II. was one of the coarsest profligacy. Their example was infamous. His father's only sister having become the second wife of Charles Lord Townshend, Horace was educated with his cousins; and the tutor selected was Edward Weston, the son of Stephen, Bishop of Exeter; this preceptor was afterwards engaged in a controversy with Dr. Warburton, concerning the 'Naturalization of the Jews.' By that learned, haughty disputant, he is termed 'a gazetteer by profession--by inclination a Methodist.' Such was the man who guided the dawning intellect of Horace Walpole. Under his care he remained until he went, in 1727, to Eton. But Walpole's was not merely a scholastic education: he was destined for the law--and, on going up to Cambridge, was obliged to attend lectures on civil law. He went from Eton to King's College--where he was, however, more disposed to what are termed accomplishments than to deep reading. At Cambridge he even studied Italian; at home he learned to dance and fence; and took lessons in drawing from Bernard Lens, drawing-master to the Duke of Cumberland and his sisters. It is not to be wondered at that he left Cambridge without taking a degree. But fortune was lying, as it were, in wait for him; and various sinecures had been reserved for the Minister's youngest son: first, he became Inspector of the Imports and Exports in the Customs; but soon resigned that post to be Usher of the Exchequer. 'And as soon,' he writes, 'as I became of age I took possession of two other little patent places in the Exchequer, called Comptroller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats. They had been held for me by Mr. Fane.' Such was the mode in which the younger sons were then provided for by a minister; nor has the unworthy system died out in our time, although greatly modified. Horace was growing up meantime, not an awkward, but a somewhat insignificant youth, with a short, slender figure: which always retained a boyish appearance when seen from behind. His face was common-place, except when his really expressive eyes sparkled with intelligence, or melted into the sweetest expression of kindness. But his laugh was forced and uncouth: and even in his smile there was a hard, sarcastic expression that made one regret that he smiled. He was now in possession of an income of £1,700 annually, and he looked naturally to the Continent, to which all young members of the aristocracy repaired, after the completion of their collegiate life. He had been popular at Eton: he was also, it is said, both beloved and valued at Cambridge. In reference to his Etonian days he says, in one of his letters, 'I can't say I am sorry I was never quite a schoolboy: an expedition against bargemen, or a match at cricket, may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things that are very near as pretty. The beginning of my Roman history was spent in the asylum, or conversing in Egeria's hallowed grove; not in thumping and pummelling King Amulius's herdsmen.[1] [1: Life by Warburton, p 70.] 'I remember,' he adds, 'when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland had set me on an extraordinary task, I used sometimes to pique myself upon not getting it, because it was not immediately my school business. What! learn more than I was absolutely forced to learn! I felt the weight of learning that; for I was a blockhead, _and pushed above my parts_.'[2] [2: Life of Warburton, p. 63.] Popular amongst his schoolfellows, Horace formed friendships at Eton which mainly influenced his after-life. Richard West, the son of West, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the grandson, on his mother's side, of Bishop Burnet; together with a youth named Assheton--formed, with the poet Gray, and Horace himself, what the young wit termed the 'Quadruple Alliance.' Then there was the 'triumvirate,' George Montagu, Charles Montagu, and Horace: next came George Selwyn and Hanbury Williams; lastly, a retired, studious youth, a sort of foil to all these gay, brilliant young wits--a certain William Cole, a lover of old books, and of quaint prints. And in all these boyish friendships, some of which were carried from Eton to Cambridge, may be traced the foundation of the Horace Walpole, of Strawberry Hill and of Berkeley Square. To Gray he owed his ambition to be learned, if possible--poetical, if nature had not forbidden; to the Montagus, his dash and spirit; to Sir Hanbury Williams, his turn for _jeux d'esprit_, as a part of the completion of a fine gentleman's education; to George Selwyn, his appreciation of what was then considered wit--but which we moderns are not worthy to appreciate. Lord Hertford and Henry Conway, Walpole's cousins, were also his schoolfellows; and for them he evinced throughout his long life a warm regard. William Pitt, Lord Chatham--chiefly remembered at Eton for having been flogged for being out of bounds--was a contemporary, though not an intimate, of Horace Walpole's at Eton. His regard for Gray did him infinite credit: yet never were two men more dissimilar as they advanced in life. Gray had no aristocratic birth to boast; and Horace dearly loved birth, refinement, position, all that comprises the cherished term 'aristocracy.' Thomas Gray, more illustrious for the little his fastidious judgment permitted him to give to the then critical world, than many have been in their productions of volumes, was born in Cornhill--his father being a worthy citizen. He was just one year older than Walpole, but an age his senior in gravity, precision, and in a stiff resolution to maintain his independence. He made one fatal step, fatal to his friendship for Horace, when he forfeited--by allowing Horace to take him and pay his expenses during a long continental tour--his independence. Gray had many points which made him vulnerable to Walpole's shafts of ridicule; and Horace had a host of faults which excited the stern condemnation of Gray. The author of the 'Elegy'--which Johnson has pronounced to be the noblest ode in our language--was one of the most learned men of his time, 'and was equally acquainted with the elegant and profound paths of science, and that not superficially, but thoroughly; knowing in every branch of history, both natural and civil, as having read all the original historians of England, France, and Italy; a great antiquarian, who made criticisms, metaphysics, morals, and politics a principal part of his plan of study--who was uncommonly fond of voyages and travels of all sorts--and who had a fine taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening' What a companion for a young man of taste and sympathy! but the friends were far too clever long to agree. Gray was haughty, impatient, intolerant of the peculiarities of others, according to the author of 'Walpoliana:' doubtless he detected the vanity, the actual selfishness, the want of earnest feeling in Horace, which had all been kept down at school, where boys are far more unsparing Mentors than their betters. In vain did they travel _en prince_, and all at Walpole's expense; in vain did they visit courts, and receive affability from princes: in vain did he of Cornhill participate for a brief period in the attentions lavished on the son of a British Prime Minister: they quarrelled--and we almost reverence Gray for that result, more especially when we find the author of 'Walpoliana' expressing his conviction that 'had it not been for this idle indulgence of his hasty temper, Mr. Gray would immediately on his return home have received, as usual, a pension or office from Sir Robert Walpole.' We are inclined to feel contempt for the anonymous writer of that amusing little book. After a companionship of four years, Gray, nevertheless, returned to London. He had been educated with the expectation of being a barrister; but finding that funds were wanting to pursue a legal education, he gave up a set of chambers in the Temple, which he had occupied previous to his travels, and retired to Cambridge. Henceforth what a singular contrast did the lives of these once fond friends present! In the small, quaint rooms of Peter-House,[3] Gray consumed a dreary celibacy, consoled by the Muse alone, who--if other damsels found no charms in his somewhat piggish, wooden countenance, or in his manners, replete, it is said, with an unpleasant consciousness of superiority--never deserted him. His college existence, varied only by his being appointed Professor of Modern History, was, for a brief space, exchanged for an existence almost as studious in London. Between the years 1759 and 1762, he took lodgings, we find, in Southampton Row--a pleasant locality then, opening to the fields--in order to be near the British Museum, at that time just opened to the public. Here his intense studies were, it may be presumed, relieved by the lighter task of perusing the Harleian Manuscripts; and here he formed the acquaintance of Mason, a dull, affected poet, whose celebrity is greater as the friend and biographer of Gray, than even as the author of those verses on the death of Lady Coventry, in which there are, nevertheless, some beautiful lines. Gray died in college--a doom that, next to ending one's days in a jail or a convent, seems the dreariest. He died of the gout: a suitable, and, in that region and in those three-bottle days, almost an inevitable disease; but there is no record of his having been intemperate. [3: Gray migrated to Pembroke in 1756.] Whilst Gray was poring over dusty manuscripts, Horace was beginning that career of prosperity which was commenced by the keenest enjoyment of existence. He has left us, in his Letters, some brilliant passages, indicative of the delights of his boyhood and youth. Like him, we linger over a period still fresh, still hopeful, still generous in impulse-- still strong in faith in the world's worth--before we hasten on to portray the man of the world, heartless, not wholly, perhaps, but wont to check all feeling till it was well-nigh quenched; little minded; bitter, if not spiteful; with many acquaintances and scarce one friend--the Horace Walpole of Berkeley Square and Strawberry Hill. 'Youthful passages of life are,' he says, 'the chippings of Pitt's diamond, set into little heart-rings with mottoes; the stone itself more worth, the filings more gentle and agreeable. Alexander, at the head of the world, never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his age have enjoyed at the head of a school. Little intrigues, little schemes and policies engage their thoughts; and at the same time that they are laying the foundation for their middle age of life, the mimic republic they live in, furnishes materials of conversation for their latter age; and old men cannot be said to be children a second time with greater truth from any one cause, than their living over again their childhood in imagination.' Again: 'Dear George, were not the playing-fields at Eton food for all manner of flights? No old maid's gown, though it had been tormented into all the fashions from King James to King George, ever underwent so many transformations as these poor plains have in my idea. At first I was contented with tending a visionary flock, and sighing some pastoral name to the echo of the cascade under the bridge ... As I got further into Virgil and Clelia, I found myself transported from Arcadia to the garden of Italy; and saw Windsor Castle in no other view than the _Capitoli immobile saxum_.' Horace Walpole's humble friend Assheton was another of those Etonians who were plodding on to independence, whilst he, set forward by fortune and interest, was accomplishing reputation. Assheton was the son of a worthy man, who presided over the Grammar School at Lancaster, upon a stipend of £32 a year. Assheton's mother had brought to her husband a small estate. This was sold to educate the 'boys:' they were both clever and deserving. One became the fellow of Trinity College; the other, the friend of Horace, rose into notice as the tutor of the young Earl of Plymouth; then became a D.D., and a fashionable preacher in London; was elected preacher at Lincoln's Inn; attacked the Methodists; and died, at fifty-three, at variance with Horace--this Assheton, whom once he had loved so much. Horace, on the other hand, after having seen during his travels all that was most exclusive, attractive, and lofty, both in art and nature, came home without bringing, he declares, 'one word of French or Italian for common use.' He professed, indeed, to prefer England to all other countries. A country tour in England delighted him: the populousness, the ease in the people also, charmed him. 'Canterbury was a paradise to Modena, Reggio, or Parma.' He had, before he returned, perceived that nowhere except in England was there the distinction of 'middling people;' he now found that nowhere but in England were middling houses. 'How snug they are!' exclaims this scion of the exclusives. Then he runs on into an anecdote about Pope and Frederick, Prince of Wales. 'Mr. Pope, said the prince, 'you don't love princes.' 'Sir, I beg your pardon.' 'Well, you don't love kings, then.' 'Sir, I own I like the lion better before his claws are grown.' The 'Horace Walpole' began now to creep out: never was he really at home except in a court atmosphere. Still he assumed, even at twenty-four, to be the boy. 'You won't find me,' he writes to Harry Conway, 'much altered, I believe; at least, outwardly. I am not grown a bit shorter or fatter, but am just the same long, lean creature as usual. Then I talk no French but to my footman; nor Italian, but to myself. What inward alterations may have happened to me you will discover best; for you know 'tis said, one never knows that one's self. I will answer, that that part of it that belongs to you has not suffered the least change--I took care of that. For _virtu_, I have a little to entertain you--it is my sole pleasure. I am neither young enough nor old enough to be in love.' Nevertheless, it peeps out soon after that the 'Pomfrets' are coming back. Horace had known them in Italy. The Earl and Countess and their daughters were just then the very pink of fashion; and even the leaders of all that was exclusive in the court. Half in ridicule, half in earnest, are the remarks which, throughout all the career of Horace, incessantly occur. 'I am neither young enough nor old enough to be in love,' he says; yet that he was in love with one of the lovely Fermors is traditionary still in the family--and that tradition pointed at Lady Juliana, the youngest, afterwards married to Mr. Penn. The Earl of Pomfret had been master of the horse to Queen Caroline: Lady Pomfret, lady of the bed-chamber. 'My Earl,' as the-countess styled him, was apparently a supine subject to her ladyship's strong will and wrong-headed ability--which she, perhaps, inherited from her grandfather, Judge Jeffreys; she being the daughter and heiress of that rash young Lord Jeffreys, who, in a spirit of braggadocia, stopped the funeral of Dryden on its way to Westminster, promising a more splendid procession than the poor, humble cortege--a boast which he never fulfilled. Lady Sophia Fermor, the eldest daughter, who afterwards became the wife of Lord Carteret, resembled, in beauty, the famed Mistress Arabella Fermor, the heroine of the 'Rape of the Lock.' Horace Walpole admired Lady Sophia--whom he christened Juno--intensely. Scarcely a letter drips from his pen--as a modern novelist used to express it[4]--without some touch of the Pomfrets. Thus to Sir Horace Mann, then a diplomatist at Florence:-- [4: The accomplished novelist, Mrs. Gore, famous for her facility, used to say that a three-volume novel just 'dripped from her pen.'] 'Lady Pomfret I saw last night. Lady Sophia has been ill with a cold; her head is to be dressed French, and her body English, for which I am sorry, her figure is so fine in a robe. She is full as sorry as I am.' Again, at a ball at Sir Thomas Robinson's, where four-and-twenty couples danced country-dances, in two sets, twelve and twelve, 'there was Lady Sophia, handsomer than ever, but a little out of humour at the scarcity of minuets; however, as usual, dancing more than anybody, and, as usual too, she took out what men she liked, or thought the best dancers.'...'We danced; for I country-danced till four, then had tea and coffee, and came home.' Poor Horace! Lady Sophia was not for a younger son, however gay, talented, or rich he might be. His pique and resentment towards her mother, who had higher views for her beautiful daughter, begin at this period to show themselves, and never died away. Lady Townshend was the wit who used to gratify Horace with tales of her whom he hated--Henrietta-Louisa, Countess of Pomfret. 'Lady Townshend told me an admirable history: it is of _our friend_ Lady Pomfret. Somebody that belonged to the Prince of Wales said, they were going to _court_; it was objected that they ought to say to Carlton House; that the only _court_ is where the king resides. Lady P., with her paltry air of significant learning and absurdity, said, "Oh, Lord! Is there no _court_ in England but the king's? Sure, there are many more! There is the _Court_ of Chancery, the _Court_ of Exchequer, the _Court_ of King's Bench, &c." Don't you love her? Lord Lincoln does her daughter--Lady Sophia Fermor. He is come over, and met me and her the other night; he turned pale, spoke to her several times in the evening, but not long, and sighed to me at going away. He came over all alone; and not only his Uncle Duke (the Duke of Newcastle) but even Majesty is fallen in love with him. He talked to the king at his levee, without being spoken to. That was always thought high treason; but I don't know how the gruff gentleman liked it. And then he had been told that Lord Lincoln designed to have made the campaign, if we had gone to war; in short, he says Lord Lincoln is the handsomest man in England.' Horace was not, therefore, the only victim to a mother's ambition: there is something touching in the interest he from time to time evinces in poor Lord Lincoln's hopeless love. On another occasion, a second ball of Sir Thomas Robinson's, Lord Lincoln, out of prudence, dances with Lady Caroline Fitzroy, Mr. Conway taking Lady Sophia Fermor. 'The two couple were just admirably mismatched, as everybody soon perceived, by the attentions of each man to the woman he did not dance with, and the emulation of either lady; it was an admirable scene.' All, however, was not country dancing: the young man, 'too old and too young to be in love,' was to make his way as a wit. He did so, in the approved way in that day of irreligion, in a political squib. On July 14th, 1742, he writes in his Notes, 'I wrote the "_Lessons for the Day_;" the "Lessons for the day" being the first and second chapters of the "Book of Preferment,"' Horace was proud of this _brochure_, for he says it got about surreptitiously, and was 'the original of many things of that sort.' Various _jeux d'esprit_ of a similar sort followed. A 'Sermon on Painting,' which was preached before Sir Robert Walpole, in the gallery at Houghton, by his chaplain; 'Patapan, or the Little White Dog,' imitated from La Fontaine. No. 38 of the 'Old England Journal,' intended to ridicule Lord Bath; and then, in a magazine, was printed his 'Scheme for a Tax on Message Cards and Notes.' Next the 'Beauties,' which was also handed about, and got into print. So that without the vulgarity of publishing, the reputation of the dandy writer was soon noised about. His religious tenets may or may not have been sound; but at all events the tone of his mind assumed at this time a very different character to that reverent strain in which, when a youth at college, he had apostrophized those who bowed their heads beneath the vaulted roof of King's College, in his eulogium in the character of Henry VI. 'Ascend the temple, join the vocal choir, Let harmony your raptured souls inspire. Hark how the tuneful, solemn organs blow, Awfully strong, elaborately slow; Now to you empyrean seats above Raise meditation on the wings of love. Now falling, sinking, dying to the moan Once warbled sad by Jesse's contrite son; Breathe in each note a conscience through the sense, And call forth tears from soft-eyed Penitence.' In the midst of all his gaieties, his successes, and perhaps his hopes, a cloud hovered over the destinies of his father. The opposition, Horace saw, in 1741, wished to ruin his father 'by ruining his constitution.' They wished to continue their debates on Saturdays, Sir Robert's only day of rest, when he used to rush to Richmond New Park, there to amuse himself with a favourite pack of beagles. Notwithstanding the minister's indifference to this his youngest son, Horace felt bitterly what he considered a persecution against one of the most corrupt of modern statesmen. 'Trust me, if we fall, all the grandeur, all the envied grandeur of our house, will not cost me a sigh: it has given me no pleasure while we have it, and will give me no pain when I part with it. My liberty, my ease, and choice of my own friends and company, will sufficiently counterbalance the crowds of Downing Street. I am so sick of it all, that if we are victorious or not, I propose leaving England in the spring. The struggle was not destined to last long. Sir Robert was forced to give up the contest and be shelved with a peerage. In 1742, he was created Earl of Orford, and resigned. The wonder is that, with a mortal internal disease to contend with, he should have faced his foes so long. Verses ascribed to Lord Hervey ended, as did all the squibs of the day, with a fling at that 'rogue Walpole.' 'For though you have made that rogue Walpole retire, You are out of the frying-pan into the fire: But since to the Protestant line I'm a friend, I tremble to think how these changes may end.' Horace, notwithstanding an affected indifference, felt his father's downfall poignantly. He went, indeed, to court, in spite of a cold, taken in an unaired house; for the prime minister now quitted Downing Street for Arlington Street. The court was crowded, he found, with old ladies, the wives of patriots who had not been there for 'these twenty years,' and who appeared in the accoutrements that were in vogue in Queen Anne's time. 'Then', he writes, 'the joy and awkward jollity of them is inexpressible! They titter, and, wherever you meet them, are always looking at their watches an hour before the time. I met several on the birthday (for I did not arrive time enough to make clothes), and they were dressed in all the colours of the rainbow. They seem to have said to themselves, twenty years ago, "Well, if ever I do go to court again, I will have a pink and silver, or a blue and silver;" and they keep their resolutions.' Another characteristic anecdote betrays his ill-suppressed vexation:-- 'I laughed at myself prodigiously the other day for a piece of absence. I was writing, on the king's birthday, and being disturbed with the mob in the street, I rang for the porter and with an air of grandeur, as if I was still at Downing Street, cried, "Pray send away those marrow-bones and cleavers." The poor fellow, with the most mortified air in the world, replied, "Sir, they are not at _our_ door, but over the way, at my Lord Carteret's."--"Oh!" said I, "then let them alone; may be, he does not dislike the noise!" I pity the poor porter, who sees all his old customers going over the way too.' The retirement of Sir Robert from office had an important effect on the tastes and future life of his son Horace. The minister had been occupying his later years in pulling down his old ancestral house at Houghton, and in building an enormous mansion, which has since his time been, in its turn, partially demolished. When Harley, Earl of Orford, was known to be erecting a great house for himself, Sir Robert had remarked that a minister who did so committed a great imprudence. When Houghton was begun, Sir Hynde Aston reminded Sir Robert of this speech. 'You ought to have recalled it to me before,' was the reply; 'for before I began building, it might have been of use to me.' This famous memorial of Walpolean greatness, this splendid folly, constructed, it is generally supposed, on public money, was inhabited by Sir Robert only ten days in summer, and twenty days in winter; in the autumn, during the shooting season, two months. It became almost an eyesore to the quiet gentry, who viewed the palace with a feeling of their own inferiority. People as good as the Walpoles lived in their gable-ended, moderate-sized mansions; and who was Sir Robert, to set them at so immense a distance? To the vulgar comprehension of the Premier, Houghton, gigantic in its proportions, had its purposes. He there assembled his supporters; there, for a short time, he entertained his constituents and coadjutors with a magnificent, jovial hospitality, of which he, with his gay spirits, his humourous, indelicate jokes, and his unbounded good-nature, was the very soul. Free conversation, hard-drinking, were the features of every day's feast. Pope thus describes him:-- 'Seen him, I have, but in his happier hour, Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power; Seen him uncumbered with the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe.' Amid the coarse taste one gentle refinement existed: this was the love of gardening, both in its smaller compass and it its nobler sense of landscape gardening. 'This place,' Sir Robert, in 1743, wrote to General Churchill, from Houghton, 'affords no news, no subject of entertainment or amusement; for fine men of wit and pleasure about town understand neither the language and taste, nor the pleasure of the inanimate world. My flatterers here are all mutes: the oaks, the beeches, the chestnuts, seem to contend which best shall please the lord of the manor. They cannot deceive; they will not lie. I in sincerity admire them, and have as many beauties about me as fill up all my hours of dangling, and no disgrace attending me, from sixty-seven years of age. Within doors we come a little nearer to real life, and admire, upon the almost speaking canvas, all the airs and graces the proudest ladies can boast.' In these pursuits Horace cordially shared. Through his agency, Horace Mann, still in the diplomatic service, at Florence, selected and purchased works of art, which were sent either to Arlington Street, or to form the famous Houghton Collection, to which Horace so often refers in that delightful work, his 'Anecdotes of Painting.' Amongst the embellishments of Houghton, the gardens were the most expensive. 'Sir Robert has pleased himself,' Pulteney, Earl of Bath, wrote, 'with erecting palaces and extending parks, planting gardens in places to which the very earth was to be transported in carriages, and embracing cascades and fountains whose water was only to be obtained by aqueducts and machines, and imitating the extravagance of Oriental monarchs, at the expense of a free people whom he has at once impoverished and betrayed.' The ex-minister went to a great expense in the cultivation of plants, bought Uvedale's 'Hortus Siccus;' and received from Bradley, the Professor of Botany at Cambridge, the tribute of a dedication, in which it was said that 'Sir Robert had purchased one of the finest collections of plants in the kingdom.' What was more to his honour still, was Sir Robert's preservation of St. James's Park for the people. Fond of outdoor amusements himself, the Premier heard, with dismay, a proposal on the part of Queen Caroline to convert that ancient park into a palace garden. 'She asked my father,' Horace Walpole relates, 'what the alteration might possibly cost?'--_Only three crowns_' was the civil, witty, candid answer. The queen was wise enough to take the hint. It is possible she meant to convert the park into gardens that should be open to the public as at Berlin, Mannheim, and even the Tuileries. Still it would not have been ours. Horace Walpole owed, perhaps, his love of architecture and his taste for gardening, partly to the early companionship of Gray, who delighted in those pursuits. Walpole's estimation of pictures, medals, and statues, was however the fruit of a long residence abroad. We are apt to rail at continental nations; yet had it not been for the occasional intercourse with foreign nations, art would have altogether died out among us. To the 'Grandes Tours,' performed as a matter of course by our young nobility in the most impressionable period of their lives we owe most of our noble private collections. Charles I. and Buckingham, renewed, in their travels in Spain, the efforts previously made by Lord Arundel and Lord Pembroke, to embellish their country seats. Then came the Rebellion; and like a mighty rushing river, made a chasm in which much perished. Art languished in the reign of the second Charles, excepting in what related to portrait painting. Evelyn stood almost alone in his then secluded and lovely retirement at Wotton; apart in his undying exertions still to arrest the Muses ere they quitted for ever English shores. Then came the deadly frost of William's icy influence. The reign of Anne was conspicuous more for letters than for art: architecture, more especially, was vulgarized under Vanbrugh. George I. had no conception of anything abstract: taste, erudition, science, art, were like a dead language to his common sense, his vulgar profligacy, and his personal predilections. Neither George II. nor his queen had an iota of taste, either in language, conduct, literature, or art. To be vulgar, was _haut-ton;_ to be refined, to have pursuits that took one from low party gossip, or heterodox disquisitions upon party, was esteemed odd: everything original was cramped; everything imaginative was sneered at; the enthusiasm that is elevated by religion was unphilosophic; the poetry that is breathed out from the works of genius was not comprehended. It was at Houghton, under the roof of that monster palace, that Horace Walpole indulged that tastes for pictures which he had acquired in Italy. His chief coadjutor, however, as far as the antiquities of painting are concerned, was George Vertue, the eminent engraver. Vertue was a man of modest merit, and was educated merely as an engraver; but, conscious of talent, studied drawing, which he afterwards applied to engraving. He was patronised both by the vain Godfrey Kneller and by the intellectual Lord Somers: yet his works have more fidelity than elegance, and betray in every line the antiquary rather than the genius. Vertue was known to be a first-rate authority as to the history of a painter; he was admitted and welcomed into every great country house in England; he lived in an atmosphere of vertù; every line a dilettante collector wrote, every word he uttered, was minuted down by him; he visited every collection of rarities; he copied every paper he could find relative to art; registers of wills, and registers of parishes, for births and deaths were his delight; sales his recreation. He was the 'Old Mortality' of pictures in this country. No wonder that his compilations were barely contained in forty volumes, which he left in manuscript. Human nature has singular varieties: here was a man who expended his very existence in gathering up the works of others, and died without giving to the world one of his own. But Horace Walpole has done him justice. After Vertue's death he bought his manuscripts from his widow. In one of his pocket-books was contained the whole history of this man of one idea: Vertue began his collection in 1713, and worked at it until his death in 1757, forty-four years. He died in the belief that he should one day publish an unique work on painting and painters: such was the aim of his existence, and his study must have been even more curious than the wonderfully crammed, small house at Islington, where William Upcott, the 'Old Mortality' in his line, who saved from the housemaid's fire-lighting designs the MSS. Of Evelyn's Life and Letters, which he found tossing about in the old gallery at Wotton, near Dorking, passed his days. Like Upcott, like Palissy, Vertue lived and died under the influence of one isolated aim, effort, and hope. In these men, the cherished and amiable monomania of gifted minds was realized. Upcott had every possible autograph from every known hand in his collection: Palissy succeeded in making glazed china; but Vertue left his ore to the hands of others to work out into shape, and the man who moulded his crude materials was Horace Walpole, and Vertue's forty volumes were shaped into a readable work, as curious and accurate in facts as it is flippant and prejudiced in style and opinions. Walpole's 'Anecdotes of Painting' are the foundation of all our small amount of knowledge as to what England has done formerly to encourage art. One may fancy the modest, ingenious George Vertue arranging first, and then making a catalogue of the Houghton Gallery; Horace, a boy still, in looks,--with a somewhat chubby face, admiring and following: Sir Robert, in a cocked hat, edged with silver lace, a curled short wig, a loose coat, also edged with silver lace, and with a half humorous expression on his vulgar countenance, watching them at intervals, as they paraded through the hall, a large square space, adorned with bas-reliefs and busts, and containing a bronze copy of the Laocoon, for which Sir Robert (or rather we English) paid a thousand pounds; or they might be seen hopping speedily through the ground-floor apartments where there could be little to arrest the footsteps of the mediaeval-minded Vertue. Who but a courtier could give one glance at a portrait of George I., though by Kneller? Who that _was_ a courtier in that house would pause to look at the resemblance, also by Kneller, of the short-lived, ill-used Catherine Shorter, the Premier's first wife--even though he still endured it in his bed-room? a mute reproach for his neglect and misconduct. So let us hasten to the yellow dining-room where presently we may admire the works of Titian, Guido, Vanderwerf, and last, not least, eleven portraits by Vandyck, of the Wharton family, which Sir Robert bought at the sale of the spendthrift Duke of Wharton. Then let us glance at the saloon, famed for the four large 'Market Pieces,' as they were called, by Rubens and Snyders: let us lounge into what were called the Carlo Maratti and the Vandyck rooms; step we also into the green velvet bed-chamber, the tapestry-room, the worked bed chamber; then comes another dining-room: in short, we are lost in wonder at this noble collection, which cost £40,000. Many of the pictures were selected and bargained for by Vertue, who, in Flanders, purchased the Market Pieces referred to, for £428; but did not secure the 'Fish Market,' and the 'Meat Market,' by the same painter. In addition to the pictures, the stateliness and beauty of the rooms were enhanced by rich furniture, carving, gilding, and all the subsidiary arts which our grandfathers loved to add to high merit in design or colouring. Besides his purchases, Sir Robert received presents of pictures from friends, and expectant courtiers; and the gallery at Houghton contained at last 222 pictures. To our sorrow now, to our disgrace then, this splendid collection was suffered to go out of the country: Catherine, empress of Russia, bought it for £40,000, and it adorns the Hermitage Palace of St. Petersburgh. After Sir Robert's retirement from power, the good qualities which he undoubtedly possessed, seemed to re-appear as soon as the pressure of party feeling was withdrawn. He was fast declining in health when the insurrection of 1745 was impending. He had warned the country of its danger in his last speech, one of the finest ever made in the House of Lords: after that effort his voice was heard no more. The gallant, unfortunate Charles Edward was then at Paris, and that scope of old experience ----'which doth attain To somewhat of prophetic strain,' showed the ex-minister of Great Britain that an invasion was at hand. It was on this occasion that Frederick, Prince of Wales, took Sir Robert, then Lord Orford, by the hand, and thanked him for his zeal in the cause of the royal family. Walpole returned to Norfolk, but was summoned again to London to afford the ministry the benefit of his counsels. Death, however, closed his prosperous, but laborious life. He suffered agonies from the stone; large doses of opium kept him in a state of stupor, and alone gave him ease; but his strength failed, and he was warned to prepare himself for his decease. He bore the announcement with great fortitude, and took leave of his children in perfect resignation to his doom. He died on the 28th of March, 1745. Horace Walpole--whatsoever doubts may rest on the fact of his being Lord Orford's son or not--writes feelingly and naturally upon this event, and its forerunner, the agonies of disease. He seems, from the following passages in his letters to Sir Horace Mann, to have devoted himself incessantly to the patient invalid: on his father having rallied, he thus expresses himself:-- 'You have heard from your brother the reason of my not having written to you so long. I have been out but twice since my father fell into this illness, which is now near a month, and all that time either continually in his room, or obliged to see multitudes of people: for it is wonderful how everybody of all kinds has affected to express their concern for him! He has been out of danger this week; but I can't say he mended at all perceptibly till these last three days. His spirits are amazing, and his constitution more, for Dr. Hulse said honestly from the first, that if he recovered it would be from his own strength, not from their art. How much more,' he adds, mournfully, 'he will ever recover, one scarce dare hope about; for us, he is greatly recovered; for himself--' He then breaks off. A month after we find him thus referring to the parent still throbbing in mortal agony on the death-bed, with no chance of amendment:-- 'How dismal a prospect for him, with the possession of the greatest understanding in the world, not the least impaired, to lie without any use for it! for to keep him from pains and restlessness, he takes so much opiate, that he is scarce awake four hours of the four-and-twenty; but I will say no more of this.' On the 29th of March, he again wrote to his friend in the following terms:-- 'I begged your brothers to tell you what it is impossible for me to tell you. You share in our common loss! Don't expect me to enter at all upon the subject. After the melancholy two months that I have passed, and in my situation, you will not wonder I shun a conversation which could not be bounded by a letter, a letter that would grow into a panegyric or a piece of a moral; improper for me to write upon, and too distressful for us both! a death is only to be felt, never to be talked upon by those it touches.' Nevertheless, the world soon had Horace Walpole for her own again; during Lord Orford's last illness, George II. Thought of him, it seems, even though the 'Granvilles' were the only people tolerated at court. That famous _clique_ comprised the secretly adored of Horace (Lady Granville now), Lady Sophia Fermor. 'The Granville faction,' Horace wrote, before his father's death, 'are still the constant and only countenanced people at court. Lord Winchelsea, one of the disgraced, played at court at Twelfth-night, and won; the king asked him next morning how much he had for his own share. He replied, "Sir, about a quarter's salary." I liked the spirit, and was talking to him of it the next night at Lord Granville's. "Why yes," said he, "I think it showed familiarity at least: tell it your father, I don't think he will dislike it."' The most trifling incidents divided the world of fashion and produced the bitterest rancour. Indeed, nothing could exceed the frivolity of the great, except their impertinence. For want of better amusements, it had become the fashion to make conundrums, and to have printed books full of them, which were produced at parties. But these were peaceful diversions. The following anecdote is worthy of the times of George II. and of Frederick of Wales:-- 'There is a very good quarrel,' Horace writes, 'on foot, between two duchesses: she of Queensberry sent to invite Lady Emily Lenox to a ball: her grace of Richmond, who is wonderfully cautious since Lady Caroline's elopement (with Mr. Fox), sent word "she could not determine." The other sent again the same night: the same answer. The Queensberry then sent word, that she had made up her company, and desired to be excused from having Lady Emily's; but at the bottom of the card wrote, "Too great trust." There is no declaration of war come out from the other duchess: but I believe it will be made a national quarrel of the whole illegitimate royal family.' Her Grace of Queensberry, Prior's 'Kitty, beautiful and young,' lorded it, with a tyrannical hand, over the court. Her famed loveliness was, it is true, at this time on the wane. Her portrait delineating her in her bib and tucker, with her head rolled back underneath a sort of half cap, half veil, shows how intellectual was the face to which such incense was paid for years. Her forehead and eyebrows are beautiful: her eyes soft though lively in expression: her features refined. She was as whimsical in her attire as in her character. When, however, she chose to appear as the _grande dame_, no one could cope with her, Mrs. Delany describes her at the Birth-day,--her dress of white satin, embroidered with vine leaves, convolvuluses, rose-buds, shaded after nature; but she, says her friend, 'was _so far_ beyond the master-_piece of art_ that one could hardly think of her clothes--allowing for her age I never saw so _beautiful a creature_.' Meantime, Houghton was shut up: for its owner died £50,000 in debt, and the elder brother of Horace, the second Lord Orford, proposed, on entering it again, after keeping it closed for some time, to enter upon 'new, and then very unknown economy, for which there was great need:' thus Horace refers to the changes. It was in the South Sea scheme that Sir Robert Walpole had realized a large sum of money, by selling out at the right moment. In doing so he had gained 1000 per cent. But he left little to his family, and at his death, Horace received a legacy only of £5,000, and a thousand pounds yearly, which he was to draw (for doing nothing) from the collector's place in the Custom House; the surplus to be divided between his brother Edward and himself: this provision was afterwards enhanced by some money which came to Horace and his brothers from his uncle Captain Shorter's property; but Horace was not at this period a rich man, and perhaps his not marrying was owing to his dislike of fortune-hunting, or to his dread of refusal. Two years after his father's death, he took a small house at Twickenham: the property cost him nearly £14,000; in the deeds he found that it was called Strawberry Hill. He soon commenced making considerable additions to the house--which became a sort of raree-show in the latter part of the last, and until a late period in this, century. Twickenham--so called, according to the antiquary Norden, because the Thames, as it flows near it, seems from the islands to be divided into two rivers,--had long been celebrated for its gardens, when Horace Walpole, the generalissimo of all bachelors, took Strawberry Hill. 'Twicknam is as much as Twynam,' declares Norden, 'a place scytuate between two rivers.' So fertile a locality could not be neglected by the monks of old, the great gardeners and tillers of land in ancient days; and the Manor of Twickenham was consequently given to the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, by King Edred, in 491; who piously inserted his anathema against any person--whatever their rank, sex, or order--who should infringe the rights of these holy men. 'May their memory,' the king decreed, with a force worthy of the excommunicator-wholesale, Pius IX., 'be blotted out of the Book of Life; may their strength continually waste away, and be there no restorative to repair it!' nevertheless, there were in the time of Lysons, a hundred and fifty acres of fruit-gardens at Twickenham: the soil being a sandy loam, raspberries grew plentifully. Even so early as Queen Elizabeth's days, Bishop Corbet's father had a nursery garden at Twickenham,--so that King Edred's curse seems to have fallen as powerlessly as it may be hoped all subsequent maledictions may do. In 1698, one of the Earl of Bradford's coachmen built a small house on a piece of ground, called in old works, Strawberry-Hill-Shot; lodgings were here let, and Colley Cibber became one of the occupants of the place, and here wrote his Comedy called 'Refusal; or the Ladies' Philosophy.' The spot was so greatly admired that Talbot, Bishop of Durham, lived eight years in it, and the Marquis of Carnarvon succeeded him as a tenant: next came Mrs. Chenevix, a famous toy-woman. She was probably a French woman, for Father Courayer--he who vainly endeavoured to effect an union between the English and the Gallican churches--lodged here some time. Horace Walpole bought up Mrs. Chenevix's lease, and afterwards the fee-simple; and henceforth became the busiest, if not the happiest, man in a small way in existence. [Illustration: STRAWBERRY HILL FROM THE THAMES.] We now despise the poor, over-ornate miniature Gothic style of Strawberry Hill; we do not consider with what infinite pains the structure was enlarged into its final and well-known form. In the first place, Horace made a tour to collect models from the chief cathedral cities in England; but the building required twenty-three years to complete it. It was begun in 1753, and finished in 1776. Strawberry Hill had one merit, everything was in keeping: the internal decorations, the screens, the niches, the chimney-pieces, the book-shelves, were all Gothic; and most of these were designed by Horace himself; and, indeed, the description of Strawberry Hill is too closely connected with the annals of his life to be dissevered from his biography. Here he gathered up his mental forces to support and amuse himself during a long life, sometimes darkened by spleen, but rarely by solitude; for Horace, with much isolation of the heart, was, to the world, a social being. What scandal, what trifles, what important events, what littleness of mind, yet what stretch of intellect were henceforth issued by the recluse of Strawberry, as he plumed himself on being styled, from that library of 'Strawberry!' Let us picture to ourselves the place, the persons--put on, if we can, the sentiments and habits of the retreat; look through its loopholes, not only on the wide world beyond, but into the small world within; and face the fine gentleman author in every period of his varied life. 'The Strawberry Gazette,' Horace once wrote to a fine and titled lady, 'is very barren of weeds.' Such, however, was rarely the case. Peers, and still better, peeresses,--politicians, actors, actresses,--the poor poet who knew not where to dine, the Maecenas who was 'fed with dedications'--the belle of the season, the demirep of many, the antiquary, and the dilettanti,--painters, sculptors, engravers, all brought news to the 'Strawberry Gazette;' and incense, sometimes wrung from aching hearts, to the fastidious wit who professed to be a judge of all material and immaterial things--from a burlesque to an Essay on history or Philosophy--from the construction of Mrs. Chenevix's last new toy to the mechanism of a clock made in the sixteenth century, was lavished there. Suppose that it is noon-day: Horace is showing a party of guests from London over Strawberry:--enter we with him, and let us stand in the great parlour before a portrait by Wright of the Minister to whom all courts bowed. 'That is my father, Sir Robert, in profile,' and a vulgar face in profile is always seen at its vulgarest; and the _nex-retroussé,_ the coarse mouth, the double chin, are most forcibly exhibited in this limning by Wright; who did not, like Reynolds, or like Lawrence, cast a _nuance_ of gentility over every subject of his pencil. Horace--can we not hear him in imagination?--is telling his friends how Sir Robert used to celebrate the day on which he sent in his resignation, as a fête; then he would point out to his visitors a Conversation-piece, one of Reynolds's earliest efforts in small life, representing the second Earl of Edgecumbe, Selwyn, and Williams---all wits and beaux, and _habitués_ of Strawberry. Colley Cibber, however, was put in cold marble in the anteroom; a respect very _Horatian_, for no man knew better how to rank his friends than the recluse of Strawberry. He hurries the lingering guests through the little parlour, the chimneypiece of which was copied from the tomb of Ruthall, Bishop of Durham, in Westminster Abbey. Yet how he pauses complacently to enumerate what has been done for him by titled belles: how these dogs, modelled in terra-cotta, are the production of Anne Darner; a water-colour drawing by Agnes Berry; a landscape with gipsies by Lady Di Beauclerk;--all platonically devoted to our Horace; but he dwells long, and his bright eyes are lighted up as he pauses before a case, looking as if it contained only a few apparently faded, of no-one-knows-who (or by whom) miniatures; this is a collection of Peter Oliver's best works--portraits of the Digby family. How sadly, in referring to these invaluable pictures, does one's mind revert to the day when, before the hammer of Robins had resounded in these rooms--before his transcendent eloquence had been heard at Strawberry--Agnes Strickland, followed by all eyes, pondered over that group of portraits: how, as she slowly withdrew, we of the commonalty scarce worthy to look, gathered around the spot again, and wondered at the perfect life, the perfect colouring, proportion, and keeping of those tiny vestiges of a bygone generation! Then Horace--we fear it was not till his prime was past, and a touch of gout crippled his once active limbs--points to a picture of Rose, the gardener (well named), presenting Charles II. with a pine-apple. Some may murmur a doubt whether pine-apples were cultivated in cold Britain so long since. But Horace enforces the fact; 'the likeness of the king,' quoth he, 'is too marked, and his features are too well known to doubt the fact;' and then he tells 'how he had received a present the last Sunday of fruit--and from whom.' They pause next on Sir Peter Lely's portrait of Cowley--next on Hogarth's Sarah Malcolm, the murderess of her mistress; then--and doubtless, the spinster ladies are in fault here for the delay,--on Mrs. Damer's model of two kittens, pets, though, of Horace Walpole's--for he who loved few human beings was, after the fashion of bachelors, fond of cats. They ascend the staircase: the domestic adornments merge into the historic. We have Francis I.--not himself, but his armour: the chimneypiece, too, is a copy from the tomb-works of John, Earl of Cornwall, in Westminster Abbey; the stonework from that of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, at Canterbury. Stay awhile: we have not done with sacrilege yet; worse things are to be told, and we walk with consciences not unscathed into the Library, disapproving in secret but flattering vocally. Here the very spirit of Horace seemed to those who visited Strawberry before its fall to breathe in every corner. Alas! when we beheld that library, it was half filled with chests containing the celebrated MSS. of his letters; which were bought by that enterprising publisher of learned name, Richard Bentley, and which have since had adequate justice done them by first-rate editors. There they were: the 'Strawberry Gazette' in full;--one glanced merely at the yellow paper, and clear, decisive hand, and then turned to see what objects he, who loved his books so well, collected for his especial gratification. Mrs. Damer again! how proud he was of her genius--her beauty, her cousinly love for himself; the wise way in which she bound up the wounds of her breaking heart when her profligate husband shot himself, by taking to occupation--perhaps, too, by liking cousin Horace indifferently well. He put her models forward in every place. Here was her Osprey Eagle in terra-cotta, a masterly production; there a _couvre-fire,_ or _cur-few,_ imitated and modelled by her. Then the marriage of Henry VI. Figures on the wall; near the fire is a screen of the first tapestry ever made in England, representing a map of Surrey and Middlesex; a notion of utility combined with ornament, which we see still exhibited in the Sampler in old-fashioned, middle-class houses; that poor posthumous, base-born child of the tapestry, almost defunct itself; and a veritable piece of antiquity. Still more remarkable in this room was a quaint-faced clock, silver gilt, given by Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn; which perchance, after marking the moments of her festive life, struck unfeelingly the hour of her doom. But the company are hurrying into a little ante-room, the ceiling of which is studded with stars in mosaic; it is therefore called jocularly, the 'Star Chamber;' and here stands a cast of the famous bust of Henry VII., by Torregiano, intended for the tomb of that sad-faced, long-visaged monarch, who always looks as if royalty had disagreed with him. Next we enter the Holbein Chamber. Horace hated bishops and archbishops, and all the hierarchy; yet here again we behold another prelatical chimneypiece--a frieze taken from the tomb of Archbishop Warham, at Canterbury. And here, in addition to Holbein's picture of Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, and of her third husband Adrian Stokes, are Vertue's copies of Holbein, drawings of that great master's pictures in Buckingham House: enough--let us hasten into the Long Gallery. Those who remember Sir Samuel Merrick and his Gallery at Goodrich Court will have traced in his curious, somewhat gew gaw collections of armour, antiquities, faded portraits, and mock horses, much of the taste and turn of mind that existed in Horace Walpole. The gallery, which all who recollect the sale at Strawberry Hill must remember with peculiar interest, sounded well on paper. It was 56 feet long, 17 high, and 13 wide; yet was neither long enough, high enough, nor wide enough to inspire the indefinable sentiment by which we acknowledge vastness. We beheld it the scene of George Robins's triumphs--crowded to excess. Here strolled Lord John Russell; there, with heavy tread, walked Daniel O'Connell. Hallam, placid, kindly, gentle--the prince of book-worms--moved quickly through the rooms, pausing to raise a glance to the ceiling--copied from one of the side aisles of Henry VII.'s Chapel--but the fretwork is gilt, and there is _petitesse_ about the Gothic which disappoints all good judges. But when Horace conducted his courtly guests into this his mind-vaunted vaulted gallery, he had sometimes George Selwyn at his side; or Gray--or, in his old age, 'my niece, the Duchess of Gloucester,' leaned on his arm. What strange associations, what brilliant company!--the associations can never be recalled there again; nor the company reassembled. The gallery, like everything else, has perished under the pressure of debt. He who was so particular, too, as to the number of those who were admitted to see his house--he who stipulated that four persons only should compose a party, and one party alone be shown over each day--how would he have borne the crisis, could he have foreseen it, when Robins became, for the time, his successor, and was the temporary lord of Strawberry; the dusty, ruthless, wondering, depreciating mob of brokers--the respectable host of publishers--the starving army of martyrs, the authors--the fine ladies, who saw nothing there comparable to Howell and James's--the antiquaries, fishing out suspicious antiquities--the painters, clamorous over Kneller's profile of Mrs. Barry--the virtuous indignant mothers, as they passed by the portraits of the Duchess de la Valliere, and of Ninon de l'Enclos, and remarked, or at all events they _might_ have remarked, that the company on the floor was scarcely much more respectable than the company on the walls--the fashionables, who herded together, impelled by caste, that free-masonry of social life, enter the Beauclerk closet to look over Lady Di's scenes from the 'Mysterious Mother'--the players and dramatists, finally, who crowded round Hogarth's sketch of his 'Beggars' Opera,' with portraits, and gazed on Davison's likeness of Mrs. Clive:--how could poor Horace have tolerated the sound of their irreverent remarks, the dust of their shoes, the degradation of their fancying that they might doubt his spurious-looking antiquities, or condemn his improper-looking ladies on their canvas? How, indeed, could he? For those parlours, that library, were peopled in his days with all those who could enhance his pleasures, or add to their own, by their presence. When Poverty stole in there, it was irradiated by Genius. When painters hovered beneath the fretted ceiling of that library, it was to thank the oracle of the day, not always for large orders, but for powerful recommendations. When actresses trod the Star Chamber, it was as modest friends, not as audacious critics on Horace, his house, and his pictures. Before we call up the spirits that were familiar at Strawberry--ere we pass through the garden-gate, the piers of which were copied from the tomb of Bishop William de Luda, in Ely Cathedral--let us glance at the chapel, and then a word or two about Walpole's neighbours and anent Twickenham. The front of the chapel was copied from Bishop Audley's tomb at Salisbury. Four panels of wood, taken from the Abbey of St. Edmund's Bury, displayed the portraits of Cardinal Beaufort, of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and of Archbishop Kemp. So much for the English church. Next was seen a magnificent shrine in mosaic, from the church of St. Mary Maggiore, in Rome. This was the work of the noted Peter Cavalini, who constructed the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. The shrine had figured over the sepulchre of four martyrs, who rested between it in 1257: then the principal window in the chapel was brought from Bexhill in Sussex; and displayed portraits of Henry III. and his queen. It was not every day that gay visitors travelled down the dusty roads from London to visit the recluse at Strawberry: but Horace wanted them not, for he had neighbours. In his youth he had owned for his playfellow the ever witty, the precocious, the all-fascinating Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 'She was,' he wrote, 'a playfellow of mine when we were children. She was always a dirty little thing. This habit continued with her. When at Florence, the Grand Duke gave her apartments in his palace. One room sufficed for everything; and when she went away, the stench was so strong that they were obliged to fumigate the chamber with vinegar for a week.' Let not the scandal be implicitly credited. Lady Mary, dirty or clean, resided occasionally, however, at Twickenham. When the admirable Lysons composed his 'Environs of London,' Horace Walpole was still living--it was in 1795--to point out to him the house in which his brilliant acquaintance lived. It was then inhabited by Dr. Morton. The profligate and clever Duke of Wharton lived also at Twickenham. Marble Hill was built by George II, for the countess of Suffolk, and Henry, Earl of Pembroke, was the architect. Of later years, the beautiful and injured Mrs. Fitzherbert might be seen traversing the greensward, which was laved by the then pellucid waters of the Thames. The parish of Twickenham, in fact, was noted for the numerous characters who have, at various times, lived in it: Robert Boyle, the great philosopher; James Craggs, Secretary of State; Lord George Germaine; Lord Bute--are strangely mixed up with the old memories which circle around Twickenham to say nothing of its being, in after years, the abode of Louis Philippe, and now, of his accomplished son. One dark figure in the background of society haunts us also: Lady Macclesfield, the cruel mother of Savage, polluted Twickenham by her evil presence. Let us not dwell on her name, but recall, with somewhat of pride, that the names of that knot of accomplished, intellectual women, who composed the neighbourhood of Strawberry, were all English; those who loved to revel in all its charms of society and intellect were our justly-prized countrywomen. Foremost in the bright constellation was Anne Seymour Conway, too soon married to the Hon. John Darner. She was one of the loveliest, the most enterprizing, and the most gifted women of her time--thirty-one years younger than Horace, having been born in 1748. He doubtless liked her the more that no ridicule could attach to his partiality, which was that of a father to a daughter, insofar as regarded his young cousin. She belonged to a family dear to him, being the daughter of Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway: then she was beautiful, witty, a courageous politician, a heroine, fearless of losing caste, by aspiring to be an artist. She was, in truth, of our own time rather than of that. The works which she left at Strawberry are scattered; and if still traceable, are probably in many instances scarcely valued. But in that lovely spot, hallowed by the remembrance of Mrs. Siddons, who lived there in some humble capacity--say maid, say companion--in Guy's Cliff House, near Warwick--noble traces of Anne Damer's genius are extant: busts of the majestic Sally Siddons; of Nature's aristocrat, John Kemble; of his brother Charles--arrest many a look, call up many a thought of Anne Damer and her gifts: her intelligence, her warmth of heart, her beauty, her associates. Of her powers Horace Walpole had the highest opinion. 'If they come to Florence,' he wrote, speaking of Mrs. Damer's going to Italy for the winter, 'the great duke should beg Mrs. Damer to give him something of her statuary; and it would be a greater curiosity than anything in his Chamber of Painters. She has executed several marvels since you saw her; and has lately carved two colossal heads for the bridge at Henley, which is the most beautiful in the world, next to the Ponte di Trinità and was principally designed by her father, General Conway.' No wonder that he left to this accomplished relative the privilege of living, after his death, at Strawberry Hill, of which she took possession in 1797, and where she remained twenty years; giving it up, in 1828, to Lord Waldegrave. She was, as we have said, before her time in her appreciation of what was noble and superior, in preference to that which gives to caste alone, its supremacy. During her last years she bravely espoused an unfashionable cause; and disregarding the contempt of the lofty, became the champion of the injured and unhappy Caroline of Brunswick. From his retreat at Strawberry, Horace Walpole heard all that befel the object of his flame, Lady Sophia Fermor. His letters present from time to time such passages as these; Lady Pomfret, whom he detested, being always the object of his satire:-- 'There is not the least news; but that my Lord Carteret's wedding has been deferred on Lady Sophia's (Fermor's) falling dangerously ill of a scarlet fever; but they say it is to be next Saturday. She is to have £1,600 a year jointure, £400 pin-money, and £2,000 of jewels. Carteret says he does not intend to marry the mother (Lady Pomfret) and the whole family. What do you think my Lady intends?' Lord Carteret, who was the object of Lady Pomfret's successful generalship, was at this period, 1744, fifty-four years of age, having been born in 1690. He was the son of George, Lord Carteret, by Grace, daughter of the first Earl of Bath, of the line of Granville--a title which became eventually his. The fair Sophia, in marrying him, espoused a man of no ordinary attributes. In person, Horace Walpole, after the grave had closed over one whom he probably envied, thus describes him:-- 'Commanding beauty, smoothed by cheerful grace, Sat on each open feature of his face. Bold was his language, rapid, glowing, strong, And science flowed spontaneous from his tongue: A genius seizing systems, slighting rules, And void of gall, with boundless scorn of fools.' After having been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Carteret attended his royal master in the campaign, during which the Battle of Dettingen was fought. He now held the reins of government in his own hands as premier. Lord Chesterfield has described him as possessing quick precision, nice decision, and unbounded presumption. The Duke of Newcastle used to say of him that he was a 'man who never doubted.' In a subsequent letter we find the sacrifice of the young and lovely Sophia completed. Ambition was the characteristic of her family: and she went, not unwillingly, to the altar. The whole affair is too amusingly told to be given in other language than that of Horace:-- 'I could tell you a great deal of news,' he writes to Horace Mann, 'but it would not be what you would expect. It is not of battles, sieges, and declarations of war; nor of invasions, insurrections and addresses: it is the god of love, not he of war, who reigns in the newspapers. The town has made up a list of six-and-thirty weddings, which I shall not catalogue to you. But the chief entertainment has been the nuptials of our great Quixote (Carteret) and the fair Sophia. On the point of matrimony, she fell ill of a scarlet fever, and was given over, while he had the gout, but heroically sent her word, that if she was well, he _would_ be well. They corresponded every day, and he used to plague the cabinet council with reading her letters to them. Last night they were married; and as all he does must have a particular air in it, they supped at Lord Pomfret's. At twelve, Lady Granville (his mother) and all his family went to bed, but the porter: then my lord went home, and waited for her in the lodge. She came alone, in a hackney chair, met him in the hall, and was led up the back stairs to bed. What is ridiculously lucky is, that Lord Lincoln goes into waiting to-day, and will be to present her!' The event was succeeded by a great ball at the Duchess of Richmond's, in honour of the bride, Lady Carteret paying her ladyship the 'highest honours,' which she received in the 'highest state.' 'I have seen her,' adds Horace, 'but once, and found her just what I expected, _très grande dame_, full of herself, and yet not with an air of happiness. She looks ill, and is grown lean, but is still the finest figure in the world. The mother (Lady Pomfret) is not so exalted as I expected; I fancy Carteret has kept his resolution, and does not marry her too.' Whilst this game was being played out, one of Walpole's most valued neighbours, Pope, was dying of dropsy, and every evening a gentle delirium possessed him. Again does Horace return to the theme, ever in his thoughts--the Carterets: again does he recount their triumphs and their follies. 'I will not fail'--still to Horace Mann--'to make your compliments to the Pomfrets and Carterets. I see them seldom but I am in favour; so I conclude, for my Lady Pomfret told me the other night that I said better things than anybody. I was with them all at a subscription ball at Ranelagh last week, which my Lady Carteret thought proper to look upon as given to her, and thanked the gentlemen, who were not quite so well pleased at her condescending to take it to herself. I did the honours of all her dress. "How charming your ladyship's cross is! I am sure the design was your own!"--"No, indeed; my lord sent it me just as it is." Then as much to the mother. Do you wonder I say better things than anybody?' But these brilliant scenes were soon mournfully ended. Lady Sophia, the haughty, the idolized, the Juno of that gay circle, was suddenly carried off by a fever. With real feeling Horace thus tells the tale:-- 'Before I talk of any public news, I must tell you what you will be very sorry for. Lady Granville (Lady Sophia Fermor) is dead. She had a fever for six weeks before her lying-in, and could never get it off. Last Saturday they called in another physician, Dr. Oliver. On Monday he pronounced her out of danger; about seven in the evening, as Lady Pomfret and Lady Charlotte (Fermor) were sitting by her, the first notice they had of her immediate danger was her sighing and saying, "I feel death come very fast upon me!" She repeated the same words frequently, remained perfectly in her senses and calm, and died about eleven at night. It is very shocking for anybody so young, so handsome, so arrived at the height of happiness, to be so quickly snatched away.' So vanished one of the brightest stars of the court. The same autumn (1745) was the epoch of a great event; the marching of Charles Edward into England. Whilst the Duke of Cumberland was preparing to head the troops to oppose him, the Prince of Wales was inviting a party to supper, the main feature of which was the citadel of Carlisle in sugar, the company all besieging it with sugar-plums. It would, indeed, as Walpole declared, be impossible to relate all the _Caligulisms_ of this effeminate, absurd prince. But buffoonery and eccentricity were the order of the day. 'A ridiculous thing happened,' Horace writes, 'when the princess saw company after her confinement. The new-born babe was shown in a mighty pretty cradle, designed by Kent, under a canopy in the great drawing-room. Sir William Stanhope went to look at it. Mrs, Herbert, the governess, advanced to unmantle it. He said, "In wax, I suppose?" "Sir?" "In wax, madam?" "The young prince, sir?" "Yes, in wax, I suppose?" This is his odd humour. When he went to see the duke at his birth, he said, "Lord, it sees!"' The recluse of Strawberry was soon consoled by hearing that the rebels were driven back from Derby, where they had penetrated, and where the remembrance of the then gay, sanguine, brave young Chevalier long lingered among the old inhabitants. One of the last traces of his short-lived possession of the town is gone: very recently, Exeter House, where he lodged and where he received his adherents, has been pulled down; the ground on which it stood, with its court and garden--somewhat in appearace like an old French hotel--being too valuable for the relic of bygone times to be spared. The panelled chambers, the fine staircase, certain pictures--one by Wright of Derby, of him--one of Miss Walkinshaw--have all disappeared. Of the capture, the trial, the death of his adherents, Horace Walpole has left the most graphic and therefore touching account that has been given; whilst he calls a 'rebellion on the defensive' a 'despicable affair.' Humane, he reverted with horror to the atrocities of General Hawley, 'the Chief Justice,' as he was designated, who had a 'passion for frequent and sudden executions.' When this savage commander gained intelligence of a French spy coming over, he displayed him at once before the army on a gallows, dangling in his muff and boots. When one of the surgeons begged for the body of a deserter to dissect, 'Well,' said the wretch, 'but you must let me have the skeleton to hang up in the guard-room,' Such was the temper of the times; vice, childishness, levity at court, brutality in the camp, were the order of the day. Horace, even Horace, worldly in all, indifferent as to good and bad, seems to have been heart sick. His brother's matrimonial infidelity vexed him also sorely. Lady Orford, 'tired,' as he expresses it, of 'sublunary affairs,' was trying to come to an arrangement with her husband, from whom she had been long separated; the price was to be, he fancied, £2,000 a year. Meantime, during the convulsive state of political affairs, he interested himself continually in the improvement of Strawberry Hill. There was a rival building, Mr. Bateman's Monastery, at Old Windsor, which is said to have had more uniformity of design than Strawberry Hill. Horace used indeed to call the house of which he became so proud a paper house; the walls were at first so slight, and the roof so insecure in heavy rains. Nevertheless, his days were passed as peacefully there as the premature infirmities which came upon him would permit. From the age of twenty-five his fingers were enlarged and deformed by chalk-stones, which were discharged twice a year. 'I can chalk up a score with more rapidity than any man in England,' was his melancholy jest. He had now adopted as a necessity a strict temperance: he sat up very late, either writing or conversing, yet always breakfasted at nine o'clock. After the death of Madame du Deffand, a little fat dog, scarcely able to move for age and size--her legacy--used to proclaim his approach by barking. The little favourite was placed beside him on a sofa; a tea-kettle, stand, and heater were brought in, and he drank two or three cups of tea out of the finest and most precious china of Japan--that of a pure white. He breakfasted with an appetite, feeding from his table the little dog and his pet squirrels. Dinner at Strawberry Hill was usually served up in the small parlour in winter, the large dining-room being reserved for large parties. As age drew on, he was supported down stairs by his valet; and then, says the compiler of Walpoliana, 'he ate most moderately of chicken, pheasant, or any light food. Pastry he disliked, as difficult of digestion, though he would taste a morsel of venison-pie. Never but once, that he drank two glasses of white wine, did the editor see him taste any liquor, except ice-water. A pail of ice was placed under the table, in which stood a decanter of water, from which he supplied himself with his favourite beverage.' No wine was drunk after dinner, when the host of Strawberry Hill called instantly to some one to ring the bell for coffee. It was served upstairs, and there, adds the same writer, 'he would pass about five o'clock, and generally resuming his place on the sofa, would sit till two in the morning, in miscellaneous chit-chat, full of singular anecdotes, strokes of wit, and acute observations, occasionally sending for books, or curiosities, or passing to the library, as any reference happened to arise in conversation. After his coffee, he tasted nothing; but the snuff-box of _tabac d'etrennes_, from Fribourg's, was not forgotten, and was replenished from a canister lodged in an ancient marble urn of great thickness, which stood in the window seat, and served to secure its moisture and rich flavour.' In spite of all his infirmities, Horace Walpole took no care of his health, as far as out-door exercise was concerned. His friends beheld him with horror go out on a dewy day: he would even step out in his slippers. In his own grounds he never wore a hat: he used to say, that on his first visit to Paris he was ashamed of his effeminacy, when he saw every meagre little Frenchman whom he could have knocked down in a breath walking without a hat, which he could not do without a certainty of taking the disease which the Germans say is endemical in England, and which they call _to catch cold_. The first trial, he used to tell his friends, cost him a fever, but he got over it. Draughts of air, damp rooms, windows open at his back, became matters of indifference to him after once getting through the hardening process. He used even to be vexed at the officious solicitude of friends on this point, and with half a smile would say, 'My back is the same as my face, and my neck is like my nose.' He regarded his favourite iced-water as a preservative to his stomach, which, he said, would last longer than his bones. He did not take into account that the stomach is usually the seat of disease. One naturally inquires why the amiable recluse never, in his best days, thought of marriage: a difficult question to be answered. In men of that period, a dissolute life, an unhappy connection, too frequently explained the problem. In the case before us no such explanation can be offered. Horace Walpole had many votaries, many friends, several favourites, but no known mistress. The marks of the old bachelor fastened early on him, more especially after he began to be governed by his _valet de chambre_. The notable personage who ruled over the pliant Horace was a Swiss, named Colomb. This domestic tyrant was despotic; if Horace wanted a tree to be felled, Colomb opposed it, and the master yielded. Servants, in those days, were intrinsically the same as in ours, but they differed in manner. The old familiarity had not gone out, but existed as it still does among the French. Those who recollect Dr. Parr will remember how stern a rule his factotum Sam exercised over him. Sam put down what wine he chose, nay, almost invited the guests; at all events, he had his favourites among them. And in the same way as Sam ruled at Hatton, Colomb was, _de facto,_ the master of Strawberry Hill. With all its defects, the little 'plaything house' as Horace Walpole called it, must have been a charming house to visit in. First, there was the host. 'His engaging manners,' writes the editor of Walpoliana, 'and gentle, endearing affability to his friends, exceed all praise. Not the smallest hauteur, or consciousness of rank or talent, appeared in his familiar conferences; and he was ever eager to dissipate any constraint that might occur, as imposing a constraint upon himself, and knowing that any such chain enfeebles and almost annihilates the mental powers. Endued with exquisite sensibility, his wit never gave the smallest wound, even to the grossest ignorance of the world, or the most morbid hypochondriac bashfulness.' He had, in fact, no excuse for being doleful or morbid. How many resources were his! what an even destiny! what prosperous fortunes! What learned luxury he revelled in! he was enabled to 'pick up all the roses of science, and to leave the thorns behind.' To how few of the gifted have the means of gratification been permitted! to how many has hard work been allotted! Then, when genius has been endowed with rank, with wealth, how often it has been degraded by excess! Rochester's passions ran riot in one century: Beckford's gifts were polluted by his vices in another--signal landmarks of each age. But Horace Walpole was prudent, decorous, even respectable: no elevated aspirations, no benevolent views ennobled under the _petitesse_ of his nature. He had neither genius nor romance: he was even devoid of sentiment; but he was social to all, neighbourly to many, and attached to some of his fellow-creatures. The 'prettiest bauble' possible, as he called Strawberry Hill, 'set in enamelled meadows in filigree hedges,' was surrounded by 'dowagers as plenty as flounders;' such was Walpole's assertion. As he sat in his library, scented by caraway, heliotropes, or pots of tuberose, or orange-trees in flower, certain dames would look in upon him, sometimes _malgrê lui_, sometimes to his bachelor heart's content. 'Thank God!' he wrote to his cousin Conway, 'the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry!' Walpole's dislike to his fair neighbour may partly have originated in the circumstance of her birth, and her grace's presuming to plume herself on what he deemed an unimportant distinction. Catherine Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry, was the great-granddaughter of the famous Lord Clarendon, and the great-niece of Anne, Duchess of York. Prior had in her youth celebrated her in the 'Female Phaëton,' as 'Kitty:' in his verse he begs Phaëton to give Kitty the chariot, if but for a day. In reference to this, Horace Walpole, in the days of his admiration of her grace, had made the following impromptu:-- 'On seeing the Duchess of Queensberry walk at the funeral of the Princess Dowager of Wales,-- 'To many a Kitty, Love his car Would for a day engage; But Prior's Kitty, ever fair, Obtained it for an age.' It was Kitty who took Gay under her patronage, who resented the prohibition of the 'Beggar's Opera,' remonstrated with the king and queen, and was thereupon forbidden the court. She carried the poet to her house. She may have been ridiculous, but she had a warm, generous heart. 'I am now,' Gay wrote to Swift in 1729, 'in the Duke of Queensberry's house, and have been so ever since I left Hampstead; where I was carried at a time that it was thought I could not live a day. I must acquaint you (because I know it will please you) that during my sickness I had many of the kindest proofs of friendship, particularly from the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry; who, if I had been their nearest relation and dearest friend, could not have treated me with more constant attendance then, and they continue the same to me now.' The duchess appears to have been one of those wilful, eccentric, spoiled children, whom the world at once worships and ridicules: next to the Countess of Pomfret, she was Horace Walpole's pet aversion. She was well described as being 'very clever, very whimsical, and just not mad.' Some of Walpole's touches are strongly confirmatory of this description. For instance, her grace gives a ball, orders every one to come at six, to sup at twelve, and go away directly after: opens the ball herself with a minuet. To this ball she sends strange invitations; 'yet,' says Horace, 'except these flights, the only extraordinary thing the duchess did was to do nothing extraordinary, for I do not call it very mad that some pique happening between her and the Duchess of Bedford, the latter had this distich sent to her;-- 'Come with a whistle--come with a call: Come with good-will, or come not at all.' 'I do not know whether what I am going to tell you did not border a little upon Moorfields. The gallery where they danced was very cold. Lord Lorn, George Selwyn, and I retired into a little room, and sat comfortably by the fire. The duchess looked in, said nothing, and sent a smith to take the hinges of the door oft. We understood the hint--left the room--and so did the smith the door.' 'I must tell you,' he adds in another letter, 'of an admirable reply of your acquaintance, the Duchess of Queensberry: old Lady Granville, Lord Carteret's mother, whom they call _the queen-mother_, from taking upon her to do the honours of her son's power, was pressing the duchess to ask her for some place for herself or friends, and assured her that she would procure it, be it what it would. Could she have picked out a fitter person to be gracious to? The duchess made her a most grave curtsey, and said, "Indeed, there was one thing she had set her heart on."--"Dear child, how you oblige me by asking anything! What is it? Tell me."--"Only that you would speak to my Lord Carteret to get me made lady of the bedchamber to the Queen of Hungary."' The duchess was, therefore, one of the dowagers, 'thick as flounders,' whose proximity was irritating to the fastidious bachelor. There was, however, another Kitty between whom and Horace a tender friendship subsisted: this was Kitty Clive, the famous actress; formerly Kitty Ruftar. Horace had given her a house on his estate, which he called sometimes 'Little Strawberry Hill,' and sometimes 'Cliveden;' and here Mrs. Clive lived with her brother, Mr. Ruftar, until 1785. She formed, for her friend, a sort of outer-home, in which he passed his evenings. Long had he admired her talents. Those were the days of the drama in all its glory: the opera was unfashionable. There were, Horace writes in 1742, on the 26th of May, only two-and-forty people in the Opera House, in the pit and boxes: people were running to see 'Miss Lucy in Town,' at Drury Lane, and to admire Mrs. Clive, in her imitation of the Muscovites; but the greatest crowds assembled to wonder at Garrick, in 'Wine Merchant turned Player;' and great and small alike rushed to Goodman's Fields to see him act all parts, and to laugh at his admirable mimicry. It was perhaps, somewhat in jealousy of the counter attraction, that Horace declared he saw nothing wonderful in the acting of Garrick, though it was then heresy to say so. 'Now I talk of players,' he adds in the same letter, 'tell Mr. Chute that his friend Bracegirdle breakfasted with me this morning.' Horace delighted in such intimacies, and in recalling old times. Mrs. Abingdon, another charming and clever actress, was also a denizen of Twickenham, which became the most fashionable village near the metropolis. Mrs. Pritchard, likewise, was attracted there; but the proximity of the Countess of Suffolk, who lived at Marble Hill was the delight of a great portion of Horace Walpole's life. Her reminiscences, her anecdotes, her experience, were valuable as well as entertaining to one who was for ever gathering up materials for history, or for biography, or for letters to absent friends. In his own family he found little to cheer him: but if he hated one or two more especially--and no one could hate more intensely than Horace Walpole--it was his uncle, Lord Wapole, and his cousin, that nobleman's son, whom he christened Pigwiggin; 'my monstrous uncle;' 'that old buffoon, my uncle;' are terms which occur in his letters, and he speaks of the bloody civil wars between 'Horatio Walpole' and 'Horace Walpole.' Horatio Walpole, the brother of Sir Robert, was created in June, 1756, Baron Walpole of Wolterton, as a recompense for fifty years passed in the public service--an honour which he only survived nine months. He expired in February, 1757. His death removed one subject of bitter dislike from the mind of Horace; but enough remained in the family to excite grief and resentment. Towards his own two brothers, Robert, Earl of Orford, and Edward Walpole, Horace the younger, as he was styled in contradistinction to his uncle, bore very little affection. His feelings, however, for his nephew George, who succeeded his father as Earl of Orford in 1751, were more creditable to his heart; yet he gives a description of this ill-fated young man in his letters, which shows at once pride and disapprobation. One lingers with regret over the character and the destiny of this fine young nobleman, whose existence was rendered miserable by frequent attacks, at intervals, of insanity. Never was there a handsomer, a more popular, a more engaging being than George, third Earl of Orford. When he appeared at the head of the Norfolk regiment of militia, of which he was colonel, even the great Lord Chatham broke out into enthusiasm:--'Nothing,' he wrote, 'could make a better appearance than the two Norfolk battalions; Lord Orford, with the front of Mars himself, and really the greatest figure under arms I ever saw, as the theme of every tongue.' His person and air, Horace Walpole declared, had a noble wildness in them: crowds followed the battalions when the king reviewed them in Hyde Park; and among the gay young officers in their scarlet uniforms, faced with black, in their buff waistcoats and gold buttons, none was so conspicuous for martial bearing as Lord Onord, although classed by his uncle 'among the knights of shire who had never in their lives shot anything but woodcocks.' But there was a peculiarity of character in the young peer which shocked Horace. 'No man,' he says in one of his letters, 'ever felt such a disposition to love another as I did to love him. I flattered myself that he would restore some lustre to our house--at least not let it totally sink; but I am forced to give him up, and all my Walpole views.... He has a good breeding, and attention when he is with you that is even flattering;... he promises, offers everything one can wish; but this is all: the instant he leaves you, all the world are nothing to him; he would not give himself the least trouble in the world to give any one satisfaction; yet this is mere indolence of mind, not of body: his whole pleasure is outrageous exercise.' 'He is,' in another place Horace adds, 'the most selfish man in the world: without being in the least interested, he loves nobody but himself, yet neglects every view of fortune and ambition. Yet,' he concludes, 'it is impossible not to love him when one sees him: impossible to esteem him when one thinks on him.' The young lord, succeeding to an estate deeply encumbered, both by his father and grandfather, rushed on the turf, and involved himself still more. In vain did Horace the younger endeavour to secure for him the hand of Miss Nicholls, an heiress with £50,000, and, to that end, placed the young lady with Horace the elder (Lord Walpole), at Wolterton. The scheme failed: the crafty old politician thought he might as well benefit his own sons as his nephew, for he had himself claims on the Houghton estate which he expected Miss Nicholl's fortune might help to liquidate. At length the insanity and recklessness displayed by his nephew--the handsome martial George--induced poor Horace to take affairs in his own hands. His reflections, on his paying a visit to Houghton to look after the property there, are pathetically expressed:-- 'Here I am again at Houghton,' he writes in March, 1761, 'and alone; in this spot where (except two hours last month) I have not been in sixteen years. Think what a crowd of reflections!... Here I am probably for the last time of my life: every clock that strikes, tells me I am an hour nearer to yonder church--that church into which I have not yet had courage to enter; where lies that mother on whom I doated, and who doated on me! There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it. There, too, is he who founded its greatness--to contribute to whose fall Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and his foe--rather his false ally and real enemy--Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets. When he looked at the pictures--that famous Houghton collection--the surprise of Horace was excessive. Accustomed to see nothing elsewhere but daubs, he gazed with ecstasy on them. 'The majesty of Italian ideas,' he says, 'almost sinks before the warm nature of Italian colouring! Alas! don't I grow old?' As he lingered in the gallery, with mingled pride and sadness, a party arrived to see the house--a man and three women in riding-dresses--who 'rode post' through the apartments. 'I could not,' he adds, 'hurry before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing the whole gallery as I could have been in one room, to examine what I knew by heart. I remember formerly being often diverted with this kind of _seers_; they come, ask what such a room is called in which Sir Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster or a cabbage in a Market Piece, dispute whether the last room was green or purple, and then hurry to the inn, for fear the fish should be over-dressed. How different my sensations! not a picture here but recalls a history; not one but I remembered in Downing Street, or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them, though seeing them as little as these travellers![5] [5: Sir Robert Walpole purchased a house and garden at Chelsea in 1722, near the college, adjoining Gough House.--Cunningham's 'London.'] After tea he strolled into the garden. They told him it was now called a _pleasure-ground._ To Horace it was a scene of desolation--a floral Nineveh. 'What a dissonant idea of pleasure!--those groves, those _allées_, where I have passed so many charming moments, were now stripped up or overgrown--many fond paths I could not unravel, though with an exact clue in my memory. I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares! In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you will think perhaps it is far from being out of tune yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now, with many regrets, I love Houghton--Houghton, I know not what to call it--a monument of grandeur or ruin!' Although he did not go with the expectation of finding a land flowing with milk and honey, the sight of all this ruin long saddened his thoughts. All was confusion, disorder, debts, mortgages, sales, pillage, villainy, waste, folly, and madness. The nettles and brambles in the park were up to his shoulders; horses had been turned into the garden, and banditti lodged in every cottage. The perpetuity of livings that came up to the very park-palings had been sold, and the farms let at half their value. Certainly, if Houghton were bought by Sir Robert Walpole with public money, that public was now avenged. The owner of this ruined property had just stemmed the torrent; but the worst was to come. The pictures were sold, and to Russia they went. Whilst thus harassed by family misfortunes, other annoyances came. The mournful story of Chatterton's fate was painfully mixed up with the tenour of Horace Walpole's life. The gifted and unfortunate Thomas Chatterton was born at Bristol in 1752. Even from his birth fate seemed to pursue him, for he was a posthumous son: and if the loss of a father in the highest ranks of life be severely felt, how much more so is it to be deplored in those which are termed the working classes! The friendless enthusiast was slow in learning to read; but when the illuminated capitals of an old book were presented to him, he quickly learned his letters. This fact, and his being taught to read out of a black-letter Bible, are said to have accounted for his facility in the imitation of antiquities. Pensive and taciturn, he picked up education at a charity-school, until apprenticed to a scrivener, when he began that battle of life which ended to him so fatally. Upon very slight accidents did his destiny hinge. In those days women worked with thread, and used thread-papers. Now paper was, at that time, dear: dainty matrons liked tasty thread-papers. A pretty set of thread-papers, with birds or flowers painted on each, was no mean present for a friend. Chatterton, a quiet child, one day noticed that his mother's thread-papers were of no ordinary materials. They were made of parchment, and on this parchment was some of the black-letter characters by which his childish attention had been fixed to his book. The fact was, that his uncle was sexton to the ancient church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol; and the parchment was the fruit of theft. Chatterton's father had carried off, from a room in the church, certain ancient manuscripts, which had been left about; being originally abstracted from what was called Mr. Canynge's coffin. Mr. Canynge, an eminent merchant, had rebuilt St. Mary Redcliffe in the reign of Edward IV.: and the parchments, therefore, were of some antiquity. The antiquary groans over their loss in vain: Chatterton's father had covered his books with them; his mother had used up the strips for thread-papers; and Thomas Chatterton himself contrived to abstract a considerable portion also, for his own purposes. He was ingenious, industrious, a poet by nature, and, wonderful to say, withal a herald by taste. Upon his nefarious possessions, he founded a scheme of literary forgeries; purporting to be ancient pieces of poetry found in Canynge's chest; and described as being the production of Thomas Canynge and of his friend, one Thomas Rowley, a priest. Money and books were sent to Chatterton in return for little strips of vellum, which he passed off as the original itself; and the successful forger might now be seen in deep thought, walking in the meadows near Redcliffe; a marked, admired, poetic youth. In 1769, Chatterton wrote to Horace Walpole, offering to send him some accounts of eminent painters who had flourished at Bristol, and at the same time mentioning the discovery of the poems, and enclosing some specimens. In a subsequent letter he begged Walpole to aid him in his wish to be freed from his then servile condition, and to be placed in one more congenial to his pursuits. In his choice of a patron poor Chatterton made a fatal mistake. The benevolence of Horace was of a general kind, and never descended to anything obscure or unappreciated. There was a certain hardness in that nature of his which had so pleasant an aspect. 'An artist,' he once said, 'has his pencils--an author his pens--and the public must reward them as it pleases.' Alas! he forgot how long it is before penury, even ennobled by genius, can make itself seen, heard, approved, repaid: how vast is the influence of _prestige!_ how generous the hand which is extended to those in want, even if in error! All that Horace did, however, was strictly correct: he showed the poems to Gray and Mason, who pronounced them forgeries; and he wrote a cold and reproving letter to the starving author: and no one could blame him: Chatterton demanded back his poems; Walpole was going to Paris, and forgot to return them. Another letter came: the wounded poet again demanded them, adding that Walpole would not have dared to use him so had he not been poor. The poems were returned in a blank cover: and here all Walpole's concern with Thomas Chatterton ends. All this happened in 1769. In August, 1770, the remains of the unhappy youth were carried to the burial-ground of Shoe Lane workhouse, near Holborn. He had swallowed arsenic; had lingered a day in agonies; and then, at the age of eighteen expired. Starvation had prompted the act: yet on the day before he had committed it, he had refused a dinner, of which he was invited by his hostess to partake, assuring her that he was not hungry. Just or unjust, the world has never forgiven Horace Walpole for Chatterton's misery. His indifference has been contrasted with the generosity of Edmund Burke to Crabbe: a generosity to which we owe 'The Village,' 'The Borough,' and to which Crabbe owed his peaceful old age, and almost his existence. The cases were different; but Crabbe had his faults--and Chatterton was worth saving. It is well for genius that there are souls in the world more sympathizing, less worldly, and more indulgent, than those of such men as Horace Walpole. Even the editor of 'Walpoliana' lets judgment go by default. 'As to artists,' he says, 'he paid them what they earned, and he commonly employed mean ones, that the reward might be smaller.' Let us change the strain: stilled be the mournful note on which we have rested too long. What have wits and beaux and men of society to do with poets and beggars? Behold, Horace, when he has written his monitory letter, packs up for Paris. Let us follow him there, and see him in the very centre of his pleasures--in the _salon_ of La Marquise du Deffand. Horace Walpole had perfected his education, as a fine gentleman, by his intimacy with Madame Geoffrin, to whom Lady Hervey had introduced him. She called him _le nouveau Richelieu_; and Horace was sensible of so great a compliment from a woman at once '_spirituelle_ and _pieuse_'--a combination rare in France. Nevertheless, she had the national views of matrimony. 'What have you done, Madame,' said a foreigner to her, 'with the poor man I used to see here, who never spoke a word?' 'Ah, _mon Dieu!_ was the reply, 'that was my husband: he is dead.' She spoke in the same tone as if she had been specifying the last new opera, or referring to the latest work in vogue: things just passed away. The _Marquise du Deffaud_ was a very different personage to Madame Geoffrin, whose great enemy she was. When Horace Walpole first entered into the society of the Marquise, she was stone blind, and old; but retained not only her wit, and her memory, but her passions. Passions, like artificial flowers, are unbecoming to age: and those of the witty, atheistical Marquise are almost revolting. Scandal still attached her name to that of Hénault, of whom Voltaire wrote the epitaph beginning 'Henault, fameus par vos soupers Et votre "chronologie,"' &c. Hénault was for many years deaf; and, during the whole of his life, disagreeable. There was something farcical in the old man's receptions on his death-bed; whilst, amongst the rest of the company came Madame du Deffand, a blind old woman of seventy, who, bawling in his ear, aroused the lethargic man, by inquiring after a former rival of hers, Madame de Castelmaron--about whom he went on babbling until death stopped his voice. She was seventy years of age when Horace Walpole, at fifty, became her passion. She was poor and disreputable, and even the high position of having been mistress to the regent could not save her from being decried by a large portion of that society which centered round the _bel esprit_. 'She was,' observes the biographer of Horace Walpole (the lamented author of the 'Crescent and the Cross,') 'always gay, always charming--everything but a Christian.' The loss of her eyesight did not impair the remains of her beauty; her replies, her compliments, were brilliant; even from one whose best organs of expression were mute. A frequent guest at her suppers, Walpole's kindness, real or pretended, soon made inroads on a heart still susceptible. The ever-green passions of this venerable sinner threw out fresh shoots; and she became enamoured of the attentive and admired Englishman. Horace was susceptible of ridicule: there his somewhat icy heart was easily touched. Partly in vanity, partly in playfulness, he encouraged the sentimental-exaggeration of his correspondent; but, becoming afraid of the world's laughter, ended by reproving her warmth, and by chilling, under the refrigerating influence of his cautions, all the romance of the octogenarian. In later days, however, after his solicitude--partly soothed by the return of his letters to Madame du Deffand, partly by her death--had completely subsided, a happier friendship was permitted to solace his now increasing infirmities, as well as to enhance his social pleasures. It was during the year 1788, when he was living in retirement at Strawberry, that his auspicious friendship was formed. The only grain of ambition he had left he declared was to believe himself forgotten; that was 'the thread that had run through his life;' 'so true,' he adds, 'except the folly of being an author, has been what I said last year to the Prince' (afterwards George IV.), 'when he asked me "If I was a Freemason," I replied, "No sir; I never was anything."' Lady Charleville told him that some of her friends had been to see Strawberry. 'Lord!' cried one lady, 'who is that Mr. Walpole?' 'Lord!' cried a second; 'don't you know the great epicure, Mr. Walpole?' 'Who?' cried the first,--'great epicure! you mean the antiquarian.' 'Surely,' adds Horace, 'this anecdote may take its place in the chapter of local fame.' But he reverts to his new acquisition--the acquaintance of the Miss Berrys, who had accidentally taken a house next to his at Strawberry Hill. Their story, he adds, was a curious one: their descent Scotch; their grandfather had an estate of £5,000 a year, but disinherited his son on account of his marrying a woman with no fortune. She died, and the grandfather, wishing for an heir-male, pressed the widower to marry again: he refused; and said he would devote himself to the education of his two daughters. The second son generously gave up £8oo a year to his brother, and the two motherless girls were taken to the Continent, whence they returned the 'best informed and most perfect creatures that Horace Walpole ever saw at their age.' Sensible, natural, frank, their conversation proved most agreeable to a man who was sated of grand society, and sick of vanity until he had indulged in vexation of spirit. He discovered by chance only--for there was no pedantry in these truly well-educated women--that the eldest understood Latin, and 'was a perfect Frenchwoman in her language. Then the youngest drew well; and copied one of Lady Di Beauclerk's pictures, 'The Gipsies,' though she had never attempted colours before. Then, as to looks: Mary, the eldest, had a sweet face, the more interesting from being pale; with fine dark eyes that were lighted up when she spoke. Agnes, the younger, was 'hardly to be called handsome, but almost;' with an agreeable sensible countenance. It is remarkable that women thus delineated--not beauties, yet not plain--are always the most fascinating to men. The sisters doted on each other: Mary taking the lead in society. 'I must even tell you,' Horace wrote to the Countess of Ossory, 'that they dress within the bounds of fashion, but without the excrescences and balconies with which modern hoydens overwhelm and barricade their persons.' (One would almost have supposed that Horace had lived in the days of crinoline.') The first night that Horace met the two sisters, he refused to be introduced to them: having heard so much of them that he concluded they would be 'all pretension.' The second night that he met them, he sat next Mary, and found her an 'angel both inside and out.' He did not know which he liked best; but Mary's face, which was formed for a sentimental novel, or, still more, for genteel comedy, riveted him, he owned. Mr. Berry, the father, was a little 'merry man with a round face,' whom no one would have suspected of sacrificing 'all for love, and the world well lost.' This delightful family visited him every Sunday evening; the region of wickenham being too 'proclamatory' for cards to be introduced on the seventh day, conversation was tried instead; thankful, indeed, was Horace, for the 'pearls,' as he styled them, thus thrown in his path. His two 'Strawberries,' as he christened them, were henceforth the theme of every letter. He had set up a printing-press many years previously at Strawberry, and on taking the young ladies to see it, he remembered the gallantry of his former days, and they found these stanzas in type:-- 'To Mary's lips has ancient Rome Her purest language taught; And from the modern city home Agnes its pencil brought. 'Rome's ancient Horace sweetly chants Such maids with lyric fire; Albion's old Horace sings nor paints, He only can admire. 'Still would his press their fame record, So amiable the pair is! But, ah! how vain to think his word Can add a straw to Berry's.' On the following day, Mary, whom he terms the Latin nymph sent the following lines:-- 'Had Rome's famed Horace thus addrest His Lydia or his Lyce, He had ne'er so oft complained their breast To him was cold and icy. 'But had they sought their joy to explain, Or praise their generous bard, Perhaps, like me, they had tried in vain, And felt the task too hard.' The society of this family gave Horace Walpole the truest, and perhaps the only relish he ever had of domestic life. But his mind was harassed towards the close of the eighteenth century, by the insanity not only of his nephew, but by the great national calamity, that of the king. 'Every _eighty-eight_ seems,' he remarks, 'to be a favourite period with fate;' he was 'too ancient,' he said, 'to tap what might almost be called a new reign;' of which he was not likely to see much. He never pretended to penetration, but his foresight, 'if he gave it the reign, would not prognosticate much felicity to the country from the madness of his father, and the probable regency of the Prince of Wales. His happiest relations were now not with politics or literature, but with Mrs. Damer and the Miss Berrys, to whom he wrote:--'I am afraid of protesting how much I delight in your society, lest I should seem to affect being gallant; but, if two negatives make an affirmative, why may not two ridicules compose one piece of sense? and, therefore, as I am in love with you both, I trust it is a proof of the good sense of your devoted--H. WALPOLE,' He was doomed, in the decline of life, to witness two great national convulsions: of the insurrection of 1745 he wrote feelingly--justly--almost pathetically: forty-five years later he was tired, he said, of railing against French barbarity and folly. 'Legislators! a Senate! To neglect laws, in order to annihilate coats-of-arms and liveries!' George Selwyn said, that Monsieur the king's brother was the only man of rank from whom they could not take a title. His alarm at the idea of his two young friends going to the Continent was excessive. The flame of revolution had burst forth at Florence: Flanders was not a safe road; dreadful horrors had been perpetrated at Avignon. Then he relates a characteristic anecdote of poor _Marie Antoinette!_ She went with the king to see the manufacture of glass. As they passed the Halle, the _poissardes_ hurra'd them. 'Upon my word,' said the queen, 'these folks are civiller when you visit them, than when they visit you.' Walpole's affection for the Miss Berrys cast a glow of happiness over the fast-ebbing years of his life, 'In happy days,' he wrote to them when they were abroad, 'I called you my dear wives; now I can only think of you as darling children, of whom I am bereaved.' He was proud of their affection; proud of their spending many hours with 'a very old man,' whilst they were the objects of general admiration. These charming women survived until our own time: the centre of a circle of the leading characters in literature, politics, art, rank, and virtue. They are remembered with true regret. The fulness of their age perfected the promise of their youth. Samuel Rogers used to say that they had lived in the reign of Queen Anne, so far back seemed their memories which were so coupled to the past; but the youth of their minds, their feelings, their intelligence, remained almost to the last. For many years Horace Walpole continued, in spite of incessant attacks of the gout, to keep almost open house at Strawberry; in short, he said, he kept an inn--the sign, the Gothic Castle! 'Take my advice,' he wrote to a friend, 'never build a charming house for yourself between London and Hampton Court; everybody will live in it but you.' The death of Lady Suffolk, in 1767, had been an essential loss to her partial, and not too rigid neighbours. Two days before the death of George II. she had gone to Kensington not knowing that there was a review there. Hemmed in by coaches, she found herself close to George II. and to Lady Yarmouth. Neither of them knew her--a circumstance which greatly affected the countess. Horace Walpole was now desirous of growing old with dignity. He had no wish 'to dress up a withered person, nor to drag it about to public places;' but he was equally averse from 'sitting at home, wrapped up in flannels,' to receive condolences from people he did not care for--and attentions from relations who were impatient for his death. Well might a writer in the 'Quarterly Review' remark that our most useful lessons in reading Walpole's Letters are not only derived from his sound sense, but from 'considering this man of the world, full of information and sparkling with vivacity, stretched on a sick bed, and apprehending all the tedious languor of helpless decrepitude and deserted solitude.' His later years had been diversified by correspondence with Hannah More, who sent him her poem of the _Bas Bleu_, into which she had introduced his name. In 1786 she visited him at Strawberry Hill. He was then a martyr to the gout, but with spirits gay as ever: 'I never knew a man suffer pain with such entire patience,' was Hannah More's remark. His correspondence with her continued regularly; but that with the charming sisters was delightfully interrupted by their residence at little Strawberry Hill--_Cliveden_, as it was also called, where day after day, night after night, they gleaned stores from that rich fund of anecdote which went back to the days of George I., touched even on the anterior epoch of Anne, and came in volumes of amusement down to the very era when the old man was sitting by his parlour fire, happy with his _wives_ near him, resigned and cheerful. For his young friends he composed his 'Reminiscences of the Court of England.' He still wrote cheerfully of his physical state, in which eyesight was perfect; hearing little impaired; and though his hands and feet were crippled, he could use them; and since he neither 'wished to box, to wrestle, nor to dance a hornpipe,' he was contented. His character became softer, his wit less caustic, his heart more tender, his talk more reverent, as he approached the term of a long, prosperous life--and knew, practically, the small value of all that he had once too fondly prized. His later years were disturbed by the marriage of his niece Maria Waldegrave to the Duke of Gloucester: but the severest interruption to his peace was his own succession to an Earldom. In 1791, George, Earl of Orford, expired; leaving an estate encumbered with debt, and, added to the bequest, a series of lawsuits threatened to break down all remaining comfort in the mind of the uncle, who had already suffered so much on the young man's account. Horace Walpole disdained the honours which brought him such solid trouble, with such empty titles, and for some time refused to sign himself otherwise but 'Uncle to the late Earl of Orford.' He was certainly not likely to be able to walk in his robes to the House of Lords, or to grace a levee. However, he thanked God he was free from pain. 'Since all my fingers are useless,' he wrote to Hannah More, 'and that I have only six hairs left, I am not very much grieved at not being able to comb my head!' To Hannah More he wrote in all sincerity, referring to his elevation to the peerage: 'For the other empty metamorphosis that has happened to the outward man, you do me justice in believing that it can do nothing but tease me; it is being called names in one's old age:' in fact, he reckoned on being styled 'Lord Methusalem.' He had lived to hear of the cruel deaths of the once gay and high-born friends whom he had known in Paris, by the guillotine: he had lived to execrate the monsters who persecuted the grandest heroine of modern times, Marie Antoinette, to madness; he lived to censure the infatuation of religious zeal in the Birmingham riots. 'Are not the devils escaped out of the swine, and overrunning the earth headlong?'--he asked in one of his letters. He had offered his hand, and all the ambitious views which it opened, to each of the Miss Berrys successively, but they refused to bear his name, though they still cheered his solitude: and, strange to say, two of the most admired and beloved women of their time remained single. In 1796, the sinking invalid was persuaded to remove to Berkeley Square, to be within reach of good and prompt advice. He consented unwillingly, for his 'Gothic Castle' was his favourite abode. He left it with a presentiment that he should see it no more; but he followed the proffered advice, and in the spring of the year was established in Berkeley Square. His mind was still clear. He seems to have cherished to the last a concern for that literary fame which he affected to despise. 'Literature has,' he said, 'many revolutions; if an author could rise from the dead, after a hundred years, what would be his surprise at the adventures of his works! I often say, perhaps my books may be published in Paternoster Row!' He would indeed have been astonished at the vast circulation of his Letters, and the popularity which has carried them into every aristocratic family in England. It is remarkable that among the middle and lower classes they are far less known, for he was essentially the chronicler, as well as the wit and beau, of St. James's, of Windsor, and Richmond. At last he declared that he should 'be content with a sprig of rosemary' thrown on him when the parson of the parish commits his 'dust to dust.' The end of his now suffering existence was near at hand. Irritability, one of the unpitied accompaniments of weakness, seemed to compete with the gathering clouds of mental darkness as the last hour drew on. At intervals there were flashes of a wit that appeared at that solemn moment hardly natural, and that must have startled rather than pleased, the watchful friends around him. He became unjust in his fretfulness, and those who loved him most could not wish to see him survive the wreck of his intellect. Fever came on, and he died on the 2nd of March, 1797. He had collected his letters from his friends: these epistles were deposited in two boxes, one marked with an A., the other with a B. The chest A. was not to be opened until the eldest son of his grandniece, Lady Laura, should attain the age of twenty-five. The chest was found to contain memoirs, and bundles of letters ready for publication. It was singular, at the sale of the effects at Strawberry Hill, to see this chest, with the MSS. in the clean _Horatian_ hand, and to reflect how poignant would have been the anguish of the writer could he have seen his Gothic Castle given up for fourteen days, to all that could pain the living, or degrade the dead. Peace to his manes, prince of letter-writers; prince companion of beaux; wit of the highest order! Without thy pen, society in the eighteenth century would have been to us almost as dead as the _beau monde_ of Pompeii, or the remains of Etruscan leaders of the ton. Let us not be ungrateful to our Horace: we owe him more than we could ever have calculated on before we knew him through his works: prejudiced, he was not false; cold, he was rarely cruel; egotistical, he was seldom vain-glorious. Every age should have a Horace Walpole; every country possess a chronicler so sure, so keen to perceive, so exact to delineate peculiarities, manners, characters, and events. GEORGE SELWYN. A Love of Horrors.--Anecdotes of Selwyn's Mother.--Selwyn's College Days.--Orator Henley.--Selwyn's Blasphemous Freak.--The Profession of a Wit.--The Thirst for Hazard.--Reynolds's Conversation-Piece.-- Selwyn's Eccentricities and Witticisms.--A most Important Communication.--An Amateur Headsman.--The Eloquence of Indifference.-- Catching a Housebreaker.--The Family of the Selwyns.--The Man of the People.--Selwyn's Parliamentary Career.--True Wit.---Some of Selwyn's Witty Sayings.--The Sovereignty of the People.--On two kinds of Wit.-- Selwyn's Love for Children.--Mie Mie, the Little Italian.--Selwyn's Little Companion taken from him.--His Later Days and Death. I have heard, at times, of maiden ladies of a certain age who found pleasure in the affection of 'spotted snakes with double tongue, thorny hedge-hogs, newts, and in live worms.' I frequently meet ladies who think conversation lacks interest without the recital of 'melancholy deaths,' 'fatal diseases,' and 'mournful cases;' _on ne dispute pas les goûts_, and certainly the taste for the night side of nature seems immensely prevalent among the lower orders--in whom, perhaps, the terrible only can rouse from a sullen insensibility. What happy people! I always think to myself, when I hear of the huge attendance on the last tragic performance at Newgate; how very little they can see of mournful and horrible in common life, if they seek it out so eagerly, and relish it so thoroughly, when they find it! I don't know; for my own part, _gaudeamus_. I have always thought that the text, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' referred to the inner private life, not to a perpetual display of sackcloth and ashes; but I know not. I can understand the weeping-willow taste among people, who have too little wit or too little Christianity to be cheerful, but it is a wonder to find the luxury of gloom united to the keenest perception of the laughable in such a man as George Selwyn. If human beings could be made pets, like Miss Tabitha's snake or toad, Selwyn would have fondled a hangman. He loved the noble art of execution, and was a connoisseur of the execution of the art. In childhood he must have decapitated his rocking-horse, hanged his doll in a miniature gallows, and burnt his baubles at mimic stakes. The man whose calm eye was watched for the quiet sparkle that announced--and only that ever did announce it--the flashing wit within the mind, by a gay crowd of loungers at Arthur's, might be found next day rummaging among coffins in a damp vault, glorying in a mummy, confessing and preparing a live criminal, paying any sum for a relic of a dead one, or pressing eagerly forward to witness the dying agonies of a condemned man. Yet Walpole and Warner both bore the highest testimony to the goodness of his heart; and it is impossible to doubt that his nature was as gentle as a woman's. There have been other instances of even educated men delighting in scenes of suffering; but in general their characters have been more or less gross, their heads more or less insensible. The husband of Madame Récamier went daily to see the guillotine do its vile work during the reign of Terror; but then he was a man who never wept over the death of a friend. The man who was devoted to a little child, whom he adopted and treated with the tenderest care, was very different from M. Récamier--and that he _had_ a heart there is no doubt. He was an anomaly, and famous for being so; though, perhaps, his well-known eccentricity was taken advantage of by his witty friends, and many a story fathered on Selwyn which has no origin but in the brain of its narrator. George Augustus Selwyn, then, famous for his wit, and notorious for his love of horrors, was the second son of a country gentleman, of Matson, in Gloucestershire, Colonel John Selwyn, who had been an aide-de-camp of Marlborough's, and afterwards a frequenter of the courts of the first two Georges. He inherited his wit chiefly from his mother, Mary, the daughter of General Farington or Farringdon, of the county of Kent. Walpole tells us that she figured among the beauties of the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and was bedchamber-woman to Queen Caroline. Her character was not spotless, for we hear of an intrigue, which her own mistress imparted in confidence to the Duchess of Orleans (the mother of the Regent: they wrote on her tomb _Cy gist l'oisiveté_, because idleness is the _mother_ of all vice), and which eventually found its way into the 'Utrecht Gazette.' It was Mrs. Selwyn, too, who said to George II., that he was the last person she would ever have an intrigue with, because she was sure he would tell the queen of it: it was well known that that very virtuous sovereign made his wife the confidante of his amours, which was even more shameless than young De Sévigné's taking advice from his mother on his intrigue with Ninon de l'Enclos. She seems to have been reputed a wit, for Walpole retails her _mots_ as if they were worth it, but they are not very remarkable: for instance, when Miss Pelham lost a pair of diamond earrings, which she had borrowed, and tried to faint when the loss was discovered, some one called for lavender-drops as a restorative. 'Pooh!' cries Mrs. Selwyn, 'give her diamond-drops.' George Augustus was born on the 11th of August, 1719. Walpole says that he knew him at eight years old, and as the two were at Eton about the same time, it is presumed that they were contemporaries there. In fact, a list of the boys there, in 1732, furnished to Eliot Warburton, contains the names of Walpole, Selwyn, Edgecumbe, and Conway, all in after-life intimate friends and correspondents. From Eton to Oxford was the natural course, and George was duly entered at Hertford College. He did not long grace Alma Mater, for the _grand tour_ had to be made, and London life to be begun, but he was there long enough to contract the usual Oxford debts, which his father consented to pay more than once. It is amusing to find the son getting Dr. Newton to write him a contrite and respectful letter to the angry parent, to liquidate the 'small accounts' accumulated in London and Oxford as early as 1740. Three years later we find him in Paris, leading a gay life, and writing respectful letters to England for more money. Previously to this, however, he had obtained, through his father, the sinecure of Clerk of the Irons and surveyor of the Meltings at the Mint, a comfortable little appointment, the duties of which were performed by deputy, while its holder contented himself with honestly acknowledging the salary, and dining once a week, when in town, with the officers of the Mint, and at the Government's expense. So far the young gentleman went on well enough, but in 1744 he returned to England, and his rather rampant character showed itself in more than one disgraceful affair. Among the London shows was Orator Henley, a clergyman and clergyman's son, and a member of St. John's, Cambridge. He had come to London about this time, and instituted a series of lectures on universal knowledge and primitive Christianity. He styled himself a Rationalist, a title then more honourable than it is now; and in grandiloquent language, 'spouted' on religious subjects to an audience admitted at a shilling a-head. On one occasion he announced a disputation among any two of his hearers, offering to give an impartial hearing and judgment to both. Selwyn and the young Lord Carteret were prepared, and stood up, the one to defend the ignorance, the other the impudence, of Orator Henley himself; so, at least, it is inferred from a passage in D'Israeli the Elder. The uproar that ensued can well be imagined. Henley himself made his escape by a back door. His pulpit, all gilt, has been immortalized by Pope, as 'Henley's gilt tub;' in which-- 'Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands, Tuning his voice and balancing his hands.' The affair gave rise to a correspondence between the Orator and his young friends; who, doubtless, came off best in the matter. This was harmless enough, but George's next freak was not so excusable. The circumstances of this affair are narrated in a letter from Captain Nicholson, his friend, to George Selwyn; and may, therefore, be relied on. It appears that being at a certain club in Oxford, at a wine party with his friends, George sent to a certain silversmith's for a certain chalice, intrusted to the shopkeeper from a certain church to be repaired in a certain manner. This being brought, Master George--then, be it remembered, not at the delicate and frivolous age of most Oxford boys, but at the mature one of six-and-twenty--filled it with wine, and handing it round, used the sacred words, 'Drink this in remembrance of me.' This was a blasphemous parody of the most sacred rite of the Church. All Selwyn could say for himself was, that he was drunk when he did it. The other plea, that he did it in ridicule of the transubstantiation of the Romish Church, could not stand at all; and was most weakly put forward. Let Oxford Dons be what they will; let them put a stop to all religious inquiry, and nearly expel Adam Smith for reading Hume's 'Essay on Human Nature;' let them be, as many allege, narrow-minded, hypocritical, and ignorant; we cannot charge them with wrong-dealing in expelling the originator of such open blasphemy, which nothing can be found to palliate, and of which its perpetrator did not appear to repent, rather complaining that the treatment of the Dons was harsh. The act of expulsion was, of course, considered in the same light by his numerous acquaintance, many of whom condoled with him on the occasion. It is true, the Oxford Dons are often charged with injustice and partiality, and too often the evidence is not sufficiently strong to excuse their judgments; but in this the evidence was not denied; only a palliative was put in, which every one can see through. The only injustice we can discover in this case is, that the head of Hart Hall, as Hertford College was called, seemed to have been influenced in pronouncing his sentence of expulsion by certain previous _suspicions_, having no bearing on the question before him, which had been entertained by another set of tutors--those of Christchurch--where Selwyn had many friends, and where, probably enough, he indulged in many collegian's freaks. This knack of bringing up a mere suspicion, is truly characteristic of the Oxford Don, and since the same Head of this House--Dr. Newton--acknowledged that Selwyn was, during his Oxford career, neither intemperate, dissolute, nor a gamester, it is fair to give him the advantage of the doubt, that the judgment on the evidence had been influenced by the consideration of 'suspicions' of former misdeeds, which had not been proved, perhaps never committed. Knowing the after-life of the man, we can, however, scarcely doubt that George had led a fast life at the University, and given cause for mistrust. But one may ask whether Dons, whose love of drinking, and whose tendency to jest on the most solemn subjects, are well known even in the present day, might not have treated Selwyn less harshly for what was done under the influence of wine? To this we are inclined to reply, that no punishment is too severe for profanation; and that drunkenness is not an excuse, but an aggravation. Selwyn threatened to appeal, and took advice on the matter. This, as usual, was vain. Many an expelled man, more unjustly treated than Selwyn, has talked of appeal in vain. Appeal to whom? To what? Appeal against men who never acknowledge themselves wrong, and who, to maintain that they are right, will listen to evidence which they can see is contradictory, and which they know to be worthless! An appeal from an Oxford decision is as hopeless in the present day as it was in Selwyn's. He wisely left it alone, but less wisely insisted on reappearing in Oxford, against the advice of all his friends, whose characters were lost if the ostracised man were seen among them. From this time he entered upon his 'profession,' that of a wit, gambler, club-lounger, and man about town; for these many characters are all mixed in the one which is generally called 'a wit.' Let us remember that he was good-hearted, and not ill-intentioned, though imbued with the false ideas of his day. He was not a great man, but a great wit. The localities in which the trade of wit was plied were, then, the clubs, and the drawing-rooms of fashionable beauties. The former were in Selwyn's youth still limited in the number of their members, thirty constituting a large club; and as the subscribers were all known to one another, presented an admirable field for display of mental powers in conversation. In fact, the early clubs were nothing more than dining-societies, precisely the same in theory as our breakfasting arrangements at Oxford, which were every whit as exclusive, though not balloted for. The ballot, however, and the principle of a single black ball suffering to negative an election were not only, under such circumstances, excusable, but even necessary for the actual preservation of peace. Of course, in a succession of dinner-parties, if any two members were at all opposed to one other, the awkwardness would be intolerable. In the present day, two men may belong to the same club and scarcely meet even on the stairs, oftener than once or twice in a season. Gradually, however, in the place of the 'feast of reason and flow of soul' and wine, instead of the evenings spent in toasting, talking, emptying bottles and filling heads, as in the case of the old Kit-kat, men took to the monstrous amusement of examining fate, and on club-tables the dice rattled far more freely than the glasses, though these latter were not necessarily abandoned. Then came the thirst for hazard that brought men early in the day to try their fortune, and thus made the club-room a lounge. Selwyn was an habitual frequenter of Brookes.' Brookes' was, perhaps, the principal club of the day, though 'White's Chocolate House' was almost on a par with it. But Selwyn did not confine his attention solely to this club. It was the fashion to belong to as many of them as possible, and Wilberforce mentions no less than five to which he himself belonged: Brookes', Boodle's, White's, Miles and Evans's in New Palace Yard, and Goosetree's. As their names imply, these were all, originally, mere coffee-houses, kept by men of the above names. One or two rooms then sufficed for the requirements of a small party, and it was not till the members were greatly increased that the coffee-house rose majestically to the dignity of a bow-window, and was entirely and exclusively appropriated to the requirements of the club. This was especially the case with White's, of which so many of the wits and talkers of Selwyn's day were members. Who does not know that bow-window at the top of St. James's Street, where there are sure, about three or four in the afternoon, to be at least three gentlemen, two old and one young, standing, to the exclusion of light within, talking and contemplating the oft-repeated movement outside. White's was established as early as 1698, and was thus one of the original coffee-houses. It was then kept by a man named Arthur: here Chesterfield gamed and talked, to be succeeded by Gilly Williams. Charles Townshend, and George Selwyn. The old house was burnt down in 1733. It was at White's--or as Hogarth calls it in his pictorial squib, Black's--that, when a man fell dead at the door, he was lugged in and bets made as to whether he was dead or no. The surgeon's operations were opposed, for fear of disturbing the bets. Here, too, did George Selwyn and Charles Townshend pit their wit against wit; and here Pelham passed all the time he was not forced to devote to politics. In short it was, next to Brookes', the club of the day, and perhaps in some respects had a greater renown than even that famous club, and its play was as high. In Brookes' and White's Selwyn appeared with a twofold fame, that of a pronouncer of _bon-mots_ and that of a lover of horrors. His wit was of the quaintest order. He was no inveterate talker, like Sydney Smith; no clever dissimulator, like Mr. Hook. Calmly, almost sanctimoniously, he uttered those neat and telling sayings which the next day passed over England as 'Selwyn's last.' Walpole describes his manner admirably---his eyes turned up, his mouth set primly, a look almost of melancholy in his whole face. Reynolds, in his Conversation-piece, celebrated when in the Strawberry Collection, and representing Selwyn leaning on a chair, Gilly Williams, crayon in hand, and Dick Edgecumbe by his side, has caught the pseudo-solemn expression of his face admirably. The ease of the figure, one hand _empochée_, the other holding a paper of epigrams, or what not, the huge waistcoat with a dozen buttons and huge flaps, the ruffled sleeve, the bob-wig, all belong to the outer man; but the calm, quiet, almost enquiring face, the look half of melancholy, half of reproach, and, as the Milesian would say, the other half of sleek wisdom; the long nose, the prim mouth and joined lips, the elevated brow, and beneath it the quiet contemplative eye, contemplative not of heaven or hell, but of this world as it had seen it, in its most worldly point of view, yet twinkling with a flashing thought of incongruity made congruous, are the indices of the inner man. Most of our wits, it must have been seen, have had some other interest and occupation in life than that of 'making wit:' some have been authors, some statesmen, some soldiers, some wild-rakes, and some players of tricks: Selwyn had no profession but that of _diseur de bons mots_; for though he sat in the House, ne took no prominent part in politics; though he gambled extensively, he did not game for the sake of money only. Thus his life was that merely of a London bachelor, with few incidents to mark it, and therefore his memoir must resolve itself more or less into a series of anecdotes of his eccentricities and list of his witticisms. His friend Walpole gives us an immense number of both, not all of a first-rate nature, nor many interesting in the present day. Selwyn, calm as he was, brought out his sayings on the spur of the moment, and their appropriateness to the occasion was one of their greatest recommendations. A good saying, like a good sermon, depends much on its delivery, and loses much in print. Nothing less immortal than wit! To take first, however, the eccentricities of his character, and especially his love of horrors, we find anecdotes by the dozen retailed of him. It was so well known, that Lord Holland, when dying, ordered his servant to be sure to admit Mr. Selwyn if he called to enquire after him, 'for if I am alive,' said he, 'I shall be glad to see him, and if I am dead, he will be glad to see me.' The name of Holland leads us to an anecdote told by Walpole. Selwyn was looking over Cornbury with Lord Abergavenny and Mrs. Frere, 'who loved one another a little,' and was disgusted with the frivolity of the woman who could take no interest in anything worth seeing. 'You don't know what you missed in the other room,' he cried at last, peevishly. 'Why, what?'--'Why, my Lord Holland's picture.'--'Well, what is my Lord Holland to me?' 'Don't you know,' whispered the wit mysteriously, 'that Lord Holland's body lies in the same vault in Kensington Church with my Lord Abergavenny's mother?' 'Lord! she was so obliged,' says Walpole, 'and thanked him a thousand times!' Selwyn knew the vaults as thoroughly as old Anthony Wood knew the brasses. The elder Craggs had risen by the favour of Marlborough, whose footman he had been, and his son was eventually a Secretary of State. Arthur Moore, the father of James Moore Smyth, of whom Pope wrote-- 'Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and my damned works the cause' had worn a livery too. When Craggs got into a coach with him, he exclaimed, 'Why, Arthur, I am always getting up behind, are not you?' Walpole having related this story to Selwyn, the latter told him, as a most important communication, that Arthur Moore had had his coffin chained to that of his mistress. 'Lord! how do you know?' asked Horace. 'Why, I saw them the other day in a vault at St. Giles's.' 'Oh! Your servant, Mr. Selwyn,' cried the man who showed the tombs at Westminster Abbey, 'I expected to see _you_ here the other day when the old Duke of Richmond's body was taken up.' Criminals were, of course, included in his passion. Walpole affirms that he had a great share in bringing Lord Dacre's footman, who had murdered the butler, to confess his crime. In writing the confession, the ingenious plush coolly stopped and asked how 'murdered' was spelt. But it mattered little to George whether the criminal were alive or dead, and he defended his eccentric taste with his usual wit; when rallied by some women for going to see the Jacobite Lord Lovat's head cut off, he retorted, sharply--'I made full amends, for I went to see it sewn on again.' He had indeed done so, and given the company at the undertaker's a touch of his favourite blasphemy, for when the man of coffins had done his work and laid the body in its box, Selwyn, imitating the voice of the Lord Chancellor at the trial, muttered, 'My Lord Lovat, you may _rise_.' He said a better thing on the trial of a confederate of Lovat's, that Lord Kilmarnock, with whom the ladies fell so desperately in love as he stood on his defence. Mrs. Bethel, who was famous for a _hatchet-face,_ was among the fair spectators: 'What a shame it is,' quoth the wit, 'to turn her face to the prisoners before they are condemned!' Terrible, indeed, was that instrument of death to those men, who had in the heat of battle so gallantly met sword and blunderbuss. The slow, sure approach of the day of the scaffold was a thousand times worse than the roar of cannon. Lord Cromarty was pardoned, solely, it was said, from pity for his poor wife, who was at the time of the trial far advanced in pregnancy. It was affirmed that the child born had a distinct mark of an axe on his neck. _Credat Judæus_! Walpole used to say that Selwyn never thought but _à la tête tranchée_, and that when he went to have a tooth drawn, he told the dentist he would drop his handkerchief by way of signal. Certain it is that he did love an execution, whatever he or his friends may have done to remove the impression of this extraordinary taste. Some better men than Selwyn have had the same, and Macaulay accuses Penn of a similar affection. The best known anecdote of Selwyn's peculiarity relates to the execution of Damiens, who was torn with red-hot pincers, and finally quartered by four horses, for the attempt to assassinate Louis XV. On the day fixed, George mingled with the crowd plainly dressed, and managed to press forward close to the place of torture. The executioner observing him, eagerly cried out, '_Faites place pour Monsieur; c'est un Anglais et un amateur_;' or, as another version goes, he was asked if he was not himself a _bourreau_.--'_Non, Monsieur,_' he is said to have answered, '_je n'ai pas cet honneur, je ne suis qu'un amateur._' The story is more than apocryphal, for Selwyn is not the only person of whom it has been told; and he was even accused, according to Wraxall, of going to executions in female costume. George Selwyn must have passed as a 'remarkably fine woman,' in that case. It is only justice to him to say that the many stories of his attending executions were supposed to be inventions of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, another wit, and of Chesterfield, another, and a rival. In confirmation, it is adduced that when the former had been relating some new account, and an old friend of Selwyn's expressed his surprise that he had never heard the tale before, the hero of it replied quietly, 'No wonder at all, for Sir Charles has just invented it, and knows that I will not by contradiction spoil the pleasure of the company he is so highly entertaining.' Wit has been called 'the eloquence of indifference;' no one seems ever to have been so indifferent about everything, but his little daughter, as George Selwyn. He always, however, took up the joke, and when asked why he had not been to see one Charles Fox, a low criminal, hanged at Tyburn, answered, quietly, 'I make a point of never going to _rehearsals_.' Selwyn's love for this kind of thing, to believe his most intimate friend, Horace Walpole, was quite a fact. His friend relates that he even bargained for the High Sheriff's wand, after it was broken, at the condemnation of the gallant Lords, but said, 'that he behaved so like an attorney the first day, and so like a pettifogger the second, that he would not take it to light his fire with.' The State Trials, of course, interested George more than any other in his eventless life; he dined after the sentence with the celebrated Lady Townshend, who was so devoted to Lord Kilmarnock-- 'Pitied by gentle minds, Kilmarnock died'--Johnson. that she is said to have even stayed under his windows, when he was in prison; but he treated her anxiety with such lightness that the lady burst into tears, and 'flung up-stairs.' 'George,' writes Walpole to Montague, 'cooly took Mrs. Dorcas, her woman, and bade her sit down to finish the bottle.--"And pray," said Dorcas, "do you think my lady will be prevailed upon to let me go and see the execution? I have a friend that has promised to take care of me, and I can lie in the Tower the night before." Could she have talked so pleasantly to Selwyn?' His contemporaries certainly believed in his love for Newgatism; for when Walpole had caught a housebreaker in a neighbour's area, he immediately despatched a messenger to White's for the philo-criminalist, who was sure to be playing at the Club any time before daylight. It happened that the drawer at the 'Chocolate-house' had been himself lately robbed, and therefore stole to George with fear and trembling, and muttered mysteriously to him, 'Mr. Walpole's compliments, and he has got a housebreaker for you.' Of course Selwyn obeyed the summons readily, and the event concluded, as such events do nine times out of ten, with a quiet capture, and much ado about nothing. The Selwyns were a powerful family in Gloucestershire, owning a great deal of property in the neighbourhood of Gloucester itself. The old colonel had represented that city in Parliament for many years. On the 5th of November, 1751, he died. His eldest son had gone a few months before him. This son had been also at Eton, and was an early friend of Horace Walpole and General Conway. His death left George sole heir to the property, and very much he seemed to have needed the heritage. The property of the Selwyns lay in the picturesque district of the Northern Cotswolds. Anybody who has passed a day in the dull city of Gloucester, which seems to break into anything like life only at an election, lying dormant in the intervals, has been glad to rush out to enjoy air and a fine view on Robin Hood's Hill, a favourite walk with the worthy citizens, though what the jovial archer of merry Sherwood had to do with it, or whether he was ever in Gloucestershire at all, I profess I know not. Walpole describes the hill with humorous exaggeration. 'It is lofty enough for an alp, yet is a mountain of turf to the very top, has wood scattered all over it, springs that long to be cascades in many places of it, and from the summit it beats even Sir George Littleton's views, by having the city of Gloucester at its foot, and the Severn widening to the horizon.' On the very summit of the next hill, Chosen-down, is a solitary church, and the legend saith that the good people who built it did so originally at the foot of the steep mount, but that the Virgin Mary carried up the stones by night, till the builder, in despair, was compelled to erect it on the top. Others attribute the mysterious act to a very different personage, and with apparently more reason, for the position of the church must keep many an old sinner from hearing service. At Matson, then, on Robin Hood's Hill, the Selwyns lived; Walpole says that the 'house is small, but neat. King Charles lay here at the seige, and the Duke of York, with typical fury, hacked and hewed the window-shutters of his chamber as a memorandum of his being there. And here is the very flowerpot and counterfeit association for which Bishop Sprat was taken up, and the Duke of Marlborough sent to the Tower. The reservoirs on the hill supply the city. The late Mr. Selwyn governed the borough by them--and I believe by some wine too.' Probably, or at least by some beer, if the modern electors be not much altered from their forefathers. Besides this important estate, the Selwyns had another at Ludgershall, and their influence there was so complete, that they might fairly be said to _give_ one seat to any one they chose. With such double barrels George Selwyn was, of course, a great gun in the House, but his interest lay far more in piquet and pleasantry than in politics and patriotism, and he was never fired off with any but the blank cartridges of his two votes. His parliamentary career, begun in 1747, lasted more than forty years, yet was entirely without distinction. He, however, amused both parties with his wit, and by _snoring in unison_ with Lord North. This must have been trying to Mr. Speaker Cornwall, who was longing, no doubt, to snore also, and dared not. He was probably the only Speaker who presided over so august an assembly as our English Parliament with a pewter pot of porter at his elbow, sending for more and more to Bellamy's till his heavy eyes closed of themselves. A modern M.P., carried back by some fancies to 'the Senate' of those days, might reasonably doubt whether his guide had not taken him by mistake to some Coal-hole or Cider-cellar, presided over by some former Baron Nicholson, and whether the furious eloquence of Messrs. Fox, Pitt, and Burke were not got up for the amusement of an audience admitted at sixpence a head. Selwyn's political jokes were the delight of Bellamy's! He said that Fox and Pitt reminded him of Hogarth's Idle and Industrious Apprentices. When asked by some one, as he sauntered out of the house--'Is the House up?' he replied; 'No, but Burke is.' The length of Burke's elaborate spoken essays was proverbial, and obtained for him the name of the 'Dinner-bell.' Fox was talking one day at Brookes' of the advantageous peace he had made with France, and that he had even induced that country to give up the _gum_ trade to England. 'That, Charles,' quoth Selwyn, sharply, 'I am not at all surprised at; for having drawn your _teeth_, they would be d----d fools to quarrel with you about gums.' Fox was often the object of his good-natured satire. As every one knows, his boast was to be called 'The Man of the People,' though perhaps he cared as little for the great unwashed as for the wealth and happiness of the waiters at his clubs.' Every one knows, too, what a dissolute life he led for many years. Selwyn's sleepiness was well known. He slept in the House; he slept, after losing £8oo 'and with as many more before him,' upon the gaming-table, with the dice-box 'stamped close to his ears;' he slept, or half-slept, even in conversation, which he seems to have caught by fits and starts. Thus it was that words he heard suggested different senses, partly from being only dimly associated with the subject on the _tapis_. So, when, they were talking around of the war, and whether it should be a sea war or a Continent war, Selwyn woke up just enough to say, 'I am for a sea war and a _Continent_ admiral.' When Fox had ruined himself, and a subscription for him was talked of, some one asked how they thought 'he would take it.'--'Take it,' cried Selwyn, suddenly lighting up, 'why, _quarterly_ to be sure.' His parliamentary career was then quite uneventful; but at the dissolution in 1780, he found that his security at Gloucester was threatened. He was not Whig enough for that constituency, and had throughout supported the war with America. He offered himself, of course, but was rejected with scorn, and forced to fly for a seat to Ludgershall. Walpole writes to Lady Ossory: 'They' (the Gloucester people) 'hanged him in effigy, and dressed up a figure of Mie-Mie' (his adopted daughter), 'and pinned on its breast these words, alluding to the gallows:--"This is what I told you you would come to!"' From Gloucester he went to Ludgershall, where he was received by ringing of bells and bonfires. 'Being driven out of my capital,' said he, 'and coming into that country of turnips, where I was adored, I seemed to be arrived in my Hanoverian dominions'--no bad hit at George II. For Ludgershall he sat for many years, with Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, whose 'Memoirs' are better known than trusted, as colleague. That writer says of Selwyn, that he was 'thoroughly well versed in our history, and master of many curious as well as secret anecdotes, relative to the houses of Stuart and Brunswick.' Another _bon-mot_, not in connection with politics, is reported by Walpole as incomparable.' Lord George Gordon asked him if the Ludgershall electors would take him (Lord George) for Ludgershall, adding, 'if you would recommend me, they would choose me, if I came from the coast of Africa.'--'That is according to what part of the coast you came from; they would certainly, if you came from the Guinea coast.' 'Now, Madam,' writes his friend, 'is not this true inspiration as well as true wit? Had any one asked him in which of the four quarters of the world Guinea is situated, could he have told?' Walpole did not perhaps know master George thoroughly--he was neither so ignorant nor so indifferent as he seemed. His manner got him the character of being both; but he was a still fool that ran deep. Though Selwyn did little with his two votes, he made them pay; and in addition to the post in the Mint, got out of the party he supported those of Registrar to the Court of Chancery in the Island of Barbadoes, a sinecure done by deputy, Surveyor of the Crown Lands, and Paymaster to the Board of Works. The wits of White's added the title of 'Receiver-General of Waif and Stray Jokes.' It is said that his hostility to Sheridan arose from the latter having lost him the office in the Works in 1782, when Burke's Bill for reducing the Civil List came into operation; but this is not at all probable, as his dislike was shown long before that period. Apropos of the Board of Works, Walpole gives another anecdote. On one occasion, in 1780, Lord George Gordon had been the only opponent on a division. Selwyn afterwards took him in his carriage to White's. 'I have brought,' said he, 'the whole Opposition in my coach, and I hope one coach will always hold them, if they mean to take away the Board of Works.' Undoubtedly, Selwyn's wit wanted the manner of the man to make it so popular, for, as we read it, it is often rather mild. To string a list of them together:--Lady Coventry showed him her new dress all covered with spangles as large as shillings. 'Bless my soul,' said he, 'you'll be change for a guinea.' Fox, debtor and bankrupt as he was, had taken lodgings with Fitzpatrick at an oilman's in Piccadilly. Every one pitied the landlord, who would certainly be ruined. 'Not a bit of it,' quoth George; 'he'll have the credit of keeping at his house the finest pickles in London.' Sometimes there was a good touch of satire on his times. When 'High Life Below Stairs' was first acted, Selwyn vowed he would go and see it, for he was sick of low life above stairs; and when a waiter at his Club had been convicted of felony, 'What a horrid idea,' said he, 'the man will give of _us_ in Newgate!' Dining with Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, he heard him say, in answer to a question about musical instruments in the East, 'I believe I saw one _lyre_ there.'--'Ay,' whispered the wit to his neighbour, 'and there's one less since he left the country.' Bruce shared the travellers' reputation of drawing the long-bow to a very considerable extent. Two of Selwyn's best _mots_ were about one of the Foley family, who were so deeply in debt that they had 'to go to Texas,' or Boulogne, to escape the money-lenders. 'That,' quoth Selwyn, 'is a _pass-over_ which will not be much relished by the Jews.' And again, when it was said that they would be able to cancel their father's old will by a new-found one, he profanely indulged in a pun far too impious to be repeated in our day, however it may have been relished in Selwyn's time. A picture called 'The Daughter of Pharaoh' in which the Princess Royal and her attendant ladies figured as the saver of Moses and her handmaids, was being exhibited in 1782, at a house opposite Brookes', and was to be the companion-piece to Copley's 'Death of Chatham.' George said he could recommend a better companion, to wit--the 'Sons of Pharaoh' at the opposite house. It is scarcely necessary to explain that pharaoh or faro was the most popular game of hazard then played. Walking one day with Lord Pembroke, and being besieged by a troop of small chimney-climbers, begging--Selwyn, after bearing their importunity very calmly for some time, suddenly turned round, and with the most serious face thus addressed them--'I have often heard of the sovereignty of the people; I suppose your highnesses are in Court mourning,' We can well imagine the effect of this sedate speech on the astonished youngsters. Pelham's truculency was well known. Walpole and his friend went to the sale of his plate in 1755. 'Lord,' said the wit, 'how many toads have been eaten off these plates!' [Illustration: SELWYN ACKNOWLEDGES THE "SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE."] The jokes were not always very delicate. When, in the middle of the summer of 1751, Lord North, who had been twice married before, espoused the widow of the Earl of Rockingham, who was fearfully stout, Selwyn suggested that she had been kept in ice for three days before the wedding. So, too, when there was talk of another _embonpoint_ personage going to America during the war, he remarked that she would make a capital _breast_-work. One of the few epigrams he ever wrote--if not the only one, of which there is some doubt--was in the same spirit. It is on the discovery of a pair of shoes in a certain lady's bed-- Well may Suspicion shake its head-- Well may Clorinda's spouse be jealous, When the dear wanton takes to bed Her very shoes--because they're fellows. Such are a few specimens of George Selwyn's wit; and dozens more are dispersed though Walpole's Letters. As Eliot Warburton remarks, they do not give us a very high idea of the humour of the period; but two things must be taken into consideration before we deprecate their author's title to the dignity and reputation he enjoyed so abundantly among his contemporaries; they are not necessarily the _best_ specimens that might have been given, if more of his _mots_ had been preserved; and their effect on his listeners depended more on the manner of delivery than on the matter. That they were improvised and unpremeditated is another important consideration. It is quite unfair to compare them, as Warburton does, with the hebdomadal trash of 'Punch,' though perhaps they would stand the comparison pretty well. It is one thing to force wit with plenty of time to invent and meditate it--another to have so much wit within you that you can bring it out on any occasion; one thing to compose a good fancy for _money_--another to utter it only when it flashes through the brain. But it matters little what we in the present day may think of Selwyn's wit, for conversation is spoiled by bottling, and should be drawn fresh when wanted. Selwyn's companions--all men of wit, more or less, affirmed him to be the most amusing man of his day, and that was all the part he had to play. No real wit ever hopes to _talk_ for posterity; and written wit is of a very different character to the more sparkling, if less solid, creations of a moment. We have seen Selwyn in many points of view, not all very creditable to him; first, expelled from Oxford for blasphemy; next, a professed gambler and the associate of men who led fashion in those days, it is true, but then it was very bad fashion; then as a lover of hangmen, a wit and a lounger. There is reason to believe that Selwyn, though less openly reprobate than many of his associates, was, in his quiet way, just as bad as any of them, if we except the Duke of Queensberry, his intimate friend, or the disgusting 'Franciscans' of Medmenham Abbey, of whom, though not the founder, nor even a member, he was, in a manner, the suggester in his blasphemy. But Selwyn's real character is only seen in profile in all these accounts. He had at the bottom of such vice, to which his position, and the fashion of the day introduced him, a far better heart than any of his contemporaries, and in some respects a kind of simplicity which was endearing. He was neither knave nor fool. He was not a voluptuary, like his friend the duke; nor a continued drunkard, like many other 'fine gentlemen' with whom he mixed; nor a cheat, though a gambler; nor a sceptic, like his friend Walpole; nor a blasphemer, like the Medmenham set, though he had once parodied profanely a sacred rite; nor was he steeped in debt, as Fox was; nor does he appear to have been a practised seducer, as too many of his acquaintance were. Not that these negative qualities are to his praise; but if we look at the age and the society around him, we must, at least, admit that Selwyn was not one of the worst of that wicked set. But the most pleasing point in the character of the old bachelor--for he was _too much_ of a wit ever to marry--is his affection for children--not his own. That is, not avowedly his own, for it was often suspected that the little ones he took up so fondly bore some relationship to him, and there can be little doubt that Selwyn, like everybody else in that evil age, had his intrigues. He did not die in his sins, and that is almost all we can say for him. He gave up gaming in time, protesting that it was the bane of four much better things--health, money, time, and thinking. For the last two, perhaps, he cared little. Before his death he is said to have been a Christian, which was a decided rarity in the fashionable set of his day. Walpole answered, when asked if he was a Freemason, that he never had been _anything_, and probably most of the men of the time would, if they had had the honesty, have said the same. They were not atheists professedly, but they neither believed in nor practised Christianity. His love for children has been called one of his eccentricities. It would be a hard name to give it if he had not been a club-lounger of his day. I have sufficient faith in human nature to trust that two-thirds of the men of this country have that most amiable eccentricity. But in Selwyn it amounted to something more than in the ordinary paterfamilias: it was almost a passion. He was almost motherly in his celibate tenderness to the little ones to whom he took a fancy. This affection he showed to several of the children, sons or daughters, of his friends; but to two especially, Anne Coventry and Maria Fagniani. The former was the daughter of the beautiful Maria Gunning, who became Countess of Coventry. Nanny, as he called her, was four years old when her mother died, and from that time he treated her almost as his own child. But Mie-Mie, as the little Italian was called, was far more favoured. Whoever may have been the child's father, her mother was a rather beautiful and very immoral woman, the wife of the Marchese Fagniani. She seems to have desired to make the most for her daughter out of the extraordinary rivalry of the two English 'gentlemen,' and they were admirably taken in by her. Whatever the truth may have been, Selwyn's love for children showed itself more strongly in this case than in any other; and, oddly enough, it seems to have begun when the little girl was at an age when children scarcely interest other men than their fathers--in short, in infancy. Her parents allowed him to have the sole charge of her at a very early age, when they returned to the Continent; but in 1777, the marchioness, being then in Brussels, claimed her daughter back again; though less, it seems, from any great anxiety on the child's account, than because her husband's parents, in Milan, objected to their grand-daughter being left in England; and also, not a little, from fear of the voice of Mrs. Grundy. Selwyn seems to have used all kinds of arguments to retain the child; and a long correspondence took place, which the marchesa begins with, 'My very dear friend,' and many affectionate expressions, and concludes with a haughty 'Sir,' and her opinion that his conduct was 'devilish.' The affair was, therefore, clearly a violent quarrel, and Selwyn was obliged at last to give up the child. He had a carriage fitted up for her expressly for her journey; made out for her a list of the best hotels on her route; sent his own confidential man-servant with her, and treasured up among his 'relics' the childish little notes, in a large scrawling hand, which Mie-Mie sent him. Still more curious was it to see this complete man of the world, this gambler for many years, this club-lounger, drinker, associate of well-dressed blasphemers, of Franciscans of Medmenham Abbey, devoting, not his money only, but his very time to this mere child, leaving town in the height of the season for dull Matson, that she might have fresh air; quitting his hot club-rooms, his nights spent at the piquet-table, and the rattle of the dice, for the quiet, pleasant terraces of his country-house, where he would hold the little innocent Mie-Mie by her tiny hand, as she looked up into his shrivelled dissipated face; quitting the interchange of wit, the society of the Townshends, the Walpoles, the Williamses, the Edgecumbes; all the jovial, keen wisdom of Gilly, and Dick, and Horace, and Charles, as they called one another, for the meaningless prattle, the merry laughter of this half-English, half-Italian child, It redeems Selwyn in our eyes, and it may have done him real good: nay, he must have felt a keen refreshment in this change from vice to innocence; and we understand the misery he expressed, when the old bachelor's one little companion and only pure friend was taken away from him. His love for the child was well known in London society; and of it did Sheridan's friends take advantage, when they wanted to get Selwyn out of Brookes', to prevent his black-balling the dramatist. The anecdote is given in the next memoir. In his later days Selwyn still haunted the clubs, hanging about, sleepy, shrivelled, dilapidated in face and figure, yet still respected and dreaded by the youngsters, as the 'celebrated Mr. Selwyn.' The wit's disease--gout--carried him off at last, in 1791, at the age of seventy-two. He left a fortune which was not contemptible: £33,000 of it were to go to Mie-Mie--by this time a young lady--and as the Duke of Queensberry, at his death, left her no less than £150,000, Miss was by no means a bad match for Lord Yarmouth.[6] See what a good thing it is to have three papas, when two of them are rich! The duke made Lord Yarmouth his residuary legatee, and between him and his wife divided nearly half-a-million. [6: Afterwards the well-known and dissolute Marquis of Hertford.] Let us not forget in closing this sketch of George Selwyn's life, that, gambler and reprobate as he was, he possessed some good traits, among which his love of children appears in shining colours. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Sheridan a Dunce.--Boyish Dreams of Literary Fame.--Sheridan in Love.--A Nest of Nightingales.--The 'Maid of Bath.'--Captivated by Genius.-- Sheridan's Elopement with 'Cecilia.'--His Duel with Captain Matthews.-- Standards of Ridicule.--Painful Family Estrangements.--Enters Drury Lane. --Success of the Famous 'School for Scandal.'--Opinions of Sheridan and his Influence.--The Literary Club.--Anecdote of Garrick's Admittance.-- Origin of the 'Rejected Addresses.'--New Flights.--Political Ambition.-- The Gaming Mania.--Almacks'.--Brookes'.--Black-balled.--Two Versions of the Election Trick.--St. Stephen's Won.--Vocal Difficulties.--Leads a Double Life.--Pitt's Vulgar Attack.--Sheridan's Happy Retort.--Grattan's Quip.--Sheridan's Sallies.--The Trial at Warren Hastings.--Wonderful Effect of Sheridan's Eloquence.--The Supreme Effort.--The Star Culminates.--Native Taste for Swindling.--A Shrewd but Graceless Oxonian.--Duns Outwitted.--The Lawyer Jockeyed.--Adventures with Bailiffs.--Sheridan's Powers of Persuasion.--House of Commons Greek.-- Curious Mimicry.--The Royal Boon Company.--Street Frolics at Night.--An Old Tale.--'All's well that ends well.'--The Fray in St. Giles.'-- Unopened Letters.--An Odd Incident.--Reckless Extravagance.--Sporting Ambition.--Like Father like Son.--A Severe and Witty Rebuke.-- Intemperance.--Convivial Excesses of a Past Day.--Worth wins at last.-- Bitter Pangs.--The Scythe of Death.--Sheridan's Second Wife.--Debts of Honour.--Drury Lane Burnt.--The Owner's Serenity.--Misfortunes never come Singly.--The Whitbread Quarrel.--Ruined.--Undone and almost Forsaken.-- The Dead Man Arrested.--The Stories fixed on Sheridan.--Extempore Wit and Inveterate Talkers. Poor Sheridan! gambler, spendthrift, debtor, as thou wert, what is it that shakes from our hand the stone we would fling at thee? Almost, we must confess it, thy very faults; at least those qualities which seem to have been thy glory and thy ruin: which brought thee into temptation; to which, hadst thou been less brilliant, less bountiful, thou hadst never been drawn. What is it that disarms us when we review thy life, and wrings from us a tear when we should utter a reproach? Thy punishment; that bitter, miserable end; that long battling with poverty, debt, disease, all brought on by thyself; that abandonment in the hour of need, more bitter than them all; that awakening to the terrible truth of the hollowness of man and rottenness of the world!--surely this is enough: surely we may hope that a pardon followed. But now let us view thee in thy upward flight the genius, the wit, the monarch of mind. This great man, this wonderful genius, this eloquent senator, this most applauded dramatist was--hear it, oh, ye boys! and fling it triumphantly in the faces of your pedagogues--Sheridan, at your age, was a dunce! This was the more extraordinary, inasmuch as his father, mother, and grandfather were all celebrated for their quick mental powers. The last, in fact, Dr. Sheridan, was a successful and eminent schoolmaster, the intimate friend of Dean Swift, and an author. He was an Irish man and a wit, and would seem to have been a Jacobite to boot, for he was deprived of a chaplaincy he held under Government, for preaching, on King George's birthday, a sermon having for its text 'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.' Sheridan's mother, again--an eccentric, extraordinary woman--wrote novels and plays; among the latter 'The Discovery,' which Garrick said was 'one of the best comedies he ever read;' and Sheridan's father, Tom Sheridan, was famous, in connection with the stage where he was so long the rival of David Garrick. Born of such parents, in September, 1751, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was sent in due course to Harrow, where that famous old pedant, Dr. Parr, was at that time one of the masters. The Doctor has himself described the lazy boy, in whose face he discovered the latent genius, and whom he attempted to inspire with a love of Greek verbs and Latin verses, by making him ashamed of his ignorance. But Richard preferred English verses and no verbs, and the Doctor failed. He did not, even at that period, cultivate elocution, of which his father was so good a master; though Dr. Parr remembered one of his sisters, on a visit to Harrow, reciting, in accordance with her father's teaching, the well-known lines-- '_None_ but the brave, None but the _brave_, None _but_ the brave deserve the fair. But the real mind of the boy who would not be a scholar showed itself early enough. He had only just left Harrow, when he began to display his literary abilities. He had formed at school the intimate acquaintance of Halhed, afterwards a distinguished Indianist, a man of like tastes with himself; he had translated with him some of the poems of Theocritus. The two boys had revelled together in boyish dreams of literary fame--ah, those boyish dreams! so often our noblest--so seldom realized. So often, alas! the aspirations to which we can look back as our purest and best, and which make us bitterly regret that they were but dreams. And now, when young Halhed went to Oxford, and young Sheridan to join his family at Bath, they continued these ambitious projects for a time, and laid out their fancy at full usury over many a work destined never to see the fingers of the printer's devil. Among these was a farce, or rather burlesque, which shows immense promise, and which, oddly enough, resembles in its cast the famous 'Critic,' which followed it later. It was called 'Jupiter,' and turned chiefly on the story of Ixion-- 'Embracing cloud, Ixion like,' the lover of Juno, who caught a cold instead of the Queen of Heaven; and who, according to the classical legend, tortured for ever on a wheel, was in this production to be condemned for ever to trundle the machine of a 'needy knife-grinder,' amid a grand musical chorus of 'razors, scissors, and penknives to grind!' This piece was amusing enough, and clever enough, though it betrayed repeatedly the youthfulness of its authors; but less so their next attempt, a weekly periodical, to be called 'Hernan's Miscellany,' of which Sheridan wrote, or was to write, pretty nearly the whole. None but the first number was ever completed, and perhaps we need not regret that no more followed it; but it is touching to see these two young men, both feeling their powers, confident in them, and sunning their halcyon's wings in the happy belief that they were those of the eagle, longing eagerly, earnestly, for the few poor guineas that they hoped from their work. Halhed, indeed, wrote diligently, but his colleague was not true to the contract, and though the hope of gold stimulated him--for he was poor enough--from time to time to a great effort, he was always 'beginning,' and never completing. The only real product of these united labours was a volume of Epistles in verse from the Greek of a poor writer of late age, Aristaenetus. This volume, which does little credit to either of its parents, was positively printed and published in 1770, but the rich harvest of fame and shillings which they expected from it was never gathered in. Yet the book excited some little notice. The incognito of its authors induced some critics to palm it even on such a man as Dr. Johnson; others praised; others sneered at it. In the young men it raised hopes, only to dash them; but its failure was not so utter as to put the idea of literary success entirely out of their heads, nor its success sufficient to induce them to rush recklessly into print, and thus strangle their fame in its cradle. Let it fail, was Richard Sheridan's thought; he had now a far more engrossing ambition. In a word, he was in love. Yes, he was in love for a time--only for a time, and not truly. But, be it remembered, Sheridan's evil days had not commenced. He sowed his wild oats late in life,--alack for him!--and he never finished sowing them. His was not the viciousness of nature, but the corruption of success. 'In all time of wealth, good Lord deliver us!' What prayer can wild, unrestrained, unheeding Genius utter with more fervency? I own Genius is rarely in love. There is an egotism, almost a selfishness, about it, that will not stoop to such common worship. Women know it, and often prefer the blunt, honest, common-place soldier to the wild erratic poet. Genius, grand as it is, is unsympathetic. It demands higher--the highest joys. Genius claims to be loved, but to love is too much to ask it. And yet at this time Sheridan was not a matured Genius. When his development came, he cast off this very love for which he had fought, manoeuvred, struggled, and was unfaithful to the very wife whom he had nearly died to obtain. Miss Linley was one of a family who have been called 'a nest of nightingales.' Young ladies who practise elaborate pieces and sing simple ballads in the voice of a white mouse, know the name of Linley well. For ages the Linleys have been the bards of England--composers, musicians, singers, always popular, always English. Sheridan's love was one of the most renowned of the family, but the 'Maid of Bath,' as she was called, was as celebrated for her beauty as for the magnificence of her voice. When Sheridan first knew her, she was only sixteen years old--very beautiful, clever, and modest. She was a singer by profession, living at Bath, as Sheridan, only three years older than herself, also was, but attending concerts, oratorios, and so forth, in other places, especially at Oxford. Her adorers were legion; and the Oxford boys especially--always in love as they are--were among them. Halhed was among these last, and in the innocence of his heart confided his passion to his friend Dick Sheridan. At sixteen the young beauty began her conquests. A rich old Wiltshire squire, with a fine heart, as golden as his guineas, offered to or for her, and was readily accepted. But 'Cecilia,' as she was always called, could not sacrifice herself on the altar of duty, and she privately told him that though she honoured and esteemed, she could never love him. The old gentleman proved his worth. Did he storm? did he hold her to her engagement? did he shackle himself with a young wife, who would only learn to hate him for his persinacity? Not a bit of it. He acted with a generosity which should be held up as a model to all old gentlemen who are wild enough, to fall in love with girls of sixteen. He knew Mr. Linley, who was delighted with the match, would be furious if it were broken off. He offered to take on himself all the blame if the breach, and, to satisfy the angry parent, settled £1,000 on the daughter. The offer was accepted, and the trial for breach of promise with which the père Linley had threatened Mr. Long, was of course withheld. Mr. Long afterwards presented Mrs. Sheridan with £3,000. The 'Maid of Bath' was now an heiress as well as a fascinating beauty, but her face and her voice were the chief enchantments with her ardent and youthful adorers. The Sheridans had settled in Mead Street, in that town which is celebrated for its gambling, its scandal, and its unhealthy situation at the bottom of a natural basin. Well might the Romans build their baths there: it will take more water than even Bath supplies to wash out its follies and iniquities. It certainly is strange how washing and cards go together. One would fancy there were no baths in Eden, for wherever there are baths, there we find idleness and all its attendant vices. The Linleys were soon intimate with the Sheridans, and the Maid of Bath added to her adorers both Richard and his elder brother Charles; only, just as at Harrow every one thought Richard a dunce and he disappointed them; so at Bath no one thought Richard would fall in love, and he _did_ disappoint them--none more so than Charles, his brother, and Halhed, his bosom friend. As for the latter, he was almost mad in his devotion, and certainly extravagant in his expressions. He described his passion by a clever, but rather disagreeable simile, which Sheridan, who was a most disgraceful plagiarist, though he had no need to be so, afterwards adopted as his own. 'Just as the Egyptian pharmacists,' wrote Halhed, in a Latin letter, in which he described the power of Miss Linley's voice over his spirit, 'were wont, in embalming a dead body to draw the brain out through the ears with a crooked hook, this nightingale has drawn out through mine ears not my brain only, but my heart also.' Then among other of her devotees were Norris, the singer, and Mr. Watts, a rich gentleman-commoner, who had also met her at Oxford. Surely with such and other rivals, the chances of the quiet, unpretending, undemonstrative boy of nineteen were small. But no, Miss Linley was foolish enough to be captivated by genius, and charmed by such poems as the quiet boy wrote to her, of which this is, perhaps, one of the prettiest: 'Dry that tear, my gentlest love; Be hush'd that struggling sigh, Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove More fix'd, more true than I. Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear; Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear: Dry be that tear. 'Ask'st thou how long my love will stay, When all that's new is past? How long, ah Delia, can I say How long my life will last? Dry be that tear, be hush'd that sigh, At least I'll love thee till I die: Hush'd be that sigh. 'And does that thought affect thee too, The thought of Sylvio's death, That he who only breath'd for you, Must yield that faithful breath? Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear, Nor let us lose our Heaven here: Be dry that tear.' The many adorers had not the remotest suspicion of this devotion, and 'gave her' to this, that, or the other eligible personage; but the villanous conduct of a scoundrel soon brought the matter to a crisis. The whole story was as romantic as it could be. In a three-volume novel, critics, always so just and acute in their judgment, would call it far-fetched, improbable, unnatural; in short, anything but what should be the plot of the pure 'domestic English story.' Yet, here it is with almost dramatic effect, the simple tale of what really befel one of our most celebrated men. Yes, to complete the fiction-like aspect of the affair, there was even a 'captain' in the matter--as good a villain as ever shone in short hose and cut doublet at the 'Strand' or 'Victoria.' Captain Matthews was a married man, and a very naughty one. He was an intimate friend of the Linleys, and wanted to push his intimacy too far. In short, 'not to put too fine a point on it' (too fine a point is precisely what never _is_ put), he attempted to seduce the pretty, innocent girl, and not dismayed at one failure, went on again and again. 'Cecilia,' knowing the temper of Linley père, was afraid to expose him to her father, and with a course, which we of the present day cannot but think strange, if nothing more, disclosed the attempts of her persecutor to no other than her own lover, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Strange want of delicacy, undoubtedly, and yet we can excuse the poor songstress, with a father who sought only to make money out of her talents, and no other relations to confide in. But Richard Brinsley, long her lover, now resolved to be both her protector and her husband. He persuaded her to fly to France, under cover of entering a convent. He induced his sister to lend him money out of that provided for the housekeeping at home, hired a post-chaise, and sent a sedan-chair to her father's house in the Crescent to convey her to it, and wafted her off to town. Thence, after a few adroit lies on the part of Sheridan, they sailed to Dunkirk; and there he persuaded her to become his wife. She consented, and they were knotted together by an obliging priest accustomed to these runaway matches from _la perfide Albion_. The irate parent, Linley, followed, recaptured his daughter, and brought Her back to England. Meanwhile, the elopement excited great agitation in the good city of Bath, and among others, the villain of the story, the gallant Captain Matthews, posted Richard Brinsley as 'a scoundrel and a liar,' the then polite method of expressing disgust. Home came Richard in the wake of Miss Linley, who rejoiced in the unromantic praenomen of 'Betsy,' to her angry parent, and found matters had been running high in his short absence. A duel with Matthews seems to have been the natural consequence, and up Richard posted to London to fight it. Matthews played the craven--Sheridan the impetuous lover. They met, fought, seized one another's swords, wrestled, fell together, and wounded each other with the stumps of their rapiers in true Chevy-Chase fashion. Matthews, who had behaved in a cowardly manner in the first affair, sought to retrieve his honour by sending a second challenge. Again the rivals--well represented in 'The Rivals' afterwards produced--met at Kingsdown. Mr. Matthews drew; Mr. Sheridan advanced on him at first: Mr. Matthews in turn advanced fast on Mr. Sheridan; upon which he retreated, till he very suddenly ran in upon Mr. Matthews, laying himself exceedingly open, and endeavouring to get hold of Mr. Matthews' sword. Mr. Matthews received him at point, and, I believe, disengaged his sword from Mr. Sheridan's body, and gave him another wound. The same scene was now enacted, and a _combat à l'outrance_ took place, ending in mutual wounds, and fortunately no one dead. Poor little Betsy was at Oxford when all this took place. On her return to Bath she heard something of it, and unconsciously revealed the secret of her private marriage, claiming the right of a wife to watch over her wounded husband. Then came the _dénouement_. Old Tom Sheridan rejected his son. The angry Linley would have rejected his daughter, but for her honour. Richard was sent off into Essex, and in due time the couple were legally married in England. So ended a wild, romantic affair, in which Sheridan took a desperate, but not altogether honourable, part. But the dramatist got more out of it than a pretty wife. Like all true geniuses, he employed his own experience in the production of his works, and drew from the very event of his life some hints or touches to enliven the characters of his imagination. Surely the bravado and cowardice of Captain Matthews, who on the first meeting in the Park is described as finding all kinds of difficulties in the way of their fighting, objecting now to the ground as unlevel, now to the presence of a stranger, who turns out to be an officer, and very politely moves off when requested, who, in short, delays the event as long as possible, must have supplied the idea of Bob Acres; while the very conversations, of which we have no record, may have given him some of those hints of character which made the 'Rivals' so successful. That play--his first--was written in 1774. It failed on its first appearance, owing to the bad acting of the part of Sir Lucius O'Trigger, by Mr. Lee; but when another actor was substituted, the piece was at once successful, and acted with overflowing houses all over the country. How could it be otherwise? It may have been exaggerated, far-fetched, unnatural, but such characters as Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Lucius, Bob Acres, Lydia Languish, and most of all Mrs. Malaprop, so admirably conceived, and so carefully and ingeniously worked out, could not but be admired. They have become household words; they are even now our standards of ridicule, and be they natural or not, these last eighty years have changed the world so little that Malaprops and Acreses may be found in the range of almost any man's experience, and in every class of society. Sheridan and his divine Betsy were now living in their own house, in that Dull little place, Orchard Street, Portman Square, then an aristocratic neighbourhood, and he was diligent in the production of essays, pamphlets, and farces, many of which never saw the light, while others fell flat, or were not calculated to bring him any fame. What great authors have not experienced the same disappointments? What men would ever be great if they allowed such checks to damp their energy, or were turned back by them from the course in which they feel that their power lies? But his next work, the opera of 'The Duenna,' had a yet more signal success, and a run of no less than seventy-five nights at Covent Garden, which put Garrick at Drury Lane to his wit's end to know how to compete with it. Old Linley himself composed the music for it; and to show how thus a family could hold the stage, Garrick actually played off the mother against the son, and revived Mrs. Sheridan's comedy of 'The Discovery,' to compete with Richard Sheridan's 'Duenna.' The first night 'The Rivals' was brought out at Bath came Sheridan's father, who, as we have seen, had refused to have anything to say to his son. It is related as an instance of Richard's filial affection, that during the representation he placed himself behind a side-scene opposite to the box in which his father and sisters sat, and gazed at them all the time. When he returned to his house and wife, he burst into tears, and declared that he felt it too bitter that he alone should have been forbidden to speak to those on whom he had been gazing all the night. During the following year this speculative man, who married on nothing but his brain, and had no capital, no wealthy friends, in short nothing whatever, suddenly appears in the most mysterious manner as a capitalist, and lays down his £10,000 in the coolest and quietest manner. And for what? For a share in the purchase of Garrick's moiety of the patent of Drury Lane. The whole property was worth £70,000; Garrick sold his half for £35,000, of which old Mr. Linley contributed £10,000, Dr. Ford £15,000, and penniless Sheridan the balance. Where he got the money nobody knew, and apparently nobody asked. It was paid, and he entered at once on the business of proprietor of that old house, where so many a Roscius has strutted and declaimed with more or less fame; so many a Walking gentleman done his five shillings' worth of polite comedy, so many a tinsel king degraded the 'legitimate drama,' in the most illegitimate manner, and whose glories were extinguished with the reign of Macready, when we were boys, _nous autres_. The first piece he contributed to this stage was 'A Trip to Scarborough,' Which was only a species of 'family edition of Vanbrugh's play, 'The Relapse;' but in 1777 he reached the acme of his fame, in 'The School for Scandal.' But alack and alas for these sensual days, when it is too much trouble to think, and people go to the play, if they go at all, to feast their eyes and ears, not their minds; can any sensible person believe that if 'The School for Scandal,' teeming as it does with wit, satire, and character, finer and truer than in any play produced since the days of Ben Jonson, Massinger, and Marlowe, were set on the boards of the Haymarket at this day, as a new piece by an author of no very high celebrity, it would draw away a single admirer from the flummery in Oxford Street, the squeaking at Covent Garden, or the broad, exaggerated farce at the Adelphi or Olympic? No: it may still have its place on the London stage when well acted, but it owes that to its ancient celebrity, and it can never compete with the tinsel and tailoring which alone can make even Shakspeare go down with a modern audience. In those days of Garrick, on the other hand, those glorious days of true histrionic art, high and low were not ashamed to throng Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and make the appearance of a new play the great event of the season. Hundreds were turned away from the doors, when 'The School for Scandal' was acted, and those who were fortunate enough to get in made the piece the subject of conversation in society for many a night, passing keen comment on every scene, every line, every word almost, and using their minds as we now use our eyes. This brilliant play, the earliest idea of which was derived from its author's experience of the gossip of that kettle of scandal and backbiting, Bath, where, if no other commandment were ever broken, the constant breach of the ninth would suffice to put it on a level with certain condemned cities we have somewhere read of, won for Sheridan a reputation of which he at once felt the value, and made his purchase of a share in the property of Old Drury for the time being, a successful speculation. It produced a result which his good heart perhaps valued even more than the guineas which now flowed in; it induced his father, who had long been at war with him, to seek a reconciliation, and the elder Sheridan actually became manager of the theatre of which his son was part proprietor. Old Tom Sheridan had always been a proud man, and when once he was offended, was hard to bring round again. His quarrel with Johnson was an instance of this. In 1762 the Doctor, hearing they had given Sheridan a pension of two hundred a year, exclaimed, 'What have they given _him_ a pension? then it is time for me to give up mine.' A 'kind friend' took care to repeat the peevish exclamation, without adding what Johnson had said immediately afterwards, 'However, I am glad that they have given Mr. Sheridan a pension, for he is a very good man.' The actor was disgusted; and though Boswell interfered, declined to be reconciled. On one occasion he even rushed from a house at which he was to dine, when he heard that the great Samuel had been invited. The Doctor had little opinion of Sheridan's declamation. 'Besides, sir,' said he, 'what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country by his narrow exertions. Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover to show light at Calais.' Still, when Garrick attacked his rival, Johnson nobly defended him. 'No sir,' he said, 'there is to be sure, in Sheridan, something to reprehend, and everything to laugh at; but, sir, he is not a bad man. No, sir, were mankind to be divided into good and bad, he would stand considerably within the ranks of the good.' However, the greatest bully of his age (and the kindest-hearted man) thought very differently of the son. Richard Brinsley had written a prologue to Savage's play of 'Sir Thomas Overbury'-- 'Ill-fated Savage, at whose birth was giv'n No parent but the Muse, no friend but Heav'n;' and in this had paid an elegant compliment to the great lexicographer, winding up with these lines:-- 'So pleads the tale that gives to future times The son's misfortunes and the parent's crimes; There shall his fame, if own'd to-night, survive, Fix'd _by the hand that bids our language live_-- referring at once to Johnson's life of his friend Savage and to his great Dictionary. It was Savage, every one remembers, with whom Johnson in his days of starvation was wont to walk the streets all night, neither of them being able to pay for a lodging, and with whom, walking one night round and round St. James's Square, he kept up his own and his companion's spirits by inveighing against the minister and declaring that they would 'stand by their country.' Doubtless the Doctor felt as much pleasure at the meed awarded to his old companion in misery as at the high compliment to himself. Anyhow he pronounced that Sheridan 'had written the two best comedies of his age,' and therefore proposed him as a member of the Literary Club. This celebrated gathering of wit and whimsicality, founded by Johnson himself in conjunction with Sir J. Reynolds, was the Helicon of London Letters, and the temple which the greatest talker of his age had built for himself, and in which he took care to be duly worshipped. It met at the Turk's Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, every Friday; and from seven in the evening to almost any hour of night was the scene of such talk, mainly on literature and learning, as has never been heard since in this country. It consisted at this period of twenty-six members, and there is scarcely one among them whose name is not known to-day as well as any in the history of our literature. Besides the high priests, Reynolds and Johnson, there came Edmund Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and many another of less note, to represent the senate: Goldsmith, Gibbon, Adam Smith, Malone, Dr. Burney, Percy, Nugent, Sir William Jones, three Irish bishops, and a host of others, crowded in from the ranks of learning and literature. Garrick and George Colman found here an indulgent audience; and the light portion of the company comprised such men as Topham Beauclerk, Bennet Langton, Vesey, and a dozen of lords and baronets. In short, they were picked men, and if their conversation was not always witty, it was because they had all wit and frightened one another. [Illustration: THE FAMOUS LITERARY CLUB.] Among them the bullying Doctor rolled in majestic grumpiness; scolded, dogmatized, contradicted, pished and pshawed; and made himself generally disagreeable; yet, hail the omen, Intellect! such was the force, such the fame of his mind, that the more he snorted, the more they adored him--the more he bullied, the more humbly they knocked under. He was quite 'His Majesty' at the Turk's Head, and the courtiers waited for his coming with anxiety, and talked of him till he came in the same manner as the lacqueys in the anteroom of a crowned monarch. Boswell, who, by the way, was also a member--of course he was, or how should we have had the great man's conversations handed down to us?--was sure to keep them up to the proper mark of adulation if they ever flagged in it, and was as servile in his admiration in the Doctor's absence as when he was there to call him a fool for his pains. Thus, on one occasion while 'King Johnson' tarried, the courtiers were discussing his journey to the Hebrides and his coming away 'willing to believe the second sight.' Some of them smiled at this, but Bozzy was down on them with more than usual servility. 'He is only _willing_ to believe,' he exclaimed. '_I do_ believe. The evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle will fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief.'--'Are you?' said Colman, slily; 'then cork it up.' As a specimen of Johnson's pride in his own club, which always remained extremely exclusive, we have what he said of Garrick, who, before he was elected, carelessly told Reynolds he liked the club, and thought 'he would be of them.' '_He'll be of us!_' roared the Doctor indignantly, on hearing of this. 'How does he know we will _permit_ him? The first duke in England has no right to hold such language!' It can easily be imagined that when 'His Majesty' expressed his approval of Richard Brinsley, then a young man of eight-and-twenty, there was no one who ventured to blackball him, and so Sheridan was duly elected. The fame of 'The School for Scandal' was a substantial one for Richard Brinsley, and in the following year he extended his speculation by buying the other moiety of Drury Lane. This theatre, which took its name from the old Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane, where Killigrew acted in the days of Charles II. is famous for the number of times it has been rebuilt. The first house had been destroyed in 1674; and the one in which Garrick acted was built by Sir Christopher Wren and opened with a prologue by Dryden. In 1793 this was rebuilt. In 1809 it was burnt to the ground; and on its re-opening the Committee advertised a prize for a prologue, which was supposed to be tried for by all the poets and poetasters then in England.[7] Sheridan adding afterwards a condition that he wanted an address without a Phoenix in it. Horace Smith and his brother seized the opportunity to parody the style of the most celebrated in their delightful 'Rejected Addresses.' Drury Lane has always been grand in its prologue, for besides Dryden and Byron, it could boast of Sam. Johnson, who wrote the address when Garrick opened the theatre in 1747. No theatre ever had more great names connected with its history. [7: None of the addresses sent in having given satisfaction, Lord Byron was requested to write one, which he did.] It was in 1778, after the purchase of the other moiety of this property, that Sheridan set on its boards 'The Critic.' Though this was denounced as itself as complete a plagiarism as any Sir Fretful Plagiary could make, and though undoubtedly the idea of it was borrowed, its wit, so truly Sheridanian, and its complete characters, enhanced its author's fame, in spite of the disappointment of those who expected higher things from the writer of 'The School for Scandal.' Whether Sheridan would have gone on improving, had he remained true to the drama, 'The Critic' leaves us in doubt. But he was a man of higher ambition. Step by step, unexpectedly, and apparently unprepared, he had taken by storm the out-works of the citadel he was determined to capture, and he seems to have cared little to garrison these minor fortresses. He had carried off from among a dozen suitors a wife of such beauty that Walpole thus writes of her in 1773:-- 'I was at the ball last night, and have only been at the opera, where I was infinitely struck with the Carrara, who is the prettiest creature upon earth. Mrs. Hartley I find still handsomer, and Miss Linley is to be the superlative degree. The king admires the last, and ogles her as much as he dares in so holy a place as an oratorio, and at so devout a service as Alexander's Feast' Yet Sheridan did not prize his lovely wife as he should have done, when he had once obtained her. Again he had struck boldly into the drama, and in four years had achieved that fame as a play-writer to which even Johnson could testify so handsomely. He now quitted this, and with the same innate power--the same consciousness of success--the same readiness of genius--took a higher, far more brilliant flight than ever. Yet had he garrisoned the forts he captured, he would have been a better, happier, and more prosperous man. Had he been true to the Maid of Bath, his character would not have degenerated as it did. Had he kept up his connection with the drama, he would not have lost so largely by his speculation in Drury Lane. His genius became his temptation, and he hurried on to triumph and to fall. Public praise is a syren which the young sailor through life cannot resist. Political life is a fine aim, even when its seeker starts without a shred of real patriotism to conceal his personal ambition. No young man of any character can think, without a thrill of rapture, on the glory of having _his_ name--now obscure--written in capitals on the page of his country's history. A true patriot cares nothing for fame; a really great man is content to die nameless, if his acts may but survive him. Sheridan was not really great, and it may be doubted if he had any sincerity in his political views. But the period favoured the rise of young men of genius. In former reigns a man could have little hope of political influence without being first a courtier; but by this time liberalism had made giant strides. The leaven of revolutionary ideas, which had leavened the whole lump in France, was still working quietly and less passionately in this country, and being less repressed, displayed itself in the last quarter of the eighteenth century in the form of a strong and brilliant opposition. It was to this that the young men of ambition attached themselves, rallying under the standard of Charles James Fox, since it was there only that their talents were sufficient to recommend them. To this party, Sheridan, laughing in his sleeve at the extravagance of their demands--so that when they clamoured for a 'parliament once a year, or oftener if need be,' he pronounced himself an 'Oftener-if-need-be' man--was introduced, when his fame as a literary man had brought him into contact with some of its hangers on. Fox, after his first interview with him, affirmed that he had always thought Hare and Charles Townsend the wittiest men he had ever met, but that Sheridan surpassed them both; and Sheridan was equally pleased with 'the Man of the People.' The first step to this political position was to become a member of a certain club, where its leaders gambled away their money, and drank away their minds--to wit, Brookes'. Pretty boys, indeed, were these great Whig patriots when turned loose in these precincts. The tables were for stakes of twenty or fifty guineas, but soon ran up to hundreds. What did it matter to Charles James Fox, to the Man of the People, whether he lost five, seven, or ten thousand of a night, when the one-half came out of his father's, the other out of Hebrew, pockets--the sleek, thick-lipped owners of which thronged his Jerusalem chamber, as he called his back sitting-room, only too glad to 'oblige' him to any amount? The rage for gaming at this pandemonium may be understood from a rule of the club, which it was found necessary to make to interdict it _in the eating-room_, but to which was added the truly British exception, which allowed two members of Parliament in those days, or two 'gentlemen' of any kind, to toss up for what they had ordered. This charming resort of the dissipated was originally established in Pall Mall in 1764, and the manager was that same Almack who afterwards opened a lady's club in the rooms now called Willis's, in King Street, St. James's; who also owned the famous Thatched House, and whom Gilly Williams described as having a 'Scotch face, in a bag-wig,' waiting on the ladies at supper. In 1778 Brookes--a wine-merchant and money-lender, whom Tickell, in his famous 'Epistle from the Hon. Charles Fox, partridge-shooting, to the Hon. John Townsend, cruising,' describes in these lines;-- 'And know I've bought the best champagne from Brookes, From liberal Brookes, whose speculative skill Is hasty credit, and a distant bill: Who, nurs'd in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade: Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid--' built and opened the present club-house in St. James's Street, and thither the members of Almack's migrated. Brookes' speculative skill, however, did not make him a rich man, and the 'gentlemen' he dealt with were perhaps too gentlemanly to pay him. He died poor in 1782. Almack's at first consisted of twenty-seven members, one of whom was C.J. Fox. Gibbon, the historian, was actually a member of it, and says that in spite of the rage for play, he found the society there rational and entertaining. Sir Joshua Reynolds wanted to be a member of it too. 'You see,' says Topham Beauclerk thereupon, 'what noble ambition will make a man attempt. That den is not yet opened,' &c. Brookes', however, was far more celebrated, and besides Fox, Reynolds, and Gibbon, there were here to be found Horace Walpole, David Hume, Burke, Selwyn, and Garrick. It would be curious to discover how much religion, how much morality, and how much vanity there were among the set. The first two would require a microscope to examine, the last an ocean to contain it. But let Tickell describe its inmates:-- 'Soon as to Brookes's thence thy footsteps bend What gratulations thy approach attend! See Gibbon rap his box--auspicious sign, That classic compliment and wit combine; See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise, And friendship give what cruel health denies; * * * * * Of wit, of taste, of fancy we'll debate, If Sheridan for once be not too late. But scarce a thought on politics we'll spare Unless on Polish politics with Hare. Good-natured Devon! oft shall there appear The cool complacence of thy friendly sneer; Oft shall Fitzpatrick's wit, and Stanhope's ease, And Burgoyne's manly sense combine to please. To show how high gaming ran in this assembly of wits, even so early at 1772, there is a memorandum in the books, stating that Mr. Thynne retired from the club in disgust, because he had only won £12,000 in two months. The principal games at this period were quinze and faro. Into this eligible club Richard Sheridan, who ten years before had been agreeing with Halhed on the bliss of making a couple of hundred pounds by their literary exertions, now essayed to enter as a member; but in vain. One black-ball sufficed to nullify his election, and that one was dropped in by George Selwyn, who, with degrading littleness, would not have the son of an actor among them. Again and again he made the attempt; again and again Selwyn foiled him; and it was not till 1780 that he succeeded. The Prince of Wales was then his devoted friend, and was determined he should be admitted into the club. The elections at that time took place between eleven at night and one o'clock in the morning, and the 'greatest gentleman in Europe' took care to be in the hall when the ballot began. Selwyn came down as usual, bent on triumph. The prince called him to him. There was nothing for it; Selwyn was forced to obey. The prince walked him up and down the hall, engaging him in an apparently most important conversation. George Selwyn answered him question after question, and made desperate attempts to slip away. The other George had always something more to say to him. The long finger of the clock went round, and Selwyn's long white fingers were itching for the black ball. The prince was only more and more interested, the wit only more and more abstracted. Never was the young George more lively, or the other more silent. But it was all in vain. The finger of the clock went round and round, and at last the members came out noisily from the balloting-room, and the smiling faces of the prince's friends showed to the unhappy Selwyn that his enemy had been elected. So, at least, runs one story. The other, told by Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, is perhaps more probable. It appears that the Earl of Besborough was no less opposed to his election than George Selwyn, and these two individuals agreed at any cost of comfort to be always at the club at the time of the ballot to throw in their black balls. On the night of his success, Lord Besborough was there as usual, and Selwyn was at his rooms in Cleveland Row, preparing to come to the club. Suddenly a chairman rushed into Brookes' with an important note for my lord, who, on tearing it open, found to his horror that it was from his daughter-in-law, Lady Duncannon, announcing that his house in Cavendish Square was on fire, and imploring him to come immediately. Feeling confident that his fellow conspirator would be true to his post, the earl set off at once. But almost the same moment Selwyn received a message informing him that his adopted daughter, of whom he was very fond, was seized with an alarming illness. The ground was cleared; and by the time the earl returned, having, it is needless to say, found his house in a perfect state of security, and was joined by Selwyn, whose daughter had never been better in her life, the actor's son was elected, and the conspirators found they had been duped. But it is far easier in this country to get into that House, where one has to represent the interests of thousands, and take a share in the government of a nation, than to be admitted to a club where one has but to lounge, to gamble, and to eat dinner; and Sheridan was elected for the town of Stafford with probably little more artifice than the old and stale one of putting five-pound notes under voters' glasses, or paying thirty pounds for a home-cured ham. Whether he bribed or not, a petition was presented against his election, almost as a matter of course in those days, and his maiden speech was made in defence of the good burgesses of that quiet little county-town. After making this speech, which was listened to in silence on account of his reputation as a dramatic author, but which does not appear to have been very wonderful, he rushed up to the gallery, and eagerly asked his friend Woodfall what he thought of it. That candid man shook his head, and told him oratory was not his forte, Sheridan leaned his head on his hand a moment, and then exclaimed with vehement emphasis, 'It is in me, however, and, by Heaven! it shall come out.' He spoke prophetically, yet not as the great man who determines to conquer difficulties, but rather as one who feels conscious of his own powers, and knows that they must show themselves sooner or later. Sheridan found himself labouring under the same natural obstacles as Demosthenes--though in a less degree--a thick and disagreeable tone of voice; but we do not find in the indolent but gifted Englishman that admirable perseverance, that conquering zeal, which enabled the Athenian to turn these very impediments to his own advantage. He did, indeed, prepare his speeches, and at times had fits of that same diligence which he had displayed in the preparation of 'The School for Scandal;' but his indolent, self-indulgent mode of life left him no time for such steady devotion to oratory as might have made him the finest speaker of his age, for perhaps his natural abilities were greater than those of Pitt, Fox, or even Burke, though his education was inferior to that of those two statesmen. From this time Sheridan's life had two phases--that of a politician, and that of a man of the world. With the former, we have nothing to do in such a memoir as this, and indeed it is difficult to say whether it was in oratory, the drama, or wit that he gained the greatest celebrity. There is, however, some difference between the three capacities. On the mimic stage, and on the stage of the country, his fame rested on a very few grand outbursts--some matured, prepared, deliberated--others spontaneous. He left only three great comedies, and perhaps we may say only one really grand. In the same way he made only two great speeches, or perhaps we may say only one. His wit on the other hand--though that too is said to have been studied--was the constant accompaniment of his daily life, and Sheridan has not left two or three celebrated bon-mots, but a hundred. But even in his political career his wit, which must then have been spontaneous, won him almost as much fame as his eloquence, which he seems to have reserved for great occasions. He was the wit of the House. Wit, ridicule, satire, quiet, cool, and easy sneers, always made in good temper, and always therefore the more bitter, were his weapons, and they struck with unerring accuracy. At that time--nor at that time only--the 'Den of Thieves,' as Cobbett called our senate, was a cockpit as vulgar and personal as the present Congress of the United States. Party-spirit meant more than it has ever done since, and scarcely less than it had meant when the throne itself was the stake for which parties played some forty years before. There was, in fact a substantial personal centre for each side. The one party rallied round a respectable but maniac monarch, whose mental afflictions took the most distressing form, the other round his gay, handsome, dissolute--nay disgusting--son, at once his rival and his heir. The spirit of each party was therefore personal, and their attacks on one another were more personal than anything we can imagine in the present day in so respectably ridiculous a conclave as the House of Commons. It was little for one honourable gentleman to give another honourable gentleman the lie direct before the eyes of the country. The honourable gentlemen descended--or, as they thought, ascended--to the most vehement invective, and such was at times the torrent of personal abuse which parties heaped on one another, while good-natured John Bull looked on and smiled at his rulers, that, as in the United States of to-day, a debate was often the prelude to a duel. Pitt and Fox, Tierney, Adam, Fullarton, Lord George Germain, Lord Shelburne, and Governor Johnstone, all 'vindicated their honour,' as the phrase went, by 'coffee and pistols for four.' If Sheridan had not to repeat the Bob Acres scene with Captain Matthews, it was only because his wonderful good humour could put up with a great deal that others thought could only be expiated by a hole in the waistcoat. In the administration of the Marquis of Rockingham the dramatist enjoyed the pleasures of office for less than a year as one of the Under Secretaries of State in 1782. In the next year we find him making a happy retort on Pitt, who had somewhat vulgarly alluded to his being a dramatic author. It was on the American question, perhaps the bitterest that ever called forth the acrimony of parties in the House. Sheridan, from boyhood, had been taunted with being the son of an actor. One can hardly credit this fact, just after Garrick had raised the profession of an actor to so great an eminence in the social scale. He had been called 'the player boy' at school, and his election at Brookes' had been opposed on the same grounds. It was evidently his bitterest point, and Pitt probably knew this when, in replying to a speech of the ex-dramatist's he said that 'no man admired more than he did the abilities of that right honourable gentleman, the elegant sallies of his thought, the gay effusions of his fancy, his _dramatic_ turns, and his epigrammatic point; and if they were reserved for the _proper stage,_ they would, no doubt, receive what the hon. gentleman's abilities always did receive, the plaudits of the audience; and it would be his fortune _sui plausu gaudere theatri_. But this was not the proper scene for the exhibition of those elegancies.' This was vulgar in Pitt, and probably every one felt so. But Sheridan rose, cool and collected, and quietly replied:-- 'On the particular sort of personality which the right hon. gentleman has thought proper to make use of, I need not make any comment. The propriety, the taste, the gentlemanly point of it, must have been obvious to the House. But let me assure the right hon. gentleman that I do now, and will at any time he chooses to repeat this sort of allusion, meet it with the most sincere good humour. Nay, I will say more: flattered and encouraged by the right hon. gentleman's panegyric on my talents, if ever I again engage in the compositions he alludes to, I may be tempted to an act of presumption--to attempt an improvement on one of Ben Jonson's best characters, the character of the _Angry Boy_, in the "Alchemist."' The fury of Pitt, contrasted with the coolness of the man he had so shamefully attacked, made this sally irresistible, and from that time neither 'the angry boy' himself, nor any of his colleagues, were anxious to twit Sheridan on his dramatic pursuits. Pitt wanted to lay a tax on every horse that started in a race. Lord Surry, a _turfish_ individual of the day, proposed one of five pounds on the winner. Sheridan, rising, told his lordship that the next time he visited Newmarket he would probably be greeted with the line:-- 'Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold--.' Lord Rolie, the butt of the Opposition, who had attacked him in the famous satire, 'The Rolliad,' so popular that it went through twenty-two editions in twenty-seven years, accused Sheridan of inflammatory speeches among the operatives of the northern counties on the cotton question. Sheridan retorted by saying that he believed Lord Rolle must refer to 'Compositions less prosaic, but more popular' (meaning the 'Rolliad'), and thus successfully turned the laugh against him. It was Grattan, I think, who said, 'When I can't talk sense, I talk metaphor.' Sheridan often talked metaphor, though he sometimes mingled it with sense. His famous speech about the Begums of Oude is full of it, but we have one or two instances before that. Thus on the Duke of Richmond's report about fortifications, he said, turning to the duke, that 'holding in his hand the report made by the Board of Officers, he complimented the noble president on his talents as an _engineer_, which were strongly evinced in planning and constructing that very paper.... He has made it a contest of posts, and conducted his reasoning not less on principles of trigonometry than of logic. There are certain assumptions thrown up, like advanced works, to keep the enemy at a distance from the principal object of debate; strong provisos protect and cover the flanks of his assertions, his very queries are his casemates,' and so on. When Lord Mulgrave said, on another occasion, that any man using his influence to obtain a vote for the crown _ought_ to lose his head, Sheridan quietly remarked, that he was glad his lordship had said '_ought_ to lose his head,' not _would_ have lost it, for in that case the learned gentleman would not have had that evening '_face_ to have shown among us.' Such are a few of his well-remembered replies in the House; but his fame as an orator rested on the splendid speeches which he made at the impeachment of Warren Hastings. The first of these was made in the House on the 7th of February, 1787. The whole story of the corruption, extortions, and cruelty of the worst of many bad rulers who have been imposed upon that unhappy nation of Hindostan, and who ignorant how to _parcere subjectis_, have gone on in their unjust oppression, only rendering it the more dangerous by weak concessions, is too well known to need a recapitulation here. The worst feature in the whole of Hastings' misconduct was, perhaps, his treatment of those unfortunate ladies whose money he coveted, the Begums of Oude. The Opposition was determined to make the governor-general's conduct a state question, but their charges had been received with little attention, till on this day Sheridan rose to denounce the cruel extortioner. He spoke for five hours and a half, and surpassed all he had ever said in eloquence. The subject was one to find sympathy in the hearts of Englishmen, who, though they beat their own wives, are always indignant at a man who dares to lay a little finger on those of anybody else. Then, too, the subject was Oriental: it might even be invested with something of romance and poetry; the zenanah, sacred in the eyes of the oppressed natives, had been ruthlessly insulted, under a glaring Indian sun, amid the luxuriance of Indian foliage, these acts had been committed, &c. &c. It was a fertile theme for a poet; and how little soever Sheridan cared for the Begums and their wrongs--and that he did care little appears from what he afterwards said of Hastings himself--he could evidently make a telling speech out of the theme, and he did so. Walpole says that he turned everybody's head. 'One heard everybody in the street raving on the wonders of that speech; for my part, I cannot believe it was so supernatural as they say.' He affirms that there must be a witchery in Mr. Sheridan, who had no diamonds--as Hastings had--to win favour with, and says that the Opposition may be fairly charged with sorcery. Burke declared the speech to be 'the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or tradition.' Fox affirmed that 'all he had ever heard, all he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapour before the sun.' But these were partizans. Even Pitt acknowledged 'that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient and modern times, and possessed everything that genius or art could furnish to agitate and control the human mind.' One member confessed himself so unhinged by it, that he moved an adjournment, because he could not, in his then state of mind, give an unbiassed vote. But the highest testimony was that of Logan, the defender of Hastings. At the end of the first hour of the speech, he said to a friend, 'All this is declamatory assertion without proof.' Another hour's speaking, and he muttered, 'This is a most wonderful oration!' A third, and he confessed 'Mr. Hastings has acted very unjustifiably.' At the end of the fourth, he exclaimed, 'Mr. Hastings is a most atrocious criminal.' And before the speaker had sat down, he vehemently protested that 'Of all monsters of iniquity, the most enormous is Warren Hastings.' Such in those days was the effect of eloquence; an art which has been eschewed in the present House of Commons, and which our newspapers affect to think is much out of place in an assembly met for calm deliberation. Perhaps they are right; but oh! for the golden words of a Sheridan, a Fox, even a Pitt and Burke. It is said, though not proved, that on this same night of Sheridan's glory in the House of Commons, his 'School for Scandal' was acted with 'rapturous applause' at Covent Garden, and his 'Duenna' no less successfully at Drury Lane. What a pitch of glory for the dunce who had been shamed into learning Greek verbs at Harrow! Surely Dr. Parr must then have confessed that a man can be great without the classics--nay, without even a decent English education, for Sheridan knew comparatively little of history and literature, certainly less than the men against whom he was pitted or whose powers he emulated. He has been known to say to his friends, when asked to take part with them on some important question, 'You know I'm an ignoramus--instruct me and I'll do my best.' He had even to rub up his arithmetic when he thought he had some chance of being made Chancellor of the Exchequer; but, perhaps, many a statesman before and after him has done as much as that. No wonder that after such a speech in the House, the celebrated trial which commenced in the beginning of the following year should have roused the attention of the whole nation. The proceedings opened in Westminster Hall, the noblest room in England, on the 13th of February, 1788. The Queen and four of her daughters were seated in the Duke of Newcastle's box; the Prince of Wales walked in at the head of a hundred and fifty peers of the realm. The spectacle was imposing enough. But the trial proceeded slowly for some months, and it was not till the 3rd of June that Sheridan rose to make his second great speech on this subject. The excitement was then at its highest. Two-thirds of the peers with the peeresses and their daughters were present, and the whole of the vast hall was crowded to excess. The sun shone in brightly to light up the gloomy building, and the whole scene was splendid. Such was the enthusiasm that people paid _fifty guineas_ for a ticket to hear the first orator of his day, for such he then was. The actor's son felt the enlivening influence of a full audience. He had been long preparing for this moment, and he threw into his speech all the theatrical effect of which he had studied much and inherited more. He spoke for many hours on the 3rd, 5th, and 6th, and concluded with these words: 'They (the House of Commons) exhort you by everything that calls sublimely upon the heart of man, by the majesty of that justice which this bold man has libelled, by the wide fame of your own tribunal, by the sacred pledges by which you swear in the solemn hour of decision, knowing that that decision will then bring you the highest reward that ever blessed the heart of man, the consciousness of having done the greatest act of mercy for the world that the earth has ever yet received from any hand but heaven!--My Lords, I have done.' Sheridan's valet was very proud of his master's success, and as he had been to hear the speech, was asked what part he considered the finest. Plush replied by putting himself into his master's attitude, and imitating his voice admirably, solemnly uttering, 'My Lords, I have done!' He should have added the word 'nothing.' Sheridan's eloquence had no more effect than the clear proof of Hastings' guilt, and the impeachment, as usual, was but a troublesome subterfuge, to satisfy the Opposition and dust the eyeballs of the country. Sheridan's great speech was made. The orator has concluded his oration; fame was complete, and no more was wanted, Adieu, then, blue-books and parties, and come on the last grand profession of this man of many talents--that of the wit. That it was a profession there can be no doubt, for he lived on it, it was all his capital. He paid his bills in that coin alone: he paid his workmen, his actors, carpenters, builders with no more sterling metal; with that ready tool he extracted loans from the very men who came to be paid; that brilliant ornament maintained his reputation in the senate, and his character in society. But wit without wisdom--the froth without the fluid--the capital without the pillar--is but a poor fortune, a wretched substitute for real worth and honest utility. For a time men forgave to Mr. Sheridan--extravagant and reckless as he was--what would long before have brought an honester, better, but less amusing man to a debtor's prison and the contempt of society; but only for a time was this career possible. Sheridan has now reached the pinnacle of his fame, and from this point we have to trace that decline which ended so awfully. Whilst we call him a dishonest man, we must not be supposed to imply that he was so in heart. It is pleaded for him that he tricked his creditors 'for the fun of the thing,' like a modern Robin Hood, and like that forester bold, he was mightily generous with other men's money. Deception is deception whether in sport or earnest, and Sheridan, no doubt, made it a very profitable employment. He had always a taste for the art of duping, and he had begun early in life--soon after leaving Harrow. He was spending a few days at Bristol, and wanted a pair of new boots, but could not afford to pay for them. Shortly before he left, he called on two bootmakers, and ordered of each a pair, promising payment on delivery. He fixed the morning of his departure for the tradesmen to send in their goods. When the first arrived he tried on the boots, complaining that that for the _right_ foot pinched a little, and ordered Crispin to take it back, stretch it, and bring it again at nine the next morning. The second arrived soon after, and this time it was the boot for the _left_ foot which pinched. Same complaint; same order given; each had taken away only the pinching boot, and left the other behind. The same afternoon Sheridan left in his new boots for town, and when the two shoemakers called at nine the next day, each with a boot in his hand, we can imagine their disgust at finding how neatly they had been duped. Anecdotes of this kind swarm in every account of Richard Sheridan--many of them, perhaps, quite apocryphal, others exaggerated, or attributed to this noted trickster, but all tending to show how completely he was master of this high art. His ways of eluding creditors used to delight me, I remember, when an Oxford boy, and they are only paralleled by Oxford stories. One of these may not be generally known, and was worthy of Sheridan. Every Oxonian knows Hall, the boat-builder at Folly Bridge. Mrs. Hall was, in my time, proprietress of those dangerous skiffs and nutshell canoes which we young harebrains delighted to launch on the Isis. Some youthful Sheridanian had a long account with this elderly and bashful personage, who had applied in vain for her money, till, coming one day to his rooms, she announced her intention not to leave till the money was paid. 'Very well, Mrs. Hall, then you must sit down and make yourself comfortable while I dress, for I am going out directly.' Mrs. H. sat down composedly, and with equal composure the youth took off his coat. Mrs. H. was not abashed, but in another moment the debtor removed his waistcoat also. Mrs. H. was still immoveable. Sundry other articles of dress followed, and the good lady began to be nervous. 'Now, Mrs. Hall, you can stay if you like, but I assure you that I am going to change _all_ my dress.' Suiting the action to the word, he began to remove his lower garments, when Mrs. Hall, shocked and furious, rushed from the room. This reminds us of Sheridan's treatment of a female creditor. He had for some years hired his carriage-horses from Edbrooke in Clarges Street, and his bill was a heavy one. Mrs. Edbrooke wanted a new bonnet, and blew up her mate for not insisting on payment. The curtain lecture was followed next day by a refusal to allow Mr. Sheridan to have the horses till the account was settled. Mr. Sheridan sent the politest possible message in reply, begging that Mrs. Edbrooke would allow his coachman to drive her in his own carriage to his door, and promising that the matter should be satisfactorily arranged. The good woman was delighted, dressed in her best, and, bill in hand, entered the M.P.'s chariot. Sheridan meanwhile had given orders to his servants. Mrs. Edbrooke was shown up into the back drawing-room, where a slight luncheon, of which she was begged to partake, was laid out; and she was assured that her debtor would not keep her waiting long, though for the moment engaged. The horse-dealer's wife sat down and discussed a wing of chicken and glass of wine, and in the meantime her victimizer had been watching his opportunity, slipped down stairs, jumped into the vehicle, and drove off. Mrs. Edbrooke finished her lunch and waited in vain; ten minutes, twenty, thirty, passed, and then she rang the bell: 'Very sorry, ma'am, but Mr. Sheridan went out on important business half an hour ago.' 'And the carriage?'--'Oh, ma'am, Mr. Sheridan never walks.' He procured his wine in the same style. Chalier, the wine-merchant, was his creditor to a large amount, and had stopped supplies. Sheridan was to give a grand dinner to the leaders of the Opposition, and had no port or sherry to offer them. On the morning of the day fixed he sent for Chalier, and told him he wanted to settle his account. The importer, much pleased, said he would go home and bring it at once. 'Stay,' cried the debtor, 'will you dine with me to-day; Lord----, Sir----, and So-and-so are coming.' Chalier was flattered and readily accepted. Returning to his office, he told his clerk that he should dine with Mr. Sheridan, and therefore leave early. At the proper hour he arrived in full dress, and was no sooner in the house., than his host despatched a message to the clerk at the office, saying that Mr. Chalier wished him to send up at once three dozen of Burgundy, two of claret, two of port, &c., &c. Nothing seemed more natural, and the wine was forwarded, just in time for the dinner. It was highly praised by the guests, who asked Sheridan who was his wine-merchant. The host bowed towards Chalier, gave him a high recommendation, and impressed him with the belief that he was telling a polite falsehood in order to secure him other customers. Little did he think that he was drinking his own wine, and that it was not, and probably never would be, paid for! In like manner, when he wanted a particular Burgundy an innkeeper at Richmond, who declined to supply it till his bill was paid, he sent for the man, and had no sooner seen him safe in the house than he drove off to Richmond, saw his wife, told her he had just had a conversation with mine host, settled everything, and would, to save them trouble, take the wine with him in his carriage. The condescension overpowered the good woman, who ordered it at once to be produced, and Sheridan drove home about the time that her husband was returning to Richmond, weary of waiting for his absent debtor. But this kind of trickery could not always succeed without some knowledge of his creditor's character. In the case of Holloway, the lawyer, Sheridan took advantage of his well-known vanity of his judgment of horse-flesh. Kelly gives the anecdote as authentic. He was walking one day with Sheridan, close to the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, when, as ill-luck would have it, up comes Holloway on horseback, and in a furious rage, complains that he has called on Mr. Sheridan time and again in Hertford Street, and can never gain admittance. He proceeds to violent threats, and slangs his debtor roundly. Sheridan, cool as a whole bed of cucumbers, takes no notice of these attacks, but quietly exclaims: 'What a beautiful creature you're riding, Holloway!' The lawyer's weak point was touched. 'You were speaking to me the other day about a horse for Mrs. Sheridan; now this would be a treasure for a lady.' 'Does he canter well?' asks Sheridan, with a look of business. 'Like Pegasus himself.' 'If that's the case, I shouldn't mind, Holloway, stretching a point for him. Do you mind showing me his paces?' 'Not at all,' replies the lawyer, only too happy to show off his own: and touching up the horse, put him to a quiet canter. The moment is not to be lost; the churchyard gate is at hand; Sheridan slips in, knowing that his mounted tormentor cannot follow him, and there bursts into a roar of laughter, which is joined in by Kelly, but not by the returning Holloway. [Illustration: "A TREASURE FOR A LADY"--SHERIDAN AND THE LAWYER.] But if he escaped an importunate lawyer once in a way like this, he Required more ingenuity to get rid of the limbs of the law, when they came, as they did frequently in his later years. It was the fashionable thing in bygone novels of the 'Pelham' school, and Even in more recent comedies, to introduce a well-dressed sheriff's officer at a dinner party or ball, and take him through a variety of predicaments, ending, at length, in the revelation of his real character; and probably some such scene is still enacted from time to time in the houses of the extravagant: but Sheridan's adventures with bailiffs seem to have excited more attention. In the midst of his difficulties he never ceased to entertain his friends, and 'why should he not do so, since he had not to pay?' 'Pay your bills, sir? what a shameful waste of money!' he once said. Thus, one day a young friend was met by him and taken back to dinner, 'quite in a quiet way, just to meet a very old friend of mine, a man of great talent, and most charming companion.' When they arrived they found 'the old friend' already installed, and presenting a somewhat unpolished appearance, which the young man explained to himself by supposing him to be a genius of somewhat low extraction. His habits at dinner, the eager look, the free use of his knife, and so forth, were all accounted for in the same way, but that he was a genius of no slight distinction was clear from the deep respect and attention with which Sheridan listened to his slightest remarks, and asked his opinion on English poetry. Meanwhile Sheridan and the servant between them plied the genius very liberally with wine: and the former, rising, made him a complimentary speech on his critical powers, while the young guest, who had heard nothing from his lips but the commonest platitudes in very bad English, grew more and more amused. The wine told in time, the 'genius' sang songs which were more Saxon than delicate, talked loud, clapped his host on the shoulder, and at last rolled fairly under the table. 'Now,' said Sheridan, quite calmly to his young friend, 'we will go up stairs: and, Jack,' (to his servant) 'take that man's hat and give him to the watch.' He then explained in the same calm tone, that this was a bailiff of whose company he was growing rather tired, and wanted to be freed. But his finest tricks were undoubtedly those by which he turned, harlequin-like, a creditor into a lender This was done by sheer force of persuasion, by assuming a lofty indignation, or by putting forth his claims to mercy with the most touching eloquence over which he would laugh heartily when his point was gained. He was often compelled to do this during his theatrical management, when a troublesome creditor might have interfered with the success of the establishment. He talked over an upholsterer who came with a writ for £350 till the latter handed him, instead, a cheque for £200. He once, when the actors struck for arrears of wages to the amount of £3,000, and his bankers refused flatly to Kelly to advance another penny, screwed the whole sum out of them in less than a quarter of an hour by sheer talk. He got a gold watch from Harris, the manager, with whom he had broken several appointments, by complaining that as he had no watch he could never tell the time fixed for their meetings; and, as for putting off pressing creditors, and turning furious foes into affectionate friends, he was such an adept at it, that his reputation as a dun-destroyer is quite on a par with his fame as comedian and orator. Hoaxing, a style of amusement fortunately out of fashion how, was almost a passion with him, and his practical jokes were as merciless as his satire. He and Tickell, who had married the sister of his wife, used to play them off on one another like a couple of schoolboys. One evening, for instance, Sheridan got together all the crockery in the house and arranged it in a dark passage, leaving a small channel for escape for himself, and then, having teased Tickell till he rushed after him, bounded out and picked his way gingerly along the passage. His friend followed him unwittingly, and at the first step stumbled over a washhand-basin, and fell forwards with a crash on piles of plates and dishes, which cut his face and hands in a most cruel manner, Sheridan all the while laughing immoderately at the end of the passage, secure from vengeance. But his most impudent hoax was that on the Honourable House of Commons itself. Lord Belgrave had made a very telling speech which he wound up with a Greek quotation, loudly applauded. Sheridan had no arguments to meet him with; so rising, he admitted the force of his lordship's quotation (of which he probably did not understand a word), but added that had he gone a little farther, and completed the passage, he would have seen that the context completely altered the sense. He would prove it to the House, he said, and forthwith rolled forth a grand string of majestic gibberish so well imitated that the whole assembly cried, 'Hear, hear!' Lord Belgrave rose again, and frankly admitted that the passage had the meaning ascribed to it by the honourable gentleman, and that he had overlooked it at the moment. At the end of the evening, Fox, who prided himself on his classical lore, came up to and said to him, 'Sheridan, how came you to be so ready with that passage? It is certainly as you say, but I was not aware of it before you quoted it.' Sheridan was wise enough to keep his own counsel for the time, but must have felt delightfully tickled at the ignorance of the would-be savants with whom he was politically associated. Probably Sheridan could not at any time have quoted a whole passage of Greek on the spur of the moment; but it is certain that he had not kept up his classics, and at the time in question must have forgotten the little he ever knew of them. This facility of imitating exactly the sound of a language without introducing a single word of it is not so very rare, but is generally possessed in greater readiness by those who know no tongue but their own, and are therefore more struck by the strangeness of a foreign one, when hearing it. Many of us have heard Italian songs in which there was not a word of actual Italian sung in London burlesques, and some of us have laughed at Levassor's capital imitation of English; but perhaps the cleverest mimic of the kind I ever heard was M. Laffitte, brother of that famous banker who made his fortune by picking up a pin. This gentleman could speak nothing but French, but had been brought by his business into contact with foreigners of every race at Paris, and when he once began his little trick, it was impossible to believe that he was not possessed of a gift of tongues. His German and Italian were good enough, but his English was so splendidly counterfeited, that after listening to him for a short time, I suddenly heard a roar of laughter from all present, for I had actually unconsciously _answered him_, 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Exactly so,' and 'I quite agree with you!' Undoubtedly much of Sheridan's depravity must be attributed to his intimacy with a man whom it was a great honour to a youngster then to know, but who would probably be scouted even from a London club in the present day--the Prince of Wales. The part of a courtier is always degrading enough to play; but to be courtier to a prince whose favour was to be won by proficiency in vice, and audacity in follies, to truckle to his tastes, to win his smiles by the invention of a new pleasure and his approbation by the plotting of a new villany, what an office for the author of 'The School for Scandal,' and the orator renowned for denouncing the wickednesses of Warren Hastings! What a life for the young poet who had wooed and won the Maid of Bath--for the man of strong domestic affections, who wept over his father's sternness, and loved his son only too well! It was bad enough for such mere worldlings as Captain Hanger or Beau Brummell, but for a man of higher and purer feelings, like Sheridan, who, with all his faults, had some poetry in his soul, such a career was doubly disgraceful. It was at the house of the beautiful, lively, and adventurous Duchess of Devonshire, the partizan of Charles James Fox, who loved him or his cause--for Fox and Liberalism were often one in ladies' eyes--so well, that she could give Steele, the butcher, a kiss for his vote, that Sheridan first met the prince--then a boy in years, but already more than an adult in vice. No doubt the youth whom Fox, Brummell, Hanger, Lord Surrey, Sheridan, the tailors and the women, combined to turn at once into the finest gentleman and greatest blackguard in Europe, was at that time as fascinating in appearance and manner as any one, prince or not, could be. He was by far the handsomest of the Hanoverians, and had the least amount of their sheepish look. He possessed all their taste and capacity, for gallantry, with apparently none of the German coarseness which certain other Princes of Wales exhibited in their amorous address. _His_ coarseness was of a more sensual, but less imperious kind. He _had_ his redeeming points, which few of his ancestors had, and his liberal hand and warm heart won him friends, where his conduct could win him little else than contempt. Sheridan was introduced to him by Fox, and Mrs. Sheridan by the Duchess of Devonshire. The prince had that which always takes with Englishmen--a readiness of conviviality, and a recklessness of character. He was ready to chat, drink, and bet with Sheridan, or any new comer equally well recommended, and an introduction to young George was always followed by an easy recognition. With all this he managed to keep up a certain amount of royal dignity under the most trying circumstances, but he had none of that easy grace which made Charles II. beloved by his associates. When the George had gone too far, he had no resource but to cut the individual with whom he had hobbed and nobbed, and he was as ungrateful in his enmities as he was ready with his friendship. Brummell had taught him to dress, and Sheridan had given him wiser counsels: he quarrelled with both for trifles, which, if he had had real dignity, would never have occurred, and if he had had real friendship, would easily have been overlooked. Sheridan's breach with the prince was honourable to him. He could not wholly approve of the conduct of that personage and his ministers, and he told him openly that his life was at his service, but his character was the property of the country. The prince replied that Sheridan 'might impeach his ministers on the morrow--that would not impair their friendship;' yet turned on his heel, and was never his friend again. When, again, the 'delicate investigation' came off, he sent for Sheridan, and asked his aid. The latter replied, 'Your royal highness honours me, but I will never take part against a woman, whether she be right or wrong.' His political courage atones somewhat for the want of moral courage he displayed in pandering to the prince's vices. Many an anecdote is told of Sheridan and 'Wales'--many, indeed, that cannot be repeated. Their bets were often of the coarsest nature, won by Sheridan in the coarsest manner. A great intimacy sprang up between the two reprobates, and Sheridan became one of the satellites of that dissolute prince. There are few of the stories of their adventures which can be told in a work like this, but we may give one or two specimens of the less disgraceful character:-- The Prince, Lord Surrey, and Sheridan were in the habit of seeking nightly adventures of any kind that suggested itself to their lively minds. A low tavern, still in existence, was the rendezvous of the heir to the crown and his noble and distinguished associates. This was the 'Salutation,' in Tavistock Court, Covent Garden, a night house for gardeners and countrymen, and for the sharpers who fleeced both, and was kept by a certain Mother Butler, who favoured in every way the adventurous designs of her exalted guests. Here wigs, smock-frocks, and other disguises were in readiness; and here, at call, was to be found a ready-made magistrate, whose sole occupation was to deliver the young Haroun and his companions from the dilemmas which their adventures naturally brought them into, and which were generally more or less concerned with the watch. Poor old watch! what happy days, when members of parliament, noblemen, and future monarchs condescended to break thy bob-wigged head! and--blush, Z 350, immaculate constable--to toss thee a guinea to buy plaster with. In addition to the other disguise, _aliases_ were of course assumed. The prince went by the name of Blackstock, Greystock was my Lord Surrey, and Thinstock Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The treatment of women by the police is traditional. The 'unfortunate'--unhappy creatures!--are their pet aversion; and once in their clutches, receive no mercy. The 'Charley' of old was quite as brutal as the modern Hercules of the glazed hat, and the three adventurers showed an amount of zeal worthy of a nobler cause, in rescuing the drunken Lais from his grasp. On one occasion they seem to have hit on a 'deserving case;' a slight skirmish with the watch ended in a rescue, and the erring creature was taken off to a house of respectability sufficient to protect her. Here she told her tale, which, however improbable, turned out to be true. It was a very old, a very simple one--the common history of many a frail, foolish girl, cursed with beauty, and the prey of a practised seducer. The main peculiarity lay in the fact of her respectable birth, and his position, she being the daughter of a solicitor, he the son of a nobleman. Marriage was promised, of course, as it has been promised a million times with the same intent, and for the millionth time was not performed. The seducer took her from her home, kept her quiet for a time, and when the novelty was gone, abandoned her. The old story went on; poverty--a child--a mother's love struggling with a sense of shame--a visit to her father's house at the last moment, as a forlorn hope. There she had crawled on her knees to one of those relentless parents on whose heads lie the utter loss of their children's souls. The false pride, that spoke of the blot on his name, the disgrace of his house--when a Saviour's example should have bid him forgive and raise the penitent in her misery from the dust--whispered him to turn her from his door. He ordered the footman to put her out. The man, a nobleman in plush, moved by his young mistress's utter misery, would not obey though it cost him his place, and the harder-hearted father himself thrust his starving child into the cold street, into the drizzling rain, and slammed the door upon her cries of agony. The footman slipped out after her, and five shillings--a large sum for him--found its way from his kind hand to hers. Now the common ending might have come; now starvation, the slow, unwilling, recourse to more shame and deeper vice; then the forced hilarity, the unreal smile, which in so many of these poor creatures hides a canker at the heart; the gradual degradation--lower still and lower--oblivion for a moment sought in the bottle--a life of sin and death ended in a hospital. The will of Providence turned the frolic of three voluptuaries to good account; the prince gave his purse-full, Sheridan his one last guinea for her present needs: the name of the good-hearted Plush was discovered, and he was taken into Carlton House, where he soon became known as Roberts, the prince's confidential servant: and Sheridan bestirred himself to rescue for ever the poor lady, whose beauty still remained as a temptation. He procured her a situation, where she studied for the stage, on which she eventually appeared. 'All's well that ends well:' her secret was kept, till one admirer came honourably forward. To him it was confided, and he was noble enough to forgive the one false step of youth. She was well married, and the boy for whom she had suffered so much fell at Trafalgar, a lieutenant in the navy. To better men such an adventure would have been a solemn warning; such a tale, told by the ruined one herself, a sermon, every word of which would have clung to their memories. What effect, if any, it may have had on Blackstock and his companions must have been very fleeting. It is not so very long since the Seven Dials and St. Giles' were haunts of wickedness and dens of thieves, into which the police scarcely dared to penetrate. Probably their mysteries would have afforded more amusement to the artist and the student of character than to the mere seeker of adventure, but it was still, I remember, in my early days, a great feat to visit by night one of the noted 'cribs' to which 'the profession' which fills Newgate was wont to resort. The 'Brown Bear,' in Broad Street, St. Giles', was one of these pleasant haunts, and thither the three adventurers determined to go. This style of adventure is out of date, and no longer amusing. Of course a fight ensued, in which the prince and his companions showed immense pluck against terrible odds, and in which, as one reads in the novels of the 'London Journal' or 'Family Herald,' the natural superiority of the well-born of course displayed itself to great advantage. Surely Bulwer has described such scenes too graphically in some of his earlier novels to make a minute description here at all necessary; but the reader who is curious in the matter may be referred to a work which has recently appeared under the title of 'Sheridan and his Times,' professing to be written by an Octogenarian, intimate with the hero. The fray ended with the arrival of the watch, who rescued Blackstock, Greystock, and Thinstock, and with Dogberryan stupidity carried them off to a neighbouring lock-up. The examination which took place was just the occasion for Sheridan's fun to display itself on, and pretending to turn informer, he succeeded in bewildering the unfortunate parochial constable, who conducted it, till the arrival of the magistrate, whose duty was to deliver his friends from durance vile. The whole scene is well described in the book just referred to, with, we presume, a certain amount of idealizing; but the 'Octogenarian' had probably heard the story from Sheridan himself, and the main points must be accepted as correct. The affair ended, as usual, with a supper at the 'Salutation.' We must now follow Sheridan in his gradual downfall. One of the causes of this--as far as money was concerned--was his extreme indolence and utter negligence. He trusted far too much to his ready wit and rapid genius. Thus when 'Pizarro' was to appear, day after day went by, and nothing was done. On the night of representation, only four acts out of five were written, and even these had not been rehearsed, the principal performers, Siddons, Charles Kemble and Barrymore, having only just received their parts. Sheridan was up in the prompter's room actually writing the fifth act while the first was being performed, and every now and then appeared in the green-room with a fresh relay of dialogue, and setting all in good humour by his merry abuse of his own negligence. In spite of this, 'Pizarro' succeeded. He seldom wrote except at night, and surrounded by a profusion of lights. Wine was his great stimulant in composition, as it has been to better and worse authors. 'If the thought is slow to come,' he would say, 'a glass of good wine encourages it; and when it does come, a glass of good wine rewards it.' Those glasses of good wine, were, unfortunately, even more frequent than the good thoughts, many and merry as they were. His neglect of letters was a standing joke against him. He never took the trouble to open any that he did not expect, and often left sealed many that he was most anxious to read. He once appeared with his begging face at the Bank, humbly asking an advance of twenty pounds. 'Certainly, sir; would you like any more?--fifty or a hundred?' said the smiling clerk. Sheridan was overpowered. He _would_ like a hundred. 'Two or three?' asked the scribe. Sheridan thought he was joking, but was ready for two or even three--he was always ready for more. But he could not conceal his surprise. 'Have you not received our letter?' the clerk asked, perceiving it. Certainly he had received the epistle, which informed him that his salary as Receiver-General of Cornwall had been paid in, but he had never opened it. This neglect of letters once brought him into a troublesome lawsuit about the theatre. It was necessary to pay certain demands, and he had applied to the Duke of Bedford to be his security. The duke had consented, and for a whole year his letter of consent remained unopened. In the meantime Sheridan had believed that the duke had neglected him, and allowed the demands to be brought into court. In the same way he had long before committed himself in the affair with Captain Matthews. In order to give a public denial of certain reports circulated in Bath, he had called upon an editor, requesting him to insert the said reports in his paper in order that he might write him a letter to refute them. The editor at once complied, the calumny was printed and published, but Sheridan forgot all about his own refutation, which was applied for in vain till too late. Other causes were his extravagance and intemperance. There was an utter want of even common moderation in everything he did. Whenever his boyish spirit suggested any freak, whenever a craving of any kind possessed him, no matter what the consequences here or hereafter, he rushed heedlessly into the indulgence of it. Perhaps the enemy had never an easier subject to deal with. Any sin in which there was a show of present mirth, or easy pleasure, was as easily taken up by Sheridan as if he had not a single particle of conscience or religious feeling, and yet we are not at all prepared to say that he lacked either; he had only deadened both by excessive indulgence of his fancies. The temptation of wealth and fame had been too much for the poor and obscure young man who rose to them so suddenly, and, as so often happens, those very talents which should have been his glory, were, in fact, his ruin. His extravagance was unbounded. At a time when misfortune lay thick upon him, and bailiffs were hourly expected, he would invite a large party to a dinner, which a prince might have given, and to which one prince sometimes sat down. On one occasion, having no plate left from the pawnbroker's, he had to prevail on 'my uncle' to lend him some for a banquet he was to give. The spoons and forks were sent, and with them two of his men, who, dressed in livery, waited, no doubt with the most vigilant attention, on the party. Such at that period was the host's reputation, when he could not even be trusted not to pledge another man's property. At one time his income was reckoned at £15,000 a year, when the theatre was prosperous. Of this he is said to have spent not more than £5,000 on his household, while the balance went to pay for his former follies, debts, and the interest, lawsuits often arising from mere carelessness and judgments against the theatre! Probably a great deal of it was betted away, drank away, thrown away in one way or another. As for betting, he generally lost all the wagers he made: as he said himself--'I never made a bet upon my own judgment that I did not lose; and I never won but one, which I had made against my judgment.' His bets were generally laid in hundreds; and though he did not gamble, he could of course run through a good deal of money in this way. He betted on every possible trifle, but chiefly, it would seem, on political possibilities; the state of the Funds, the result of an election, or the downfall of a ministry. Horse-races do not seem to have possessed any interest for him, and, in fact, he scarcely knew one kind of horse from another. He was never an adept at field-sports, though very ambitious of being thought a sportsman. Once, when staying in the country, he went out with a friend's gamekeeper to shoot pheasants, and after wasting a vast amount of powder and shot upon the air, he was only rescued from ignominy by the sagacity of his companion, who, going a little behind him when a bird rose, brought it down so neatly that Sheridan, believing he had killed it himself, snatched it up, and rushed bellowing with glee back to the house to show that he _could_ shoot. In the same way, he tried his hand at fishing in a wretched little stream behind the Deanery at Winchester, using, however, a net, as easier to handle than a rod. Some boys, who had watched his want of success a long time, at last bought a few pennyworth of pickled herrings, and throwing them on the stream, allowed them to float down towards the eager disciple of old Izaak. Sheridan saw them coming, rushed in regardless of his clothes, cast his net and in great triumph secured them. When he had landed his prize, however, there were the boys bursting with laughter, and Piscator saw he was their dupe. 'Ah!' cried he, laughing in concert, as he looked at his dripping clothes, 'this is a pretty _pickle_ indeed!' His extravagance was well known to his friends, as well as to his creditors. Lord Guildford met him one day. 'Well, Sherry, so you've taken a new house, I hear.'--'Yes, and you'll see now that everything will go on like clockwork.'--'Ay,' said my lord, with a knowing leer, '_tick, tick_.' Even his son Tom used to laugh at him for it. 'Tom, if you marry that girl, I'll cut you off with a shilling,'--'Then you must borrow it,' replied the ingenuous youth.[8] Tom sometimes disconcerted his father with his inherited wit--his only inheritance. He pressed urgently for money on one, as on many an occasion. 'I have none,' was the reply, as usual; 'there is a pair of pistols up stairs, a horse in the enable, the night is dark, and Hounslow Heath at hand.' [8: Another version is that Tom replied: 'You don't happen to have it about you, sir, do you?'] 'I understand what you mean,' replied young Tom; 'but I tried that last night, and unluckily stopped your treasurer, Peake, who told me you had been beforehand with him, and robbed him of every sixpence he had in the world.' So much for the respect of son to father! Papa had his revenge on the young wit, when Tom, talking of Parliament, announced his intention of entering it on an independent basis, ready to be bought by the highest bidder 'I shall write on my forehead,' said he, "To let."' 'And under that, Tom, "Unfurnished,"' rejoined Sherry the elder. The joke is now stale enough. But Sheridan was more truly witty in putting down a young braggart whom he met at dinner at a country-house. There are still to be found, like the bones of dead asses in a field newly ploughed, in some parts of the country, youths, who are so hopelessly behind their age, and indeed every age, as to look upon authorship as degrading, all knowledge, save Latin and Greek, as 'a bore,' and all entertainment but hunting, shooting, fishing, and badger-drawing, as unworthy of a man. In the last century these young animals, who unite the modesty of the puppy with the clear-sightedness of the pig, not to mention the progressiveness of another quadruped, were more numerous than in the present day, and in consequence more forward in their remarks. It was one of these charming youths, who was staying in the same house as Sheridan, and who, quite unprovoked, began at dinner to talk of 'actors and authors, and those low sort of people, you know.' Sheridan said nought, but patiently bided his time. The next day there was a large dinner-party, and Sheridan and the youth happened to sit opposite to one another in the most conspicuous part of the table. Young Nimrod was kindly obliging his side of the table with extraordinary leaps of his hunter, the perfect working of his new double-barrelled Manton, &c., bringing of course number one in as the hero in each case. In a moment of silence, Sheridan, with an air of great politeness, addressed his unhappy victim. 'He had not,' he said, 'been able to catch the whole of the very interesting account he had heard Mr. ---- relating.' All eyes were turned upon the two. 'Would Mr. ---- permit him to ask who it was who made the extraordinary leap he had mentioned?--'I, sir,' replied the youth with some pride. 'Then who was it killed the wild duck at that distance?'--'I, sir.' 'Was it your setter who behaved so well?'--'Yes, mine, sir,' replied the youth, getting rather red over this examination. 'And who caught the huge salmon so neatly?'--'I, sir.' And so the questioning went on through a dozen more items, till the young man, weary of answering 'I, sir,' and growing redder and redder every moment, would gladly have hid his head under the table-cloth, in spite of his sporting prowess. But Sheridan had to give him the _coup de grace_. 'So, sir,' said he, very politely, 'you were the chief _actor_ in every anecdote, and the _author_ of them all; surely it is impolitic to despise your own professions.' Sheridan's intemperance was as great and as incurable as his extravagance, and we think his mind, if not his body, lived only on stimulants. He could neither write nor speak without them One day, before one of his finest speeches in the House, he was seen to enter a coffee-house, call for a pint of brandy, and swallow it 'neat,' and almost at one gulp. His friends occasionally interfered. This drinking, they told him, would destroy the coat of his stomach. 'Then my stomach must digest in its waistcoat,' laughed Sheridan. Where are the topers of yore? Jovial I will not call them, for every one knows that 'Mirth and laughter.' worked up with a corkscrew, are followed by 'Headaches and hot coppers the day after.' But where are those Anakim of the bottle, who _could_ floor their two of port and one of Madeira, though the said two and one floored them in turn? The race, I believe, has died out. Our heads have got weaker, as our cellars grew emptier. The arrangement was convenient. The daughters of Eve have nobly undertaken to atone for the naughty conduct of their primeval mamma, by reclaiming men, and dragging them from the Hades of the mahogany to that seventh heaven of muffins and English ballads prepared for them in the drawing-room. We are certainly astounded, even to incredulity, when we read of the deeds of a David or a Samson; but such wonderment can be nothing compared to that which a generation or two hence will feel, when sipping, as a great extravagance and unpardonable luxury, two thimblefuls of 'African Sherry,' the young demirep of the day reads that three English gentlemen, Sheridan, Richardson, and Ward, sat down one day to dinner, and before they rose again--if they ever rose, which seems doubtful--or, at least, were raised, had emptied five bottles of port, two of Madeira, and one of brandy! Yet this was but one instance in a thousand; there was nothing extraordinary in it, and it is only mentioned because the amount drunk is accurately given by the unhappy owner of the wine, Kelly, the composer, who, unfortunately, or fortunately, was not present, and did not even imagine that the three honourable gentlemen were discussing his little store. Yet Sheridan does not seem to have believed much in his friend's vintages, for he advised him to alter his brass plate to 'Michael Kelly, Composer of Wine and Importer of Music.' He made a better joke, when, dining with Lord Thurlow, he tried in vain to induce him to produce a second bottle of some extremely choice Constantia from the Cape of Good Hope. 'Ah,' he muttered to his neighbour, 'pass me that decanter, if you please, for I must return to Madeira, as I see I cannot _double the Cape_' But as long as Richard Brinsley was a leader of political and fashionable circles, as long as he had a position to keep up, an ambition to satisfy, a labour to complete, his drinking was, if not moderate, not extraordinary for his time and his associates. But when a man's ambition is limited to mere success--when fame and a flash for himself are all he cares for, and there is no truer, grander motive for his sustaining the position he has climbed to--when, in short, it is his own glory, not mankind's good, he has ever striven for--woe, woe, woe when the hour of success is come! I cannot stop to name and examine instances, but let me be allowed to refer to that bugbear who is called up whenever greatness of any kind has to be illustrated--Napoleon the Great; or let me take any of the lesser Napoleons in lesser grades in any nation, any age--the men who have had no star but self and self-glory before them--and let me ask if any one can be named who, if he has survived the attainment of his ambition, has not gone down the other side of the hill somewhat faster than he came up it? Then let me select men whose guiding-star has been the good of their fellow-creatures, or the glory of God, and watch their peaceful useful end on that calm summit that they toiled so honestly to reach. The difference comes home to us. The moral is read only at the end of the story. Remorse rings it for ever in the ears of the dying--often too long a-dying--man who has laboured for himself. Peace reads it smilingly to him whose generous toil for others has brought its own reward. Sheridan had climbed with the stride of a giant, laughing at rocks, at precipices, at slippery watercourses. He had spread the wings of genius to poise himself withal, and gained one peak after another, while homelier worth was struggling midway, clutching the bramble and clinging to the ferns. He had, as Byron said in Sheridan's days of decay, done the best in all he undertook, written the best comedy, best opera, best farce; spoken the best parody, and made the best speech. Sheridan, when those words of the young poet were told him, shed tears. Perhaps the bitter thought struck him, that he had _not_ led the best, but the _worst_ life; that comedy, farce, opera, monody, and oration were nothing, nothing to a pure conscience and a peaceful old age; that they could not save him from shame and poverty--from debt, disgrace, drunkenness--from grasping, but long-cheated creditors, who dragged his bed from under the feeble, nervous, ruined old man. Poor Sheridan! his end was too bitter for us to cast one stone more upon him. Let it be noted that it was in the beginning of his decline, when, having reached the climax of all his ambition and completed his fame as a dramatist, orator, and wit, that the hand of Providence mercifully interposed to rescue this reckless man from his downfall. It smote him with that common but powerful weapon--death. Those he best loved were torn from him, one after another, rapidly, and with little warning. The Linleys, the 'nest of nightingales,' were all delicate as nightingales should be; and it seemed as if this very time was chosen for their deaths, that the one erring soul--more precious, remember, than many just lives--might be called back. Almost within one year he lost his dear sister-in-law, the wife of his most intimate friend Tickell; Maria Linley, the last of the family; his own wife, and his little daughter. One grief succeeded another so rapidly that Sheridan was utterly unnerved, utterly brought low by them; but it was his wife's death that told most upon him. With that wife he had always been the lover rather than the husband. She had married him in the days of his poverty, when her beauty was so celebrated that she might have wed whom she would. She had risen with him and shared his later anxieties. Yet she had seen him forget, neglect her, and seek other society. In spite of his tender affection for her and for his children, he had never made a _home_ of their home. Vanity Fair had kept him ever flitting, and it is little to be wondered at that Mrs. Sheridan was the object of much, though ever respectful admiration.[9] Yet, in spite of calumny, she died with a fair fame. Decline had long pressed upon her, yet her last illness was too brief. In 1792 she was taken away, still in the summer of her days, and with her last breath uttering her love for the man who had never duly prized her. His grief was terrible; yet it passed, and wrought no change. He found solace in his beloved son, and yet more beloved daughter. A few months--and the little girl followed her mother. Again his grief was terrible: again passed and wrought no change. Yes, it did work some change, but not for the better; it drove him to the goblet; and from that time we may date the confirmation of his habit of drinking. The solemn warnings had been unheeded: they were to be repeated by a long-suffering God in a yet more solemn manner, which should touch him yet more nearly. His beautiful wife had been the one restraint upon his folly and his lavishness. Now she was gone, they burst out afresh, wilder than ever. [9: Lord Edward Fitzgerald was one of the most devoted of her admirers: he chose his wife, Pamela, because she resembled Mrs. Sheridan.--See Moore's Life of Lord Edward.] For a while after these afflictions, which were soon completed in the death of his most intimate friend and boyish companion, Tickell, Sheridan threw himself again into the commotion of the political world. But in this we shall not follow him. Three years after the death of his first wife he married again. He was again fortunate in his choice. Though now forty-four, he succeeded in winning the heart of a most estimable and charming young lady with a fortune of £5,000. She must indeed have loved or admired the widower very much to consent to be the wife of a man so notoriously irregular, to use a mild term, in his life. But Sheridan fascinated wherever he went, and young ladies like 'a little wildness.' His heart was always good, and where he gave it, he gave it warmly, richly, fully. His second wife was Miss Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of Winchester. She was given to him on condition of his settling in all £20,000, upon her--a wise proviso with such a spendthrift--and he had to raise the money, as usual. His political career was sufficiently brilliant, though his real fame as a speaker rests on his great oration at Hastings' trial. In 1806 he satisfied another point of his ambition, long desired, and was elected for the city of Westminster, which he had ardently coveted when Fox represented it. But a dissolution threw him again on the mercy of the popular party; and again he offered himself for Westminster: but, in spite of all the efforts made for him, without success. He was returned, instead, for Ilchester. Meanwhile his difficulties increased; extravagance, debt, want of energy to meet both, brought him speedily into that position when a man accepts without hesitation the slightest offer of aid. The man who had had an income of £15,000 a year, and settled £20,000 on his wife, allowed a poor friend to pay a bill for £5 for him, and clutched eagerly at a £50 note when displayed to him by another. Extravagance is the father of meanness, and Sheridan was often mean in the readiness with which he accepted offers, and the anxiety with which he implored assistance. It is amusing in the present day to hear a man talk of 'a debt of honour,' as if all debts did not demand honour to pay them--as if all debts incurred without hope of repayment were not dishonourable. A story is told relative to the old-fashioned idea of a 'debt of honour.' A tradesman, to whom he had given a bill for £200, called on him for the amount. A heap of gold was lying on the table. 'Don't look that way,' cried Sheridan, after protesting that he had not a penny in the world, 'that is to pay a debt of honour.' The applicant, with some wit, tore up the bill he held. 'Now, Mr. Sheridan,' quoth he, 'mine is a debt of honour too.' It is to be hoped that Sheridan handed him the money. The story of Gunter's bill is not so much to his credit, Hanson, an ironmonger, called upon him and pressed for payment. A bill sent in by the famous confectioner was lying on the table. A thought struck the debtor, who had no means of getting rid of his importunate applicant. 'You know Gunter?' he asked. 'One of the safest men in London,' replied the ironmonger. 'Then will you be satisfied if I give you his _bill_ for the amount?'--'Certainly.' Thereupon Sheridan handed him the neatly folded account and rushed from the room, leaving the creditor to discover the point of Mr. Sheridan's little fun. Still Sheridan might have weathered through the storm. Drury Lane was a mine of wealth to him, and with a little care might have been really profitable. The lawsuits, the debts, the engagements upon it, all rose from his negligence and extravagance. But Old Drury was doomed. On the 24th February, 1809, soon after the conclusion of the performances, it was announced to be in flames. Rather it announced itself. In a few moments it was blazing--a royal bonfire. Sheridan was in the House of Commons at the time. The reddened clouds above London threw the glare back even to the windows of the House. The members rushed from their seats to see the unwonted light, and in consideration for Sheridan, an adjournment was moved. But he rose calmly, though sadly, and begged that no misfortune of his should interrupt the public business. His independence, he said--witty in the midst of his troubles--had often been questioned, but was now confirmed, for he had nothing more to depend upon. He then left the House, and repaired to the scene of conflagration. Not long after, Kelly found him sitting quite composed in 'The Bedford,' sipping his wine, as if nothing had happened. The musician expressed his astonishment at Mr. Sheridan's _sang froid_. 'Surely,' replied the wit, 'you'll admit that a man has a right to take his wine by his own fireside.' But Sheridan was only drowning care, not disregarding it. The event was really too much for him, though perhaps he did not realize the extent of its effect at the time. In a word, all he had in the world went with the theatre. Nothing was left either for him or the principal shareholders. Yet he bore it all with fortitude, till he heard that the harpsichord, on which his first wife was wont to play, was gone too. Then he burst into tears. This fire was the opening of the shaft down which the great man sank rapidly. While his fortunes kept up, his spirits were not completely exhausted. He drank much, but as an indulgence rather than as a relief. Now it was by wine alone that he could even raise himself to the common requirements of conversation. He is described, _before_ dinner, as depressed, nervous, and dull; _after_ dinner only did the old fire break out, the old wit blaze up, and Dick Sheridan was Dick Sheridan once more. He was, in fact, fearfully oppressed by the long-accumulated and never-to-be-wiped-off debts, for which he was now daily pressed. In quitting Parliament he resigned his sanctuary, and left himself an easy prey to the Jews and Gentiles, whom he had so long dodged and deluded with his ready ingenuity. Drury Lane, as we all know, was rebuilt, and the birth of the new house heralded with a prologue by Byron, about as good as the one in 'Rejected Addresses,' the cleverest parodies ever written, and suggested by this very occasion. The building-committee having advertised for a prize prologue Samuel Whitbread sent in his own attempt, in which, as probably in a hundred others, the new theatre was compared to a Phoenix rising out of the ashes of the old one. Sheridan said Whitbread's description of a Phoenix was excellent, for it was quite a _poulterer's description_. This same Sam Whitbread was now to figure conspicuously in the life of Mr. Richard B. Sheridan. The ex-proprietor was found to have an interest in the theatre to the amount of £150,000--not a trifle to be despised; but he was now past sixty, and it need excite no astonishment that, even with all his liabilities, he was unwilling to begin again the cares of management, or mismanagement which he had endured so many years. He sold his interest, in which his son Tom was joined, for £60,000. This sum would have cleared off his debts and left him a balance sufficient to secure comfort for his old age. But it was out of the question that any money matters should go right with Dick Sheridan. Of the rights and wrongs of the quarrel between him and Whitbread, who was the chairman of the committee for building the new theatre, I do not pretend to form an opinion. Sheridan was not naturally mean, though he descended to meanness when hard pressed--what man of his stamp does not? Whitbread was truly friendly to him for a time. Sheridan was always complaining that he was sued for debts he did not owe, and kept out of many that were due to him. Whitbread knew his man well, and if he withheld what was owing to him, may be excused on the ground of real friendship. All I know is, that Sheridan and Whitbread quarrelled; that the former did not, or affirmed that he did not, receive the full amount of his claim on the property, and that, when what he had received was paid over to his principal creditors, there was little or nothing left for my lord to spend in banquets to parliamentary friends and jorums of brandy in small coffee-houses. Because a man is a genius, he is not of necessity an upright, honest, ill-used, oppressed, and cruelly-entreated man. Genius plays the fool wittingly, and often enough quite knowingly, with its own interests. It is its privilege to do so, and no one has a right to complain. But then Genius ought to hold its tongue, and not make itself out a martyr, when it has had the dubious glory of defying common-sense. If Genius despises gold, well and good, but when he has spurned it, he should not whine out that he is wrongfully kept from it. Poor Sheridan may or may not have been right in the Whitbread quarrel; he has had his defenders, and I am not ambitious of being numbered among them; but whatever were now his troubles were brought on by his own disregard of all that was right and beautiful in conduct. If he went down to the grave a pauper and a debtor, he had made his own bed, and in it he was to lie. Lie he did, wretchedly, on the most unhappy bed that old age ever lay in. There is little more of importance to chronicle of his latter days. The retribution came on slowly but terribly. The career of a ruined man is not a pleasant topic to dwell upon, and I leave Sheridan's misery for Mr. J. B. Gough to whine and roar over when he wants a shocking example. Sheridan might have earned many a crown in that capacity, if temperance-oratory had been the passion of the day. Debt, disease, depravity--these words describe enough the downward career of his old age. To eat, still more to drink, was now the troublesome enigma of the quondam genius. I say quondam, for all the marks of that genius were now gone. One after another his choicest properties made their way to 'my uncle's.' The books went first, as if they could be most easily dispensed with; the remnants of his plate followed; then his pictures were sold; and at last even the portrait of his first wife, by Reynolds, was left in pledge for a 'further remittance.' The last humiliation arrived in time, and the associate of a prince, the eloquent organ of a party, the man who had enjoyed £15,000, a year, was carried off to a low sponging-house. His pride forsook him in that dismal and disgusting imprisonment, and he wrote to Whitbread a letter which his defenders ought not to have published. He had his friends--stanch ones too--and they aided him. Peter Moore, ironmonger, and even Canning, lent him money and released him from time to time. For six years after the burning of the old theatre, he continued to go down and down. Disease now attacked him fiercely. In the spring of 1816 he was fast waning towards extinction. His day was past; he had outlived his fame as a wit and social light; he was forgotten by many, if not by most, of his old associates. He wrote to Rogers, 'I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted.' Poor Sheridan! in spite of all thy faults, who is he whose morality is so stern that he cannot shed one tear over thy latter days! God forgive us, we are all sinners; and if we weep not for this man's deficiency, how shall we ask tears when our day comes? Even as I write, I feel my hand tremble and my eyes moisten over the sad end of one whom I love, though he died before I was born. 'They are going to put the carpets out of window,' he wrote to Rogers, 'and break into Mrs. S.'s room and _take me_. For God's sake let me see you!' See him!--see one friend who could and would help him in his misery! Oh! happy may that man count himself who has never wanted that one friend, and felt the utter helplessness of that want! Poor Sheridan! had he ever asked, or hoped, or looked for that Friend out of _this_ world it had been better; for 'the Lord thy God is a jealous God,' and we go on seeking human friendship and neglecting the divine till it is too late. He found one hearty friend in his physician, Dr. Bain, when all others had forsaken him. The spirit of White's and Brookes', the companion of a prince and a score of noblemen, the enlivener of every 'fashionable' table, was forgotten by all but this one doctor. Let us read Moore's description: 'A sheriff's officer at length arrested the dying man _in his bed_, and was about to carry him off, in his blankets, to a sponging-house, when Dr. Bain interfered.' Who would live the life of revelry that Sheridan lived to have such an end? A few days after, on the 7th of July, 1816, in his sixty-fifth year, he died. Of his last hours the late Professor Smythe wrote an admirable and most touching account, a copy of which was circulated in manuscript. The Professor, hearing of Sheridan's condition, asked to see him, with a view, not only of alleviating present distress, but of calling the dying man to repentance. From his hands the unhappy Sheridan received the Holy Communion; his face, during that solemn rite,--doubly solemn when it is performed in the chamber of death, 'expressed,' Smythe relates, '_the deepest awe_' That phrase conveys to the mind impressions not easy to be defined, not soon to be forgotten. Peace! there was not peace even in death, and the creditor pursued him even into the 'waste wide,'--even to the coffin. He was lying in state, when a gentleman in the deepest mourning called, it is said, at the house, and introducing himself as an old and much-attached friend of the deceased, begged to be allowed to look upon his face. The tears which rose in his eyes, the tremulousness of his quiet voice, the pallor of his mournful face, deceived the unsuspecting servant, who accompanied him to the chamber of death, removed the lid of the coffin, turned down the shrowd, and revealed features which had once been handsome, but long since rendered almost hideous by drinking. The stranger gazed with profound emotion, while he quietly drew from his pocket a bailiff's wand, and touching the corpse's face with it, suddenly altered his manner to one of considerable glee, and informed the servant that he had arrested the corpse in the king's name for a debt of £500. It was the morning of the funeral, which was to be attended by half the grandees of England, and in a few minutes the mourners began to arrive. But the corpse was the bailiff's property, till his claim was paid, and nought but the money would soften the iron capturer. Canning and Lord Sidmouth agreed to settle the matter, and over the coffin the debt was paid. Poor corpse! was it worth £500--diseased, rotting as it was, and about to be given for nothing to mother earth? Was it worth the pomp of the splendid funeral and the grand hypocrisy of grief with which it was borne to Westminster Abbey? Was not rather the wretched old man, while he yet struggled on in life, worth this outlay, worth this show of sympathy? Folly; not folly only--but a lie! What recked the dead of the four noble pall-bearers--the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Earl Mulgrave, and the Bishop of London? What good was it to him to be followed by two royal highnesses--the Dukes of York and Sussex--by two marquises, seven earls, three viscounts, five lords, a Canning, a lord mayor, and a whole regiment of honourables and right honourables, who now wore the livery of grief, when they had let him die in debt, in want, and in misery? Far more, if the dead could feel, must he have been grateful for the honester tears of those two untitled men, who had really befriended him to the last hour and never abandoned him, Mr. Rogers and Dr. Bain. But peace; let him pass with nodding plumes and well-dyed horses to the great Walhalla, and amid the dust of many a poet let the poet's dust find rest and honour, secure at last from the hand of the bailiff. There was but one nook unoccupied in Poet's Corner, and there they laid him. A simple marble was afforded by another friend without a title--Peter Moore. To a life like Sheridan's it is almost impossible to do justice in so narrow a space as I have here. He is one of those men who, not to be made out a whit better or worse than they are, demand a careful investigation of all their actions, or reported actions--a careful sifting of all the evidence for or against them, and a careful weeding of all the anecdotes told of them. This requires a separate biography. To give a general idea of the man, we must be content to give that which he inspired in a general acquaintance. Many of his 'mots,' and more of the stories about him, may have been invented for him, but they would scarcely have been fixed on Sheridan, if they had not fitted more or less his character: I have therefore given them. I might have given a hundred more, but I have let alone those anecdotes which did not seem to illustrate the character of the man. Many another good story is told of him, and we must content ourselves with one or two. Take one that is characteristic of his love of fun. Sheridan is accosted by an elderly gentleman, who has forgotten the name of a street to which he wants to go, and who informs him precisely that it is an out-of-the-way name. 'Perhaps, sir, you mean John Street?' says Sherry, all innocence. 'No, an unusual name.' 'It can't be Charles Street?' Impatience on the part of the old gentleman. 'King Street?' suggests the cruel wit. 'I tell you, sir, it is a street with a very odd name!' 'Bless me, is it Queen Street?' Irritation on the part of the old gentleman. 'It must be Oxford Street?' cries Sheridan as if inspired. 'Sir, I repeat,' very testily, 'that it is a very odd name. Every one knows Oxford Street!' Sheridan appears to be thinking. 'An odd name! Oh! ah! just so; Piccadilly, of course?' Old gentleman bounces away in disgust. 'Well, sir,' Sheridan calls after him, 'I envy you your admirable memory!' His wit was said to have been prepared, like his speeches, and he is even reported to have carried his book of _mots_ in his pocket, as a young lady of the middle class _might_, but seldom does, carry her book of etiquette into a party. But some of his wit was no doubt extempore. When arrested for non-attendance to a call in the House, soon after the change of ministry, he exclaimed, 'How hard to be no sooner out of office than into custody!' He was not an inveterate talker, like Macaulay, Sydney Smith, or Jeffrey: he seems rather to have aimed at a striking effect in all that he said. When found tripping he had a clever knack of getting out of the difficulty. In the Hastings speech he complimented Gibbon as a 'luminous' writer; questioned on this, he replied archly, 'I said _vo_-luminous.' I cannot afford to be voluminous on Sheridan, and so I quit him. BEAU BRUMMELL Two popular Sciences.--'Buck Brummell' at Eton.--Investing his Capital.-- Young Cornet Brummell.--The Beau's Studio.--The Toilet.--'Creasing Down.'--Devotion to Dress.--A Great Gentleman.--Anecdotes of Brummell.-- 'Don't forget, Brum: Goose at Four!'--Offers of Intimacy resented.--Never in love.--Brummell out Hunting.--Anecdote of Sheridan and Brummell.--The Beau's Poetical Efforts.--The Value of a Crooked Sixpence.--The Breach with the Prince of Wales.--'Who's your Fat Friend?'--The Climax is reached.--The Black-mail of Calais.--George the Greater and George the Less.--An Extraordinary Step.--Down the Hill of Life.--A Miserable Old Age.--In the Hospice Du Bon Sauveur.--O Young Men of this Age, be warned! It is astonishing to what a number of insignificant things high art has been applied, and with what success. It is the vice of high civilization to look for it and reverence it, where a ruder age would only laugh at its employment. Crime and cookery, especially, have been raised into sciences of late, and the professors of both received the amount of honour due to their acquirements. Who would be so naïve as to sneer at the author of 'The Art of Dining?' or who so ungentlemanly as not to pity the sorrows of a pious baronet, whose devotion to the noble art of appropriation was shamefully rewarded with accommodation gratis on board one of Her Majesty's transport-ships? The disciples of Ude have left us the literary results of their studies, and one at least, the graceful Alexis Soyer, is numbered among our public benefactors. We have little doubt that as the art, vulgarly called 'embezzlement,' becomes more and more fashionable, as it does every day, we shall have a work on the 'Art of Appropriation.' It is a pity that Brummell looked down upon literature: poor literature! it had a hard struggle to recover the slight, for we are convinced there is not a work more wanted than the 'Art of Dressing,' and 'George the Less' was almost the last professor of that elaborate science. If the maxim, that 'whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well,' hold good, Beau Brummell must be regarded in the light of a great man. That dressing is worth doing at all, everybody but a Fiji Islander seems to admit, for everybody does it. If, then, a man succeeds in dressing better than anybody else, it follows that he is entitled to the most universal admiration. But there was another object to which this great man condescended to apply the principles of high art--I mean affectation. How admirably he succeeded in this his life will show. But can we doubt that he is entitled to our greatest esteem and heartiest gratitude for the studies he pursued with unremitting patience in these two useful branches, when we find that a prince of the blood delighted to honour, and the richest, noblest, and most distinguished men of half a century ago were proud to know him? We are writing, then, of no common man, no mere beau, but of the greatest professor of two of the most popular sciences--Dress and Affectation. Let us speak with reverence of this wonderful genius. George Brummell was 'a self-made man.' That is, all that nature, the tailors, stags, and padding had not made of him, he made for himself--his name, his fame, his fortune, and his friends--and all these were great. The author of 'Self-help' has most unaccountably omitted all mention of him, and most erroneously, for if there ever was a man who helped himself, and no one else, it was, 'very sincerely yours, George Brummell.' The founder of the noble house of Brummell, the grandfather of our hero, was either a treasury porter, or a confectioner, or something else.[10] At any rate he let lodgings in Bury Street, and whether from the fact that his wife did not purloin her lodgers' tea and sugar, or from some other cause, he managed to ingratiate himself with one of them--who afterwards became Lord Liverpool--so thoroughly, that through his influence he obtained for his son the post of Private Secretary to Lord North. Nothing could have been more fortunate, except, perhaps, the son's next move, which was to take in marriage the daughter of Richardson, the owner of a well-known lottery-office. Between the lottery of office and the lottery of love, Brummell _père_ managed to make a very good fortune. At his death he left as much as £65,000 to be divided among his three children--Raikes says as much as £30,000 a-piece--so that the Beau, if not a fool, ought never to have been a pauper. [10: Mr. Jesse says that the Beau's grandfather was a servant of Mr. Charles Monson, brother to the first Lord Monson.] George Bryan Brummell, the second son of this worthy man, honoured by his birth the 7th of June, 1778. No anecdotes of his childhood are preserved, except that he once cried because he could not eat any more damson tart. In later years he would probably have thought damson tart 'very vulgar.' He first turns up at Eton at the age of twelve, and even there commences his distinguished career, and is known as 'Buck Brummell.' The boy showed himself decidedly father to the man here. Master George was not vulgar enough, nor so imprudent, it may be added, as to fight, row, or play cricket, but he distinguished himself by the introduction of a gold buckle in the white stock, by never being flogged, and by his ability in toasting cheese. We do not hear much of his classical attainments. The very gentlemanly youth was in due time passed on to Oriel College, Oxford. Here he distinguished himself by a studied indifference to college discipline and an equal dislike to studies. He condescended to try for the Newdigate Prize poem, but his genius leaned far more to the turn of a coat-collar than that of a verse, and, unhappily for the British poets, their ranks were not to be dignified by the addition of this illustrious man. The Newdigate was given to another; and so, to punish Oxford, the competitor left it and poetry together, after having adorned the old quadrangle of Oriel for less than a year. He was now a boy of seventeen, and a very fine boy, too. To judge from a portrait taken in later life, he was not strictly handsome; but he is described as tall, well built, and of a slight and graceful figure. Added to this, he had got from Eton and Oxford, if not much learning, many a well-born friend, and he was toady enough to cultivate those of better, and to dismiss those of less distinction. He was, through life, a celebrated 'cutter,' and Brummell's cut was as much admired--by all but the _cuttee_--as Brummel's coat. Then he had some £25,000 as capital and how could he best invest it? He consulted no stockbroker on this weighty point; he did not even buy a shilling book of advice such as we have seen advertised for those who do not know what to do with their money. The question was answered in a moment by the young worldling of sixteen: he would enter a crack regiment and invest his guineas in the thousand per cents. of fashionable life. His namesake, the Regent, was now thirty-two, and had spent those years of his life in acquiring the honorary title of the 'first gentleman of Europe' by every act of folly, debauch, dissipation, and degradation which a prince can conveniently perpetrate. He was the hero of London society, which adored and backbit him alternately, and he was precisely the man whom the boy Brummell would worship. The Regent was colonel of a famous regiment of fops--the 10th Hussars. It was the most expensive, the most impertinent, the best-dressed, the worst-moralled regiment in the British army. Its officers, many of them titled, all more or less distinguished in the trying campaigns of London seasons, were the intimates of the Prince-Colonel. Brummell aspired to a cornetcy in this brilliant regiment, and obtained it; nor that alone; he secured, by his manners, o his dress, or his impudence, the favour and companionship-- friendship we cannot say--of the prince who commanded it. By this step his reputation was made, and it was only necessary to keep it up. He had an immense fund of good nature, and, as long as his money lasted, of good spirits, too. Good sayings--that is, witty if not wise-- are recorded of him, and his friends pronounce him a charming companion. Introduced, therefore, into the highest circles in England, he could scarcely fail to succeed. Young Cornet Brummell became a great favourite with the fair. His rise in the regiment was of course rapid: in three years he was at the head of a troop. The onerous duties of a military life, which vacillated between Brighton and London, and consisted chiefly in making oneself agreeable in the mess-room, were too much for our hero. He neglected parade, or arrived too late: it was such a bore to have to dress in a hurry. It is said that he knew the troop he commanded only by the peculiar nose of one of the men, and that when a transfer of men had once been made, rode up to the wrong troop, and supported his mistake by pointing to the nose in question. No fault, however, was found with the Regent's favourite, and Brummell might have risen to any rank if he could have supported the terrific labour of dressing for parade. Then, too, there came wars and rumours of wars, and our gallant captain shuddered at the vulgarity of shedding blood: the supply of smelling-salts would never have been liberal enough to keep him from fainting on the battle-field. It is said, too, that the regiment was ordered to Manchester. Could anything be more gross or more ill-bred? The idea of figuring before the wives and daughters of cotton-spinners was too fearful; and from one cause or another our brave young captain determined to retire, which he did in 1798. It was now, therefore, that he commenced the profession of a beau, and as he is the Prince of Beaux, as his patron was the Beau of Princes, and as his fame has spread to France and Germany, if only as the inventor of the trouser; and as there is no man who on getting up in the morning does not put on his clothes with more or less reflection as to whether they are the right ones to put on, and as beaux have existed since the days of the emperor of beaux, Alexander the Macedonian, and will probably exist to all time, let us rejoice in the high honour of being permitted to describe how this illustrious genius clothed his poor flesh, and made the most of what God had given him--a body and legs. The private life of Brummell would in itself serve as a book of manners and habits. The two were his profoundest study; but, alas! his impudence marred the former, and the latter can scarcely be imitated in the present day. Still as a great example he is yet invaluable, and must be described in all detail. His morning toilette was a most elaborate affair. Never was Brummell guilty of _déshabille_. Like a true man of business, he devoted the best and earliest hours--and many of them too--to his profession, namely-- dressing. His dressing-room was a studio, in which he daily prepared that elaborate portrait of George Brummell which was to be exhibited for a few hours in the club-rooms and drawing-rooms of town, only to be taken to pieces again, and again made up for the evening. Charles I. delighted to resort of a morning to the studio of Vandyck, and to watch his favourite artist's progress. The Regent George was no less devoted to art, for we are assured by Mr. Raikes that he often visited his favourite beau in the morning to watch his toilet, and would sometimes stay so late that he would send his horses away, insisting on Brummell giving him a quiet dinner, 'which generally ended in a deep potation.' There are, no doubt, many fabulous myths floating about concerning this illustrious man; and his biographer, Captain Jesse, seems anxious to defend him from the absurd stories of French writers, who asserted that he employed two glovers to covers his hands, to one of whom were intrusted the thumbs, to the other the fingers and hand, and three barbers to dress his hair, while his boots were polished with champagne, his cravats designed by a celebrated portrait painter, and so forth. These may be pleasant inventions, but Captain Jesse's own account of his toilet, even when the Beau was broken, and living in elegant poverty abroad, is quite absurd enough to render excusable the ingenious exaggerations of the foreign writer. The _batterie de toilette_, we are told, was of silver, and included a spitting-dish, for its owner said 'he could not spit into clay.' Napoleon shaved himself, but Brummell was not quite great enough to do that, just as my Lord So-and-so walks to church on Sunday, while his neighbour, the Birmingham millionaire, can only arrive there in a chariot and pair. His ablutions took no less than two whole hours! What knowledge might have been gained, what good done in the time he devoted to rubbing his lovely person with a hair-glove! Cleanliness was, in fact, Brummell's religion; perhaps because it is generally set down as 'next to godliness,' a proximity with which the Beau was quite satisfied, for he never attempted to pass on to that next stage. Poor fool, he might rub every particle of moisture off the skin of his body--he might be clean as a kitten--but he could not and did not purify his mind with all this friction; and the man who would have fainted to see a black speck upon his shirt, was not at all shocked at the indecent conversation in which he and his companions occasionally indulged. The body cleansed, the face had next to be brought up as near perfection as nature would allow. With a small looking-glass in one hand, and tweezers in the other, he carefully removed the tiniest hairs that he could discover on his cheeks or chin, enduring the pain like a martyr. Then came the shirt, which was in his palmy days changed three times a day, and then in due course the great business of the cravat. Captain Jesse's minute account of the process of tying this can surely be relied on, and presents one of the most ludicrous pictures of folly and vanity that can be imagined. Had Brummell never lived, and a novelist or play-writer described the toilet which Captain Jesse affirms to have been his daily achievement, he would have had the critics about him with the now common phrase--'This book is a tissue, not only of improbabilities, but of actual impossibilities.' The collar, then, was so large, that in its natural condition it rose high above the wearer's head, and some ingenuity was required to reduce it by delicate folds to exactly that height which the Beau judged to be correct. Then came the all-majestic white neck-tie, a foot in breadth. It is not to be supposed that Brummell had the neck of a swan or a camel--far from it. The worthy fool had now to undergo, with admirable patience, the mysterious process known to our papas as 'creasing down.' The head was thrown back, as if ready for a dentist; the stiff white tie applied to the throat, and gradually wrinkled into half its actual breadth by the slow downward movement of the chin. When all was done, we can imagine that comfort was sacrificed to elegance, as it was then considered, and that the sudden appearance of Venus herself could not have induced the deluded individual to turn his head in a hurry. It is scarcely profitable to follow this lesser deity into all the details of his self-adornment. It must suffice to say that he affected an extreme neatness and simplicity of dress, every item of which was studied and discussed for many an hour. In the mornings he was still guilty of hessians and pantaloons, or 'tops' and buckskins, with a blue coat and buff waistcoat. The costume is not so ancient, but that one may tumble now and then on a country squire who glories in it and denounces us juveniles as 'bears' for want of a similar precision. Poor Brummell, he cordially hated the country squires, and would have wanted rouge for a week if he could have dreamed that his pet attire would, some fifty years later, be represented only by one of that class which he was so anxious to exclude from Watier's. But it was in the evening that he displayed his happy invention of the trouser, or rather its introduction from Germany. This article he wore very tight to the leg, and buttoned over the ankle, exactly as we see it in old prints of 'the fashion.' Then came the wig, and on that the hat. It is a vain and thankless task to defend Brummell from the charge of being a dandy. If one proof of his devotion to dress were wanted, it would be the fact that this hat, once stuck jauntily on one side of the wig, was never removed in the street even to salute a lady--so that, inasmuch as he sacrificed his manners to his appearance, he may be fairly set down as a fop. The perfect artist could not be expected to be charitable to the less successful. Dukes and princes consulted him on the make of their coats, and discussed tailors with him with as much solemnity as divines might dispute on a mystery of religion. Brummell did not spare them. 'Bedford,' said he, to the duke of that name, fingering a new garment which his grace had submitted to his inspection, 'do you call this _thing_ a coat?' Again, meeting a noble acquaintance who wore shoes in the morning, he stopped and asked him what he had got upon his feet. 'Oh! shoes are they,' quoth he, with a well bred sneer, 'I thought they were slippers.' He was even ashamed of his own brother, and when the latter came to town, begged him to keep to the back streets till his new clothes were sent home. Well might his friend the Regent say, that he was 'a mere tailor's dummy to hang clothes upon.' But in reality Brummell was more. He had some sharpness and some taste. But the former was all brought out in sneers, and the latter in snuff-boxes. His whole mind could have been put into one of these. He had a splendid collection of them, and was famous for the grace with which he opened the lid of his box with the thumb of the hand that carried it, while he delicately took his pinch with two fingers of the other. This and his bow were his chief acquirements, and his reputation for manners was based on the distinction of his manner. He could not drive in a public conveyance, but he could be rude to a well-meaning lady; he never ate vegetables--_one_ pea he confessed to--but he did not mind borrowing from his friends money which he knew he could never return. He was a great gentleman, a gentleman of his patron's school--in short, a well-dressed snob. But one thing is due to Brummell: he made the assumption of being 'a gentleman' so thoroughly ridiculous that few men of keen sense care now for the title: at least, not as a class-distinction. Nor is it to be wondered at; when your tailor's assistant is a 'gentleman,' and would be mightily disgusted at being called anything else, you, with your indomitable pride of caste, can scarcely care for the patent. Brummell's claim to the title was based on his walk, his coat, his cravat, and the grace with which he indulged, as Captain Jesse delightfully calls it, 'the nasal pastime' of taking snuff, all the rest was impudence; and many are the anecdotes--most of them familiar as household words--which are told of his impertinence. The story of Mrs. Johnson-Thompson is one of those oft-told tales, which, from having become Joe Millers, have gradually passed out of date and been almost forgotten. Two rival party-givers rejoiced in the aristocratic names of Johnson and Thompson. The former lived near Finsbury, the latter near Grosvenor Square, and Mrs. Thompson was somehow sufficiently fashionable to expect the Regent himself at her assemblies. Brummell among other impertinences, was fond of going where he was not invited or wanted. The two rivals gave a ball on the same evening, and a card was sent to the Beau by her of Finsbury. He chose to go to the Grosvenor Square house, in hopes of meeting the Regent, then his foe. Mrs. Thompson was justly disgusted, and with a vulgarity quite deserved by the intruder, told him he was not invited. The Beau made a thousand apologies, hummed, hawed, and drew a card from his pocket. It was the rival's invitation, and was indignantly denounced. 'Dear me, how very unfortunate,' said the Beau, 'but you know Johnson and Thompson--I mean Thompson and Johnson are so very much alike. Mrs. Johnson-Thompson, I wish you a very good evening.' Perhaps there is no vulgarity greater than that of rallying people on their surnames, but our exquisite gentleman had not wit enough to invent one superior to such a puerile amusement. Thus, on one occasion, he woke up at three in the morning a certain Mr. Snodgrass, and when the worthy put his head out of the window in alarm, said quietly, 'Pray, sir, is your name Snodgrass?'--'Yes, sir, it is Snodgrass.' 'Snodgrass-- Snodgrass--it is a very singular name. Good-bye, Mr. _Snodgrass_.' There was more wit in his remark to Poodle Byng, a well-known puppy, whom he met one day driving in the Park with a French dog in his curricle. 'Ah,' cried the Beau, 'how d'ye do, Byng? a family vehicle, I see.' It seems incredulous to modern gentlemen that such a man should have been tolerated even at a club. Take, for instance, his vulgar treatment of Lord Mayor Combe, whose name we still see with others over many a public-house in London, and who was then a most prosperous brewer and thriving gambler. At Brookes' one evening the Beau and the Brewer were playing at the same table, 'Come, _Mash-tub_', cried the 'gentleman,' 'what do you set?' Mash-tub unresentingly set a pony, and the Beau won twelve of him in succession. Pocketing his cash, he made him a bow, and exclaimed, 'Thank you, Alderman, in future I shall drink no porter but yours.' But Combe was worthy of his namesake, Shakspere's friend, and answered very aptly, 'I wish, sir, that every _other_ blackguard in London would tell me the same.' Then again, after ruining a young fool of fortune at the tables, and being reproached by the youth's father for leading his son astray, he replied with charming affectation, 'Why, sir, I did all I could for him. I once gave him my arm all the way from White's to Brookes'!' When Brummell really wanted a dinner, while at Calais, he could not give up his impertinence for the sake of it. Lord Westmoreland called on him, and, perhaps out of compassion, asked him to dine at _three o'clock_ with him. 'Your Lordship is very kind,' said the Beau, 'but really I could not _feed_ at such an hour.' Sooner or later he was glad to _feed_ with any one who was toady enough to ask him. He was once placed in a delightfully awkward position from having accepted the invitation of a charitable but vulgar-looking Britisher at Calais. He was walking with Lord Sefton, when the individual passed and nodded familiarly. 'Who's your friend, Brummell?'--'Not mine, he must be bowing to you.' But presently the man passed again, and this time was cruel enough to exclaim, 'Don't forget, Brum, don't forget--goose at four!' The poor Beau must have wished the earth to open under him. He was equally imprudent in the way in which he treated an old acquaintance who arrived at the town to which he had retreated, and of whom he was fool enough to be ashamed. He generally took away their characters summarily, but on one occasion was frightened almost out of his wits by being called to account for this conduct. An officer who had lost his nose in an engagement in the Peninsula, called on him, and in very strong terms requested to know why the Beau had reported that he was a retired hatter. His manner alarmed the rascal, who apologized, and protested that there must be a mistake; he had never said so. The officer retired, and as he was going, Brummell added: 'Yes, it must be a mistake, for now I think of it, I never dealt with a hatter without a nose.' So much for the good breeding of this friend of George IV. and the Duke of York. His affectation was quite as great as his impudence: and he won the reputation of fastidiousness--nothing gives more prestige--by dint of being openly rude. No hospitality or kindness melted him, when he thought he could gain a march. At one dinner, not liking the champagne, he called to the servant to give him 'some more of that cider:' at another, to which he was invited in days when a dinner was a charity to him, after helping himself to a wing of capon, and trying a morsel of it, he took it up in his napkin, called to his dog--he was generally accompanied by a puppy, even to parties, as if one at a time were not enough--and presenting it to him, said aloud, 'Here, _Atons_, try if you can get your teeth through that, for I'm d--d if I can!' To the last he resented offers of intimacy from those whom he considered his inferiors, and as there are ladies enough everywhere, he had ample opportunity for administering rebuke to those who pressed into his society. On one occasion he was sauntering with a friend at Caen under the window of a lady who longed for nothing more than to have the great _arbiter elegantiarum_ at her house. When seeing him beneath, she put her head out, and called out to him, 'Good evening, Mr. Brummell, won't you come up and take tea?' The Beau looked up with extreme severity expressed on his face, and replied, 'Madam, you take medicine--you take a walk--you take a liberty--but you _drink_ tea,' and walked on, having, it may be hoped, cured the lady of her admiration. In the life of such a man there could not of course be much striking incident. He lived for 'society,' and the whole of his story consists in his rise and fall in that narrow world. Though admired and sought after by the women--so much so that at his death his chief assets were locks of hair, the only things he could not have turned into money--he never married. Wedlock might have sobered him, and made him a more sensible, if not more respectable member of society, but his advances towards matrimony never brought him to the crisis. He accounted for one rejection in his usual way. 'What could I do, my dear _fellar_,' he lisped, 'when I actually saw Lady Mary eat cabbage?' At another time he is said to have induced some deluded young creature to elope with him from a ball-room, but managed the affair so ill, that the lovers (?) were caught in the next street, and the affair came to an end. He wrote rather ecstatic love-letters to Lady Marys and Miss ----s, gave married ladies advice on the treatment of their spouses and was tender to various widows, but though he went on in this way through life, he was never, it would seem, in love, from the mere fact that he was incapable of passion. Perhaps he was too much of a woman to care much for women. He was certainly egregiously effeminate. About the only creatures he could love were poodles. When one of his dogs, from over-feeding, was taken ill, he sent for two dog-doctors, and consulted very gravely with them on the remedies to be applied. The canine physicians came to the conclusion that she must be bled. 'Bled!' said Brummell, in horror; 'I shall leave the room: inform me when the operation is over.' When the dog died, he shed tears--probably the only ones he had shed since childhood: and though at that time receiving money from many an old friend in England, complained, with touching melancholy, 'that he had lost the only friend he had!' His grief lasted three whole days, during which he shut himself up, and would see no one; but we are not told that he ever thus mourned over any human being. His effeminacy was also shown in his dislike to field-sports. His shooting exploits were confined to the murder of a pair of pet pigeons perched on a roof, while he confessed, as regards hunting, that it was a bore to get up so early in the morning only to have one's boots and leathers splashed by galloping farmers. However, hunting was a fashion, and Brummell must needs appear to hunt. He therefore kept a stud of hunters in his better days, near Belvoir, the Duke of Rutland's, where he was a frequent visitor, and if there was a near meet, would ride out in pink and tops to see the hounds break cover, follow through a few gates, and return to the more congenial atmosphere of the drawing-room. He, however, condescended to bring his taste to bear on the hunting-dress; and, it is said, introduced white tops instead of the ancient mahoganies. That he _could_ ride there seems reason to believe, but it is equally probable that he was afraid to do so. His valour was certainly composed almost entirely of its 'better part,' and indeed had so much prudence in it that it may be doubted if there was any of the original stock left. Once when he had been taking away somebody's character, the 'friend' of the maligned gentleman entered his apartment, and very menacingly demanded satisfaction for his principal, unless an apology were tendered 'in five minutes.' 'Five minutes!' answered the exquisite, as pale as death, 'five seconds, or sooner if you like.' Brummell was no fool, in spite of his follies. He had talents of a mediocre kind, if he had chosen to make a better use of them. Yet the general opinion was not in favour of his wisdom. He quite deserved Sheridan's cool satire for his affectation, if not for his want of mind. The Wit and the Beau met one day at Charing Cross, and it can well be imagined that the latter was rather disgusted at being seen so far east of St. James's Street, and drawled out to Sheridan,--'Sherry, my dear boy, don't mention that you saw me in this filthy part of the town, though, perhaps, I am rather severe, for his Grace of Northumberland resides somewhere about this spot, if I don't mistake. The fact is, my dear boy, I have been in the d----d City, to the Bank: I wish they would remove it to the West End, for re-all-y it is quite a bore to go to such a place; more particularly as one cannot be seen in one's own equipage beyond Somerset House,' etc. etc. etc. in the Brummellian style. 'Nay, my good fellow,' was the answer to this peroration, 'travelling from the East? impossible!' 'Why, my dear boy, why?' 'Because the wise men came from the East,' 'So, then, sa-ar--you think me a fool?' 'By no means; I know you to be one,' quoth Sherry, and turned away. It is due to both the parties to this anecdote to state that it is quite apocryphal, and rests on the slenderest authority. However, whether fool or not, Brummell has one certain, though small, claim upon certain small readers. Were you born in a modern generation, when scraps of poetry were forbidden in your nursery, and no other pabulum was offered to your infant stomach, but the rather dull biographies of rather dull, though very upright men?--if so, I pity you. Old airs of a jaunty jig-like kind are still haunting the echoes of my brain. Among them is-- 'The butterfly was a gentleman, Which nobody can refute: He left his lady-love at home, And roamed in a velvet suit.' I remember often to have ruminated over this character of an innocent, and, I believe, calumniated, insect. He was a gentleman, and the consequences thereof were twofold: he abandoned the young woman who had trusted her affections to him, and attired his person in a complete costume of the best Lyons silk-velvet, _not_ the proctor's velvet, which Theodore felt with thumb and finger, impudently asking 'how much a yard?' I secretly resolved to do the same thing as Mr. Butterfly when I came of age. But the said Mr. Butterfly had a varied and somewhat awful history, all of which was narrated in various ditties chanted by my nurse. I could not quite join in her vivid assertion that she _would_ '----be a butterfly, Born in a bower, Christened in a tea-pot, And dead in an hour.' Aetat four, life is dear, and the idea of that early demise was far from welcome to me. I privily agreed that I would _not_ be a butterfly. But there was no end to the history of this very inconstant insect in our nursery lore. We didn't care a drop of honey for Dr. Watts's 'Busy Bee;' we infinitely preferred the account--not in the 'Morning Post'--of the 'Butterfly's Ball' and the 'Grasshopper's Feast; and few, perhaps, have ever given children more pleasures of imagination than William Roscoe, its author. There were some amongst us, however, who were already being weaned to a knowledge of life's mysterious changes, and we sought the third volume of the romance of the flitting gaudy thing in a little poem called 'The Butterfly's Funeral.' Little dreamed we, when in our prettly little song-books we saw the initial 'B.' at the bottom of these verses, that a real human butterfly had written them, and that they conveyed a solemn prognostication of a fate that was _not_ his. Little we dreamed, as we lisped out the verses, that the 'gentleman who roamed in a' not velvet but 'plum-coloured suit,' according to Lady Hester Stanhope, was the illustrious George Brummell, The Beau wrote these trashy little rhymes--pretty in their way--and, since I was once a child, and learnt them off by heart, I will not cast a stone at them. Brummell indulged in such trifling poetizing, but never went further. It is a pity he did not write his memoirs; they would have added a valuable page to the history of 'Vanity Fair.' Brummell's London glory lasted from 1798 to 1816. His chief club was Watier's. It was a superb assemblage of gamesters and fops--knaves and fools; and it is difficult to say which, element predominated. For a time Brummell was monarch there; but his day of reckoning came at last. Byron and Moore, Sir Henry Mildmay and Mr. Pierrepoint, were among the members. Play ran high there, and Brummell once won nearly as much as his squandered patrimony, £26.000. Of course he not only lost it again, but much more--indeed his whole capital. It was after some heavy loss that he was walking home through Berkeley Street with Mr. Raikes, when he saw something glittering in the gutter, picked it up, and found it to be a crooked sixpence. Like all small-minded men, he had a great fund of superstition, and he wore the talisman of good luck for some time. For two years, we are told, after this finding of treasure-trove, success attended him in play--macao, the very pith of hazard, was the chief game at Watier's--and he attributed it all to the sixpence. At last he lost it, and luck turned against him. So goes the story. It is probably much more easily accountable. Few men played honestly in those days without losing to the dishonest, and we have no reason to charge the Beau with mal-practice. However this may be, his losses at play first brought about his ruin. The Jews were, of course, resorted to; and if Brummell did not, like Charles Fox, keep a Jerusalem Chamber, it was only because the sum total of his fortune was pretty well known to the money-lenders. 'Then came the change, the check, the fall; Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all.' This remedy was the crossing of the Channel, a crossing kept by beggars, who levy a heavy toll on those who pass over it. The decline of the Beau was rapid, but not without its _éclat_. A breach with his royal patron led the way. It is presumed that every reader of these volumes has heard the famous story of 'Wales, ring the bell!' but not all may know its particulars. A deep impenetrable mystery hangs over this story. Perhaps some German of the twenty-first century--some future Giffard, or who not--will put his wits to work to solve the riddle. In very sooth _il ne vaut pas la chandelle_. A quarrel did take place between George the Prince and George the Less, but of its causes no living mortal is cognizant: we can only give the received versions. It appears, then, that dining with H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, Master Brummell asked him to ring the bell. Considering the intimacy between them, and that the Regent often sacrificed his dignity to his amusement, there was nothing extraordinary in this. But it is added that the Prince did ring the bell in question--unhappy bell to jar so between two such illustrious friends!--and when the servant came, ordered 'Mr. Brummell's carriage!' Another version palms off the impertinence on a drunken midshipman, who, being related to the Comptroller of the Household, had been invited to dinner by the Regent. Another yet states that Brummell, being asked to ring the said bell, replied, 'Your Royal Highness is close to it.' No one knows the truth of the legend, any more than whether Homer was a man or a myth. It surely does not matter. The friends quarrelled, and perhaps it was time they should do so, for they had never improved one another's morals; but it is only fair to the Beau to add that he always denied the whole affair, and that he himself gave as the cause of the quarrel his own sarcasms on the Prince's increasing corpulency, and his resemblance to Mrs. Fitzherbert's porter, 'Big Ben.' Certainly some praise is due to the Beau for the _sans, froid_ with which he appeared to treat the matter, though in reality dreadfully cut up about it. He lounged about, made amusing remarks on his late friend and patron, swore he would 'cut' him, and in short behaved with his usual _aplomb_. The 'Wales, ring the bell,' was sufficient proof of his impudence, but 'Who's your fat friend?' was really good. It is well known, in all probability, that George IV. contemplated with as much disgust and horror the increasing rotundity of his 'presence' as ever a maiden lady of a certain age did her first grey hair. Soon after the bell affair, the royal beau met his former friend in St. James's Street, and resolved to cut him. This was attacking Brummell with his own pet weapon, but not with success. Each antagonist was leaning on the arm of a friend. 'Jack Lee,' who was thus supporting the Beau, was intimate with the Prince, who, to make the cut the more marked, stopped and talked to him without taking the slightest notice of Brummell. After a time both parties moved on, and then came the moment of triumph and revenge. It was sublime! Turning round half way, so that his words could not fail to be heard by the retreating Regent, the Beau asked of his companion in his usual drawl, 'Well, Jack, who's your fat friend?' The coolness, presumption, and impertinence of the question perhaps made it the best thing the Beau ever said, and from that time the Prince took care not to risk another encounter with him.[11] [11: Another version, given by Captain Jesse, represents this to have taken place at a ball given at the Argyle Rooms in July, 1813, by Lord Alvanley, Sir Henry Miklmav, Mr. Pierrepoint, and Mr. Brummell.] Brummell was scotched rather than killed by the Prince's indifference. He at once resolved to patronise his brother, the Duke of York, and found in him a truer friend. The duchess, who had a particular fondness for dogs, of which she is said to have kept no fewer, at one time, than a hundred, added the puppy Brummell to the list, and treated him with a kindness in which little condescension was mixed. But neither impudence nor the blood-royal can keep a man out of debt, especially when he plays. The Beau got deeper and deeper into the difficulty, and at last some mysterious quarrel about money with a gentleman who thenceforward went by the name of Dick the Dandy-killer, obliged him to think of place and poverty in another land. He looked in vain for aid, and among others Scrope Davies was written to to lend him 'two hundred,' 'because his money was all in the three per cents.' Scrope replied laconically-- 'MY DEAR GEORGE, 'It is very unfortunate, but _my_ money is all in the three per cents. Yours, 'S. DAVIES,' It was the last attempt. The Beau went to the opera, as usual, and drove away from it clear off to Dover, whence the packet took him to safety and slovenliness in the ancient town of Calais. His few effects were sold after his departure. Porcelaine, buhl, a drawing or two, double-barrelled Mantons (probably never used), plenty of old wine, linen, furniture, and a few well-bound books, were the Beau's assets. His debts were with half the chief tradesmen of the West End and a large number of his personal friends. The climax is reached: henceforth Master George Bryan Brummell goes rapidly and gracefully down the hill of life. The position of a Calais beggar was by no means a bad one, if the reduced individual had any claim whatever to distinction. A black-mail was sedulously levied by the outcasts and exiles of that town on every Englishman who passed through it; and in those days it was customary to pass some short time in this entrance of France. The English 'residents' were always on the look-out, generally crowding round the packet-boat, and the new arrival was sure to be accosted by some old and attached friend, who had not seen him for years. Just as Buttons, who is always breaking the plates and tumblers, has the invariable mode of accounting for his carelessness, 'they fell apart, sir, in my 'ands!' so these expatriated Britons had always a tale of confidence misplaced--security for a bond--bail for a delinquent, or in short any hard case, which compelled them, much against their wills, to remain 'for a period' on the shores of France. To such men, whom you had known in seven-guinea waistcoats at White's and Watier's, and found in seven-shilling coats on the Calais pier, it was impossible to refuse your five-pound note, and in time the black-mail of Calais came to be reckoned among the established expenses of a Continental tour. Brummell was a distinguished beggar of this description, and managed so adroitly that the new arrivals thought themselves obliged by Mr. Brummell's acceptance of their donations. The man who could not eat cabbages, drive in a hackney-coach, or wear less than three shirts a day, was now supported by voluntary contributions, and did not see anything derogatory to a gentleman in their acceptance. If Brummell had now turned his talents to account; if he had practised his painting, in which he was not altogether despicable; or his poetry, in which he had already had some trifling success: if he had even engaged himself as a waiter at Quillacq's, or given lessons in the art of deportment, his fine friends from town might have cut him, but posterity would have withheld its blame. He was a beggar of the merriest kind. While he wrote letters to friends in England, asking for remittances, and describing his wretched condition on a bed of straw and eating bran bread, he had a good barrel of Dorchester ale in his lodgings, his usual glass of maraschino, and his bottle of claret after dinner; and though living on charity, could order new snuff-boxes to add to his collection, and new knick-knacks to adorn his room. There can be no pity for such a man, and we have no pity for him, whatever the rest of the world may feel. Nothing can be more contemptible than the gradual downfall of the broken beau. Yet, if it were doubted that his soul ever rose above the collar of a coat or the brim of a hat, his letters to Mr. Raikes in the time of his poverty would settle the question. 'I heard of you the other day in a waistcoat that does you considerable credit, spick-and-span from Paris, a broad stripe, salmon-colour, and _cramoisé_. Don't let them laugh you into a relapse--into the Gothic--as that of your former English simplicity.' He speaks of the army of occupation as 'rascals in red coats waiting for embarkation.' 'English education,' he says in another letter, 'may be all very well to instruct the hemming of handkerchiefs, and the ungainly romps of a country-dance, but nothing else; and it would be a poor consolation to your declining years to see your daughters come into the room upon their elbows, and to find their accomplishments limited to broad native phraseology in conversation, or thumping the "Woodpecker" upon a discordant spinet.' And he proceeds to recommend a 'good French formation of manners,' and so forth. Nor did he display any of that dignity and self-respect which are generally supposed to mark the 'gentleman.' When his late friend and foe, by this time a king, passed through Calais, the Beau, broken in every sense, had not pride enough to keep out of his way. Many stories are told of the manner in which he pressed himself into George IV.'s notice, but the various legends mostly turn upon a certain snuff-box. According to one quite as reliable as any other, the Prince and the Beau had in their days of amity intended to exchange snuff-boxes, and George the Greater had given George the Less an order on his jeweller for a _tabatière_ with his portrait on the top. On their quarrel this order was, with very bad taste, rescinded, although Brummell's snuff-box had already passed into the Prince's hands and had not been returned. It is said that the Beau employed a friend to remind the king of this agreement, and ask for his box; to whom the latter said that the story was all nonsense, and that he supposed 'the poor devil,' meaning his late intimate friend, wanted £100 and should have it. However, it is doubtful if the money ever reached the 'poor devil.' The story does not tell over well, for whatever were the failings and faults of George IV., he seems to have had a certain amount of good nature, if not absolutely of good heart, and possessed, at least, sufficient sense of what became a prince, to prevent his doing so shabby an act, though he may have defrauded a hundred tradesmen. In these days there _were_ such things as 'debts of honour,' and they were punctiliously attended to. There are, as we have said, various versions of this story, but all tend to show that Brummell courted the notice of his late master and patron on his way through the place of his exile; and it is not remarkable in a man who borrowed so freely from all his acquaintances, and who was, in fact, in such a state of dependence on their liberality. Brummell made one grand mistake in his career as a Beau: he outlived himself. For some twenty-four years he survived his flight from England, to which country he never returned. For a time he was an assiduous writer of begging-letters and the plague of his friends. At length he obtained the appointment of consul at the good old Norman town of Caen. This was almost a sinecure, and the Beau took care to keep it so. But no one can account for the extraordinary step he took soon after entering on his consular duties. He wrote to Lord Palmerston, stating that there were no duties attached to the post, and recommending its abolition. This act of suicide is partly explained by a supposed desire to be appointed to some more lively and more lucrative consulate; but in this the Beau was mistaken. The consulate at Caen was vacated in accordance with his suggestion, and Brummell was left penniless, in debt, and to shift for himself. With the aid of an English tradesman, half grocer, half banker, he managed to get through a period of his poverty, but could not long subsist in this way, and the punishment of his vanity and extravagance came at last in his old age. A term of existence in prison did not cure him, and when he was liberated he again resumed his primrose gloves, his Eau de Cologne, and his patent _vernis_ for his boots, though at that time literally supported by his friends with an allowance of £120 per annum. In the old days of Caen life this would have been equal to £300 a year in England, and certainly quite enough for any bachelor; but the Beau was really a fool. For whom, for what should he dress and polish his boots at such a quiet place as Caen? Yet he continued to do so, and to run into debt for the polish. When he confessed to having, 'so help him Heaven,' not four francs in the world, he was ordering this _vernis de Guiton_, at five francs a bottle, from Paris, and calling the provider of it a 'scoundrel,' because he ventured to ask for his money. What foppery, what folly was all this! How truly worthy of the man who built his fame on the reputation of a coat! Terrible indeed was the hardship that followed his extravagance; he was actually compelled to exchange his white for a black cravat. Poor martyr! after such a trial it is impossible to be hard upon him. So, too, the man who sent repeated begging-letters to the English grocer, Armstrong, threw out of window a new dressing-gown because it was not of the pattern he wished to have. Retribution for all this folly came in time. His mind went even before his health. Though only some sixty years of age, almost the bloom of some men's life, he lost his memory and his powers of attention, His old ill-manners became positively bad manners. When feasted and feted, he could find nothing better to say than 'What a half-starved turkey.' At last the Beau was reduced to the level of that slovenliness which he had considered as the next step to perdition. Reduced to one pair of trousers, he had to remain in bed till they were mended. He grew indifferent to his personal appearance, the surest sign of decay. Drivelling, wretched, in debt, an object of contempt to all honest men, he dragged on a miserable existence. Still with his boots in holes, and all the honour of beau-dom gone for ever, he clung to the last to his Eau de Cologne, and some few other luxuries, and went down, a fool and a fop, to the grave. To indulge his silly tastes he had to part with one piece of property after another; and at length he was left with little else than the locks of hair of which he had once boasted. I remember a story of a labourer and his dying wife. The poor woman was breathing her last wishes. 'And, I say, William, you'll see the old sow don't kill her young uns?'--'Ay, ay, wife, set thee good.' 'And, I say, William, you'll see Lizzy goes to schule reg'lar?'--'Ay, ay, wife, set thee good.' 'And, I say, William, you'll see Tommy's breeches is mended against he goes to schule again?'--'Ay, ay, wife, set thee good.'--'And, I say, William, you'll see I'm laid proper in the yard?' William grew impatient. 'Now never thee mind them things, wife, I'll see to 'em all, you just go on with your dying.' No doubt Brummell's friends heartily wished that he would go on with his dying, for he had already lived too long; but he would live on. He is described in his last days as a miserable, slovenly, half-witted old creature, creeping about to the houses of a few friends he retained or who were kind enough to notice him still, jeered at by the _gamins_, and remarkable now, not for the cleanliness, but the filthiness and raggedness of his attire. Poor old fool! one cannot but pity him, when wretched, friendless, and miserable as he was, we find him, still graceful, in a poor _café_ near the Place Royale, taking his cup of coffee, and when asked for the amount of his bill, answering very vaguely, 'Oui, Madame, à la pleine lune, à la pleine lune.' The drivellings of old age are no fit subject for ridicule, yet in the case of a man who had sneered so freely at his fellow-creatures, they may afford a useful lesson. One of his fancies was to give imaginary parties, when his tallow dips were all set alight and his servant announced with proper decorum, 'The Duchess of Devonshire,' 'Lord Alvanley, 'Mr. Sheridan,' or whom not. The poor old idiot received the imaginary visitors with the old bow, and talked to them in the old strain, till his servant announced their imaginary carriages, and he was put drivelling to bed. At last the idiocy became mania. He burnt his books, his relics, his tokens. He ate enormously, and the man who had looked upon beer as the _ne plus ultra_ of vulgarity, was glad to imagine it champagne. Let us not follow the poor maniac through his wanderings. Rather let us throw a veil over all his drivelling wretchedness, and find him at his last gasp, when coat and collar, hat and brim, were all forgotten, when the man who had worn three shirts a day was content to change his linen once a month. What a lesson, what a warning! If Brummell had come to this pass in England, it is hard to say how and where he would have died. He was now utterly penniless, and had no prospect of receiving any remittances. It was determined to remove him to the Hospice du Bon Sauveur, a _Maison de Charité_, where he would be well cared for at no expense. The mania of the poor creature took, as ever, the turn of external preparation. When the landlord of his inn entered to try and induce him to go, he found him with his wig on his knee, his shaving apparatus by his side, and the quondam beau deeply interested in lathering the peruke as a preliminary to shearing it. He resisted every proposal to move, and was carried down stairs, kicking and shrieking. Once lodged in the Hospice, he was treated by the soeurs de charité with the greatest kindness and consideration. An attempt was made to recall him to a sense of his future peril, that he might at least die in a more religious mood than he had lived; but in vain. It is not for us, erring and sinful as we are, to judge any fellow-creature; but perhaps poor Brummell was the last man to whom religion had a meaning. His heart was good; his sins were more those of vanity than those of hate; it may be that they are regarded mercifully where the fund of mercy is unbounded. God grant that they may be so; or who of us would escape? None but fiends will triumph over the death of any man in sin. Men are not fiends; they must and will always feel for their fellow-men, let them die as they will. No doubt Brummell was a fool--a fool of the first water, but that he was equally a knave was not so certain. Let it never be certain to blind man, who cannot read the heart, that any man is a knave. He died on the 30th of March, 1840, and so the last of the Beaux passed away. People have claimed, indeed for D'Orsay, the honour of Brummell's descending mantle, but D'Orsay was not strictly a beau, for he had other and higher tastes than mere dress. It has never been advanced that Brummell's heart was bad, in spite of his many faults. Vanity did all. Vanitas vanitatem. O young men of this age, be warned by a Beau, and flee his doubtful reputation! Peace then to the coat-thinker. Peace to all--to the worst. Let us look within and not judge. It is enough that we are not tried in the same balance. THEODORE EDWARD HOOK. The Greatest of Modern Wits.---What Coleridge said of Hook.--Hook's Family.--Redeeming Points.--Versatility.--Varieties of Hoaxing.--The Black-wafered Horse.--The Berners Street Hoax.--Success of the Scheme.-- The Strop of Hunger.--Kitchen Examinations.--The Wrong House.--Angling for an Invitation.--The Hackney-coach Device.--The Plots of Hook and Mathews.--Hook's Talents as an Improvisatore.--The Gift becomes his Bane.--Hook's Novels.--College Fun.--Baiting a Proctor.--The Punning Faculty.--Official Life Opens.--Troublesome Pleasantry.--Charge of Embezzlement.--Misfortune.--Doubly Disgraced.--No Effort to remove the Stain.--Attacks on the Queen.--An Incongruous Mixture.--Specimen of the Ramsbottom Letters.--Hook's Scurrility.--Fortune and Popularity.--The End. If it be difficult to say what wit is, it is well nigh as hard to pronounce what is not wit. In a sad world, mirth hath its full honour, let it come in rags or in purple raiment. The age that patronises a 'Punch' every Saturday? and a pantomime every Christmas, has no right to complain, if it finds itself barren of wits, while a rival age has brought forth her dozens. Mirth is, no doubt, very good. We would see more, not less, of it in this unmirthful land. We would fain imagine the shrunken-cheeked factory-girl singing to herself a happy burthen, as she shifts the loom,--the burthen of her life, and fain believe that the voice was innocent as the sky-lark's. But if it be not so--and we know it is not so--shall we quarrel with any one who tries to give the poor care-worn, money-singing public a little laughter for a few pence? No, truly, but it does not follow that the man who raises a titter is, of necessity, a wit. The next age, perchance, will write a book of 'Wits and Beaux,' in which Mr. Douglas Jerrold, Mr. Mark Lemon, and so on, will represent the _wit_ of this passing day; and that future age will not ask so nicely what wit is, and not look for that last solved of riddles, its definition. Hook has been, by common consent, placed at the head of modern wits. When kings were kings, they bullied, beat, and and brow-beat their jesters. Now and then they treated them to a few years in the Tower for a little extra impudence. Now that the people are sovereign, the jester fares better--nay, too well. His books or his bon-mots are read with zest and grins; he is invited to his Grace's and implored to my Lord's; he is waited for, watched, pampered like a small Grand Lama, and, in one sentence, the greater the fool, the more fools he makes. If Theodore Hook had lived in the stirring days of King Henry VIII., he would have sent Messrs. Patch and Co. sharply to the right-about, and been presented with the caps and bells after his first comic song. No doubt he was a jester, a fool in many senses, though he did not, like Solomon's fool, 'say in his _heart_' very much. He jested away even the practicals of life, jested himself into disgrace, into prison, into contempt, into the basest employment--that of a libeller tacked on to a party. He was a mimic, too, to whom none could send a challenge; an improvisatore, who beat Italians, Tyroleans, and Styrians hollow, sir, hollow. And lastly--oh! shame of the shuffle-tongued--he was, too, a punster. Yes, one who gloried in puns, a maker of pun upon pun, a man whose whole wit ran into a pun as readily as water rushes into a hollow, who could not keep out of a pun, let him loathe it or not, and who made some of the best and some of the worst on record, but still--puns. If he was a wit withal, it was _malgré soi_, for fun, not for wit, was his 'aspiration.' Yet the world calls him a wit, and he has a claim to his niche. There were, it is true, many a man in his own set who had more real wit. There were James Smith, Thomas Ingoldsby, Tom Hill, and others. Out of his set, but of his time, there was Sydney Smith, ten times more a wit: but Theodore could amuse, Theodore could astonish, Theodore could be at home anywhere; he had all the impudence, all the readiness, all the indifference of a jester, and a jester he was. Let any one look at his portrait, and he will doubt if this be the king's jester, painted by Holbein, or Mr. Theodore Hook, painted by Eddis. The short, thick nose, the long upper lip, the sensual, whimsical mouth, the twinkling eyes, all belong to the regular maker of fun. Hook was a certificated jester, with a lenient society to hear and applaud him, instead of an irritable tyrant to keep him in order: and he filled his post well. Whether he was more than a jester may well be doubted; yet Coleridge, when he heard him, said: 'I have before in my time met with men of admirable promptitude of intellectual power and play of wit, which, as Stillingfleet says: "The rays of wit gild wheresoe'er they strike," but I never could have conceived such readiness of mind and resources of genius to be poured out on the mere subject and impulse of the moment.' The poet was wrong in one respect. Genius can in no sense be applied to Hook, though readiness was his chief charm. The famous Theodore was born in the same year as Byron, 1788, the one on the 22nd of January, the other on the 22nd of September; so the poet was only nine months his senior. Hook, like many other wits, was a second son. Ladies of sixty or seventy well remember the name of Hook as that which accompanied their earliest miseries. It was in learning Hook's exercises, or primers, or whatever they were called, that they first had their fingers slapped over the piano-forte. The father of Theodore, no doubt, was the unwitting cause of much unhappiness to many a young lady in her teens. Hook _père_ was an organist at Norwich. He came up to town, and was engaged at Marylebone Gardens and at Vauxhall; so that Theodore had no excuse for being of decidedly plebeian origin, and, Tory as he was, he was not fool enough to aspire to patricianism. Theodore's family was, in real fact, Theodore himself. He made the name what it is, and raised himself to the position he at one time held. Yet he had a brother whose claims to celebrity are not altogether ancillary. James Hook was fifteen years older than Theodore. After leaving Westminster School he was sent to immortal Skimmery (St. Mary's Hall), Oxford, which has fostered so many great men--and spoiled them. He was advanced in the church from one preferment to another, and ultimately became Dean of Worcester. The character of the reverend gentleman is pretty well known, but it is unnecessary here to go into it farther. He is only mentioned as Theodore's brother in this sketch.[12] He was a dabbler in literature, like his brother, but scarcely to the same extent a dabbler in wit. [12: Dr. James Hook, Dean of Worcester, was father to Dr. Walter Farquhar Hook, now the excellent Dean of Chichester, late Vicar of Leeds.] The younger son of 'Hook's Exercises' developed early enough a taste for ingenious lying--so much admired in his predecessor--Sheridan, He 'fancied himself' a genius, and therefore, from school-age, not amenable to the common laws of ordinary men. Frequenters of the now fashionable prize-ring--thanks to two brutes who have brought that degraded pastime into prominent notice--will hear a great deal about a man 'fancying himself.' It is common slang and heeds little explanation. Hook 'fancied himself' from an early period, and continued to 'fancy himself,' in spite of repeated disgraces, till a very mature age. At Harrow, he was the contemporary, but scarcely the friend, of Lord Byron. No two characters could have been more unlike. Every one knows, more or less, what Byron's was; it need only be said that Hook's was the reverse of it in every respect. Byron felt where Hook laughed. Byron was morbid where Hook was gay. Byron abjured with disgust the social vices to which he was introduced; Hook fell in with them. Byron indulged in vice in a romantic way; Hook in the coarsest. There is some excuse for Byron, much as he has been blamed. There is little or no excuse for Hook, much as his faults have been palliated. The fact is that goodness of heart will soften, in men's minds, any or all misdemeanours. Hook, in spite of many vulgar witticisms and cruel jokes, seems to have had a really good heart. I have it on the authority of one of Hook's most intimate friends, that he was capable of any act of kindness, and by way of instance of his goodness of heart, I am told by the same person that he on one occasion quitted all his town amusements to solace the spirit of a friend in the country who was in serious trouble. I, of course, refrain from giving names: but the same person informs me that much of his time was devoted in a like manner, to relieving, as far as possible, the anxiety of his friends, often, indeed, arising from his own carelessness. It is due to Hook to make this impartial statement before entering on a sketch of his 'Sayings and Doings,' which must necessarily leave the impression that he was a heartless man. Old Hook, the father, soon perceived the value of his son's talents; and, determined to turn them to account, encouraged his natural inclination to song-writing. At the age of sixteen Theodore wrote a kind of comic opera, to which his father supplied the music. This was called 'The Soldier's Return.' It was followed by others, and young Hook, not yet out of his teens, managed to keep a Drury Lane audience alive, as well as himself and family. It must be remembered, however, that Liston and Matthews could make almost any piece amusing. The young author was introduced behind the scenes through his father's connection with the theatre, and often played the fool under the stage while others were playing it for him above it, practical jokes being a passion with him which he developed thus early. These tricks were not always very good-natured, which may be said of many of his jokes out of the theatre. He soon showed evidence of another talent, that of acting as well as writing pieces. Assurance was one of the main features of his character, and to it he owed his success in society; but it is a remarkable fact, that on his first appearance before an audience he entirely lost all his nerve, turned pale, and could scarcely utter a syllable. He rapidly recovered, however, and from this time became a favourite performer in private theatricals, in which he was supported by Mathews and Mrs. Mathews, and some amateurs who were almost equal to any professional actors. His attempts were, of course, chiefly in broad farce and roaring burlesque, in which his comic face, with its look of mock gravity, and the twinkle of the eyes, itself excited roars of laughter. Whether he would have succeeded as well in sober comedy or upon public boards may well be doubted. Probably he would not have given to the profession that careful attention and entire devotion that are necessary to bring forward properly the highest natural talents. It is said that for a long time he was anxious to take to the stage as, a profession, but, perhaps--as the event seems to show--unfortunately for him, he was dissuaded from what his friends must have thought a very rash step, and in after years he took a violent dislike to the profession. Certainly the stage could not have offered more temptations than did the society in which he afterwards mixed; and perhaps under any circumstances Hook, whose moral education had been neglected, and whose principles were never very good, would have lived a life more or less vicious, though he might not have died as he did. Hook, however, was not long in coming very prominently before the public in another capacity. Of all stories told about him, none are more common or more popular than those which relate to his practical jokes and hoaxes. Thank heaven, the world no longer sees amusement in the misery of others, and the fashion of such clever performance is gone out. It is fair, however, to premise, that while the cleverest of Hook's hoaxes were of a victimizing character, a large number were just the reverse, and his admirers affirm, not without some reason, that when he had got a dinner out of a person whom he did not know, by an ingenious lie, admirably supported, he fully paid for it in the amusement he afforded his host and the ringing metal of his wit. As we have all been boys--except those that were girls--and not all of us very good boys, we can appreciate that passion for robbery which began with orchards and passed on to knockers. It is difficult to sober middle-age to imagine what entertainment there can be in that breach of the eighth commandment, which is generally regarded as innocent. As Sheridan swindled in fun, so Hook, as a young man, robbed in fun, as hundreds of medical students and others have done before and since. Hook, however, was a proficient in the art, and would have made a successful 'cracksman' had he been born in the Seven Dials. He collected a complete museum of knockers, bell-pulls, wooden Highlanders, barbers' poles, and shop signs of all sorts. On one occasion he devoted a whole fortnight to the abstraction of a golden eagle over a shop window, by means of a lasso. A fellow dilettante in the art had confidentially informed him of its whereabouts, adding that he himself despaired of ever obtaining it. At length Hook invited his friend to dinner, and on the removal of the cover of what was supposed to be the joint, the work of art appeared served up and appropriately garnished. Theodore was radiant with triumph; but the friend, probably thinking that there ought to be honour among thieves, was highly indignant at being thus surpassed. Another achievement of this kind was the robbery of a life-sized Highlander, who graced the door of some unsuspecting tobacconist. There was little difficulty in the mere displacement of the figure; the troublesome part of the business was to get the bare legged Celt home to the museum, where probably many a Lilliputian of his race was already awaiting him. A cloak, a hat, and Hook's ready wit effected the transfer. The first was thrown over him, the second set upon his bonneted head, and a passing hackney coach hailed by his captor, who before the unsuspecting driver could descend, had opened the door, pushed in the prize, and whispered to Jehu, 'My friend--very respectable man but rather tipsy.' How he managed to get him out again at the end of the journey we are not told. Hook was soon a successful and valuable writer of light pieces for the stage. But farces do not live, and few of Hook's are now favourites with a public which is always athirst for something new. The incidents of most of the pieces--many of them borrowed from the French--excited laughter by their very improbability; but the wit which enlivened them was not of a high order, and Hook, though so much more recent than Sheridan, has disappeared before him. But his hoaxes were far more famous than his collection of curiosities, and quite as much to the purpose; and the imprudence he displayed in them was only equalled by the quaintness of the humour which suggested them. Who else would have ever thought, for instance, of covering a white horse with black wafers, and driving it in a gig along a Welsh high-road, merely for the satisfaction of being stared at? It was almost worthy of Barnum. Or who, with less assurance, could have played so admirably on the credulity of a lady and daughters fresh from the country as he did, at the trial of Lord Melville? The lady, who stood next to him, was, naturally, anxious to understand the proceedings, and betrayed her ignorance at once by a remark which she made to her daughter about the procession of the Lords into the House. When the bishops entered in full episcopal costume, she applied to Hook to know who were 'those gentlemen?' 'Gentlemen,' quoth Hook, with charming simplicity; 'ladies, I think you mean; at any rate, those are the dowager peeresses in their own right.' Question followed question as the procession came on, and Theodore indulged his fancy more and more. At length the Speaker, in full robes, became the subject of inquiry. 'And pray, sir, who is that fine looking person?'--'That, ma'am, is Cardinal Wolsey,' was the calm and audacious reply. This was too much even for Sussex; and the lady drew herself up in majestic indignation. 'We know better than that, sir,' she replied: 'Cardinal Wolsey has been dead many a good year.' Theodore was unmoved. 'No such thing, my dear madam,' he answered, without the slightest sign of perturbation: 'I know it has been generally reported so in the country, but without the slightest foundation; the newspapers, you know, will say anything.' But the hoax of hoaxes, the one which filled the papers of the time for several days, and which, eventually, made its author the very prince of hoaxsters, if such a term can be admitted, was that of Berners Street. Never, perhaps, was so much trouble expended, or so much attention devoted, to so frivolous an object. In Berners Street there lived an elderly lady, who, for no reason that can be ascertained, had excited the animosity of the young Theodore Hook, who was then just of age. Six weeks were spent in preparation, and three persons engaged in the affair. Letters were sent off in every direction, and Theodore Hook's autograph, if it could have any value, must have been somewhat low in the market at that period, from the number of applications which he wrote. On the day in question he and his accomplices seated themselves at a window in Berners Street, opposite to that unfortunate Mrs. Tottenham, of No 54, and there enjoyed the fun. Advertisements, announcements, letters, circulars, and what not, had been most freely issued, and were as freely responded to. A score of sweeps, all 'invited to attend professionally,' opened the ball at a very early hour, and claimed admittance, in virtue of the notice they had received. The maid-servant had only just time to assure them that all the chimneys were clean, and their services were not required, when some dozen of coal-carts drew up as near as possible to the ill-fated house. New protestations, new indignation. The grimy and irate coalheavers were still being discoursed with, when a bevy of neat and polite individuals arrived from different quarters, bearing each under his arm a splendid ten-guinea wedding-cake. The maid grew distracted; her mistress was single, and had no intention of doubling herself; there must be some mistake; the confectioners were dismissed, in a very different humour to that with which they had come. But they were scarcely gone when crowds began to storm the house, all 'on business.' Rival doctors met in astonishment and disgust, prepared for an _accouchement_; undertakers stared one another mutely in the face, as they deposited at the door coffins made to order--elm or oak--so many feet and so many inches; the clergymen of all the neighbouring parishes, high church or low church, were ready to minister to the spiritual wants of the unfortunate moribund, but retired in disgust when they found that some forty fishmongers had been engaged to purvey 'cod's head and lobsters' for a person professing to be on the brink of the grave. The street now became the scene of fearful distraction. Furious tradesmen of every kind were ringing the house-bell, and rapping the knocker for admittance--such, at least, as could press through the crowd as far as the house. Bootmakers arrived with Hessians and Wellingtons--'as per order'--or the most delicate of dancing-shoes for the sober old lady; haberdashers had brought the last new thing in evening dress, 'quite the fashion,' and 'very chaste:' hat-makers from Lincoln and Bennett down to the Hebrew vendor in Marylebone Lane, arrived with their crown-pieces; butchers' boys, on stout little nags, could not get near enough to deliver the legs of mutton which had been ordered; the lumbering coal-carts 'still stopped the way.' A crowd--the easiest curiosity in the world to collect--soon gathered round the motley mob of butchers, bakers, candlestick-makers, and makers and sellers of everything else that mortal can want; the mob thronged the pavement, the carts filled the road, and soon the carriages of the noble of the land dashed up in all the panoply of state, and a demand was made to clear the way for the Duke of Gloucester, for the Governor of the Bank, the Chairman of the East India Company, and last, but, oh! not least, the grandee whose successor the originator of the plot afterwards so admirably satirized--the great Lord Mayor himself. The consternation, disgust, and terror of the elderly female, the delight and chuckling of Theodore and his accomplices, seated at a window on the opposite side of the road, 'can be more easily imagined than described;' but what were the feelings of tradesmen, professional men, gentlemen, noblemen, and grand officials, who had been summoned from distant spots by artful lures to No. 54, and there battled with a crowd in vain only to find that there were hoaxed; people who had thus lost both time and money, can be neither described nor imagined. It was not the idea of the hoax--simple enough in itself--which was entitled to the admiration accorded to ingenuity, but its extent and success, and the clever means taken by the conspirators to insure the attendance of every one who ought not to have been there. It was only late at night that the police succeeded in clearing the street, and the dupes retired, murmuring and vowing vengeance. Hook, however, gloried in the exploit, which he thought 'perfect.' But the hoaxing dearest to Theodore--for there was something to be gained by it---was that by which he managed to obtain a dinner when either too hard-up to pay for one, or in the humour for a little amusement. No one who has not lived as a bachelor in London and been reduced---in respect of coin--to the sum of twopence-halfpenny, can tell how excellent a strop is hunger to sharpen wit upon. We all know that 'Mortals with stomachs can't live without dinner;' and in Hook's day the substitute of 'heavy teas' was not invented. Necessity is very soon brought to bed, when a man puts his fingers into his pockets, finds them untenanted, and remembers that the only friend who would consent to lend him five shillings is gone out of town; and the infant, Invention, presently smiles into the nurse's face. But it was no uncommon thing in those days for gentlemen to invite themselves where they listed, and stay as long as they liked. It was only necessary for them to make themselves really agreeable, and deceive their host in some way or other. Hook's friend, little Tom Hill, of whom it was said that he knew everybody's affairs far better than they did themselves, was famous for examining kitchens about the hour of dinner, and quietly selecting his host according to the odour of the viands. It is of him that the old 'Joe Miller' is told of the 'haunch of venison.' Invited to dinner at one house, he _happens_ to glance down into the kitchen of the next, and seeing a tempting haunch of venison on the spit, throws over the inviter, and ingratiates himself with his neighbour, who ends by asking him to stay to dinner. The fare, however, consisted of nothing more luxurious than an Irish stew, and the disappointed guest was informed that he had been 'too cunning by half,' inasmuch as the venison belonged to his original inviter, and had been cooked in the house he was in by kind permission, because the chimney of the owner's kitchen smoked. The same principle often actuated Theodore; and, indeed, there are few stories which can be told of this characteristic of the great frolicker, which have not been told a century of times. For instance: two young men are strolling, towards 5 P.M., in the then fashionable neighbourhood of Soho; the one is Terry, the actor--the other, Hook, the actor, for surely he deserves the title. They pass a house, and sniff the viands cooking underground. Hook quietly announces his intention of dining _there_. He enters, is admitted and announced by the servant, mingles with the company, and is quite at home before he is perceived by the host. At last the _dénouement_ came; the dinner-giver approached the stranger, and with great politeness asked his name. 'Smith' was, of course, the reply, and reverting to mistakes made by servants in announcing, &c., 'Smith' hurried off into an amusing story, to put his host in good humour. The conversation that followed is taken from 'Ingoldsby':-- 'But, really, my dear sir,' the host put in, 'I think the mistake on the present occasion does not originate in the source you allude to; I certainly did not anticipate the honour of Mr. Smith's company to-day.' 'No, I dare say not. You said _four_ in your note, I know, and it is now, I see, a quarter past five; but the fact is, I have been detained in the City, as I was going to explain--' 'Pray,' said the host, 'whom do you suppose you are addressing?' 'Whom? why Mr. Thompson, of course, old friend of my father. I have not the pleasure, indeed, of being personally known to you, but having received your kind invitation yesterday,' &c. &c. 'No, sir, my name is not Thompson, but Jones,' in highly indignant accents. 'Jones!' was the well-acted answer: 'why, surely, I cannot have--yes I must--good heaven! I see it all. My _dear_ sir, what an unfortunate blunder; wrong house--what must you think of such an intrusion? I am really at a loss for words in which to apologize; you will permit me to retire at present, and to-morrow--' 'Pray, don't think of retiring,' rejoined the host, taken with the appearance and manner of the young man. 'Your friend's table must have been cleared long ago, if, as you say, four was the hour named, and I am too happy to be able to offer you a seat at mine.' It may be easily conceived that the invitation had not to be very often repeated, and Hook kept the risible muscles of the company upon the constant stretch, and paid for the entertainment in the only coin with which he was well supplied. There was more wit, however, in his visit to a retired watchmaker, who had got from government a premium of £10,000 for the best chronometer. Hook was very partial to journeys in search of adventure; a gig, a lively companion, and sixpence for the first turnpike being generally all that was requisite; ingenuity supplied the rest. It was on one of these excursions, that Hook and his friend found themselves in the neighbourhood of Uxbridge, with a horse and a gig, and not a sixpence to be found in any pocket. Now a horse and gig are property, but of what use is a valuable of which you cannot dispose or deposit at a pawnbroker's, while you are prevented proceeding on your way by that neat white gate with the neat white box of a house at its side? The only alternative left to the young men was to drive home again, dinnerless, a distance of twenty miles, with a jaded horse, or to find gratuitous accommodation for man and beast. In such a case Sheridan would simply have driven to the first inn, and by persuasion or stratagem contrived to elude payment, after having drunk the best wine and eaten the best dinner the house could afford. Hook was really more refined, as well as bolder in his pillaging. The villa of the retired tradesman was perceived, and the gig soon drew up before the door. The strangers were ushered in to the watchmaker, and Hook, with great politeness and a serious respectful look, addressed him. He said that he felt he was taking a great liberty--so he was--but that he could not pass the door of a man who had done the country so much service by the invention of what must prove the most useful and valuable instrument, without expressing to him the gratitude which he, as a British subject devoted to his country's good, could not but feel towards the inventor, &c. &c. The flattery was so delicately and so seriously insinuated, that the worthy citizen could only receive it as an honest expression of sincere admiration. The Rubicon was passed; a little lively conversation, artfully made attractive by Hook, followed, and the watchmaker was more and more gratified. He felt, too, what an honour it would be to entertain two real gentlemen, and remarking that they were far from town, brought out at last the longed-for invitation, which was, of course, declined as out of the question. Thereupon the old gentleman became pressing: the young strangers were at last prevailed upon to accept it, and very full justice they did to the larder and cellar of the successful chronometer-maker. There is nothing very original in the act of hoaxing, and Hook's way of getting a hackney-coach without paying for it, was, perhaps, suggested by Sheridan's, but was more laughable. Finding himself in the vehicle, and knowing that there was nothing either in his purse or at home to pay the fare, he cast about for expedients, and at last remembered the address of an eminent surgeon in the neighbourhood. He ordered the coachman to drive to his house and knock violently at the door, which was no sooner opened than Hook rushed in, terribly agitated, demanded to see the doctor, to whom in a few incoherent and agitated sentences, he gave to understand that his wife needed his services, immediately, being on the point of becoming a mother. 'I will start directly,' replied the surgeon; 'I will order my carriage at once.' 'But, my dear sir, there is not a moment to spare. I have a coach at the door, jump into that.' The surgeon obeyed. The name and address given were those of a middle-aged spinster of the most rigid virtue. We can imagine her indignation, and how sharply she rung the bell, when the surgeon had delicately explained the object of his visit, and how eagerly he took refuge in the coach. Hook had, of course, walked quietly away in the meantime, and the Galenite had to pay the demand of Jehu. The hoaxing stories of Theodore Hook are numberless. Hoaxing was the fashion of the day, and a childish fashion too. Charles Mathews, whose face possessed the flexibility of an acrobat's body, and who could assume any character or disguise on the shortest notice, was his great confederate in these plots. The banks of the Thames were their great resort. At one point there was Mathews talking gibberish in a disguise intended to represent the Spanish Ambassador, and actually deceiving the Woolwich authorities by his clever impersonation. At another, there was Hook landing uninvited with his friends upon the well-known, sleek-looking lawn of a testy little gentleman, drawing out a note-book and talking so authoritatively about the survey for a canal, to be undertaken by Government, that the owner of the lawn becomes frightened, and in his anxiety attempts to conciliate the mighty self-made official by the offer of dinner--of course accepted. [Illustration: THEODORE HOOK'S ENGINEERING FROLIC.] Then the _Arcades ambo_ show off their jesting tricks at Croydon fair, a most suitable place for them. On one occasion Hook personates a madman, accusing Mathews, 'his brother,' of keeping him out of his rights and in his custody. The whole fair collects around them, and begins to sympathise with Hook, who begs them to aid in his escape from his 'brother.' A sham escape and sham capture take place, and the party adjourn to the inn, where Mathews, who had been taken by surprise by the new part suddenly played by his confederate, seized upon a hearse, which drew up before the inn, on its return from a funeral, persuaded the company to bind the 'madman,' who was now becoming furious, and who would have deposited him in the gloomy vehicle, if he had not succeeded in snapping his fetters, and so escaped. In short, they were two boys, with the sole difference, that they had sufficient talent and experience of the world to maintain admirably the parts they assumed. But a far more famous and more admirable talent in Theodore than that of deception was that of improvising. The art of improvising belongs to Italy and the Tyrol. The wonderful gift of ready verse to express satire, and ridicule, seems, as a rule, to be confined to the inhabitants of those two lands. Others are, indeed, scattered over the world, who possess this gift, but very sparsely. Theodore Hook stands almost alone in this country as an improviser. Yet to judge of such of his verses as have been preserved, taken down from memory or what not, the grand effect of them--and no doubt it _was_ grand--must have been owing more to his manner and his acting, than to any intrinsic value in the verses themselves, which are, for the most part, slight, and devoid of actual wit, though abounding in puns. Sheridan's testimony to the wonderful powers of the man is, perhaps, more valuable than that of any one else, for he was a good judge both of verse and of wit. One of Hook's earliest displays of his talent was at a dinner given by the Drury Lane actors to Sheridan at the Piazza Coffee House in 1808. Here, as usual, Hook sat down to the piano, and touching off a few chords, gave verse after verse on all the events of the entertainment, on each person present, though he now saw many of them for the first time, and on anything connected with the matters of interest before them. Sheridan was delighted, and declared that he could not have believed such a faculty possible if he had not witnessed its effects: that no description 'could have convinced him of so peculiar an instance of genius,' and so forth. One of his most extraordinary efforts in this line is related by Mr. Jerdan. A dinner was given by Mansell Reynolds to Lockhart, Luttrell, Coleridge, Hook, Tom Hill, and others. The grown-up schoolboys, pretty far gone in Falernian, of a home-made, and very homely vintage, amused themselves by breaking the wine-glasses, till Coleridge was set to demolish the last of them with a fork thrown at it from the side of the table. Let it not be supposed that any teetotal spirit suggested this inconoclasm, far from it--the glasses were too small, and the poets, the wits, the punsters, the jesters, preferred to drink their port out of tumblers. After dinner Hook gave one of his songs which satirized successively, and successfully, each person present. He was then challenged to improvise on any given subject, and by way of one as far distant from poetry as could be, _cocoa-nut oil_ was fixed upon. Theodore accepted the challenge; and after a moment's consideration began his lay with a description of the Mauritius, which he knew so well, the negroes dancing round the cocoa-nut tree, the process of extracting the oil, and so forth, all in excellent rhyme and rhythm, if not actual poetry. Then came the voyage to England, hits at the Italian warehousemen, and so on, till the oil is brought into the very lamp before them in that very room, to show them with the light it feeds and make them able to break wine-glasses and get drunk from tumblers. This we may be sure Hook himself did, for one, and the rest were probably not much behind him. In late life this gift of Hook's--improvising I mean, not getting intoxicated--was his highest recommendation in society, and at the same time his bane. Like Sheridan, he was ruined by his wonderful natural powers. It can well be imagined that to improvise in the manner in which Hook did it, and at a moment's notice, required some effort of the intellect. This effort became greater as circumstances depressed his spirits more and more and yet with every care upon his mind, he was expected, wherever he went, to amuse the guests with a display of his talent. He could not do so without stimulants, and rather than give up society, fell into habits of drinking, which hastened his death. We have thrown together the foregoing anecdotes of Hook, irrespective of time, in order to show what the man's gifts were, and what his title to be considered a wit. We must proceed more steadily to a review of his life. Successful as Hook had proved as a writer for the stage, he suddenly and without any sufficient cause rushed off into another branch of literature, that of novel-writing. His first attempt in this kind of fiction was 'The Man of Sorrow,' published under the _nom de plume_ of _Alfred Allendale_. This was not, as its name would seem to imply, a novel of pathetic cast, but the history of a gentleman whose life from beginning to end is rendered wretched by a succession of mishaps of the most ludicrous but improbable kind. Indeed Theodore's novels, like his stage-pieces, are gone out of date in an age so practical that even in romance it will not allow of the slightest departure from reality. Their very style was ephemeral, and their interest could not outlast the generation to amuse which they were penned. This first novel was written when Hook was one-and-twenty. Soon after he was sent to Oxford, where he had been entered at St. Mary's Hall, more affectionately known by the nickname of 'Skimmery.' No selection could have been worse. Skimmery was, at that day, and, until quite recently, a den of thieves, where young men of fortune and folly submitted to be pillaged in return for being allowed perfect licence, as much to eat as they could possibly swallow, and far more to drink than was at all good for them. It has required all the enterprise of the present excellent Principal to convert it into a place of sober study. It was then the most 'gentlemanly' residence in Oxford; for a gentleman in those days meant a man who did nothing, spent his own or his father's guineas with a brilliant indifference to consequences, and who applied his mind solely to the art of frolic. It was the very place where Hook would be encouraged instead of restrained in his natural propensities, and had he remained there he would probably have ruined himself and his father long before he had put on the sleeves. At the matriculation itself he gave a specimen of his 'fun.' When asked, according to the usual form, 'if he was willing to sign the Thirty-nine Articles,' he replied, 'Certainly, sir, _forty_ if you please.' The gravity of the stern Vice-Chancellor was upset, but as no Oxford Don can ever pardon a joke, however good, Master Theodore was very nearly being dismissed, had not his brother, by this time a Prebendary of Winchester, and 'an honour to his college, sir,' interceded in his favour. The night before, he had given a still better specimen of his effrontery. He had picked up a number of old Harrovians, with whom he had repaired to a tavern for song, supper, and sociability, and as usual in such cases, in the lap of Alma Mater, the babes became sufficiently intoxicated, and not a little uproarious. Drinking in a tavern is forbidden by Oxonian statutes, and one of the proctors happening to pass in the street outside, was attracted into the house by the sound of somewhat unscholastic merriment. The effect can be imagined. All the youths were in absolute terror, except Theodore, and looked in vain for some way to escape. The wary and faithful 'bulldogs' guarded the doorway; the marshal, predecessor of the modern omniscient Brown, advanced respectfully behind the proctor into the room, and passing a penetrating glance from one youth to the other, all of whom--except Theodore again--he knew by sight--for that is the pride and pleasure of a marshal--mentally registered their names in secret hopes of getting half-a-crown a-piece to forget them again. No mortal is more respectful in his manner of accosting you than an Oxford proctor, for he may make a mistake, and a mistake may make him very miserable. When, for instance, a highly respectable lady was the other day lodged, in spite of protestations, in the 'Procuratorial Rooms,' and there locked up on suspicion of being somebody very different, the over-zealous proctor who had ordered her incarceration was sued for damages for £300, and had to pay them too! Therefore the gentleman in question most graciously and suavely inquired of Mr. Theodore Hook-- 'I beg your pardon, sir, but are you a member of this university?'--the usual form. 'No, sir, I am not. Are you?' The suavity at once changed to grave dignity. The proctor lifted up the hem of his garment, which being of broad velvet, with the selvage on it, was one of the insignia of his office, and sternly said,--'You see this, sir.' 'Ah!' said Hook, cool as ever, and quietly feeling the material, which he examined with apparent interest, 'I see; Manchester velvet: and may I take the liberty, sir, of inquiring how much you have paid per yard for the article?' A roar of laughter from all present burst forth with such vehemence that it shot the poor official, red with suppressed anger, into the street again, and the merrymakers continued their bout till the approach of midnight, when they were obliged to return to their respective colleges. Had Theodore proceeded in this way for several terms, no doubt the outraged authorities would have added his name to the list of the great men whom they have expelled from time to time most unprophetically. As it was, he soon left the groves of Academus, and sought those of Fashion in town. His matriculation into this new university was much more auspicious; he was hailed in society as already fit to take a degree of bachelor of his particular arts, and ere long his improvising, his fun, his mirth--as yet natural and over-boiling--his wicked punning, and his tender wickedness, induced the same institution to offer him the grade of 'Master' of those arts. In after years he rose to be even 'Doctor,' and many, perhaps, were the minds diseased to which his well-known mirth ministered. It was during this period that some of his talents were displayed in the manner we have described, though his great fame as an improvisatore was established more completely in later days. Yet he had already made himself a name in that species of wit--not a very high one--which found favour with the society of that period. We allude to imitation, 'taking off,' and punning. The last contemptible branch of wit-making, now happily confined to 'Punch,' is as old as variety of language. It is not possible with simple vocabularies, and accordingly is seldom met with in purely-derived languages. Yet we have Roman and Greek puns; and English is peculiarly adapted to this childish exercise, because, being made up of several languages, it necessarily contains many words which are like in sound and unlike in meaning. Punning is, in fact, the vice of English wit, the temptation of English mirth-makers, and, at last, we trust, the scorn of English good sense. But in Theodore's day it held a high place, and men who had no real wit about them could twist and turn words and combinations of words with great ingenuity and much readiness, to the delight of their listeners. Pun-making was a fashion among the conversationists of that day, and took the place of better wit. Hook was a disgraceful punster, and a successful one. He strung puns together by the score--nothing more easy--in his improvised songs and conversation. Take an instance from his quiz on the march of intellect:-- 'Hackney-coachmen from _Swift_ shall reply, if you feel Annoyed at being needlessly shaken; And butchers, of course, be flippant from _Steele_, And pig-drivers well versed in _Bacon_. From _Locke_ shall the blacksmiths authority brave, And gas-men cite _Coke_ at discretion; Undertakers talk _Gay_ as they go to the _grave_, And watermen _Rowe_ by profession.' I have known a party of naturally stupid people produce a whole century of puns one after another, on any subject that presented itself, and I am inclined to think that nothing can, at the same time, be more nauseous, or more destructive to real wit. Yet Theodore's strength lay in puns, and when shorn of them, the Philistines might well laugh at his want of strength. Surely his title to wit does not lie in that direction. However, he amused, and that gratis; and an amusing man makes his way anywhere if he have only sufficient tact not to abuse his privileges. Hook grew great in London society for a time, and might have grown greater if a change had not come. He had supported himself, up to 1812, almost entirely by his pen: and the goose-quill is rarely a staff, though it may sometimes be a walking-stick. It was clear that he needed--what so many of us need and cannot get--a certainty. Happy fellow! he might have begged for an appointment for years in vain, as many another does, but it fell into his lap, no one knows how, and at four-and-twenty Mr. Theodore Edward Hook was made treasurer to the Island of Mauritius, with a salary of £2,000 per annum. This was not to be, and was not, despised. In spite of climate, mosquitoes, and so forth, Hook took the money and sailed. We have no intention of entering minutely upon his conduct in this office, which has nothing to do with his character as a wit. There are a thousand and one reasons for believing him guilty of the charges brought against him, and a thousand and one for supposing him guiltless. Here was a young man, gay, jovial, given to society entirely, and not at all to arithmetic, put into a very trying and awkward position--native clerks who would cheat if they could, English governors who would find fault if they could, a disturbed treasury, an awkward currency, liars for witnesses, and undeniable evidence of defalcation. In a word, an examination was made into the state of the treasury of the island, and a large deficit found. It remained to trace it home to its original author. Hook had not acquired the best character in the island. Those who know the official dignity of a small British colony can well understand how his pleasantries must have shocked those worthy big-wigs who, exalted from Pump Court, Temple, or Paradise Row, Old Brompton, to places of honour and high salaries, rode their high horses with twice the exclusiveness of those 'to the manner born.' For instance, Hook was once, by a mere chance, obliged to take the chair at an official dinner, on which occasion the toasts proposed by the chairman were to be accompanied by a salute from guns without. Hook went through the list, and seemed to enjoy toast-drinking so much that he was quite sorry to have come to the end of it, and continued, as if still from the list, to propose successively the health of each officer present. The gunners were growing quite weary, but having their orders, dared not complain. Hook was delighted, and went on to the amazement and amusement of all who were not tired of the noise, each youthful sub, taken by surprise, being quite gratified at the honour done him. At last there was no one left to toast; but the wine had taken effect, and Hook, amid roars of laughter inside, and roars of savage artillery without, proposed the health of the waiter who had so ably officiated. This done, he bethought him of the cook, who was sent for to return thanks; but the artillery officer had by this time got wind of the affair, and feeling that more than enough powder had been wasted on the health of gentlemen who were determined to destroy it by the number of their potations, took on himself the responsibility of ordering the gunners to stop. On another occasion he incurred the displeasure of the governor, General Hall, by fighting a duel--fortunately as harmless as that of Moore and Jeffrey-- 'When Little's leadless pistol met his eye, And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by,' as Byron says. The governor was sensible enough to wish to put down the 'Gothic appeal to arms,' and was therefore the more irate. These circumstances must be taken into consideration in Hook's favour in examining the charge of embezzlement. It must also be stated that the information of the deficit was sent in a letter to the governor by a man named Allan, chief clerk in the Treasury, who had, for irregular conduct, been already threatened with dismissal. Allan had admitted that he had known of the deficit for fifteen months, and yet he had not, till he was himself in trouble, thought of making it known to the proper authorities. Before his examination, which of course followed, could be concluded, Allan committed suicide. Now, does it not, on the face of it, seem of the highest probability that this man was the real delinquent, and that knowing that Hook had all the responsibility, and having taken fair precautions against his own detection, he had anticipated a discovery of the affair by a revelation, incriminating the treasurer? _Quien sabe_;--dead men tell no tales. The chest, however, was examined, and the deficit found far greater yet than had been reported. Hook could not explain, could not understand it at all; but if not criminal, he had necessarily been careless. He was arrested, thrown into prison, and by the first vessel despatched to England to take his trial, his property of every kind having been sold for the Government. Hook, in utter destitution, might be supposed to have lost his usual spirits, but he could not resist a joke. At St. Helena he met an old friend going out to the Cape, who, surprised at seeing him on his return voyage after a residence of only five years, said: 'I hope you are not going home for your health.'--'Why,' said Theodore, 'I am sorry to say they think there is something wrong in the _chest._ Something wrong in the chest' became henceforward the ordinary phrase in London society in referring to Hook's scrape. Arrived in England, he was set free, the Government here having decided that he could not be criminally tried; and thus Hook, guilty or not, had been ruined and disgraced for life for simple carelessness. True, the custody of a nation's property makes negligence almost criminal; but that does not excuse the punishment of a man before he is tried. He was summoned, however, to the Colonial Audit Board, where he underwent a trying examination; after which he was declared to be in the debt of Government: a writ of extent was issued against him; nine months were passed in that delightful place of residence--a Sponging-house, which he then exchanged for the 'Rules of the Bench'--the only rules which have no exception. From these he was at last liberated, in 1825, on the understanding that he was to repay the money to Government if at any time he should be in a position to do so. His liberation was a tacit acknowledgment of his innocence of the charge of robbery; his encumberment with a debt caused by another's delinquencies was, we presume, a signification of his responsibility and some kind of punishment for his carelessness. Certainly it was hard upon Hook, that, if innocent, he should not have gone forth without a stain on his character for honesty; and it was unjust, that, if guilty, he should not have been punished. The judgment was one of those compromises with stern justice which are seldom satisfactory to either party. The fact was that, guilty or not guilty, Hook had been both incompetent and inconsiderate. Doubtless he congratulated himself highly on receiving, at the age of twenty-five, an appointment worth £2,000 a year in the paradise of the world; but how short-sighted his satisfaction, since this very appointment left him some ten years later a pauper to begin life anew with an indelible stain on his character. It was absurd to give so young a man such a post; but it was absolutely wrong in Hook not to do his utmost to carry out his duties properly. Nay, he had trifled with the public money in the same liberal--perhaps a _more_ liberal--spirit as if it had been his own--made advances and loans here and there injudiciously, and taken little heed of the consequences. Probably, at this day, the common opinion acquits Hook of a designed and complicated fraud; but common opinion never did acquit him of misconduct, and even by his friends this affair was looked upon with a suspicion that preferred silence to examination. But why take such pains to exonerate Hook from a charge of robbery, when he was avowedly guilty of as bad a sin, of which the law took no cognizance, and which society forgave far more easily than it could have done for robbing the State? Soon after his return from the Mauritius, he took lodgings in the cheap, but unfashionable neighbourhood of Somers Town. Here, in the moment of his misfortune, when doubting whether disgrace, imprisonment, or what not awaited him, he sought solace in the affection of a young woman, of a class certainly much beneath his, and of a character unfit to make her a valuable companion to him. Hook had received little moral training, and had he done so, his impulses were sufficiently strong to overcome any amount of principle. With this person--to use the modern slang which seems to convert a glaring sin into a social misdemeanour--'he formed a connection.' In other words, he destroyed her virtue. Hateful as such an act is, we must, before we can condemn a man for it without any recommendation to mercy, consider a score of circumstances which have rendered the temptation stronger, and the result almost involuntary. Hook was not a man of high moral character--very far from it--but we need not therefore suppose that he sat down coolly and deliberately, like a villain in a novel, to effect the girl's ruin. But the Rubicon once passed, how difficult is the retreat! There are but two paths open to a man, who would avoid living a life of sin: the one, to marry his victim; the other, to break off the connection before it is too late. The first is, of course, the more proper course; but there are cases where marriage is impossible. From the latter a man of any heart must shrink with horror. Yet there _are_ cases, even, where the one sin will prove the least--where she who has loved too well may grieve bitterly at parting, yet will be no more open to temptation than if she had never fallen. Such cases are rare, and it is not probable that the young person with whom Hook had become connected would have retrieved the fatal error. She became a mother, and there was no retreat. It is clear that Hook ought to have married her. It is evident that he was selfish and wrong not to do so;--yet he shrank from it, weakly, wickedly, and he was punished for his shrinking. He had sufficient feeling not to throw his victim over, yet he was content to live a life of sin, and to keep her in such a life. This is perhaps the blackest stain on Hook's character. When Fox married, in consequence of a similar connection, he 'settled down,' retrieved his early errors, and became a better man, morally, than he had ever been. Hook _ought_ to have married. It was the cowardly dread of public opinion that deterred him from doing so, and, in consequence, he was never happy, and felt that this connection was a perpetual burden to him. Wrecked and ruined, Hook had no resource but his literary talents, and it is to be deplored that he should have prostituted these to serve an ungentlemanly and dishonourable party in their onslaught upon an unfortunate woman. Whatever may be now thought of the queen of 'the greatest gentleman'--or _roue_--of Europe, those who hunted her down will never be pardoned, and Hook was one of those. We have cried out against an Austrian general for condemning a Hungarian lady to the lash, and we have seen, with delight, a mob chase him through the streets of London and threaten his very life. But we have not only pardoned, but even praised, our favourite wit for far worse conduct than this. Even if we allow, which we do not, chat the queen was one half as bad as her enemies, or rather her husband's parasites, would make her out, we cannot forgive the men who, shielded by their incognito, and perfectly free from danger of any kind, set upon a woman with libels, invectives, ballads, epigrams, and lampoons, which a lady could scarcely read, and of which a royal lady, and many an English gentlewoman, too, were the butts. The vilest of all the vile papers of that day was the 'John Bull,' now settled down to a quiet periodical. Perhaps the real John Bull, heavy, good-natured lumberer as he is, was never worse represented than in this journal which bore his name, but had little of his kindly spirit. Hook was its originator, and for a long time its main supporter. Scurrility, scandal, libel, baseness of all kinds formed the fuel with which it blazed, and the wit, bitter, unflinching, unsparing, which puffed the flame up, was its chief recommendation. No more disgraceful climax was ever reached by a disgraceful dynasty of profligates than that which found a King of England--long, as Regent, the leader of the profligate and degraded--at war with his injured Queen. None have deserved better the honest gratitude of their country than those who, like Henry Brougham, defended the oppressed woman in spite of opposition, obloquy, and ridicule. But we need not go deeply into a history so fresh in the minds of all, as that blot which shows John Bull himself upholding a wretched dissipated monarch against a wife, who, whatever her faults, was still a woman, and whatever her spirit--for she had much of it, and showed it grandly at need--was still a lady. Suffice it to say that 'John Bull' was the most violent of the periodicals that attacked her, and that Theodore Hook, no Puritan himself, was the principal writer in that paper. If you can imagine 'Punch' turned Conservative, incorporated in one paper with the 'Morning Herald,' so that a column of news was printed side by side with one of a jocular character, and these two together devoted without principle to the support of a party, the attack of Whiggism, and an unblushing detraction of the character of one of our princesses, you can form some idea of what 'John Bull' was in those days. There is, however, a difference: 'Punch' attacks public characters, and ridicules public events; 'John Bull' dragged out the most retired from their privacy, and attacked them with calumnies for which, often, there was no foundation. Then, again, 'Punch' is not nearly so bitter as was 'John Bull:' there is not in the 'London Charivari' a determination to say everything that spite can invent against any particular set or party; there is a good nature, still, in master 'Punch.' It was quite the reverse in 'John Bull,' established for one purpose, and devoted to that. Yet the wit in Theodore's paper does not rise much higher than that of our modern laughing philosopher. Of Hook's contributions the most remarkable was the 'Ramsbottom Letters,' in which Mrs. Lavinia Dorothea Ramsbottom describes all the _memory billions_ of her various tours at home and abroad, always, of course, with more or less allusion to political affairs. The 'fun' of these letters is very inferior to that of 'Jeames' or of the 'Snob Papers,' and consists more in Malaprop absurdities and a wide range of bad puns, than in any real wit displayed in them. Of the style of both, we take an extract anywhere:-- 'Oh! Mr. Bull, Room is raley a beautiful place. We entered it by the Point of Molly, which is just like the Point and Sally at Porchmouth, only they call Sally there Port, which is not known in Room. The Tiber is a nice river, it looks yellow, but it does the same there as the Thames does here. We hired a carry-lettz and a cocky-olly, to take us to the Church of Salt Peter, which is prodigious big; in the centre of the pizarro there is a basilisk very high, on the right and left two handsome foundlings; and the farcy, as Mr. Fulmer called it, is ornamented with collateral statutes of some of the Apostates.' We can quite imagine that Hook wrote many of these letters when excited by wine. Some are laughable enough, but the majority are so deplorably stupid, reeking with puns and scurrility, that when the temporary interest was gone, there was nothing left to attract the reader. It is scarcely possible to laugh at the Joe-Millerish mistakes, the old world puns, and the trite stories of Hook 'remains.' Remains! indeed; they had better have remained where they were. Besides prose of this kind, Hook contributed various jingles--there is no other name for them--arranged to popular tunes, and intended to become favourites with the country people. These like the prose effusions, served the purpose of an hour, and have no interest now. Whether they were ever really popular remains to be proved. Certes, they are forgotten now, and long since even in the most Conservative corners of the country. Many of these have the appearance of having been originally _recitati_, and their amusement must have depended chiefly on the face and manner of the singer--Hook himself; but in some he displayed that vice of rhyming which has often made nonsense go down, and which is tolerable only when introduced in the satire of a 'Don Juan' or the first-rate mimicry of 'Rejected Addresses.' Hook had a most wonderful facility in concocting out-of-the-way rhymes, and a few verses from his song on Clubs will suffice for a good specimen of his talent:-- 'If any man loves comfort, and has little cash to buy it, he Should get into a crowded club--a most select society; While solitude and mutton-cutlets serve _infelix uxor_, he May have his club (Like Hercules), and revel there in luxury. Bow, wow, wow, &c. 'Yes, clubs knock houses on the head; e'en Hatchett's can't demolish them; Joy grieves to see their magnitude, and Long longs to abolish them. The inns are out; hotels for single men scarce keep alive on it; While none but houses that are in the family way thrive on it. Bow, wow, wow, &c. 'There's first the Athenaeum Club, so wise, there's not a man of it, That has not sense enough for six (in fact, that is the plan of it); The very waiters answer you with eloquence Socratical; And always place the knives and forks in order mathematical. Bow, wow, wow, &c. * * * * * 'E'en Isis has a house in town, and Cam abandons her city. The master now hangs out at the Trinity University. * * * * * 'The Union Club is quite superb; its best apartment daily is, The lounge of lawyers, doctors, merchants, beaux, _cum multis aliis_. * * * * * 'The Travellers are in Pall Mall, and smoke cigars so cosily, And dream they climb the highest Alps, or rove the plains of Moselai. * * * * * 'These are the stages which all men propose to play their parts upon, For _clubs_ are what the Londoners have clearly set their _hearts_ upon. Bow, wow, wow, tiddy-iddy-iddy-iddy, bow, wow, wow, &c. This is one of the harmless ballads of 'Bull.' Some of the political ones are scarcely fit to print in the present day. We cannot wonder that ladies of a certain position gave out that they would not receive any one who took in this paper. It was scurrilous to the last degree, and Theodore Hook was the soul of it. He preserved his incognito so well, that in spite of all attempts to unearth him, it was many years before he could be certainly fixed upon as a writer in its columns. He even went to the length of writing letters and articles against himself, in order to disarm suspicion. Hook now lived and thrived purely on literature. He published many novels--gone where the bad novels go, and unread in the present day, unless in some remote country town, which boasts only a very meagre circulating library. Improbability took the place of natural painting in them; punning supplied that of better wit; and personal portraiture was so freely used, that his most intimate friends--old Mathews, for instance--did not escape. Meanwhile Hook, making a good fortune, returned to his convivial life, and the enjoyment--if enjoyment it be--of general society. He 'threw out his bow window' on the strength of his success with 'John Bull,' and spent much more than he had. He mingled freely in all the London circles of thirty years ago, whose glory is still fresh in the minds of most of us, and everywhere his talent as an improvisatore, and his conversational powers, made him a general favourite. Unhappy popularity for Hook! He, who was yet deeply in debt to the nation--who had an illegitimate family to maintain, who owed in many quarters more than he could ever hope to pay--was still fool enough to entertain largely, and receive both nobles and wits in the handsomest manner. Why did he not live quietly? why not, like Fox, marry the unhappy woman whom he had made the mother of his children, and content himself with trimming vines and rearing tulips? Why, forsooth? because he was Theodore Hook, thoughtless and foolish to the last. The jester of the people must needs be a fool. Let him take it to his conscience that he was not as much a knave. In his latter years Hook took to the two dissipations most likely to bring him into misery--play and drink. He was utterly unfitted for the former, being too gay a spirit to sit down and calculate chances. He lost considerably, and the more he lost the more he played. Drinking became almost a necessity with him. He had a reputation to keep up in society, and had not the moral courage to retire from it altogether. Writing, improvising, conviviality, play, demanded stimulants. His mind was overworked in every sense. He had recourse to the only remedy, and in drinking he found a temporary relief from anxiety, and a short-lived sustenance. There is no doubt that this man, who had amused London circles for many years, hastened his end by drinking. It is not yet thirty years since Theodore Hook died. He left the world on August the 24th, 1841, and by this time he remains in the memory of men only as a wit that was, a punster, a hoaxer, a sorry jester, with an ample fund of fun, but not as a great man in any way. Allowing everything for his education--the times he lived in, and the unhappy error of his early life--we may admit that Hook was not, in character, the worst of the wits. He died in no odour of sanctity, but he was not a blasphemer or reviler, like others of this class. He ignored the bond of matrimony, yet he remained faithful to the woman he had betrayed; he was undoubtedly careless in the one responsible office with which he was intrusted, yet he cannot be taxed, taking all in all, with deliberate peculation. His drinking and playing were bad--very bad. His improper connection was bad--very bad; but perhaps the worst feature in his career was his connection with 'John Bull,' and his ready giving in to a system of low libel. There is no excuse for this but the necessity of living; but Hook, had he retained any principle, might have made enough to live upon in a more honest manner. His name does, certainly, not stand out well among the wits of this country, but after all, since all were so bad, Hook may be excused as not being the worst of them. _Requiescat in pace_. SYDNEY SMITH. The 'Wise Wit.'--Oddities of the Father.--Verse-making at Winchester.-- Curate Life on Salisbury Plain.--Old Edinburgh.--Its Social and Architectural Features.--Making Love Metaphysically.--The Old Scottish Supper.--The Men of Mark passing away---The Band of Young Spirits.-- Brougham's Early Tenacity.--Fitting up Conversations.--'Old School' Ceremonies.--The Speculative Society.--A Brilliant Set.--Sydney's Opinion of his Friends.--Holland House.--Preacher at the 'Foundling.'--Sydney's 'Grammar of Life.'--The Picture Mania.--A Living Comes at Last.--The wit's Ministry.--The Parsonage House at Foston-le-Clay.--Country Quiet. The Universal Scratcher.--Country Life and Country Prejudice.--The Genial Magistrate.--Glimpse of Edinburgh Society.--Mrs. Grant of Laggan. A Pension Difficulty.--Jeffrey and Cockburn.--Craigcrook.--Sydney Smith's Cheerfulness.--His Rheumatic Armour.--No Bishopric.--Becomes Canon of St. Paul's.--Anecdotes of Lord Dudley.--A Sharp Reproof.--Sydney's Classification of Society.--Last Strokes of Humour. Smith's reputation--to quote from Lord Cockburn's 'Memorial of Edinburgh'--'here, then, was the same as it has been throughout his life, that of a wise wit.' A wit he was, but we must deny him the reputation of being a beau. For that, nature, no less than his holy office, had disqualified him. Who that ever beheld him in a London drawing-room, when he went to so many dinners that he used to say he was a walking patty--who could ever miscall him a beau? How few years have we numbered since one perceived the large bulky form in canonical attire--the plain, heavy face, large, long, unredeemed by any expression, except that of sound hard sense--and thought, 'can this be the Wit?' How few years is it since Henry Cockburn, hating London, and coming but rarely to what he called the 'devil's drawing room,' stood near him, yet apart, for he was the most diffident of men; his wonderful luminous eyes, his clear, almost youthful, vivid complexion, contrasting brightly with the gray, pallid, prebendal complexion of Sydney? how short a time since Francis Jeffery, the smallest of great men, a beau in his old age, a wit to the last, stood hat in hand to bandy words with Sydney ere he rushed off to some still gayer scene, some more fashionable circle: yet they are all gone--gone from sight, living in memory alone. Perhaps it was time: they might have lived, indeed, a few short years longer; we might have heard their names amongst us; listened to their voices; gazed upon the deep hazel, ever-sparkling eyes, that constituted the charm of Cockburn's handsome face, and made all other faces seem tame and dead: we might have marvelled at the ingenuity, the happy turns of expression, the polite sarcasm of Jeffrey; we might have revelled in Sydney Smith's immense natural gift of fun, and listened to the 'wise wit,' regretting with Lord Cockburn, that so much worldly wisdom seemed almost inappropriate in one who should have been in some freer sphere than within the pale of holy orders: we might have done this, but the picture might have been otherwise. Cockburn, whose intellect rose, and became almost sublime, as his spirit neared death, might have sunk into the depression of conscious weakness; Jeffery might have repeated himself, or turned hypochondriacal; Sydney Smith have grown garrulous: let us not grieve; they went in their prime of intellect, before one quality of mind had been touched by the frostbite of age. Sydney Smith's life is a chronicle of literary society. He was born in 1771, and he died in 1845. What a succession of great men does that period comprise! Scott, Jeffrey, Mackintosh, Dugald Stewart, Homer, Brougham and Cockburn were his familiars--a constellation which has set, we fear, for ever. Our world presents nothing like it: we must look back, not around us, for strong minds, cultivated up to the nicest point. Our age is too diffused, too practical for us to hope to witness again so grand a spectacle. From his progenitors Sydney Smith inherited one of his best gifts, great animal spirits--the only spirits one wants in this racking life of ours; and his were transmitted to him by his father. That father, Mr. Robert Smith, was odd as well as clever. His oddities seem to have been coupled with folly but that of Sydney was soberized by thought, and swayed by intense common sense. The father had a mania for buying and altering places: one need hardly say that he spoiled them. Having done so, he generally sold them; and _nineteen_ various places were thus the source of expense to him, and of injury to the pecuniary interests of his family. This strange spendthrift married a Miss Olier, a daughter of a French emigrant, from Languedoc. Every one may remember the charming attributes given by Miss Kavanagh, in her delicious tale, 'Nathalie,' to the French women of the South. This Miss Olier seems to have realized all one's ideas of the handsome, sweet-tempered, high-minded Southrons of _la belle France_. To her Sydney Smith traced his native gaiety; her beauty did not, certainly, pass to him as well as to some of her other descendants. When Talleyrand was living in England as an emigrant, on intimate terms with Robert Smith, Sydney's brother, or Bobus, as he was called by his intimates, the conversation turned one day on hereditary beauty. Bobus spoke of his mother's personal perfections: _'Ah, mon ami,'_ cried Talleyrand, _c'était apparemment, monsieur: volre père qui n'était pas bien.'_ This Bobus was the schoolfellow at Eton of Canning and Frere; and with John Smith and those two youths, wrote the 'Microcosm.' Sydney, on the other hand, was placed on the Foundation, at Winchester, which was then a stern place of instruction for a gay, spirited, hungry boy. Courtenay, his younger brother, went with him, but ran away twice. To owe one's education to charity was, in those days, to be half starved. Never was there enough, even of the coarsest food, to satisfy the boys, and the urchins, fresh from home, were left to fare as they might. 'Neglect, abuse, and vice were,' Sydney used to say, 'the pervading evils of Winchester; and the system of teaching, if one may so call it, savoured of the old monastic narrowness.... I believe, when a boy at school, I made above ten thousand Latin verses, and no man in his senses would dream of ever making another in after-life. So much for life and time wasted.' The verse-inciting process is, nevertheless, remorselessly carried on during three years more at Oxford and is much oftener the test of patient stupidity than of aspiring talent, Yet of what stupendous importance it is in the attainment of scholarships and prizes; and how zealous, how tenacious, are dons and 'coaches' in holding to that which far higher classics, the Germans, regard with contempt! Sydney's proficiency promoted him to be captain of the school, and he left Winchester for New College, Oxford---one of the noblest and most abused institutions then of that grand university. Having obtained a scholarship, as a matter of course, and afterwards a fellowship, he remarked that the usual bumpers of port wine at college were as much the order of the day among the Fellows as Latin verses among the undergraduates. We may not, however, picture to ourselves Sydney as partaking of the festivities of the common room; with more probability let us imagine him wandering with steady gait, even _after_ Hall--a thing not even then or now certain in colleges--in those evergreen, leafy, varied gardens, flanked by that old St. Peter's church on the one side, and guarded by the high wall, once a fortification, on the other. He was poor, and therefore safe, for poverty is a guardian angel to an undergraduate, and work may protect even the Fellow from utter deterioration. He was turned out into the world by his father with his hundred a year from the Fellowship, and never had a farthing from the old destroyer of country-seats afterwards. He never owed a sixpence; nay, he paid a debt of thirty pounds, which Courtenay, who had no _iron_ in his character, had incurred at Winchester, and had not the courage to avow. The next step was to choose a profession. The bar would have been Sydney's choice; but the church was the choice of his father. It is the cheapest channel by which a man may pass into genteel poverty; 'wit and independence do not make bishops,' as Lord Cockburn remarks. We do not, however, regard, as he does, Sydney Smith as 'lost' by being a churchman. He was happy, and made others happy; he was good, and made others good. Who can say the same of a successful barrister, or of a popular orator? His first sphere was in a curacy on Salisbury Plain; one of his earliest clerical duties was to marry his brother Robert (a barrister) to Miss Vernon, aunt to Lord Lansdowne. 'All I can tell you of the marriage,' Sydney wrote to his mother, 'is that he cried, she cried, I cried.' It was celebrated in the library at Bowood, where Sydney so often enchanted the captivating circle afterwards by his wit. Nothing could be more gloomy than the young pastor's life on Salisbury Plain: 'the first and poorest pauper of the hamlet,' as he calls a curate, he was seated down among a few scattered cottages on this vast flat; visited even by the butcher's cart only once a week from Salisbury; accosted by few human beings; shunned by all who loved social life. But the probation was not long; and after being nearly destroyed by a thunder-storm in one of his rambles, he quitted Salisbury Plain, after two years, for a more genial scene. There was an hospitable squire, a Mr. Beach, living in Smith's parish; the village of Netherhaven, near Amesbury. Mr. Beach had a son; the quiet Sundays at the Hall were enlivened by the curate's company at dinner, and Mr. Beach found his guest both amusing and sensible, and begged him to become tutor to the young squire. Smith accepted; and went away with his pupil, intending to visit Germany. The French Revolution was, however, at its height. Germany was impracticable, and 'we were driven,' Sydney wrote to his mother, 'by stress of politics, into Edinburgh.' This accident,--this seeming accident,--was the foundation of Sydney Smith's opportunities; not of his success, for that his own merits procured, but of the direction to which his efforts were applied. He would have been eminent, wherever destiny had led him; but he was thus made to be useful in one especial manner; 'his lines had, indeed, fallen in pleasant places.' Edinburgh, in 1797, was not, it is almost needless to say, the Edinburgh of 1860. An ancient, picturesque, high-built looking city, with its wynds and closes, it had far more the characteristics of an old French _ville de province_ than of a northern capital. The foundation-stone of the new College was laid in 1789, but the building was not finished until more than forty years afterwards. The edifice then stood in the midst of fields and gardens. 'Often.' writes Lord Cockburn, 'did we stand to admire the blue and yellow crocuses rising through the clean earth in the first days of spring, in the house of Doctor Monro (the second), whose house stood in a small field entering from Nicolson Street, within less than a hundred yards from the college.' The New Town was in progress when Sydney Smith and his pupil took refuge in 'Auld Reekie.' With the rise of every street some fresh innovation in manners seemed also to begin. Lord Cockburn, wedded as he was to his beloved Reekie, yet unprejudiced and candid on all points, ascribes the change in customs to the intercourse with the English, and seems to date it from the Union. Thus the overflowing of the old town into fresh spaces, 'implied,' as he remarks, 'a general alteration of our habits.' As the dwellers in the Faubourg St. Germain regard their neighbours across the Seine, in the Faubourg St. Honoré, with disapproving eyes, so the sojourners in the Canongate and the Cowgate considered that the inundation of modern population vulgarized their 'prescriptive gentilities.' Cockburn's description of a Scottish assembly in the olden time is most interesting. 'For example, Saint Cecilia's Hall was the only public resort of the musical; and besides being our most selectly fashionable place of amusement, was the best and most beautiful concert-room I have ever seen. And there have I myself seen most of our literary and fashionable gentlemen, predominating with their side curls and frills, and ruffles, and silver buckles; and our stately matrons stiffened in hoops, and gorgeous satin; and our beauties with high-heeled shoes, powdered and pomatumed hair, and lofty and composite head-dresses. All this was in the Cowgate; the last retreat now-a-days of destitution and disease. The building still stands, through raised and changed. When I last saw it, it seemed to be partly an old-clothesman's shop and partly a brazier's.' Balls were held in the beautiful rooms of George Square, in spite of the 'New Town piece of presumption,' that is, an attempt to force the fashionable dancers of the reel into the George Street apartments. 'And here,' writes Lord Cockburn, looking back to the days when he was that 'ne'er-do-weel' Harry Cockburn, 'were the last remains of the ball-room discipline of the preceding age. Martinet dowagers and venerable beaux acted as masters and mistresses of ceremonies, and made all the preliminary arrangements. No couple could dance unless each party was provided with a ticket prescribing the precise place, in the precise dance. If there was no ticket, the gentleman or the lady was dealt with as an intruder, and turned out of the dance. If the ticket had marked upon it---say for a country-dance, the figures, 3, 5; this meant that the holder was to place himself in the 3rd dance, and 5th from the top; and if he was anywhere else, he was set right or excluded. And the partner's ticket must correspond. Woe on the poor girl who with ticket 2, 7, was found opposite a youth marked 5, 9! It was flirting without a licence, and looked very ill, and would probably be reported by the ticket director of that dance to the mother.' All this had passed away; and thus the aristocracy of a few individuals was ended; and society, freed from some of its restraints, flourished in another and more enlightened way than formerly. There were still a sufficient number of peculiarities to gratify one who had an eye to the ludicrous. Sydney Smith soon discovered that it is a work of time to impart a humorous idea to a true Scot. 'It requires,' he used to say, 'a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.' 'They are so embued with metaphysics, that they even make love metaphysically. I overheard a young lady of my acquaintance, at a dance in Edinburgh, exclaim in a sudden pause of the music, "What you say, my Lord, is very true of love in the _abstract_, but,--" here the fiddlers began fiddling furiously, and the rest was lost.' He was, however, most deeply touched by the noble attribute of that nation which retains what is so rare--the attribute of being true friends. He did ample justice to their kindliness of heart. 'If you meet with an accident,' he said, 'half Edinburgh immediately flocks to your doors to inquire after your _pure_ hand, or your _pure_ foot.' 'Their temper,' he observed, 'stands anything but an attack on their climate; even Jeffrey cannot shake off the illusion that myrtles flourish at Craig Crook.' The sharp reviewer stuck to his myrtle allusions, and treated Smith's attempts with as much contempt as if he had been a 'wild visionary, who had never breathed his caller air,' nor suffered under the rigours of his climate, nor spent five years in 'discussing metaphysics and medicine in that garret end of the earth,--that knuckle end of England--that land of Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur,' as Smith termed Scotland. During two years he braved the winters, in which he declared hackney-coaches were drawn by four horses on account of the snow; where men were blown flat down on the face by the winds; and where even 'experienced Scotch fowls did not dare to cross the streets, but sidled along, tails aloft, without venturing to encounter the gale.' He luxuriated, nevertheless, in the true Scotch supper, than which nothing more pleasant and more unwholesome has ever been known in Christendom. Edinburgh is said to have been the only place where people dined twice a day. The writer of this memoir is old enough to remember the true Scottish _Attic_ supper before its final 'fading into wine and water,' as Lord Cockburn describes its decline. 'Suppers,' Cockburn truly says, 'are cheaper than dinners,' and Edinburgh, at that time, was the cheapest place in Great Britain. Port and sherry were the staple wines: claret, duty free in Scotland until 1780, was indeed beginning to be a luxury; it was no longer the ordinary beverage, as it was when as Mackenzie, the author of the 'Man of Feeling,' described--it used, upon the arrival of a cargo, to be sent through the town on a cart with a horse before it, so that every one might have a sample, by carrying a jug to be filled for sixpence: still even at the end of the eighteenth century it was in frequent use. Whisky toddy and plotty (red wine mulled with spices) came into the supper-room in ancient flagons or _stoups_ after a lengthy repast of broiled chickens, roasted moorfowl, pickled mussels, flummery, and numerous other good things had been discussed by a party who ate as if they had not dined that day. 'We will eat,' Lord Cockburn used to say after a long walk, 'a profligate supper,'--a supper without regard to discretion, or digestion; and he usually kept his word. In Edinburgh, Sydney Smith formed the intimate acquaintance of Lord Jeffrey, and that acquaintance ripened into a friendship only closed by death. The friendship of worthy, sensible men he looked upon as one of the greatest pleasures in life. The 'old suns,' Lord Cockburn tells us, 'were setting when the band of great thinkers and great writers who afterwards concocted the "Edinburgh Review," were rising into celebrity.' Principal Robertson, the historian, had departed this life in 1793, a kindly old man. With beaming eyes underneath his frizzed and curled wig, and a trumpet tied with a black ribbon to the button-hole of his coat, for he was deaf, this most excellent of writers showed how he could be also the most zealous of diners. Old Adam Ferguson, the historian of Rome, had 'set,' also: one of the finest specimens of humanity had gone from among his people in him. Old people, not thirty years ago, delighted to tell you how 'Adam,' when chaplain to the Black Watch, that glorious 42nd, refused to retire to his proper place, the rear, during an action, but persisted in being engaged in front. He was also gone; and Dugald Stewart filled his vacant place in the professorship of moral philosophy. Dr. Henry, the historian, was also at rest; after a long laborious life, and the compilation of a dull, though admirable History of England, the design of which, in making a chapter on arts, manners, and literature separate from the narrative, appears to have suggested to Macaulay his inimitable disquisition on the same topics. Dr. Henry showed to a friend a pile of books which he had gone through, merely to satisfy himself and the world as to what description of trousers was worn by the Saxons. His death was calm as his life. 'Come out to me directly,' he wrote to his friend, Sir Harry Moncrieff: 'I have got something to do this week; I have got to die.' It was in 1801, that Dugald Stewart began his course of lectures on political economy. Hitherto all public favour had been on the side of the Tories, and independence of thought was a sure way to incur discouragement from the Bench, in the Church, and from every Government functionary. Lectures on political economy were regarded as innovations; but they formed a forerunner of that event which had made several important changes in our literary and political hemisphere: the commencement of the 'Edinburgh Review.' This undertaking was the work of men who were separated from the mass of their brother-townsmen by their politics; their isolation as a class binding them the more closely together by links never broken, in a brotherhood of hope and ambition, to which the natural spirits of Sydney Smith, of Cockburn, and of Jeffrey, gave an irresistible charm. Among those who the most early in life ended a career of promise was Francis Horner. He was the son of a linen-draper in Edinburgh; or, as the Scotch call it, following the French, a merchant. Homer's best linen for sheets, and table-cloths, and all the _under garments_ of housekeeping, are still highly esteemed by the trade. 'My desire to know Horner,' Sydney Smith states, 'arose from my being cautioned against him by some excellent and feeble-minded people to whom I brought letters of introduction, and who represented him as a person of violent political opinions.' Sydney Smith interpreted this to mean that Horner was a man who thought for himself; who loved truth better than he loved Dundas (Lord Melville), then the tyrant of Scotland. 'It is very curious to consider,' Sydney Smith wrote, in addressing Lady Holland, in 1817, 'in what manner Horner gained, in so extraordinary a degree, the affections of such a number of persons of both sexes, all ages, parties, and ranks in society; for he was not remarkably good tempered, nor particularly lively and agreeable; and an inflexible politician on the unpopular side. The causes are, his high character for probity, honour, and talents; his fine countenance; the benevolent interest he took in the concerns of all his friends; his simple and gentlemanlike manners; his untimely death.' 'Grave, studious, honourable, kind, everything Horner did,' says Lord Cockburn, 'was marked by thoughtfulness and kindness;' a beautiful character, which was exhibited but briefly to his contemporaries, but long remembered after his death. Henry Brougham was another of the Edinburgh band of young spirits. He was educated in the High School under Luke Fraser, the tutor who trained Walter Scott and Francis Jeffrey. Brougham used to be pointed out 'as the fellow who had beat the master.' He had dared to differ with Fraser, a hot pedant, on some piece of Latinity. Fraser, irritated, punished the rebel, and thought the matter ended. But the next day 'Harry,' as they called him, appeared, loaded with books, renewed the charge, and forced Luke to own that he was beaten. 'It was then,' says Lord Cockburn, 'that I first saw him.' After remaining two years in Edinburgh, Sydney Smith went southwards to marry a former schoolfellow of his sister Maria's--a Miss Pybus, to whom he had been attached and engaged at a very early period of his life. The young lady, who was of West Indian descent, had some fortune; but her husband's only stock, on which to begin housekeeping, consisted of six silver tea-spoons, worn away with use. One day he rushed into the room and threw these attenuated articles into her lap--'There, Kate, I give you all my fortune, you lucky girl!' With the small _dôt_, and the thin silver-spoons, the young couple set up housekeeping in the 'garret end of the earth.' Their first difficulty was to know how money could be obtained to begin with, for Mrs. Smith's small fortune was settled on herself by her husband's wish. Two rows of pearls had been given her by her thoughtful mother. These she converted into money, and obtained for them £500. Several years afterwards, when visiting the shop at which she sold them, with Miss Vernon and Miss Fox, Mrs. Smith saw her pearls, every one of which she knew. She asked what was the price. '£1,500,' was the reply. The sum, however, was all important to the thrifty couple. It distanced the nightmare of the poor and honest,--debt. £750 was presented by Mr. Beach, in gratitude for the care of his son, to Smith. It was invested in the funds, and formed the nucleus of future savings,--'_Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte_' is a trite saying. '_C'est le premier pas qui gagne_, might be applied to this and similar cases. A little daughter--Lady Holland, the wife of the celebrated physician, Sir Henry Holland--was sent to bless the sensible pair. Sydney had wished that she might be born with one eye, so that he might never lose her; nevertheless, though she happened to be born with two, he bore her secretly from the nursery, a few hours after her birth, to show her in triumph to the future Edinburgh Reviewers. The birth of the 'Edinburgh Review' quickly followed that of the young lady. Jeffrey,--then an almost starving barrister, living in the eighth or ninth flat of a house in Buccleuch Place,--Brougham, and Sydney Smith were the triumvirate who propounded the scheme, Smith being the first mover. He proposed a motto: 'Tenui Musam meditanum avenir:' We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal; but this being too near the truth, they took their motto from Publius Syrus; 'of whom,' said Smith, 'none of us had, I am sure, read a single line.' To this undertaking Sydney Smith devoted his talents for more than twenty-eight years. Meantime, during the brief remainder of his stay in Edinburgh, his circumstances improved. He had done that which most of the clergy are obliged to do--taken a pupil. He had now another, the son of Mr. Gordon, of Ellon; for each of these young men he received £400 a year. He became to them a father and a friend; he entered into all their amusements. One of them saying that he could not find conversation at the balls for his partners, 'Never mind,' cried Sydney Smith, 'I'll fit you up in five minutes.' Accordingly he wrote down conversations for them amid bursts of laughter. Thus happily did years, which many persons would have termed a season of adversity, pass away. The chance which brought him to Edinburgh introduced him to a state of society never likely to be seen again in Scotland. Lord Cockburn's 'Memorials' afford an insight into manners, not only as regarded suppers, but on the still momentous point, of dinners. Three o'clock was the fashionable hour, so late as the commencement of the present century. That hour, 'not without groans and predictions,' became four--and four was long and conscientiously adhered to. 'Inch by inch,' people yielded, and five continued to be the standard polite hour from 1806 to 1820. 'Six has at length prevailed.' The most punctilious ceremony existed. When dinner was announced, a file of ladies went first in strict order of precedence. 'Mrs. Colonel Such an One;' 'Mrs. Doctor Such an One,' and so on. Toasts were _de rigueur_: no glass of wine was to be taken by a guest without comprehending a lady, or a covey of ladies. 'I was present,' says Lord Cockburn, 'when the late Duke of Buccleuch took a glass of sherry by himself at the table of Charles Hope, then Lord Advocate, and this was noticed as a piece of ducal contempt.' Toasts, and when the ladies had retired, _rounds_ of toasts, were drunk. 'The prandial nuisance,' Lord Cockburn wrote, 'was horrible. But it was nothing to what followed.' At these repasts, though less at these than at boisterous suppers, a frequent visitor at the same table with Sydney Smith was the illustrious Sir James Mackintosh, a man to whose deep-thinking mind the world is every day rendering justice. The son of a brave officer, Mackintosh was born on the banks of Loch Ness: his mother, a Miss Fraser, was aunt to Mrs. Fraser Tytler, wife of Lord Woodhouselee, one of the judges of the Court of Session and mother of the late historian of that honoured name. Mackintosh had been studying at Aberdeen, in the same classes with Robert Hall, whose conversation, he avowed, had a great influence over his mind. He arrived in Edinburgh about 1784, uncertain to what profession to belong; somewhat anxious to be a bookseller, in order to revel in 'the paradise of books;' he turned his attention, however, to medicine, and became a Brunonian, that is, a disciple of John Brown, the founder of a theory which he followed out to the extent in practice. The main feature of the now defunct system, which set scientific Europe in a blaze, seems to have been a mad indulgence of the passions; and an unbridled use of intoxicating liquors. Brown fell a victim to his vices. Years after he had been laid in his grave, his daughter, Euphemia, being in great indigence, received real kindness from Sir James and Lady Mackintosh, the former of whom used to delight in telling the story of her father's saying to her: 'Effy, bring me the mooderate stimulus of a hoonderd draps o' laudanum in a glass o' brandy.' Mackintosh had not quitted Edinburgh when Sydney Smith reached it. Smith became a member of the famous Speculative Society. Their acquaintance was renewed years afterwards in London. Who can ever forget the small, quiet dinners given by Mackintosh when living out of Parliament, and out of office in Cadogan Place? Simple but genial were those repasts, forming a strong contrast to the Edinburgh dinners of yore. He had then long given up both the theory and practice of the Brunonians, and took nothing but light French and German wines, and these in moderation. His tall, somewhat high-shouldered, massive form; his calm brow, mild, thoughtful; his dignity of manner; his gentleness to all; his vast knowledge; his wonderful appreciation of excellence; his discrimination of faults--all combined to form one of the finest specimens ever seen, even in that illustrious period, of a philosopher and historian. Jeffrey and Cockburn were contrasts to one whom they honoured. Jeffrey, 'the greatest of British critics,' was eight years younger than Mackintosh, having been born in 1773. He was the son of one of the depute clerks to the Supreme Court, not an elevated position, though one of great respectability. When Mackintosh and Sydney Smith first knew him in Edinburgh, he was enduring, with all the impatience of his sensitive nature, what he called 'a slow, obscure, philosophical starvation' at the Scotch bar. 'There are moments,' he wrote, 'when I think I could sell myself to the ministers or to the devil, in order to get above these necessities.' Like all men so situated, his depression came in fits. Short, spare, with regular, yet _not_ aristocratic features;--speaking, brilliant, yet _not_ pleasing eyes;--a voice consistent with that _mignon_ form;--a somewhat precise and anxious manner, there was never in Jeffrey that charm, that _abandon_, which rendered his valued friend, Henry Cockburn, the most delightful, the most beloved of men, the very idol of his native city. The noble head of Cockburn, bald, almost in youth, with its pliant, refined features, and its fresh tint upon a cheek always clear, generally high in colour, was a strong contrast to the rigid _petitesse_ of Jeffrey's physiognomy; much more so to the large proportions of Mackintosh; or to the ponderous, plain, and, later in life, swarthy countenance of Sydney Smith. Lord Webb Seymour, the brother of the late Duke of Somerset, gentle, modest, intelligent,--Thomas Thomson, the antiquary,--and Charles and George Bell, the surgeon and the advocate,-- Murray, afterwards Lord Murray, the generous pleader, who gave up to its rightful heirs an estate left him by a client,--and Brougham--formed the staple of that set now long since extinct. It was partially broken up by Sydney Smith's coming, in 1803, to London. He there took a house in Doughty Street, being partial to legal society, which was chiefly to be found in that neighbourhood. Here Sir Samuel Romilly, Mackintosh, Scarlett (Lord Abinger), the eccentric and unhappy Mr. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley, 'Conversation' Sharp, Rogers, and Luttrell, formed the circle in which Sidney delighted. He was still very poor, and obliged to sell the rest of his wife's jewels; but his brother Robert allowed him £100 a year, and lent him, when he subsequently removed into Yorkshire, £500. He had now a life of struggling, but those struggles were the lot of his early friends also; Mackintosh talked of going to India as a lecturer; Smith recommended Jeffrey to do the same. Happily, both had the courage and the sense to await for better times at home; yet Smith's opinion of Mackintosh was, that 'he never saw so theoretical a head which contained so much practical understanding;' and to Jeffrey he wrote: 'You want nothing to be a great lawyer, and nothing to be a great speaker, but a deeper voice--slower and more simple utterance--more humility of face and neck--and a greater contempt for _esprit_ than men _who have so much_ in general attain to.' The great event of Sydney Smith's first residence in London was his introduction at Holland House; in that 'gilded room which furnished,' as he said, 'the best and most agreeable society in the world,' his happiest hours were passed. John Allen, whom Smith had introduced to Lord Holland was the peer's librarian and friend. Mackintosh, who Sydney Smith thought only wanted a few bad qualities to get on in the world, Rogers, Luttrell, Sheridan, Byron, were among the 'suns' that shone, where Addison had suffered and studied. Between Lord Holland and Sydney Smith the most cordial friendship existed; and the eccentric and fascinating Lady Holland was his constant correspondent. Of this able woman, it was said by Talleyrand: '_Elle est toute assertion; mais quand on demande la preuve c'est là son sécret_' Of Lord Holland, the keen diplomatist observed: '_Cest la bienveillance même, mais la bienveillance la plus perturbatrice, qu'on ait jamais vue._' Lord Holland did not commit the error ascribed by Rogers, in his Recollections, to Marlay, Bishop of Waterford, who when poor, with an income of only £400 a year, used to give the best dinners possible; but, when made a bishop, enlarged his table, and lost his fame-had no more good company--there was an end of his enjoyment: he had lords and ladies to his table--foolish people--foolish men--and foolish women--and there was an end of him and us. 'Lord Holland selected his lords and ladies, not for their rank, but for their peculiar merits or acquirements.' Then even Lady Holland's oddities were amusing. When she wanted to get rid of a fop, she used to say: 'I beg your pardon, but I wish you would sit a little farther off; there is something on your handkerchief which I don't quite like.' Or when a poor man happened to stand, after the fashion of the lords of creation, with his back close to the chimney-piece, she would cry out, 'Have the goodness, sir, to stir the fire.' Lord Holland never asked any one to dinner, ('not even _me_,' says Rogers, 'whom he had known so long,') without asking Lady Holland. One day, shortly before his lordship's death, Rogers was coming out from Holland House when he met him. 'Well, do you return to dinner?' I answered. 'No, I have not been invited.' The precaution, in fact, was necessary, for Lord Holland was so good-natured and hospitable that he would have had a crowd daily at his table had he been left to himself. The death of Lord Holland completely broke up the unrivalled dinners, and the subsequent evenings in the 'gilded chamber.' Lady Holland, to whom Holland House was left for her life-time, declined to live there. With Holland House, the mingling of aristocracy with talent; the blending ranks by force of intellect; the assembling not only of all the celebrity that Europe could boast, but of all that could enhance private enjoyment, had ceased. London, the most intelligent of capitals, possesses not one single great house in which pomp and wealth are made subsidiary to the true luxury of intellectual conversation. On the morning of the day when Lord Holland's last illness began, these lines were written by him, and found after his death on his dressing-table:-- 'Nephew of Fox, and Friend of Grey, Sufficient for my fame, If those who know me best shall say I tarnished neither name.' Of him his best friend, Sydney Smith, left a short but discriminative character. 'There was never (amongst other things he says) a better heart, or one more purified from all the bad passions--more abounding in charity and compassion--or which seemed to be so created as a refuge to the helpless and oppressed.' Meantime Sydney Smith's circumstances were still limited; £50 a year as evening preacher to the Foundling Hospital was esteemed as a great help by him. The writer of this memoir remembers an amusing anecdote related of him at the table of an eminent literary character by a member of Lord Woodhouselee's family, who had been desirous to obtain for Sydney the patronage of the godly. To this end she persuaded Robert Grant and Charles Grant (afterwards Lord Glenelg) to go to the Foundling to hear him, she hoped to advantage; to her consternation he broke forth into so familiar a strain, couched in terms so bordering on the jocose,--though no one had deeper religious convictions than he had,--that the two saintly brothers listened in disgust. They forgot how South let loose the powers of his wit and sarcasm; and how the lofty-minded Jeremy Taylor applied the force of humour to lighten the prolixity of argument. Sydney Smith became, nevertheless, a most popular preacher; but the man who prevents people from sleeping once a week in their pews is sure to be criticised. Let us turn to him, however, as a member of society. His circle of acquaintance was enlarged, not only by his visits to Holland House, but by his lectures on moral philosophy at the Royal Institution. Sir Robert Peel, not the most impressionable of men, but one whose cold shake of the hand is said--as Sydney Smith said of Sir James Mackintosh--'to have come under the genus _Mortmain_' was a very young man at the time when Albemarle Street was crowded with carriages from one end of the street to the other, in consequence of Sydney Smith's lectures; yet he declared that he had never forgotten the effect given to the speech of Logan, the Indian chief, by Sydney's voice and manner. His lectures produced a sum sufficient for Sydney to furnish a house in Orchard Street. Doughty Street--raised to celebrity as having been the residence, not only of Sydney Smith, but of Charles Dickens--was too far for the _habitué_ of Holland House and the orator of Albemarle Street long to sojourn there. In Orchard Street, Sydney enjoyed that domestic comfort which he called 'the grammar of life;' delightful suppers, to about twenty or thirty persons, who came and went as they pleased. A great part of the same amusing and gifted set used to meet once a week also at Sir James Mackintosh's, at a supper, which, though not exactly Cowper's 'radish and an egg,' was simple, but plentiful--yet most eagerly sought after. 'There are a few living,' writes Sydney Smith's daughter, 'who can look back to them, and I have always found them do so with a sigh of regret.' One night, a country cousin of Sydney Smith's was present at a supper. 'Now, Sydney,' whispered the simple girl, 'I know all these are very remarkable people; do tell me who they are.'--'Oh, yes; there's Hannibal,' pointing to a grave, dry, stern man, Mr. Whishaw; 'he lost his leg in the Carthagenian war: there's Socrates,' pointing to Luttrell: 'that,' he added, turning to Horner, 'is Solon.' Another evening, Mackintosh brought a raw Scotch cousin--an ensign in a Highland regiment--with him. The young man's head could carry no idea of glory except in regimentals. Suddenly, nudging Sir James, he whispered, 'Is that the great Sir Sydney Smith?'--'Yes, yes,' answered Sir James; and instantly telling Sydney who he was supposed to be, the grave evening preacher at the Foundling immediately assumed the character ascribed to him, and acted the hero of Acre to perfection, fighting his battles over again--even charging the Turks--whilst the young Scot was so enchanted by the great Sir Sydney's condescension, that he wanted to fetch the pipers of his regiment, and pipe to the great Sir Sydney, who had never enjoyed the agonizing strains of the bagpipe. Upon this the party broke up, and Sir James carried the Highlander off, lest he should find out his mistake, and cut his throat from shame and vexation. One may readily conceive Sydney Smith's enjoying this joke, for his spirits were those of a boy: his gaiety was irresistible; his ringing laugh, infectious; but it is difficult for those who knew Mackintosh in his later years--the quiet, almost pensive invalid to realize in that remembrance any trace of the Mackintosh of Doughty Street and Orchard Street days. One day Sydney Smith came home with two hackney coaches full of pictures, which he had picked up at an auction. His daughter thus tells the story: 'Another day he came home with two hackney-coach loads of pictures, which he had met with at an auction, having found it impossible to resist so many yards of brown-looking figures and faded landscapes going for "absolutely nothing, unheard of sacrifices." "Kate" hardly knew whether to laugh or cry when she saw these horribly dingy-looking objects enter her pretty little drawing-room, and looked at him as if she thought him half mad; and half mad he was, but with delight at his purchase. He kept walking up and down the room, waving his arms, putting them in fresh lights, declaring they were exquisite specimens of art, and if not by the very best masters, merited to be so. He invited his friends, and displayed his pictures; discovered fresh beauties for each new comer; and for three or four days, under the magic influence of his wit and imagination, these gloomy old pictures were a perpetual source of amusement and fun.' At last, finding that he was considered no authority for the fine arts, off went the pictures to another auction, but all re-christened by himself, with unheard-of names. 'One, I remember,' says Lady Holland, 'was a beautiful landscape, by Nicholas de Falda, a pupil of Valdezzio, the only painting by that eminent artist. The pictures sold, I believe, for rather less than he gave for them under their original names, which were probably as real as their assumed ones.' Sydney Smith had long been styled by his friends the 'Bishop of Mickleham,' in allusion to his visits to, and influence in, the house of his friend, Richard Sharp, who had a cottage at that place. A piece of real preferment was now his. This was the living of Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire, given him by Lord Erskine, then Chancellor. Lady Holland never rested till she had prevailed on Erskine to give Sydney Smith a living. Smith, as Rogers relates, went to thank his lordship. 'Oh,' said Erskine, 'don't thank me, Mr. Smith; I gave you the living because Lady Holland insisted on my doing so; and if she had desired me to give it to the devil, _he_ must have had it.' Notwithstanding the prediction of the saints, Sydney Smith proved an excellent parish priest. Even his most admiring friends did not expect this result. The general impression was, that he was infinitely better fitted for the bar than for the church. 'Ah! Mr. Smith,' Lord Stowell used to say to him, 'you would be in a far better situation, and a far richer man, had you belonged to us.' One _jeu d'esprit_ more, and Smith hastened to take possession of his living, and to enter upon duties of which no one better knew the mighty importance than he did. Among the Mackintosh set was Richard Sharp, to whom we have already referred, termed, from his great knowledge and ready memory, 'Conversation Sharp.' Many people may think that this did not imply an agreeable man, and they were, perhaps, right. Sharp was a plain, ungainly man. One evening, a literary lady, now living, being at Sir James Mackintosh's, in company with Sharp, Sismondi, and the late Lord Denman, then a man of middle age. Sir James was not only particularly partial to Denman, but admired him personally. 'Do you not think Denman handsome?' he inquired of the lady after the guests were gone. 'No? Then you must think Mr. Sharp handsome,' he rejoined; meaning that a taste so perverted as not to admire Denman must be smitten with Sharp. Sharp is said to have studied all the morning before he went out to dinner, to get up his wit and anecdote, as an actor does his part. Sydney Smith having one day received an invitation from him to dine at Fishmongers' Hall, sent the following reply:-- 'Much do I love The monsters of the deep to eat; To see the rosy salmon lying, By smelts encircled, born for frying; And from the china boat to pour On flaky cod the flavoured shower. Thee above all, I much regard, Flatter than Longman's flattest bard, Much-honour'd turbot! sore I grieve Thee and thy dainty friends to leave. Far from ye all, in snuggest corner, I go to dine with little Horner; He who with philosophic eye Sat brooding o'er his Christmas pie; Then firm resolved, with either thumb, Tore forth the crust-enveloped plum; And mad with youthful dreams of deathless fame, Proclaimed the deathless glories of his name.' One word before we enter on the subject of Sydney Smith's ministry. In this biography of a great Wit, we touch but lightly upon the graver features of his character, yet they cannot wholly be passed over. Stanch in his devotion to the Church of England, he was liberal to others. The world in the present day is afraid of liberality. Let it not be forgotten that it has been the fanatic and the intolerant, not the mild and practical, among us who have gone from the Protestant to the Romish faith. Sydney Smith, in common with other great men, had no predilection for dealing damnation round the land. How noble, how true, are Mackintosh's reflections on religious sects! 'It is impossible, I think, to look into the interior of any religious sect, without thinking better of it. I ought, indeed, to confine myself to those of Christian Europe, but with that limitation it seems to me the remark is true; whether I look at the Jansenists of Port Royal, or the Quakers in Clarkson, or the Methodists in these journals. All these sects, which appear dangerous or ridiculous at a distance, assume a much more amicable character on nearer inspection. They all inculcate pure virtue, and practise mutual kindness; and they exert great force of reason in rescuing their doctrines from the absurd or pernicious consequences which naturally flow from them. Much of this arises from the general nature of religious principle--much also from the genius of the Gospel.' Nothing could present a greater contrast with the comforts of Orchard Street than the place on which Sydney Smith's 'lines' had now 'fallen.' Owing to the non-residence of the clergy, one-third of the parsonage houses in England had fallen into decay, but that of Foston-le-Clay was pre-eminently wretched. A hovel represented what was still called the parsonage-house: it stood on a glebe of three hundred acres of the stiffest clay in Yorkshire: a brick-floored kitchen, with a room above it, both in a ruinous condition was the residence which, for a hundred and fifty years, had never been inhabited by an incumbent. It will not be a matter of surprise that for some time, until 1808, Sydney Smith, with the permission of the Archbishop of York, continued to reside in London, after having appointed a curate at Foston-le-Clay. The first visit to his living was by no means promising. Picture to yourself, my reader, Sydney Smith in a carriage, in his superfine black coat, driving into the remote village, and parleying with the old parish clerk, who after some conversation, observed, emphatically, shaking his stick on the ground, 'Master Smith, it stroikes me that people as comes froe London is such _fools_.--'I see _you_ are no fool,' was the prompt answer; and the parson and the clerk parted mutually satisfied. The profits, arising from the sale of two volumes of sermons, carried Sydney Smith, his family, and his furniture, to Foston-le-Clay in the summer of 1809, and he took up his abode in a pleasant house about two miles from York, at Heslington. [Illustration: SYDNEY SMITH'S WITTY ANSWER TO THE OLD PARISH CLERK.] Let us now, for a time, forget the wit, the editor of the 'Edinburgh Review,' the diner out, the evening preacher at the Foundling, and glance at the peaceful and useful life of a country clergyman. His spirits, his wit, all his social qualities, never deserted Sydney Smith, even in the retreat to which he was destined. Let us see him driving in his second-hand carriage, his horse, 'Peter the Cruel,' with Mrs. Smith by his side, summer and winter, from Heslington to Foston-le-Clay. Mrs. Smith, at first, trembled at the inexperience of her charioteer; but 'she soon,' said Sydney, 'raised my wages, and considered me an excellent Jehu.' 'Mr. Brown,' said Sydney to one of the tradesmen of York, through the streets of which he found it difficult to drive, 'your streets are the narrowest, in Europe,'--'Narrow, sir? there's plenty of room for two carriages to pass each other, and an inch and a half to spare!' Let us see him in his busy peaceful life, digging an hour or two every day in his garden to avoid sudden death, by preventing corpulency; then galloping through a book, and when his family laughed at him for so soon dismissing a quarto, saying, 'Cross-examine me, then,' and going well through the ordeal. Hear him, after finishing his morning's writing, saying to his wife, 'There, Kate, it's done: do look over it; put the dots to the i's, and cross the t's:' and off he went to his walk, surrounded by his children, who were his companions and confidants. See him in the lane, talking to an old woman whom he had taken into his gig as she was returning from market, and picking up all sorts of knowledge from her; or administering medicine to the poor, or to his horses and animals, sometimes committing mistakes next to fatal. One day he declared he found all his pigs intoxicated, grunting 'God save the King' about the sty. He nearly poisoned his red cow by an over-dose of castor-oil; and Peter the Cruel, so called because the groom once said he had a cruel face, took two boxes of opium pills (boxes and all) in his mash, without ill consequences. See him, too, rushing out after dinner--for he had a horror of long sittings after that meal--to look at his 'scratcher.' He used to say, Lady Holland (his daughter) relates, 'I am all for cheap luxuries, even for animals; now all animals have a passion for scratching their backbones; they break down your gates and palings to effect this. Look! there is my universal scratcher, a sharp-edged pole, resting on a high and a low post, adapted to every height, from a horse to a lamb. Even the Edinburgh Reviewer can take his turn: you have no idea how popular it is; I have not had a gate broken since I put it up; I have it in all my fields.' Then his experiments were numerous. Mutton fat was to be burned instead of candles; and working-people were brought in and fed with broth, or with rice, or with porridge, to see which was the most satisfying diet. Economy was made amusing, benevolence almost absurd, but the humorous man, the kind man, shone forth in all things. He was one of the first, if not the first, who introduced allotment-gardens for the poor: he was one who could truly say at the last, when he had lived sixty-six years, 'I have done but very little harm in the world, and I have brought up my family.' We have taken a glimpse--and a glimpse merely--of the 'wise Wit' in London, among congenial society, where every intellectual power was daily called forth in combative force. See him now in the provincial circles of the remote county of York. 'Did you ever,' he once asked, 'dine out in the country? What misery do human beings inflict on each other under the name of pleasure!' Then he describes driving in a broiling sun through a dusty road, to eat a haunch of venison at the house of a neighbouring parson. Assembled in a small house, 'redolent of frying,' talked of roads, weather, and turnips; began, that done, to be hungry. A stripling, caught up for the occasion, calls the master of the house out of the room, and announces that the cook has mistaken the soup for dirty water, and has thrown it away. No help for it--agreed; they must do without it; perhaps as well they should. Dinner announced; they enter the dining-room: heavens! what a gale! the venison is high! Various other adverse incidents occur, and the party return home, grateful to the post-boys for not being drunk, and thankful to Providence for not being thrown into a wet ditch. In addition to these troubles and risks, there was an enemy at hand to apprehend--prejudice. The Squire of Heslington--'the last of the Squires'--regarded Mr. Smith as a Jacobin; and his lady, 'who looked as if she had walked straight out of the Ark, or had been the wife of Enoch,' used to turn aside as he passed. When, however, the squire found 'the peace of the village undisturbed, harvests as usual, his dogs uninjured, he first bowed, then called, and ended by a pitch of confidence;' actually discovered that Sydney Smith had made a joke; nearly went into convulsions of laughter, and finished by inviting the 'dangerous fellow,' as he had once thought him, to see his dogs. In 1813 Sydney Smith removed, as he thought it his duty to do, to Foston-le-Clay, and, 'not knowing a turnip from a carrot,' began to farm three hundred acres, and not having any money, to build a parsonage-house. It was a model parsonage, he thought, the plan being formed by himself and 'Kate.' Being advised by his neighbours to purchase oxen, he bought (and christened) four oxen, 'Tug and Lug,' 'Crawl and Haul.' But Tug and Lug took to fainting, Haul and Crawl to lie down in the mud, so he was compelled to sell them, and to purchase a team of horses. The house plunged him into debt for twenty years; and a man-servant being too expensive, the 'wise Wit' caught up a country girl, made like a mile-stone, and christened her 'Bunch,' and Bunch became the best butler in the county. He next set up a carriage, which he christened the 'Immortal,' for it grew, from being only an ancient green chariot, supposed to have been the earliest invention of the kind, to be known by all the neighbours; the village dogs barked at it, the village boys cheered it, and 'we had no false shame.' One could linger over the annals of Sydney Smith's useful, happy life at Foston-le-Clay, visited there indeed by Mackintosh, and each day achieving a higher and higher reputation in literature. We see him as a magistrate, 'no friend to game,' as a country squire in Suffolk solemnly said of a neighbour, but a friend to man; with a pitying heart, that forbade him to commit young delinquents to gaol, though he would lecture them severely, and call out, in bad cases, 'John, bring me out my _private gallows_,' which brought the poor boys on their knees. We behold him making visits, and even tours, in the 'Immortal,' and receiving Lord and Lady Carlisle in their coach and four, which had stuck in the middle of a ploughed field, there being scarcely any road, only a lane up to the house. Behold him receiving his poor friend, Francis Homer, who came to take his last leave of him, and died at Pisa, in 1817, after earning honours, paid, as Sir James Mackintosh remarked, to intrinsic claims alone--'a man of obscure birth, who never filled an office.' See Sydney Smith, in 1816, from the failure of the harvest (he who was in London 'a walking patty'), sitting down with his family to repast without bread, thin, unleavened cakes being the substitute. See his cheerfulness, his submission to many privations: picture him to ourselves trying to ride, but falling off incessantly; but obliged to leave off riding 'for the good of his family, and the peace of his parish' (he had christened his horse, 'Calamity'). See him suddenly prostrate from that steed in the midst of the streets of York, 'to the great joy of Dissenters,' he declares: another time flung as if he had been a shuttlecock, into a neighbouring parish, very glad that it was not a neighbouring planet, for somehow or other his horse and he had a 'trick of parting company.' 'I used,' he wrote, 'to think a fall from a horse dangerous, but much experience has convinced me to the contrary. I have had six falls in two years, and just behaved like the Three per Cents., when they fell--I got up again, and am not a bit the worse for it, any more than the stock in question.' This country life was varied by many visits. In 1820 he went to visit Lord Grey, then to Edinburgh, to Jeffrey travelling by the coach, a gentleman, with whom he had been talking, said, 'There is a very clever fellow lives near here, Sydney Smith, I believe; a devilish odd fellow.'--'He may be an odd fellow,' cried Sydney, taking off his hat, 'but here he is, odd as he is, at your service.' Sydney Smith found great changes in Edinburgh--changes, however, in many respects for the better. The society of Edinburgh was then in its greatest perfection. 'Its brilliancy, Lord Cockburn remarks, 'was owing to a variety of peculiar circumstances, which only operated during this period. The principal of these were the survivance of several of the eminent men of the preceding age, and of curious old habits, which the modern flood had not yet obliterated; the rise of a powerful community of young men of ability; the exclusion of the British from the Continent, which made this place, both for education and for residence, a favourite resort of strangers; the war, which maintained a constant excitement of military preparation and of military idleness: the blaze of that popular literature which made this the second city in the empire for learning and science; and the extent and the ease with which literature and society embellished each other, without rivalry, and without pedantry. Among the 'best young' as his lordship styles them, were Lord Webb Seymour and Francis Horner; whilst those of the 'interesting old' most noted were Elizabeth Hamilton and Mrs. Grant of Laggan, who had 'unfolded herself,' to borrow Lord Cockburn's words, in the 'Letters from the Mountains,' 'an interesting treasury of good solitary thoughts.' Of these two ladies, Lord Cockburn says, 'They were excellent women, and not _too_ blue. Their sense covered the colour.' It was to Mrs. Hamilton that Jeffrey said, 'That there was no objection to the blue stocking, provided the petticoat came low enough to cover it.' Neither of these ladies possessed personal attractions. Mrs. Hamilton had the plain face proper to literary women; Mrs. Grant was a tall dark woman, with much dignity of manner: in spite of her life of misfortune, she had a great flow of spirits. Beautifully, indeed, does Lord Cockburn render justice to her character: 'She was always under the influence of an affectionate and delightful enthusiasm, which, unquenched by time and sorrow, survived the wreck of many domestic attachments, and shed a glow over the close of a very protracted life.' Both she and Mrs. Hamilton succeeded in drawing to their _conversazioni_, in small rooms of unpretending style, men of the highest order, as well as attractive women of intelligence. Society in Edinburgh took the form of Parisian _soirées_, and although much divided into parties, was sufficiently general to be varied. It is amusing to find that Mrs. Grant was at one time one of the supposed 'Authors of "Waverley,"' until the disclosure of the mystery silenced reports. It was the popularity of 'Marmion,' that made Scott, as he himself confesses, nearly lose his footing. Mrs. Grant's observation on him, after meeting the Great Unknown at some brilliant party, has been allowed, even by the sarcastic Lockhart, to be 'witty enough.' 'Mr. Scott always seems to me to be like a glass, through which the rays of admiration pass without sensibly affecting it; but the bit of paper[13] that lies beside it will presently be in a blaze--and no wonder.' [13: Alluding to Lady Scott.] Scott endeavoured to secure Mrs. Grant a pension; merited as he observes, by her as an authoress, 'but much more,' in his opinion, 'by the firmness and elasticity of mind with which she had borne a great succession of domestic calamities.' 'Unhappily,' he adds, 'there was only about £100 open on the Pension List, and this the minister assigned in equal portions to Mrs. G---- and a distressed lady, grand-daughter of a forfeited Scottish nobleman. Mrs. G---- , proud as a Highlandwoman, vain as a poetess, and absurd as a blue-stocking, has taken this partition in _malam partem_, and written to Lord Melville about her merits, and that her friends do not consider her claims as being fairly canvassed, with something like a demand that her petition be submitted to the king. This is not the way to make her _plack_ a _bawbee_, and Lord M---- , a little _miffed_ in turn, sends the whole correspondence to me to know whether Mrs. G---- will accept the £50 or not Now, hating to deal with ladies when they are in an unreasonable humour, I have got the good-humoured Man of Feeling to find out the lady's mind, and I take on myself the task of making her peace with Lord M---- . After all, the poor lady is greatly to be pitied:--her sole remaining daughter deep and far gone in a decline.' The Man of Feeling proved successful, and reported soon afterwards that the 'dirty pudding' was eaten by the almost destitute authoress. Scott's tone in the letters which refer to this subject does little credit to his good taste and delicacy of feeling, which were really attributable to his character. Very few notices occur of any intercourse between Scott and Sydney Smith in Lockhart's 'Life,' It was not, indeed, until 1827 that Scott could be sufficiently cooled down from the ferment of politics which had been going on to meet Jeffrey and Cockburn. When he dined, however, with Murray, then Lord Advocate, and met Jeffrey, Cockburn, the late Lord Rutherford, then Mr. Rutherford, and others of 'that file,' he pronounced the party to be 'very pleasant, capital good cheer, and excellent wine, much laugh and fun. I do not know,' he writes, 'how it is, but when I am out with a party of my Opposition friends, the day is often merrier than when with our own set. It is because they are cleverer? Jeffery and Harry Cockburn are, to be sure, very extraordinary men, yet it is not owing to that entirely. I believe both parties meet with the feeling of something like novelty. We have not worn out our jests in daily contact. There is also a disposition on such occasions to be courteous, and of course to be pleased.' On his side, Cockburn did ample justice to the 'genius who,' to use his own words, 'has immortalized Edinburgh and delighted the 'world.' Mrs. Scott could not, however, recover the smarting inflicted by the critiques of Jeffrey on her husband's works. Her--'And I hope, Mr. Jeffrey, Mr. Constable paid you well for your Article' (Jeffrey dining with her that day), had a depth of simple satire in it that ever, an Edinburgh Reviewer could hardly exceed. It was, one must add, impertinent and in bad taste. 'You are very good at cutting up.' Sydney Smith found Jeffrey and Cockburn rising barristers. Horner, on leaving Edinburgh, had left to Jeffrey his bar wig, and the bequest had been lucky. Jeffrey was settled at Craigcrook, a lovely English-looking spot, with wooded slopes and green glades, near Edinburgh; and Cockburn had, since 1811, set up his rural gods at Bonally, near Colinton, just under the Pentland Hills, and he wrote, 'Unless some avenging angel shall expel me, I shall never leave that paradise.' And a paradise it was. Beneath those rough, bare hills, broken here and there by a trickling burn, like a silver thread on the brown sward, stands a Norman tower, the addition, by Playfair's skill, to what was once a scarcely habitable farmhouse. That tower contained Lord Cockburn's fine library, also his ordinary sitting-rooms. There he read and wrote, and received such society as will never meet again, there or elsewhere--amongst them Sydney Smith. Beneath--around the tower--stretches a delicious garden, composed of terraces, and laurel-hedged walks, and beds of flowers, that bloomed freely in that sheltered spot. A bowling-green, shaded by one of the few trees near the house, a sycamore, was the care of many an hour; for to make the turf velvety, the sods were fetched from the hills above--from 'yon hills,' as Lord Cockburn would have called them. And this was for many years one of the rallying points of the best Scottish society, and, as each autumn came round, of what the host called his Carnival. Friends were summoned from the north and the south--'death no apology.' High jinks within doors, excursions without. Every Edinburgh man reveres the spot, hallowed by the remembrance of Lord Cockburn. 'Every thing except the two burns, he wrote, 'the few old trees, and the mountains, are my own work. Human nature is incapable of enjoying more happiness than has been my lot here. I have been too happy, and often tremble in the anticipation that the cloud must come at last.' And come it did; but found him not unprepared, although the burden that he had to bear in after-life was heavy. In their enlarged and philosophic minds, in their rapid transition from sense to nonsense, there was an affinity in the characters of Sydney Smith and of Lord Cockburn which was not carried out in any other point. Smith's conversation was wit--Lord Cockburn's was eloquence. From the festivities of Edinburgh Sydney Smith returned contentedly to Foston-le-Clay, and to Bunch. Amongst other gifted visitors was Mrs. Marcet. 'Come here, Bunch,' cries Sydney Smith one day; 'come and repeat your crimes to Mrs. Marcet.' Then Bunch, grave as a judge, began to repeat: 'Plate-snatching, gravy-spilling, door-slamming, blue-bottle- fly-catching, and curtsey-bobbing. 'Blue-bottle-fly-catching,' means standing with her mouth open, and not attending; and 'curtsey-bobbing' was curtseying to the centre of the earth. One night, in the winter, during a tremendous snowstorm, Bunch rushed in, exclaiming, 'Lord and Lady Mackincrush is com'd in a coach and four.' The lord and lady proved to be Sir James and his daughter, who had arrived to stay with his friends in the remote parsonage of Foston-le-Clay a few days, and had sent a letter, which arrived the day afterwards to announce their visit. Their stay began with a blunder; and when Sir James departed, leaving kind feelings behind him--books, his hat, his gloves, his papers and other articles of apparel were found also. 'What a man that would be,' said Sydney Smith, 'had he one particle of gall, or the least knowledge of the value of red tape!' It was true that the indolent, desultory character of Mackintosh interfered perpetually with his progress in the world. He loved far better to lie on the sofa reading a novel than to attend a Privy Council; the slightest indisposition was made on his part a plea for avoiding the most important business. Sydney Smith had said that 'when a clever man takes to cultivating turnips and retiring, it is generally an imposture;' but in him the retirement was no imposture. His wisdom shone forth daily in small and great matters. 'Life,' he justly thought, 'was to be fortified by many friendships,' and he acted up to his principles, and kept up friendships by letters. Cheerfulness he thought might be cultivated by making the rooms one lives in as comfortable as possible. His own drawing-room was papered on this principle, with a yellow flowering pattern; and filled with 'irregular regularities;' his fires were blown into brightness by _Shadrachs_, as he called them--tubes furnished with air opening in the centre of each fire, His library contained his rheumatic armour: for he tried heat and compression in rheumatism; put his legs into narrow buckets, which he called his jack-boots; wore round his throat a tin collar; over each shoulder he had a large tin thing like a shoulder of mutton; and on his head he displayed a hollow helmet filled with hot water. In the middle of a field into which his windows looked, was a skeleton sort of a machine, his Universal Scratcher; with which every animal from a lamb to a bullock could scratch itself. Then on the Sunday the Immortal was called into use, to travel in state to a church like a barn; about fifty people in it; but the most original idea was farming through the medium of a tremendous speaking-trumpet from his own door, with its companion, a telescope, to see what his people are about! On the 24th of January, 1828, the first notable piece of preferment was conferred on him by Lord Lyndhurst then Chancellor, and of widely differing political opinions to Sydney Smith. This was a vacant stall in the cathedral at Bristol, where on the ensuing 5th of November, the new canon gave the Mayor and Corporation of that Protestant city such a dose of 'toleration as should last them many a year.' He went to Court on his appointment, and appeared in shoestrings instead of buckles. 'I found,' he relates, 'to my surprise, people looking down at my feet: I could not think what they were at. At first I thought they had discovered the beauty of my legs; but at last the truth burst on me, by some wag laughing and thinking I had done it as a good joke. I was, of course, exceedingly annoyed to have been supposed capable of such a vulgar unmeaning piece of disrespect, and kept my feet as coyly under my petticoats as the veriest prude in the country till I should make my escape.' His circumstances were now improved, and though moralists, he said, thought property an evil, he declared himself happier every guinea he gained. He thanked God for his animal spirits, which received, unhappily, in 1829, a terrible shock from the death of his eldest son, Douglas, aged twenty-four. This was the great misfortune of his life; the young man was promising, talented, affectionate. He exchanged Foston-le-Clay at this time for a living in Somersetshire, of a beautiful and characteristic name--Combe Florey. Combe Florey seems to have been an earthly paradise, seated in one of those delicious hollows or in Combes, for which that part of the west of England is celebrated. His withdrawal from the Edinburgh Review--Mackintosh's death--the marriage of his eldest daughter, Saba, to Dr. Holland (now Sir Henry Holland)--the termination of Lord Grey's Administration, which ended Sydney's hopes of being a bishop, were the leading events of his life for the next few years. It appears that Sydney Smith felt to the hour of his death pained that those by whose side he had fought for fifty years, in their adversity, the Whig party, should never have offered what he declared he should have rejected, a bishopric, when they were constantly bestowing such promotions on persons of mediocre talent and claims. Waiving the point, whether it is right or wrong to make men bishops because they have been political partizans, the cause of this alleged injustice may be found in the tone of the times, which was eminently tinctured with cant. The Clapham sect were in the ascendancy; and Ministers scarcely dared to offend so influential a body. Even the gentle Sir James Mackintosh refers, in his Journal, with disgust to the phraseology of the day:-- 'They have introduced a new language, in which they never say that A. B. is good, or virtuous, or even religious; but that he is an "advanced Christian." Dear Mr. Wilberforce is an "advanced Christian." Mrs. C. has lost three children without a pang, and is so "advanced a Christian" that she could see the remaining twenty, "with poor dear Mr. C.," removed with perfect tranquillity.' Such was the disgust expressed towards that school by Mackintosh, whose last days were described by his daughter as having been passed in silence and thought, with his Bible before him, breaking that silence--and portentous silence--to speak of God, and of his Maker's disposition towards man. His mind ceased to be occupied with speculations; politics interested him no more. His own 'personal relationship to his Creator' was the subject of his thoughts. Yet Mackintosh was not by any means considered as an advanced Christian, or even as a Christian at all by the zealots of his time. Sydney Smith's notions of a bishop were certainly by no means carried out in his own person and character. 'I never remember in my time,' he said, 'a real bishop: a grave, elderly man, full of Greek, with sound views of the middle voice and preterpluperfect tense; gentle and kind to his poor clergy, of powerful and commanding eloquence in Parliament, never to be put down when the great interests of mankind were concerned, leaning to the Government when it was right, leaning to the people when they were right; feeling that if the Spirit of God had called him to that high office, he was called for no mean purpose, but rather that seeing clearly, acting boldly, and intending purely, he might confer lasting benefit upon mankind.' In 1831 Lord Grey appointed Sydney Smith a Canon Resilentiary of St. Paul's; but still the mitre was withheld, although it has since appeared that Lord Grey had destined him for one of the first vacancies in England. Henceforth his residence at St. Paul's brought him still more continually into the world, which he delighted by his 'wise wit.' Most London dinners, he declared, evaporated in whispers to one's next neighbours. He never, however, spoke to his neighbour, but 'fired' across the table. One day, however, he broke his rule, on hearing a lady, who sat next him, say in a sweet low voice, 'No gravy, sir.'--'Madam!' he cried, 'I have all my life been looking for a person who disliked gravy, let us swear immortal friendship.' She looked astonished, but took the oath, and kept it. 'What better foundation for friendship,' he asks, 'than similarity of tastes?' He gave an evening party once a week; when a profusion of wax-lights was his passion. He loved to see young people decked with natural flowers; he was, in fact, a blameless and benevolent Epicurean in everything; great indeed was the change from his former residence at Foston, which he used to say was twelve miles from a lemon. Charming as his parties at home must have been, they wanted the _bon-hommie_ and simplicity of former days, and Of the homely suppers in Orchard Street. Lord Dudley, Rogers, Moore, 'Young Macaulay,' as he was called for many years, formed now his society. Lord Dudley was then in the state which afterwards became insanity, and darkened completely a mind sad and peculiar from childhood. Bankes, in his 'Journal,' relates an anecdote of him about this time, when, as he says, 'Dudley's mind was on the wane; but still his caustic humour would find vent through the cloud which was gradually over-shadowing his masterly intellect.' He was one day sitting in his room soliloquizing aloud; his favourite Newfoundland-dog was at his side, and seemed to engross all ----m's attention. A gentleman was present who was good-looking and good-natured, but not overburthened with sense. Lord Dudley at last, patting his dog's head, said, 'Fido mio, they say dogs have no souls. Humph, and still they say ----' (naming the gentleman present) 'has a soul!' One day Lord Dudley met Mr. Allen, Lord Holland's librarian, and asked him to dine with him. Allen went. When asked to describe his dinner, he said, 'There was no one there. Lord Dudley talked a little to his servant, and a great deal to his dog, but said not one word to me.' Innumerable are the witticisms related of Sydney Smith, when seated at a dinner table--having swallowed in life what he called a 'Caspian Sea' of soup. Talking one day of Sir Charles Lyell's book, the subject of which was the phenomena which the earth might, at some future period, present to the geologists. 'Let us imagine,' he said, 'an excavation on the site of St. Paul's; fancy a lecture by the Owen of his future era on the thigh-bone of a minor canon, or the tooth of a dean: the form, qualities, and tastes he would discover from them.' 'It is a great proof of shyness,' he said, 'to crumble your bread at dinner. Ah! I see,' he said, turning to a young lady, 'you're afraid of me: you crumble your bread. I do it when I sit by the Bishop of London, and with both hands when I sit by the Archbishop.' Be gave a capital reproof to a lively young M.P. who was accompanying him after dinner to one of the solemn evening receptions at Lambeth Palace during the life of the late Archbishop of Canterbury. The M.P. had been calling him 'Smith,' though they had never met before that day. As the carriage stopped at the Palace, Smith turned to him and said, 'Now don't, my good fellow, don't call the Archbishop "Howley."' Talking of fancy-balls--'Of course,' he said, 'if I went to one, I should go as a Dissenter.' Of Macaulay, he said, 'To take him out of literature and science, and to put him in the House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of London in a pestilence.' Nothing amused him so much as the want of perception of a joke. One hot day a Mrs. Jackson called on him, and spoke of the oppressive state of the weather. 'Heat! it was dreadful,' said Sydney; 'I found I could do nothing for it but take off my flesh and sit in my bones.' 'Take off your flesh and sit in your bones! Oh, Mr. Smith! how could you do that?' the lady cried. 'Come and see next time, ma'am--nothing more easy.' She went away, however, convinced that such a proceeding was very unorthodox. No wonder, with all his various acquirements, it should be said of him that no 'dull dinners were ever remembered in his company.' A happy old age concluded his life, at once brilliant and useful. To the last he never considered his education as finished. His wit, a friend said, 'was always fresh, always had the dew on it. He latterly got into what Lord Jeffrey called the vicious habit of water drinking. Wine, he said, destroyed his understanding. He even 'forgot the number of the Muses, and thought it was thirty-nine, of course.' He agreed with Sir James Mackintosh that he had found the world more good and more foolish than he had thought when young. He took a cheerful view of all things; he thanked God for small as well as great things, even for tea. 'I am glad,' he used to say, 'I was not born before tea.' His domestic affections were strong, and were heartily reciprocated. General society he divided into classes: 'The noodles--very numerous and well known. The affliction woman--a valuable member of society, generally an ancient spinster in small circumstances, who packs up her bag and sets off in cases of illness or death, "to comfort, flatter, fetch, and carry." The up-takers--people who see, from their fingers' ends and go through a room touching everything. The clearers--who begin at a dish and go on tasting and eating till it is finished. The sheep-walkers--who go on for ever on the beaten track. The lemon-squeezers of society--who act on you as a wet blanket; see a cloud in sunshine; the nails of the coffin in the ribbons of a bride; extinguish all hope; people, whose very look sets your teeth on an edge. The let-well-aloners, cousin-german to the noodles--yet a variety, and who are afraid to act, and think it safer to stand still. Then the washerwomen--very numerous! who always say, "Well, if ever I put on my best bonnet, 'tis sure to rain," &c. 'Besides this there is a very large class of people always treading on your gouty foot, or talking in your deaf ear, or asking you to give them something with your lame hand,' &c. During the autumn of the year 1844, Sydney Smith felt the death-stroke approaching. 'I am so weak, both in body and mind,' he said, 'that I believe if the knife were put into my hand, I should not have strength enough to stick it into a Dissenter.' In October he became seriously ill. 'Ah! Charles,' he said to General Fox (when he was being kept very low), 'I wish they would allow me even the wing of a roasted butterfly,' He dreaded sorrowful faces around him; but confided to his old servant, Annie Kay--and to her alone--his sense of his danger. Almost the last person Sydney Smith saw was his beloved brother Bobus, who followed him to the grave a fortnight after he had been laid in the tomb. He lingered till the 22nd of February, 1845. His son closed his eyes. His last act was, bestowing on a poverty-stricken clergyman a living. He was buried at Kensal Green, where his eldest son, Douglas, had been interred. It has been justly and beautifully said of Sydney Smith, that Christianity was not a dogma with him, but a practical and most beneficent rule of life. As a clergyman, he was liberal, practical, staunch; free from the latitudinarian principles of Hoadley, as from the bigotry of Laud. His wit was the wit of a virtuous, a decorous man; it had pungency without venom; humour without indelicacy; and was copious without being tiresome. GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON, LORD MELCOMBE. A Dinner-giving lordly Poet.--A Misfortune for a Man of Society.-- Brandenburgh House.--'The Diversions of the Morning.'--Johnson's Opinion of Foote--Churchill and 'The Rosciad.'--Personal Ridicule in its Proper Light.--Wild Specimen of the Poet.--Walpole on Dodington's 'Diary.'--The best Commentary on a Man's Life.--Leicester House.--Grace Boyle,--Elegant Modes of passing Time.--A sad Day.--What does Dodington come here for?-- The Veteran Wit, Beau, and Politician.--'Defend us from our Executors and Editors.' It would have been well for Lord Melcombe's memory, Horace Walpole remarks, 'if his fame had been suffered to rest on the tradition of his wit, and the evidence of his poetry.' And in the present day, that desirable result has come to pass. We remember Bubb Dodington chiefly as the courtier whose person, houses, and furniture were replete with costly ostentation, so as to provoke the satire of Foote, who brought him on the stage under the name of Sir Thomas Lofty in 'The Patron,' We recall him most as '_l'Amphytrion chez qui on dine_;' 'My Lord of Melcombe,' as Mallet says-- 'Whose soups and sauces duly season'd, Whose wit well tim'd and sense well reason'd, Give Burgundy a brighter stain, And add new flavour to Champagne.' Who now cares much for the court intrigues which severed Sir Robert Walpole and Bubb Dodington? Who now reads without disgust the annals of that famous quarrel between George II. and his son, during which each party devoutly wished the other dead? Who minds whether the time-serving Bubb Dodington went over to Lord Bute or not? Who cares whether his hopes of political preferment were or were not gratified? Bubb Dodington was, in fact, the dinner-giving lordly poet, to whom even the saintly Young could write:-- 'You give protection,--I a worthless strain. Born in 1691, the accomplished courtier answered, till he had attained the age of twenty-nine, to the not very euphonious name of Bubb. Then a benevolent uncle with a large estate died, and left him, with his lands, the more exalted surname of Dodington. He sprang, however, from an obscure family, who had settled in Dorchester; but that disadvantage, which, according to Lord Brougham's famous pamphlet, acts so fatally on a young man's advancement in English public life, was obviated, as most things are, by a great fortune. Mr. Bubb had been educated at Oxford: at the age of twenty-four he was elected M.P. for Winchelsea; he was soon afterwards named Envoy at the Court of Spain, but returned home after his accession of wealth to provincial honours, and became Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset. Nay, poets began to worship him, and even pronounced him to be well born:-- 'Descended from old British sires; Great Dodington to kings allied; My patron then, my laurels' pride. It would be consolatory to find that it is only Welsted who thus profaned the Muse by this abject flattery, were it not recorded that Thomson dedicated to him his 'Summer.' The dedication was prompted by Lord Binning; and 'Summer' was published in 1727 when Dodington was one of the Lords of the Treasury, as well as Clerk of the Pells in Ireland, It seemed, therefore, worth while for Thomson to pen such a passage as this:--'Your example sir, has recommended poetry with the greatest grace to the example of those who are engag'd in the most active scenes of life; and this, though confessedly the least considerable of those qualities that dignify your character, must be particularly pleasing to _one_ whose only hope of being introduced to your regard is thro' the recommendation of an art in which you are a master.' Warton adding this tribute:-- 'To praise a Dodington rash bard! forbear. What can thy weak and ill-tun'd voice avail, When on that theme both Young and Thomson fail?' Yet even when midway in his career, Dodington, in the famous political caricature called 'The Motion,' is depicted as 'the Spaniel,' sitting between the Duke of Argyle's legs, whilst his grace is driving a coach at full speed to the Treasury, with a sword instead of a whip in his hand, with Lord Chesterfield as postilion, and Lord Cobham as a footman, holding on by the straps: even then the servile though pompous character of this true man of the world was comprehended completely; and Bubb Dodington's characteristics never changed. In his political life, Dodington was so selfish, obsequious, and versatile as to incur universal opprobrium; he had also another misfortune for a man of society,--he became fat and lethargic. 'My brother Ned' Horace Walpole remarks, 'says he is grown of less consequence, though more weight.' And on another occasion, speaking of a majority in the House of Lords, he adds, 'I do not count Dodington, who must now always be in the minority, for no majority will accept him.' Whilst, however, during the factious reign of George II., the town was declared, even by Horace to be wondrous dull; operas unfrequented, plays not in fashion, and amours old as marriages. Bubb Dodington, with his wealth and profusion, contrived always to be in vogue as a host, while he was at a discount as a politician. Politics and literature are the highroads in England to that much-craved-for distinction, an admittance into the great world; and Dodington united these passports in his own person: he was a poetaster, and wrote political pamphlets. The latter were published and admired: the poems were referred to as 'very pretty love verses,' by Lord Lyttelton, and were never published--and never ought to have been published, it is stated. His _bon mots_, his sallies, his fortunes and places, and continual dangling at court, procured Bubo, as Pope styled him, one pre-eminence. His dinners at Hammersmith were the most _recherchés_ in the metropolis. Every one remembers Brandenburgh House, when the hapless Caroline of Brunswick held her court there, and where her brave heart,--burdened probably with some sins, as well as with endless regrets,--broke at last. It had been the residence of the beautiful and famous Margravine of Anspach, whose loveliness in vain tempts us to believe her innocent, in despite of facts. Before those eras--the presence of the Margravine, whose infidelities were almost avowed, and the abiding of the queen, whose errors had, at all events, verged on the very confines of guilt--the house was owned by Dodington. There he gave dinners; there he gratified a passion for display, which was puerile; there he indulged in eccentricities which almost implied insanity; there he concocted his schemes for court advancement; and there, later in life, he contributed some of the treasures of his wit to dramatic literature. 'The Wishes,' a comedy, by Bentley, was supposed to owe much of its point to the brilliant wit of Dodington[14]. [14: See Walpole's 'Royal and Noble Authors'] At Brandenburgh House, a nobler presence than that of Dodington still haunted the groves and alleys, for Prince Rupert had once owned it. When Dodington bought it, he gave it--in jest, we must presume--the name of La Trappe; and it was not called Brandenburgh House until the fair and frail Margravine came to live there. Its gardens were long famous; and in the time of Dodington were the scene of revel. Thomas Bentley, the son of Richard Bentley, the celebrated critic, had written a play called 'The Wishes;' and during the summer of 1761 it was acted at Drury Lane, and met with the especial approbation of George III., who sent the author, through Lord Bute, a present of two hundred guineas as a tribute to the good sentiments of the production. This piece, which, in spite of its moral tendency, has died out, whilst plays of less virtuous character have lived, was rehearsed in the gardens of Brandenburgh House. Bubb Dodington associated much with those who give fame; but he courted amongst them also those who could revenge affronts by bitter ridicule. Among the actors and literati who were then sometimes at Brandenburg House were Foote and Churchill; capital boon companions, but, as it proved, dangerous foes.' Endowed with imagination; with a mind enriched by classical and historical studies; possessed of a brilliant wit, Bubb Dodington was, nevertheless, in the sight of some men, ridiculous. Whilst the rehearsals of 'The Wishes' went on, Foote was noting down all the peculiarities of the Lord of Brandenburgh House, with a view to bring them to account in his play of 'The Patron.' Lord Melcombe was an aristocratic Dombey: stultified by his own self-complacency, he dared to exhibit his peculiarities before the English Aristophanes. It was an act of imprudence, for Foote had long before (in 1747) opened the little theatre of the Haymarket with a sort of monologue play, 'The Diversions of the Morning,' in which he convulsed his audience with the perfection of a mimicry never beheld before, and so wonderful, that even the persons of his models seemed to stand before the amazed spectators. These entertainments, in which the contriver was at once the author and performer, have been admirably revived by Mathews and others; and in another line, by the lamented Albert Smith. The Westminster justices, furious and alarmed, opposed the daring performance, on which Foote changed the name of his piece, and called it 'Mr. Foote giving Tea to his Friends,' himself still the sole actor, and changing with Proteus-like celerity from one to the other. Then came his 'Auction of Pictures,' and Sir Thomas de Veil, one of his enemies, the justices, was introduced. Orator Henley and Cock the auctioneer figured also; and year after year the town was enchanted by that which is most gratifying to a polite audience, the finished exhibition of faults and follies. One stern voice was raised in reprobation, that of Samuel Johnson: he, at all events, had a due horror of buffoons; but even he owned himself vanquished. 'The first time I was in Foote's company was at Fitzherbert's. Having no good opinion of the fellow, I was resolved not to be pleased: and it is very difficult to please a man against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty sullenly, affecting not to mind him; but the dog was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork, throw myself back in my chair, and fairly laugh it out. Sir, he was irresistible.' Consoled by Foote's misfortunes and ultimate complicated misery for his lessened importance, Bubb Dodington still reigned, however, in the hearts of some learned votaries. Richard Bentley, the critic, compared him to Lord Halifax-- 'That Halifax, my Lord, as you do yet, Stood forth the friend of poetry and wit, Sought silent merit in the secret cell, And Heav'n, nay even man, repaid him well. A more remorseless foe, however, than Foote appeared in the person of Charles Churchill, the wild and unclerical son of a poor curate of Westminster. Foote laughed Bubb Dodington down, but Churchill perpetuated the satire; for Churchill was wholly unscrupulous, and his faults had been reckless and desperate. Wholly unfit for a clergyman, he had taken orders, obtained a curacy in Wales at £30 a year--not being able to subsist, took to keeping a cider-cellar, became a sort of bankrupt, and quitting Wales, succeeded to the curacy of his father, who had just died. Still famine haunted his home; Churchill took, therefore, to teaching young ladies to read and write, and conducted himself in the boarding-school where his duties lay, with wonderful propriety. He had married at seventeen; but even that step had not protected his morals: he fell into abject poverty. Lloyd, father of his friend Robert Lloyd, then second master of Westminster, made an arrangement with his creditors. Young Lloyd had published a poem called 'The Actor;' Churchill, in imitation, now produced 'The Rosciad,' and Bubb Dodington was one whose ridiculous points were salient in those days of personality. 'The Rosciad' had a signal success, which completed the ruin of its author: he became a man of the town, forsook the wife of his youth, and abandoned the clerical character. There are few sights more contemptible than that of a clergyman who has cast off his profession, or whose profession has cast him off. But Churchill's talents for a time kept him from utter destitution. Bubb Doddington may have been consoled by finding that he shared the fate of Dr. Johnson, who had spoken slightingly of Churchill's works, and who shone forth, therefore, in 'The Ghost,' a later poem, as Dr. Pomposo. Richard Cumberland, the dramatist, drew a portrait of Lord Melcombe, which is said to have been taken from the life; but perhaps the most faithful delineation of Bubb Dodington's character was furnished by himself in his 'Diary;' in which, as it has been well observed, he 'unveiled the nakedness of his mind, and displayed himself as a courtly compound of mean compliance and political prostitution.' It may, in passing, be remarked, that few men figure well in an autobiography; and that Cumberland himself, proclaimed by Dr. Johnson to be a 'learned, ingenious, accomplished gentleman,' adding, 'the want of company is an inconvenience, but Mr. Cumberland is a million:' in spite of this eulogium, Cumberland has betrayed in his own autobiography unbounded vanity, worldliness, and an undue estimation of his own perishable fame. After all, amusing as personalities must always be, neither the humours of Foote, the vigorous satire of Churchill, nor the careful limning of Cumberland, whilst they cannot be ranked among talents of the highest order, imply a sort of social treachery. The delicious little colloquy between Boswell and Johnson places low personal ridicule in its proper light. Boswell.--'Foote has a great deal of humour.' Johnson.--'Yes, sir.' Boswell.--'He has a singular talent of exhibiting characters.' Johnson--'Sir. it is not a talent--it is a vice; it is what others abstain from. It is not comedy, which exhibits the character of a species--as that of a miser gathered from many misers--it is farce, which exhibits individuals.' Boswell.--'Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir?' Johnson.--'Sir, fear restrained him; he knew I would have broken his bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg; I would not have left him a leg to cut off.' Few annals exist of the private life of Bubb Dodington, but those few are discreditable. Like most men of his time, and like many men of all times, Dodington was entangled by an unhappy and perplexing intrigue. There was a certain 'black woman,' as Horace Walpole calls a Mrs. Strawbridge, whom Bubb Dodington admired. This handsome brunette lived in a corner house of Saville Row, in Piccadilly, where Dodington visited her. The result of their intimacy was his giving this lady a bond of ten thousand pounds to be paid if he married any one else. The real object of his affections was a Mrs. Behan, with whom he lived seventeen years, and whom, on the death of Mrs. Strawbridge, he eventually married. Among Bubb Dodington's admirers and disciples was Paul Whitehead, a wild specimen of the poet, rake, satirist, dramatist, all in one; and what was quite in character, a Templar to boot. Paul--so named from being born on that Saint's day--wrote one or two pieces which brought him an ephemeral fame, such as the 'State Dunces,' and the 'Epistle to Dr. Thompson,' 'Manners,' a satire, and the 'Gymnasiad,' a mock heroic poem, intended to ridicule the passion for boxing, then prevalent. Paul Whitehead, who died in 1774, was an infamous, but not, in the opinion of Walpole, a despicable poet, yet Churchill has consigned him to everlasting infamy as a reprobate, in these lines:-- 'May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?) Be born a Whitebread, and baptised a Paul.' Paul was not, however, worse than his satirist Churchill; and both of these wretched men were members of a society long the theme of horror and disgust, even after its existence had ceased to be remembered, except by a few old people. This was the 'Hell-fire Club,' held in appropriate orgies at Medmenham Abbey, Buckinghamshire. The profligate Sir Francis Dashwood, Wilkes, and Churchill, were amongst its most prominent members. With such associates, and living in a court where nothing but the basest passions reigned and the lowest arts prevailed, we are inclined to accord with the descendant of Bubb Dodington, the editor of his 'Diary,' Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, who declares that all Lord Melcombe's political conduct was 'wholly directed by the base motives of vanity, selfishness, and avarice.' Lord Melcombe seems to have been a man of the world of the very worst _calibre_; sensual, servile, and treacherous; ready, during the lifetime of his patron, Frederick, Prince of Wales, to go any lengths against the adverse party of the Pelhams, that Prince's political foes--eager, after the death of Frederick, to court those powerful men with fawning servility. The famous 'Diary' of Bubb Dodington supplies the information from which these conclusions have been drawn. Horace Walpole, who knew Dodington well, describes how he read with avidity the 'Diary,' which was published in 1784. 'A nephew of Lord Melcombe's heirs has published that Lord's "Diary." Indeed it commences in 1749, and I grieve it was not dated twenty years later. However, it deals in topics that are twenty times more familiar and fresh to my memory than any passage that has happened within these six months I wish I could convey it to you. Though drawn by his own hand, and certainly meant to flatter himself, it is a truer portrait than any of his hirelings would have given. Never was such a composition of vanity, versatility, and servility. In short, there is but one feature wanting in it, his wit, of which in the whole book there are not three sallies.' The editor of this 'Diary' remarks, 'that he will no doubt be considered a very extraordinary editor; the practice of whom has generally been to prefer flattery to truth, and partiality to justice.' To understand, not the flattery which his contemporaries heaped upon Bubb Dodington, but the opprobrium with which they loaded his memory--to comprehend not his merits but his demerits--it is necessary to take a brief survey of his political life from the commencement. He began life, as we have seen, as a servile adherent of Sir Robert Walpole. A political epistle to the Minister was the prelude to a temporary alliance only, for in 1737, Bubb went over to the adverse party of Leicester House, and espoused the cause of Frederick, Prince of Wales, against his royal father He was therefore dismissed from the Treasury. When Sir Robert fell, Bubb expected to rise, but his expectations of preferment were not realized. He attacked the new Administration forthwith, and succeeded so far in becoming important that he was made Treasurer of the Navy; a post which he resigned in 1749, and which he held again in 1755, but which he lost the next year. On the accession of George III., he was not ashamed to appear altogether in a new character, as the friend of Lord Bute; he was, therefore, advanced to the peerage by the title of Baron of Melcombe Regis, in 1761. The honour was enjoyed for one short year only; and on the 28th of July, 1762, Bubb Dodington expired. Horace Walpole, in his 'Royal and Noble Authors,' complains that 'Dodington's "Diary" was mangled, in compliment, before it was imparted to the public.' We cannot therefore judge of what the 'Diary' was before, as the editor avows that every anecdote was cut out, and all the little gossip so illustrative of character and manners which would have brightened its dull pages, fell beneath the power of a merciless pair of scissors. Mr. Penruddocke Wyndham conceives, however, that he was only doing justice to society in these suppressions. 'It would,' he says, 'be _no_ entertainment to the reader to be informed who daily dined with his lordship, or whom he daily met at the table of other people.' Posterity thinks differently: a knowledge of a man's associates forms the best commentary on his life; and there is much reason to rejoice that all biographers are not like Mr. Penruddocke Wyndham. Bubb Dodington, more especially, was a man of society: inferior as a literary man, contemptible as a politician, it was only at the head of his table that he was agreeable and brilliant. He was, in fact, a man who had no domestic life; a courtier, like Lord Hervey, but without Lord Hervey's consistency. He was, in truth, a type of that era in England: vulgar in aims; dissolute in conduct; ostentatious, vain-glorious--of a low, ephemeral ambition; but at the same time talented, acute, and lavish to the lettered. The public is now the patron of the gifted. What writer cares for individual opinion, except as it tends to sweep up the gross amount of public blame or censure? What publisher will consent to undertake a work because some lord or lady recommended it to his notice? The reviewer is greater in the commonwealth of letters than the man of rank. But in these days it was otherwise; and they who, in the necessities of the times, did what they could to advance the interest of the _belles lettres_, deserve not to be forgotten. It is with a feeling of sickness that we open the pages of this great Wit's 'Diary,' and attempt to peruse the sentences in which the most grasping selfishness is displayed. We follow him to Leicester House, that ancient tenement--(wherefore pulled down, except to erect on its former site the narrowest of streets, does not appear): that former home of the Sydneys had not always been polluted by the dissolute, heartless _clique_ who composed the court of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Its chambers had once been traversed by Henry Sydney, by Algernon, his brother. It was their _home_--their father, Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, having lived there. The lovely Dorothy Sydney, Waller's Saccharissa, once, in all purity and grace, had danced in that gallery where the vulgar, brazen Lady Middlesex, and her compliant lord, afterwards flattered the weakest of princes, Frederick. In old times Leicester House had stood on Lammas land--land in the spirit of the old charities, open to the poor after Lammas-tide; and even 'the Right Hon. the Earl of Leicester'--as an old document hath it--was obliged, if _he_ chose to turn out his cows or horses on that appropriated land, to pay a rent for it to the overseers of St. Martin's parish, then really 'in the fields.' And here this nobleman not only dwelt in all state himself, but let, or lent his house to persons whose memory seems to hallow even Leicester Fields. Elizabeth of Bohemia, after what was to her indeed 'life's fitful fever,' died at Leicester House. It became then, temporarily, the abode of ambassadors. Colbert, in the time of Charles II., occupied the place; Prince Eugène, in 1712, held his residence here; and the rough soldier, famous for all absence of tact--brave, loyal-hearted, and coarse--lingered at Leicester House in hopes of obstructing the peace between England and France. All that was good and great fled for ever from Leicester House at the instant that George II., when Prince of Wales, was driven by his royal father from St. James's, and took up his abode in it until the death of George I. The once honoured home of the Sydneys henceforth becomes loathsome in a moral sense. Here William, Duke of Cumberland--the hero, as court flatterers called him--the butcher, as the poor Jacobite designated him--of Culloden, first saw the light. Peace and respectability then dignified the old house for ever. Prince Frederick was its next inmate: here the Princess of Wales, the mother of George III., had her lying-in, and her royal husband held his public tables; and at these and in every assembly, as well as in private, one figure is conspicuous. Grace Boyle--for she unworthily bore that great name--was the daughter and heiress of Richard, Viscount Shannon. She married Lord Middlesex, bringing him a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. Short, plain, 'very yellow,' as her contemporaries affirm, with a head full of Greek and Latin, and devoted to music and painting; it seems strange that Frederick should have been attracted to one far inferior to his own princess both in mind and person. But so it was, for in those days every man liked his neighbour's wife better than his own. Imitating the forbearance of her royal mother-in-law, the princess tolerated such of her husband's mistresses as did not interfere in politics: Lady Middlesex was the 'my good Mrs. Howard,' of Leicester House. She was made Mistress of the Robes: her favour soon 'grew,' as the shrewd Horace remarks, 'to be rather more than Platonic.' She lived with the royal pair constantly, and sat up till five o'clock in the morning at their suppers; and Lord Middlesex saw and submitted to all that was going on with the loyalty and patience of a _Georgian_ courtier. Lady Middlesex was a docile politician, and on that account, retained her position probably long after she had lost her influence. Her name appears constantly in the 'Diary,' out of which everything amusing has been carefully expunged. 'Lady Middlesex, Lord Bathurst, Mr. Breton, and I, waited on their Royal Highnesses to Spitalfields, to see the manufacture of silk.' In the afternoon off went the same party to Norwood Forest, in private coaches, to see a 'settlement of gypsies.' Then returning, went to find out Bettesworth, the conjuror; but not discovering him, went in search of the little Dutchman. Were disappointed in that; but 'concluded,' relates Bubb Dodington, 'the peculiarities of this day by supping with Mrs. Cannon, the princess's _midwife_.' All these elegant modes of passing the time were not only for the sake of Lady Middlesex, but, it was said, of her friend, Mrs. Granville, one of the Maids of Honour, daughter of the first Lord Lansdown, the poet. This young lady, Eliza Granville, was scarcely pretty: a far, red-haired girl. All this thoughtless, if not culpable, gallantry was abruptly checked by the rude hand of death. During the month of March, Frederick was attacked with illness, having caught cold. Very little apprehension was expressed at first, but, about eleven days after his first attack, he expired. Half an hour before his death, he had asked to see some friends, and had called for coffee and bread and butter: a fit of coughing came on, and he died instantly from suffocation. An abscess, which had been forming in his side, had burst; nevertheless, his two physicians, Wilmot and Lee, 'knew nothing of his distemper.' According to Lord Melcombe, who thus refers to their blunders, 'They declared, half an hour before his death, that his pulse was like a man's in perfect health. They either would not see or did not know the consequences of the black thrush, which appeared in his mouth, and quite down in his throat. Their ignorance, or their knowledge of his disorder, renders them equally inexcusable for not calling in other assistance.' The consternation in the prince's household was great, not for his life, but for the confusion into which politics were thrown by his death. After his relapse, and until just before his death, the princess never suffered any English, man or woman, above the degree of valet-de-chambre to see him; nor did she herself see any one of her household until absolutely necessary. After the death of his eldest born, George II. vented his diabolical jealousy upon the cold remains of one thus cut off in the prime of life. The funeral was ordered to be on the model of that of Charles II., but private counter-orders were issued to reduce the ceremonial to the smallest degree of respect that could be paid. On the 13th of April, 1751, the body of the prince was entombed in Henry VII.'s chapel. Except the lords appointed to hold the pall, and attend the chief mourner, when the attendants were called over in their ranks, there was not a _single_ English lord, not _one_ bishop, and only one Irish lord (Lord Limerick), and three sons of peers. Sir John Rushout and Dodington were the only privy counsellors who followed. It rained heavily, but no covering was provided for the procession. The service was performed without organ or anthem. 'Thus,' observes Bubb Dodington, 'ended this sad day.' Although the prince left a brother and sisters, the Duke of Somerset acted as chief mourner. The king hailed the event of the prince's death as a relief, which was to render happy his remaining days; and Bubb Dodington hastened, in a few months, to offer to the Pelhams 'his friendship and attachment.' His attendance at court was resumed, although George II. could not endure him; and the old Walpolians, nick-named the Black-tan, were also averse to him. Such were Bubb Dodington's _actions_. His expressions, on occasion of the prince's death, were in a very different tone. 'We have lost,' he wrote to Sir Horace Mann, 'the delight and ornament of the age he lived in,--the expectations of the public: in this light I have lost more than any subject in England; but this is light,--public advantages confined to myself do not, ought not, to weigh with me. But we have lost the refuge of private distress--the balm of the afflicted heart the shelter of the miserable against the fury of private adversity; the arts, the graces, the anguish, the misfortunes of society, have lost their patron and their remedy. 'I have lost my companion--my protector--the friend that loved me, that condescended to hear, to communicate, to share in all the pleasures and pains of the human heart: where the social affections and emotions of the mind only presided without regard to the infinite disproportion of my rank and condition. This is a wound that cannot, ought not to heal. If I pretended to fortitude here, I should be infamous--a monster of ingratitude--and unworthy of all consolation, if I was not inconsolable.' 'Thank you,' writes the shrewd Horace Walpole, addressing Sir Horace Mann, 'for the transcript from _Bulb de Tristibus_. I will keep your secret, though I am persuaded that a man who had composed such a funeral oration on his master had himself fully intended that its flowers should not bloom and wither in obscurity.' Well might George II., seeing him go to court say: 'I see Dodington here sometimes, what does he come for?' It was, however, clearly seen what he went for, when, in 1753, two years after the death of his 'benefactor,' Dodington humbly offered His Majesty his services in the house, and 'five members,' for the rest of his life, if His Majesty would give Mr. Pelham leave to employ him for His Majesty's service. Nevertheless he continued to advise with the Princess of Wales, and to drop into her house as if it had been a sister's house--sitting on a stool near the fireside, and listening to her accounts of her children. In the midst of these intrigues for favour on the part of Dodington, Mr. Pelham died, and was succeeded by his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, the issue of whose administration is well known. In 1760 death again befriended the now veteran wit, beau and politician. George II. died; and the intimacy which Dodington had always taken care to preserve between himself and the Princess of Wales, ended advantageously for him; and he instantly, in spite of all his former professions to Pelham, joined hand and heart with that minister, from whom he obtained a peerage. This, as we have seen, was not long enjoyed. Lord Melcombe, as this able, intriguing man was now styled, died on the 28th of July, 1762; and with him terminated the short-lived distinction for which he had sacrificed even a decent pretext of principle and consistency. So general has been the contempt felt for his character, that it seems almost needless to assert that Bubb Dodington was eminently to be despised. Nothing much more severe can be said of him than the remarks of Horace Walpole--upon his 'Diary;' in which he observes that Dodington records little but what is to his own disgrace; as if he thought that the world would forgive his inconsistencies as readily as he forgave himself. 'Had he adopted,' Horace well observes, 'the French title "_Confessions_," it would have seemed to imply some kind of penitence.' But vain-glory engrossed him: 'He was determined to raise an altar to himself, and for want of burnt offerings, lighted the pyre, like a great author (Rousseau), with his own character.' It was said by the same acute observer, both of Lord Hervey and of Bubb Dodington, that they were the only two persons he ever knew that were always aiming at wit and never finding it.' And here, it seems, most that can be testified in praise of a heartless, clever man, must be summed up. Lord Melcombe's property, with the exception of a few legacies, devolved upon his cousin Thomas Wyndham, of Hammersmith, by whom his Lordship's papers, letters, and poems, were bequeathed to Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, with an injunction, that only such as 'might do honour to his memory should be made public.' After this, in addition to the true saying, defend us from our friends one may exclaim, 'defend us from our executors and editors.' 
1473	----	THE ABSENTEE by Maria Edgeworth [Footnotes have been inserted in the text in square ("[]")<br /> brackets, close to the point where they were originally.<br /><br /> Characters printed in italics in the original text have been<br /> written in capital letters in this etext.<br /><br /> The British Pound Sterling symbol has been written 'L'.]<br /> CONTENTS NOTES ON 'THE ABSENTEE' THE ABSENTEE CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII NOTES ON 'THE ABSENTEE' In August 1811, we are told, she wrote a little play about landlords and tenants for the children of her sister, Mrs. Beddoes. Mr. Edgeworth tried to get the play produced on the London boards. Writing to her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, Maria says, 'Sheridan has answered as I foresaw he must, that in the present state of this country the Lord Chamberlain would not license THE ABSENTEE; besides there would be a difficulty in finding actors for so many Irish characters.' The little drama was then turned into a story, by Mr. Edgeworth's advice. Patronage was laid aside for the moment, and THE ABSENTEE appeared in its place in the second part of TALES OF FASHIONABLE LIFE. We all know Lord Macaulay's verdict upon this favourite story of his, the last scene of which he specially admired and compared to the ODYSSEY. [Lord Macaulay was not the only notable admirer of THE ABSENTEE. The present writer remembers hearing Professor Ruskin on one occasion break out in praise and admiration of the book. 'You can learn more by reading it of Irish politics,' he said, 'than from a thousand columns out of blue-books.'] Mrs. Edgeworth tells us that much of it was written while Maria was suffering a misery of toothache. Miss Edgeworth's own letters all about this time are much more concerned with sociabilities than with literature. We read of a pleasant dance at Mrs. Burke's; of philosophers at sport in Connemara; of cribbage, and company, and country houses, and Lord Longford's merry anecdotes during her visit to him. Miss Edgeworth, who scarcely mentions her own works, seems much interested at this time in a book called MARY AND HER CAT, which she is reading with some of the children. Little scraps of news (I cannot resist quoting one or two of them) come in oddly mixed with these personal records of work and family talk. 'There is news of the Empress (Marie Louise), who is liked not at all by the Parisians; she is too haughty, and sits back in her carriage when she goes through the streets. 'Of Josephine, who is living very happily, amusing herself with her gardens and her shrubberies.' This ci-devant Empress and Kennedy and Co., the seedsmen, are in partnership, says Miss Edgeworth. And then among the lists of all the grand people Maria meets in London in 1813 (Madame de Stael is mentioned as expected), she gives an interesting account of an actual visitor, Peggy Langan, who was grand-daughter to Thady in CASTLE RACKRENT. Peggy went to England with Mrs. Beddoes, and was for thirty years in the service of Mrs. Haldimand we are told, and was own sister to Simple Susan. The story of THE ABSENTEE is a very simple one, and concerns Irish landlords living in England, who ignore their natural duties and station in life, and whose chief ambition is to take their place in the English fashionable world. The grand English ladies are talking of Lady Clonbrony. '"If you knew all she endures to look, speak, move, breathe like an Englishwoman, you would pity her,"' said Lady Langdale. '"Yes, and you CAWNT conceive the PEENS she TEEKES to talk of the TEEBLES and CHEERS, and to thank Q, and, with so much TEESTE, to speak pure English,"' said Mrs. Dareville. '"Pure cockney, you mean," said Lady Langdale.' Lord Colambre, the son of the lady in question, here walks across the room, not wishing to listen to any more strictures upon his mother. He is the very most charming of walking gentlemen, and when stung by conscience he goes off to Ireland, disguised in a big cloak, to visit his father's tenantry and to judge for himself of the state of affairs, all our sympathies go with him. On his way he stops at Tusculum, scarcely less well known than its classical namesake. He is entertained by Mrs. Raffarty, that esthetical lady who is determined to have a little 'taste' of everything at Tusculum. She leads the way into a little conservatory, and a little pinery, and a little grapery, and a little aviary, and a little pheasantry, and a little dairy for show, and a little cottage for ditto, with a grotto full of shells, and a little hermitage full of earwigs, and a little ruin full of looking-glass, to enlarge and multiply the effect of the Gothic.... But you could only put your head in, because it was just fresh painted, and though there had been a fire ordered in the ruin all night, it had only smoked. 'As they proceeded and walked through the grounds, from which Mrs. Raffarty, though she had done her best, could not take that which nature had given, she pointed out to my lord "a happy moving termination," consisting of a Chinese bridge, with a fisherman leaning over the rails. On a sudden, the fisherman was seen to tumble over the bridge into the water. The gentlemen ran to extricate the poor fellow, while they heard Mrs. Raffarty bawling to his lordship to beg he would never mind, and not trouble himself. 'When they arrived at the bridge, they saw the man hanging from part of the bridge, and apparently struggling in the water; but when they attempted to pull him up, they found it was only a stuffed figure which had been pulled into the stream by a real fish, which had seized hold of the bait.' The dinner-party is too long to quote, but it is written in Miss Edgeworth's most racy and delightful vein of fun. One more little fact should not be omitted in any mention of THE ABSENTEE. One of the heroines is Miss Broadhurst, the heiress. The Edgeworth family were much interested, soon after the book appeared, to hear that a real living Miss Broadhurst, an heiress, had appeared upon the scenes, and was, moreover, engaged to be married to Sneyd Edgeworth, one of the eldest sons of the family. In the story, says Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Broadhurst selects from her lovers one who 'unites worth and wit,' and then she goes on to quote an old epigram of Mr. Edgeworth's on himself, which concluded with,'There's an Edge to his wit and there's worth in his heart.' Mr. Edgeworth, who was as usual busy building church spires for himself and other people, abandoned his engineering for a time to criticise his daughter's story, and he advised that the conclusion of THE ABSENTEE should be a letter from Larry the postilion. 'He wrote one, she wrote another,' says Mrs. Edgeworth. 'He much preferred hers, which is the admirable finale of THE ABSENTEE.' And just about this time Lord Ross is applied to, to frank the Edgeworth manuscripts. 'I cannot by any form of words express how delighted I am that you are none of you angry with me,' writes modest Maria to her cousin, Miss Ruxton, 'and that my uncle and aunt are pleased with what they have read of THE ABSENTEE. I long to hear whether their favour continues to the end, and extends to the catastrophe, that dangerous rock upon which poor authors are wrecked.' THE ABSENTEE CHAPTER I 'Are you to be at Lady Clonbrony's gala next week?' said Lady Langdale to Mrs. Dareville, whilst they were waiting for their carriages in the crush-room of the opera house. 'Oh yes! everybody's to be there, I hear,' replied Mrs. Dareville. 'Your ladyship, of course?' 'Why, I don't know--if I possibly can. Lady Clonbrony makes it such a point with me, that I believe I must look in upon her for a few minutes. They are going to a prodigious expense on this occasion. Soho tells me the reception rooms are all to be new furnished, and in the most magnificent style.' 'At what a famous rate those Clonbronies are dashing on,' said Colonel Heathcock. 'Up to anything.' 'Who are they?--these Clonbronies, that one hears of so much of late' said her Grace of Torcaster. 'Irish absentees I know. But how do they support all this enormous expense?' 'The son WILL have a prodigiously fine estate when some Mr. Quin dies,' said Mrs. Dareville. 'Yes, everybody who comes from Ireland WILL have a fine estate when somebody dies,' said her grace. 'But what have they at present?' 'Twenty thousand a year, they say,' replied Mrs. Dareville. 'Ten thousand, I believe,' cried Lady Langdale. 'Make it a rule, you know, to believe only half the world says.' 'Ten thousand, have they?--possibly,' said her grace. 'I know nothing about them--have no acquaintance among the Irish. Torcaster knows something of Lady Clonbrony; she has fastened herself, by some means, upon him: but I charge him not to COMMIT me. Positively, I could not for anybody--and much less for that sort of person--extend the circle of my acquaintance.' 'Now that is so cruel of your grace,' said Mrs. Dareville, laughing, 'when poor Lady Clonbrony works so hard, and pays so high, to get into certain circles.' 'If you knew all she endures, to look, speak, move, breathe like an Englishwoman, you would pity her,' said Lady Langdale. 'Yes, and you CAWNT conceive the PEENS she TEEKES to talk of the TEEBLES and CHEERS, and to thank Q, and, with so much TEESTE, to speak pure English,' said Mrs. Dareville. 'Pure cockney, you mean,' said Lady Langdale. 'But why does Lady Clonbrony want to pass for English?' said the duchess. 'Oh! because she is not quite Irish. BRED AND BORN--only bred, not born,' said Mrs. Dareville. 'And she could not be five minutes in your grace's company before she would tell you, that she was HENGLISH, born in HOXFORDSHIRE.' 'She must be a vastly amusing personage. I should like to meet her, if one could see and hear her incog.,' said the duchess. 'And Lord Clonbrony, what is he?' 'Nothing, nobody,' said Mrs. Dareville; 'one never even hears of him.' 'A tribe of daughters, too, I suppose?' 'No, no,' said Lady Langdale, 'daughters would be past all endurance.' 'There's a cousin, though, a Grace Nugent,' said Mrs. Dareville, 'that Lady Clonbrony has with her.' 'Best part of her, too,' said Colonel Heathcock; 'd-d fine girl!--never saw her look better than at the opera to-night!' 'Fine COMPLEXION! as Lady Clonbrony says, when she means a high colour,' said Lady Langdale. 'Grace Nugent is not a lady's beauty,' said Mrs. Dareville. 'Has she any fortune, colonel?' ''Pon honour, don't know,' said the colonel. 'There's a son, somewhere, is not there?' said Lady Langdale. 'Don't know, 'pon honour,' replied the colonel. 'Yes--at Cambridge--not of age yet,' said Mrs. Dareville. 'Bless me! here is Lady Clonbrony come back. I thought she was gone half an hour ago!' 'Mamma,' whispered one of Lady Langdale's daughters, leaning between her mother and Mrs. Dareville, 'who is that gentleman that passed us just now?' 'Which way?' 'Towards the door. There now, mamma, you can see him. He is speaking to Lady Clonbrony--to Miss Nugent. Now Lady Clonbrony is introducing him to Miss Broadhurst.' 'I see him now,' said Lady Langdale, examining him through her glass; 'a very gentlemanlike-looking young man, indeed.' 'Not an Irishman, I am sure, by his manner,' said her grace. 'Heathcock!' said Lady Langdale, 'who is Miss Broadhurst talking to?' 'Eh! now really--'pon honour--don't know,' replied Heathcock. 'And yet he certainly looks like somebody one certainly should know,' pursued Lady Langdale, 'though I don't recollect seeing him anywhere before.' 'Really now!' was all the satisfaction she could gain from the insensible, immovable colonel. However, her ladyship, after sending a whisper along the line, gained the desired information, that the young gentleman was Lord Colambre, son, only son, of Lord and Lady Clonbrony--that he was just come from Cambridge--that he was not yet of age--that he would be of age within a year--that he would then, after the death of somebody, come into possession of a fine estate, by the mother's side 'and therefore, Cat'rine, my dear,' said she, turning round to the daughter, who had first pointed him out, 'you understand, we should never talk about other people's affairs.' 'No, mamma, never. I hope to goodness, mamma, Lord Colambre did not hear what you and Mrs. Dareville were saying!' 'How could he, child? He was quite at the other end of the world.' 'I beg your pardon, ma'am, he was at my elbow, close behind us; but I never thought about him till I heard somebody say, "My lord--"' 'Good heavens! I hope he didn't hear.' 'But, for my part, I said nothing,' cried Lady Langdale. 'And for my part, I said nothing but what everybody knows!' cried Mrs. Dareville. 'And for my part, I am guilty only of hearing,' said the duchess. 'Do, pray, Colonel Heathcock, have the goodness to see what my people are about, and what chance we have of getting away to-night.' 'The Duchess of Torcaster's carriage stops the way!'--a joyful sound to Colonel Heathcock and to her grace, and not less agreeable, at this instant, to Lady Langdale, who, the moment she was disembarrassed of the duchess, pressed through the crowd to Lady Clonbrony, and, addressing her with smiles and complacency, was 'charmed to have a little moment to speak to her--could NOT sooner get through the crowd--would certainly do herself the honour to be at her ladyship's gala on Wednesday.' While Lady Langdale spoke, she never seemed to see or think of anybody but Lady Clonbrony, though, all the time, she was intent upon every motion of Lord Colambre, and, whilst she was obliged to listen with a face of sympathy to a long complaint of Lady Clonbrony's, about Mr. Soho's want of taste in ottomans, she was vexed to perceive that his lordship showed no desire to be introduced to her, or to her daughters; but, on the contrary, was standing talking to Miss Nugent. His mother, at the end of her speech, looked round for Colambre called him twice before he heard--introduced him to Lady Langdale, and to Lady Cat'rine, and Lady Anne--, and to Mrs. Dareville; to all of whom he bowed with an air of proud coldness, which gave them reason to regret that their remarks upon his mother and his family had not been made SOTTO VOCE. 'Lady Langdale's carriage stops the way!' Lord Colambre made no offer of his services, notwithstanding a look from his mother. Incapable of the meanness of voluntarily listening to a conversation not intended for him to hear, he had, however, been compelled, by the pressure of the crowd, to remain a few minutes stationary, where he could not avoid hearing the remarks of the fashionable friends. Disdaining dissimulation, he made no attempt to conceal his displeasure. Perhaps his vexation was increased by his consciousness that there was some mixture of truth in their sarcasms. He was sensible that his mother, in some points--her manners, for instance--was oblivious to ridicule and satire. In Lady Clonbrony's address there was a mixture of constraint, affectation, and indecision, unusual in a person of her birth, rank, and knowledge of the world. A natural and unnatural manner seemed struggling in all her gestures, and in every syllable that she articulated--a naturally free, familiar, good-natured, precipitate, Irish manner, had been schooled, and schooled late in life, into a sober, cold, still, stiff deportment, which she mistook for English. A strong, Hibernian accent, she had, with infinite difficulty, changed into an English tone. Mistaking reverse of wrong for right, she caricatured the English pronunciation; and the extraordinary precision of her London phraseology betrayed her not to be a Londoner, as the man, who strove to pass for an Athenian, was detected by his Attic dialect. Not aware of her real danger, Lady Clonbrony was, on the opposite side, in continual apprehension, every time she opened her lips, lest some treacherous A or E, some strong R, some puzzling aspirate, or non-aspirate, some unguarded note, interrogative or expostulatory, should betray her to be an Irishwoman. Mrs. Dareville had, in her mimickry, perhaps a little exaggerated as to the TEEBLES and CHEERS, but still the general likeness of the representation of Lady Clonbrony was strong enough to strike and vex her son. He had now, for the first time, an opportunity of judging of the estimation in which his mother and his family were held by certain leaders of the ton, of whom, in her letters, she had spoken so much, and into whose society, or rather into whose parties, she had been admitted. He saw that the renegade cowardice, with which she denied, abjured, and reviled her own country, gained nothing but ridicule and contempt. He loved his mother; and, whilst he endeavoured to conceal her faults and foibles as much as possible from his own heart, he could not endure those who dragged them to light and ridicule. The next morning the first thing that occurred to Lord Colambre's remembrance when he awoke was the sound of the contemptuous emphasis which had been laid on the words IRISH ABSENTEES! This led to recollections of his native country, to comparisons of past and present scenes, to future plans of life. Young and careless as he seemed, Lord Colambre was capable of serious reflection. Of naturally quick and strong capacity, ardent affections, impetuous temper, the early years of his childhood passed at his father's castle in Ireland, where, from the lowest servant to the well-dressed dependant of the family, everybody had conspired to wait upon, to fondle, to flatter, to worship, this darling of their lord. Yet he was not spoiled--not rendered selfish. For, in the midst of this flattery and servility, some strokes of genuine generous affection had gone home to his little heart; and, though unqualified submission had increased the natural impetuosity of his temper, and though visions of his future grandeur had touched his infant thought, yet, fortunately, before he acquired any fixed habits of insolence or tyranny, he was carried far away from all that were bound or willing to submit to his commands, far away from all signs of hereditary grandeur--plunged into one of our great public schools--into a new world. Forced to struggle, mind and body, with his equals, his rivals, the little lord became a spirited schoolboy, and, in time, a man. Fortunately for him, science and literature happened to be the fashion among a set of clever young men with whom he was at Cambridge. His ambition for intellectual superiority was raised, his views were enlarged, his tastes and his manners formed. The sobriety of English good sense mixed most advantageously with Irish vivacity; English prudence governed, but did not extinguish his Irish enthusiasm. But, in fact, English and Irish had not been invidiously contrasted in his mind: he had been so long resident in England, and so intimately connected with Englishmen, that he was not oblivious to any of the commonplace ridicule thrown upon Hibernians; and he had lived with men who were too well informed and liberal to misjudge or depreciate a sister country. He had found, from experience, that, however reserved the English may be in manner, they are warm at heart; that, however averse they may be from forming new acquaintance, their esteem and confidence once gained, they make the most solid friends. He had formed friendships in England; he was fully sensible of the superior comforts, refinement, and information, of English society; but his own country was endeared to him by early association, and a sense of duty and patriotism attached him to Ireland. And shall I too be an absentee? was a question which resulted from these reflections--a question which he was not yet prepared to answer decidedly. In the meantime, the first business of the morning was to execute a commission for a Cambridge friend. Mr. Berryl had bought from Mr. Mordicai, a famous London coachmaker, a curricle, WARRANTED SOUND, for which he had paid a sound price, upon express condition that Mr. Mordicai, BARRING ACCIDENTS, should be answerable for all repairs of the curricle for six months. In three, both the carriage and body were found to be good for nothing--the curricle had been returned to Mr. Mordicai--nothing had since been heard of it, or from him--and Lord Colambre had undertaken to pay him and it a visit, and to make all proper inquiries. Accordingly, he went to the coachmaker's, and, obtaining no satisfaction from the underlings, desired to see the head of the house. He was answered, that Mr. Mordicai was not at home. His lordship had never seen Mr. Mordicai; but, just then, he saw, walking across the yard, a man, who looked something like a Bond Street coxcomb, but not the least like a gentleman, who called, in the tone of a master, for 'Mr. Mordicai's barouche!' It appeared; and he was stepping into it when Lord Colambre took the liberty of stopping him; and, pointing to the wreck of Mr. Berryl's curricle, now standing in the yard, began a statement of his friend's grievances, and an appeal to common justice and conscience, which he, unknowing the nature of the man with whom he had to deal, imagined must be irresistible. Mr. Mordicai stood without moving a muscle of his dark wooden face. Indeed, in his face there appeared to be no muscles, or none which could move; so that, though he had what are generally called handsome features, there was, all together, something unnatural and shocking in his countenance. When, at last, his eyes turned, and his lips opened, this seemed to be done by machinery, and not by the will of a living creature, or from the impulse of a rational soul. Lord Colambre was so much struck with this strange physiognomy, that he actually forgot much he had to say of springs and wheels. But it was no matter. Whatever he had said, it would have come to the same thing; and Mordicai would have answered as he now did-- 'Sir, it was my partner made that bargain, not myself; and I don't hold myself bound by it, for he is the sleeping-partner only, and not empowered to act in the way of business. Had Mr. Berryl bargained with me, I should have told him that he should have looked to these things before his carriage went out of our yard.' The indignation of Lord Colambre kindled at these words--but in vain. To all that indignation could by word or look urge against Mordicai, he replied-- 'Maybe so, sir; the law is open to your friend--the law is open to all men who can pay for it.' Lord Colambre turned in despair from the callous coach-maker, and listened to one of his more compassionate-looking workmen, who was reviewing the disabled curricle; and, whilst he was waiting to know the sum of his friend's misfortune, a fat, jolly, Falstaff looking personage came into the yard, accosted Mordicai with a degree of familiarity, which, from a gentleman, appeared to Lord Colambre to be almost impossible. 'How are you, Mordicai, my good fellow?' cried he, speaking with a strong Irish accent. 'Who is this?' whispered Lord Colambre to the foreman, who was examining the curricle. 'Sir Terence O'Fay, sir. There must be entire new wheels.' 'Now tell me, my tight fellow,' continued Sir Terence, holding Mordicai fast, 'when, in the name of all the saints, good or bad, in the calendar, do you reckon to let us sport the SUICIDE?' Mordicai forcibly drew his mouth into what he meant for a smile, and answered, 'As soon as possible, Sir Terence.' Sir Terence, in a tone of jocose, wheedling expostulation, entreated him to have the carriage finished OUT OF HAND. 'Ah, now! Mordy, my precious! let us have it by the birthday, and come and dine with us o' Monday, at the Hibernian Hotel--there's a rare one--will you?' Mordicai accepted the invitation, and promised faithfully that the SUICIDE should be finished by the birthday. Sir Terence shook hands upon this promise, and, after telling a good story, which made one of the workmen in the yard--an Irishman--grin with delight, walked off. Mordicai, first waiting till the knight was out of hearing, called aloud-- 'You grinning rascal! mind, at your peril, and don't let that there carriage be touched, d'ye see, till further orders.' One of Mr. Mordicai's clerks, with a huge long-feathered pen behind his ear, observed that Mr. Mordicai was right in that caution, for that, to the best of his comprehension, Sir Terence O'Fay and his principal, too, were over head and ears in debt. Mordicai coolly answered that he was well aware of that; but that the estate could afford to dip further; that, for his part, he was under no apprehension; he knew how to look sharp, and to bite before he was bit. That he knew Sir Terence and his principal were leagued together to give the creditors THE GO BY, but that, clever as they both were at that work, he trusted he was their match. 'Will you be so good, sir, to finish making out this estimate for me?' interrupted Lord Colambre. 'Immediately, sir. Sixty-nine pound four, and the perch. Let us see--Mr. Mordicai, ask him, ask Paddy, about Sir Terence,' said the foreman, pointing back over his shoulder to the Irish workman, who was at this moment pretending to be wondrous hard at work. However, when Mr. Mordicai defied him to tell him anything he did not know, Paddy, parting with an untasted bit of tobacco, began, and recounted some of Sir Terence O'Fay's exploits in evading duns, replevying cattle, fighting sheriffs, bribing SUBS, managing cants, tricking CUSTODEES, in language so strange, and with a countenance and gestures so full of enjoyment of the jest, that, whilst Mordicai stood for a moment aghast with astonishment, Lord Colambre could not help laughing, partly at, and partly with, his countryman. All the yard were in a roar of laughter, though they did not understand half of what they heard; but their risible muscles were acted upon mechanically, or maliciously, merely by the sound of the Irish brogue. Mordicai, waiting till the laugh was over, dryly observed that 'the law is executed in another guess sort of way in England from what it is in Ireland'; therefore, for his part, he desired nothing better than to set his wits fairly against such SHARKS. That there was a pleasure in doing up a debtor which none but a creditor could know. 'In a moment, sir; if you'll have a moment's patience, sir, if you please,' said the slow foreman to Lord Colambre; 'I must go down the pounds once more, and then I'll let you have it.' 'I'll tell you what, Smithfield,' continued Mr. Mordicai, coming close beside his foreman, and speaking very low, but with a voice trembling with anger, for he was piqued by his foreman's doubts of his capacity to cope with Sir Terence O'Fay; 'I'll tell you what, Smithfield, I'll be cursed, if I don't get every inch of them into my power. You know how?' 'You are the best judge, sir,' replied the foreman; 'but I would not undertake Sir Terence; and the question is, whether the estate will answer the LOT of the debts, and whether you know them all for certain?' 'I do, sir, I tell you. There's Green there's Blancham--there's Gray--there's Soho--naming several more--and, to my knowledge, Lord Clonbrony--' 'Stop, sir,' cried Lord Colambre in a voice which made Mordicai, and everybody present, start--'I am his son--' 'The devil!' said Mordicai. 'God bless every bone in his body, then! he's an Irishman,' cried Paddy; 'and there was the RASON my heart warmed to him from the first minute he come into the yard, though I did not know it till now.' 'What, sir! are you my Lord Colambre?' said Mr. Mordicai, recovering, but not clearly recovering, his intellects. 'I beg pardon, but I did not know you WAS Lord Colambre. I thought you told me you was the friend of Mr. Berryl.' 'I do not see the incompatibility of the assertion, sir,' replied Lord Colambre, taking from the bewildered foreman's unresisting hand the account, which he had been so long FURNISHING. 'Give me leave, my lord,' said Mordicai. 'I beg your pardon, my lord, perhaps we can compromise that business for your friend Mr. Berryl; since he is your lordship's friend, perhaps we can contrive to COMPROMISE and SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE.' TO COMPROMISE and SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE, Mordicai thought were favourite phrases, and approved Hibernian modes of doing business, which would conciliate this young Irish nobleman, and dissipate the proud tempest which had gathered and now swelled in his breast. 'No, sir, no!' cried Lord Colambre, holding firm the paper. 'I want no favour from you. I will accept of none for my friend or for myself.' 'Favour! No, my lord, I should not presume to offer--But I should wish, if you'll allow me, to do your friend justice.' Lord Colambre recollecting that he had no right, in his pride, to ding away his friend's money, let Mr. Mordicai look at the account; and, his impetuous temper in a few moments recovered by good sense, he considered that, as his person was utterly unknown to Mr. Mordicai, no offence could have been intended to him, and that, perhaps, in what had been said of his father's debts and distress, there might be more truth than he was aware of. Prudently, therefore, controlling his feelings, and commanding himself, he suffered Mr. Mordicai to show him into a parlour, to SETTLE his friend's business. In a few minutes the account was reduced to a reasonable form, and, in consideration of the partner's having made the bargain, by which Mr. Mordicai felt himself influenced in honour, though not bound in law, he undertook to have the curricle made better than new again, for Mr. Berryl, for twenty guineas. Then came awkward apologies to Lord Colambre, which he ill endured. 'Between ourselves, my lord,' continued Mordicai-- But the familiarity of the phrase, 'Between ourselves'--this implication of equality--Lord Colambre could not admit; he moved hastily towards the door and departed. CHAPTER II Full of what he had heard, and impatient to obtain further information respecting the state of his father's affairs, Lord Colambre hastened home; but his father was out, and his mother was engaged with Mr. Soho, directing, or rather being directed, how her apartments should be fitted up for her gala. As Lord Colambre entered the room, he saw his mother, Miss Nugent, and Mr. Soho, standing at a large table, which was covered with rolls of paper, patterns, and drawings of furniture: Mr. Soho was speaking in a conceited dictatorial tone, asserting that there was no 'colour in nature for that room equal to THE BELLY-O'-THE FAWN;' which BELLY-O'-THE FAWN he so pronounced that Lady Clonbrony understood it to be LA BELLE UNIFORME, and, under this mistake, repeated and assented to the assertion till it was set to rights, with condescending superiority, by the upholsterer. This first architectural upholsterer of the age, as he styled himself, and was universally admitted to be by all the world of fashion, then, with full powers given to him, spoke EN MAITRE. The whole face of things must be changed--there must be new hangings, new draperies, new cornices, new candelabras, new everything! The upholsterer's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,<br /> Glances from ceiling to floor, from floor to ceiling;<br /> And, as imagination bodies forth<br /> The form of things unknown, th' upholsterer's pencil<br /> Turns to shape and gives to airy nothing<br /> A local habitation and a NAME.<br /> Of the value of a NAME no one could be more sensible than Mr. Soho. 'Your la'ship sees--this is merely a scratch of my pencil--your la'ship's sensible--just to give you an idea of the shape, the form of the thing. You fill up your angles here with ECOINIERES--round your walls with the TURKISH TENT DRAPERY--a fancy of my own--in apricot cloth, or crimson velvet, suppose, or EN FLUTE, in crimson satin draperies, fanned and riched with gold fringes, EN SUITE--intermediate spaces, Apollo's heads with gold rays--and here, ma'am, you place four CHANCELIERES, with chimeras at the corners, covered with blue silk and silver fringe, elegantly fanciful--with my STATIRA CANOPY here--light blue silk draperies--aerial tint, with silver balls--and for seats here, the SERAGLIO OTTOMANS, superfine scarlet--your paws--griffin--golden--and golden tripods, here, with antique cranes--and oriental alabaster tables here and there--quite appropriate, your la'ship feels. 'And--let me reflect. For the next apartment, it strikes me--as your la'ship don't value expense--THE ALHAMBRA HANGINGS--my own thought entirely. Now, before I unroll them, Lady Clonbrony, I must beg you'll not mention I've shown them. I give you my sacred honour, not a soul has set eye upon the Alhambra hangings, except Mrs. Dareville, who stole a peep; I refused, absolutely refused, the Duchess of Torcaster--but I can't refuse your la'ship. So see, ma'am--(unrolling them)--scagliola porphyry columns supporting the grand dome--entablature, silvered and decorated with imitative bronze ornaments; under the entablature, A VALANCE IN PELMETS, of puffed scarlet silk, would have an unparalleled grand effect, seen through the arches--with the TREBISOND TRELLICE PAPER, would make a TOUT ENSEMBLE, novel beyond example. On that Trebisond trellice paper, I confess, ladies, I do pique myself. 'Then, for the little room, I recommend turning it temporarily into a Chinese pagoda, with this CHINESE PAGODA PAPER, with the PORCELAIN border, and josses, and jars, and beakers to match; and I can venture to promise one vase of pre-eminent size and beauty. Oh, indubitably! if your la'ship prefers it, you can have the EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC PAPER, with the IBIS BORDER to match! The only objection is, one sees it everywhere--quite antediluvian--gone to the hotels even; but, to be sure, if your la'ship has a fancy--At all events, I humbly recommend, what her Grace of Torcaster longs to patronise, my MOON CURTAINS, with candlelight draperies. A demisaison elegance this--I hit off yesterday--and--true, your la'ship's quite correct--out of the common, completely. And, of course, you'd have the SPHYNX CANDELABRAS, and the Phoenix argands. Oh! nothing else lights now, ma'am! Expense! Expense of the whole! Impossible to calculate here on the spot!--but nothing at all worth your ladyship's consideration!' At another moment, Lord Colambre might have been amused with all this rhodomontade, and with the airs and voluble conceit of the orator; but, after what he had heard at Mr. Mordicai's, this whole scene struck him more with melancholy than with mirth. He was alarmed by the prospect of new and unbounded expense; provoked, almost past enduring, by the jargon and impertinence of this upholsterer; mortified and vexed to the heart to see his mother the dupe, the sport of such a coxcomb. 'Prince of puppies!--insufferable!--My own mother!' Lord Colambre repeated to himself, as he walked hastily up and down the room. 'Colambre, won't you let us have your judgment--your TEESTE' said his mother. 'Excuse me, ma'am. I have no taste, no judgment, in these things.' He sometimes paused, and looked at Mr. Soho with a strong inclination to--But knowing that he should say too much, if he said anything, he was silent never dared to approach the council table--but continued walking up and down the room, till he heard a voice, which at once arrested his attention, and soothed his ire. He approached the table instantly, and listened, whilst Grace Nugent said everything he wished to have said, and with all the propriety and delicacy with which he thought he could not have spoken. He leaned on the table, and fixed his eyes upon her--years ago, he had seen his cousin--last night, he had thought her handsome, pleasing, graceful--but now, he saw a new person, or he saw her in a new light. He marked the superior intelligence, the animation, the eloquence of her countenance, its variety, whilst alternately, with arch raillery or grave humour, she played off Mr. Soho, and made him magnify the ridicule, till it was apparent even to Lady Clonbrony. He observed the anxiety, lest his mother should expose her own foibles--he was touched by the respectful, earnest kindness--the soft tones of persuasion, with which she addressed his mother--the care not to presume upon her own influence--the good sense, the taste she showed, yet not displaying her superiority--the address, temper, and patience, with which she at last accomplished her purpose, and prevented Lady Clonbrony from doing anything preposterously absurd, or exorbitantly extravagant. Lord Colambre was actually sorry when the business was ended--when Mr. Soho departed--for Grace Nugent was then silent; and it was necessary to remove his eyes from that countenance, on which he had gazed unobserved. Beautiful and graceful, yet so unconscious was she of her charms, that the eye of admiration could rest upon her without her perceiving it--she seemed so intent upon others as totally to forget herself. The whole train of Lord Colambre's thoughts was so completely deranged that, although he was sensible there was something of importance he had to say to his mother, yet, when Mr. Soho's departure left him opportunity to speak, he stood silent, unable to recollect anything but--Grace Nugent. When Grace Nugent left the room, after some minutes' silence, and some effort, Lord Colambre said to his mother, 'Pray, madam, do you know anything of Sir Terence O'Fay?' 'I!' Said Lady Clonbrony, drawing up her head proudly; 'I know he is a person I cannot endure. He is no friend of mine, I can assure you--nor any such sort of person.' 'I thought it was impossible!' cried Colambre, with exultation. 'I only wish your father, Colambre, could say as much,' added Lady Clonbrony. Lord Colambre's countenance fell again; and again he was silent for some time. 'Does my father dine at home, ma'am?' 'I suppose not; he seldom dines at home.' 'Perhaps, ma'am, my father may have some cause to be uneasy about--' 'About?' said Lady Clonbrony, in a tone, and with a look of curiosity which convinced her son that she knew nothing of his debts or distresses, if he had any. 'About what?' repeated her ladyship. Here was no receding, and Lord Colambre never had recourse to artifice. 'About his affairs, I was going to say, madam. But, since you know nothing of any difficulties or embarrassments, I am persuaded that none exist.' Nay, I CAWNT tell you that, Colambre. There are difficulties for ready money, I confess, when I ask for it, which surprise me often. I know nothing of affairs--ladies of a certain rank seldom do, you know. But, considering your father's estate, and the fortune I brought him,' added her ladyship, proudly, 'I CAWNT conceive it at all. Grace Nugent, indeed, often talks to me of embarrassments and economy; but that, poor thing, is very natural for her, because her fortune is not particularly large, and she has left it all, or almost all, in her uncle and guardian's hands. I know she's often distressed for odd money to lend me, and that makes her anxious.' 'Is not Miss Nugent very much admired, ma'am, in London?' 'Of course--in the company she is in, you know, she has every advantage. And she has a natural family air of fashion--not but what she would have got on much better, if, when she first appeared in Lon'on, she had taken my advice, and wrote herself on her cards Miss de Nogent, which would have taken off the prejudice against the IRICISM of Nugent, you know; and there is a Count de Nogent.' 'I did not know there was any such prejudice, ma'am. There may be among a certain set; but, I should think, not among well-informed, well-bred people.' 'I BIG your PAWDON, Colambre; surely I, that was born in England, an Henglish-woman BAWN! must be well INFAWMED on this PINT, anyway.' Lord Colambre was respectfully silent. 'Mother,' resumed he, 'I wonder that Miss Nugent is not married!' 'That is her own fau't, entirely; she has refused very good offers--establishments that, I own, I think, as Lady Langdale says, I was to blame to allow her to let pass; but young LEDIES till they are twenty, always think they can do better. Mr. Martingale, of Martingale, proposed for her, but she objected to him on account of he's being on the turf; and Mr. St. Albans' L7000 a year--because--I REELLY forget what--I believe only because she did not like him--and something about principles. Now there is Colonel Heathcock, one of the most fashionable young men you see, always with the Duchess of Torcaster and that set--Heathcock takes a vast deal of notice of her, for him; and yet, I'm persuaded, she would not have him to-morrow, if he came to the PINT, and for no reason, REELLY now, that she can give me, but because she says he's a coxcomb. Grace has a tincture of Irish pride. But, for my part, I rejoice that she is so difficult, for I don't know what I should do without her.' 'Miss Nugent is indeed--very much attached to you, mother, I am convinced,' said Lord Colambre, beginning his sentence with great enthusiasm, and ending it with great sobriety. 'Indeed then, she's a sweet girl, and I am very partial to her, there's the truth,' cried Lady Clonbrony, in an undisguised Irish accent, and with her natural warm manner. But a moment afterwards her features and whole form resumed their constrained stillness and stiffness, and, in her English accent, she continued-- 'Before you put my IDEES out of my head, Colambre, I had something to say to you--Oh! I know what it was--we were talking of embarrassments--and I wished to do your father the justice to mention to you that he has been UNCOMMON LIBERAL to me about this gala, and has REELLY given me carte-blanche; and I've a notion--indeed I know--that it is you, Colambre, I am to thank for this.' 'Me!--ma'am!' 'Yes! Did not your father give you any hint?' 'No, ma'am; I have seen my father but for half an hour since I came to town, and in that time he said nothing to me--of his affairs.' 'But what I allude to is more your affair.' 'He did not speak to me of any affairs, ma'am--he spoke only of my horses.' 'Then I suppose my lord leaves it to me to open the matter to you. I have the pleasure to tell you, that we have in view for you--and I think I may say with more than the approbation of all her family--an alliance--' 'Oh! my dear mother! you cannot be serious,' cried Lord Colambre; 'you know I am not of years of discretion yet--I shall not think of marrying these ten years, at least.' 'Why not? Nay, my dear Colambre, don't go, I beg--I am serious, I assure you--and, to convince you of it, I shall tell you candidly, at once, all your father told me: that now you've done with Cambridge, and are come to Lon'on, he agrees with me in wishing that you should make the figure you ought to make, Colambre, as sole heir-apparent to the Clonbrony estate, and all that sort of thing. But, on the other hand, living in Lon'on, and making you the handsome allowance you ought to have, are, both together, more than your father can afford, without inconvenience, he tells me.' 'I assure you, mother, I shall be content--' 'No, no; you must not be content, child, and you must hear me. You must live in a becoming style, and make a proper appearance. I could not present you to my friends here, nor be happy, if you did not, Colambre. Now the way is clear before you: you have birth and title, here is fortune ready made; you will have a noble estate of your own when old Quin dies, and you will not be any encumbrance or inconvenience to your father or anybody. Marrying an heiress accomplishes all this at once; and the young lady is everything we could wish, besides--you will meet again at the gala. Indeed, between ourselves, she is the grand object of the gala; all her friends will come EN MASSE, and one should wish that they should see things in proper style. You have seen the young lady in question, Colambre--Miss Broadhurst. Don't you recollect the young lady I introduced you to last night after the opera?' 'The little, plain girl, covered with diamonds, who was standing beside Miss Nugent?' 'In di'monds, yes. But you won't think her plain when you see more of her--that wears off; I thought her plain, at first--I hope--' 'I hope,' said Lord Colambre, 'that you will not take it unkindly of me, my dear mother, if I tell you, at once, that I have no thoughts of marrying at present--and that I never will marry for money. Marrying an heiress is not even a new way of paying old debts--at all events, it is one to which no distress could persuade me to have recourse; and as I must, if I outlive old Mr. Quin, have an independent fortune, THERE IS NO occasion to purchase one by marriage.' 'There is no distress, that I know of, in the case,' cried Lady Clonbrony. 'Where is your imagination running, Colambre? But merely for your establishment, your independence.' 'Establishment, I want none--independence I do desire, and will preserve. Assure my father, my DEAR MOTHER, that I will not be an expense to him. I will live within the allowance he made me at Cambridge--I will give up half of it--I will do anything for his convenience--but marry for money, that I cannot do.' 'Then, Colambre, you are very disobliging,' said Lady Clonbrony, with an expression of disappointment and displeasure; 'for your father says, if you don't marry Miss Broadhurst, we can't live in Lon'on another winter.' This said--which, had she been at the moment mistress of herself, she would not have let out--Lady Clonbrony abruptly quitted the room. Her son stood motionless, saying to himself-- 'Is this my mother?--How altered!' The next morning he seized an opportunity of speaking to his father, whom he caught, with difficulty, just when he was going out, as usual, for the day. Lord Colambre, with all the respect due to his father, and with that affectionate manner by which he always knew how to soften the strength of his expressions, made nearly the same declarations of his resolution, by which his mother had been so much surprised and offended. Lord Clonbrony seemed more embarrassed, but not so much displeased. When Lord Colambre adverted, as delicately as he could, to the selfishness of desiring from him the sacrifice of liberty for life, to say nothing of his affections, merely to enable his family to make a splendid figure in London, Lord Clonbrony exclaimed, 'That's all nonsense!--cursed nonsense! That's the way we are obliged to state the thing to your mother, my dear boy, because I might talk her deaf before she would understand or listen to anything else. But, for my own share, I don't care a rush if London was sunk in the salt sea. Little Dublin for my money, as Sir Terence O'Fay says.' 'Who is Sir Terence O'Fay, may I ask, sir?' 'Why, don't you know Terry? Ay, you've been so long at Cambridge, I forgot. And did you never see Terry?' 'I have seen him, sir--I met him yesterday at Mr. Mordicai's, the coachmaker's.' 'Mordicai's!' exclaimed Lord Clonbrony, with a sudden blush, which he endeavoured to hide by taking snuff. 'He is a damned rascal, that Mordicai! I hope you didn't believe a word he said--nobody does that knows him.' 'I am glad, sir, that you seem to know him so well, and to be upon your guard against him,' replied Lord Colambre; 'for, from what I heard of his conversation, when he was not aware who I was, I am convinced he would do you any injury in his power.' 'He shall never have me in his power, I promise him. We shall take care of that. But what did he say?' Lord Colambre repeated the substance of what Mordicai had said, and Lord Clonbrony reiterated--'Damned rascal!--damned rascal! I'll get out of his hands; I'll have no more to do with him.' But, as he spoke, he exhibited evident symptoms of uneasiness, moving continually, and shifting from leg to leg like a foundered horse. He could not bring himself positively to deny that he had debts and difficulties; but he would by no means open the state of his affairs to his son--'No father is called upon to do that,' said he to himself; 'none but a fool would do it.' Lord Colambre, perceiving his father's embarrassment, withdrew his eyes, respectfully refrained from all further inquiries, and simply repeated the assurance he had made to his mother, that he would put his family to no additional expense; and that, if it was necessary, he would willingly give up half his allowance. 'Not at all--not at all, my dear boy,' said his father; 'I would rather cramp myself than that you should be cramped, a thousand times over. But it is all my Lady Clonbrony's nonsense. If people would but, as they ought, stay in their own country, live on their own estates, and kill their own mutton, money need never be wanting.' For killing their own mutton, Lord Colambre did not see the indispensable necessity; but he rejoiced to hear his father assert that people should reside in their own country. 'Ay,' cried Lord Clonbrony, to strengthen his assertion, as he always thought it necessary to do, by quoting some other person's opinion. 'So Sir Terence O'Fay always says, and that's the reason your mother can't endure poor Terry. You don't know Terry? No, you have only seen him; but, indeed, to see him is to know him; for he is the most off-hand, good fellow in Europe.' 'I don't pretend to know him yet,' said Lord Colambre. 'I am not so presumptuous as to form my opinion at first sight.' 'Oh, curse your modesty!' interrupted Lord Clonbrony; 'you mean, you don't pretend to like him yet; but Terry will make you like him. I defy you not. I'll introduce you to him--him to you, I mean--most warn-hearted, generous dog upon earth--convivial--jovial--with wit and humour enough, in his own way, to split you--split me if he has not. You need not cast down your eyes, Colambre. What's your objection?' 'I have made none, sir; but, if you urge me, I can only say that, if he has all these good qualities, it is to be regretted that he does not look and speak a little more like a gentleman.' 'A gentleman! he is as much a gentleman as any of your formal prigs--not the exact Cambridge cut, maybe. Curse your English education! 'Twas none of my advice. I suppose you mean to take after your mother in the notion that nothing can be good, or genteel, but what's English.' 'Far from it, sir; I assure you, I am as warm a friend to Ireland as your heart could wish. You will have no reason, in that respect at least, nor, I hope, in any other, to curse my English education; and, if my gratitude and affection can avail, you shall never regret the kindness and liberality with which you have, I fear, distressed yourself to afford me the means of becoming all that a British nobleman ought to be.' 'Gad! you distress me now!' said Lord Clonbrony, 'and I didn't expect it, or I wouldn't make a fool of myself this way,' added he, ashamed of his emotion, and whiffling it off. 'You have an Irish heart, that I see, which no education can spoil. But you must like Terry. I'll give you time, as he said to me, when first he taught me to like usquebaugh. Good morning to you!' Whilst Lady Clonbrony, in consequence of her residence in London, had become more of a fine lady, Lord Clonbrony, since he left Ireland, had become less of a gentleman. Lady Clonbrony, born an Englishwoman, disclaiming and disencumbering herself of all the Irish in town, had, by giving splendid entertainments, at an enormous expense, made her way into a certain set of fashionable company. But Lord Clonbrony, who was somebody in Ireland, who was a great person in Dublin, found himself nobody in England, a mere cipher in London, Looked down upon by the fine people with whom his lady associated, and heartily weary of them, he retreated from them altogether, and sought entertainment and self-complacency in society beneath him--indeed, both in rank and education, but in which he had the satisfaction of feeling himself the first person in company. Of these associates, the first in talents, and in jovial profligacy, was Sir Terence O'Fay--a man of low extraction, who had been knighted by an Irish lord-lieutenant in some convivial frolic. No one could tell a good story, or sing a good song better than Sir Terence; he exaggerated his native brogue, and his natural propensity to blunder, caring little whether the company laughed at him or with him, provided they laughed. 'Live and laugh--laugh and live,' was his motto; and certainly he lived on laughing, as well as many better men can contrive to live on a thousand a year. Lord Clonbrony brought Sir Terence home with him next day to introduce him to Lord Colambre; and it happened that on this occasion Terence appeared to peculiar disadvantage, because, like many other people, 'Il gatoit l'esprit qu'il avoit en voulant avoir celui qu'il n'avoit pas.' Having been apprised that Lord Colambre was a fine scholar, fresh from Cambridge, and being conscious of his own deficiencies of literature, instead of trusting to his natural talents, he summoned to his aid, with no small effort, all the scraps of learning he had acquired in early days, and even brought before the company all the gods and goddesses with whom he had formed an acquaintance at school. Though embarrassed by this unusual encumbrance of learning, he endeavoured to make all subservient to his immediate design, of paying his court to Lady Clonbrony, by forwarding the object she had most anxiously in view--the match between her son and Miss Broadhurst. 'And so, Miss Nugent,' said he, not daring, with all his assurance, to address himself directly to Lady Clonbrony--'and so, Miss Nugent, you are going to have great doings, I'm told, and a wonderful grand gala. There's nothing in the wide world equal to being in a good, handsome crowd. No later now than the last ball at the Castle that was before I left Dublin, Miss Nugent--the apartments, owing to the popularity of my lady-lieutenant, was so throng--so throng--that I remember very well, in the doorway, a lady--and a very genteel woman she was too, though a stranger to me--saying to me, "Sir, your finger's in my ear." "I know it, madam," says I, "but I can't take it out till the crowd give me elbow room." 'But it's gala I'm thinking of now. I hear you are to have the golden Venus, my Lady Clonbrony, won't you?' 'Sir!' This freezing monosyllable notwithstanding, Sir Terence pursued his course fluently. 'The golden Venus!--Sure, Miss Nugent, you, that are so quick, can't but know I would apostrophise Miss Broadhurst that is, but that won't be long so, I hope. My Lord Colambre, have you seen much yet of that young lady?' 'No, sir.' 'Then I hope you won't be long so. I hear great talk now of the Venus of Medicis, and the Venus of this and that, with the Florence Venus, and the sable Venus, and that other Venus, that's washing of her hair, and a hundred other Venuses, some good, some bad. But, be that as it will, my lord, trust a fool--ye may, when he tells you truth--the golden Venus is the only one on earth that can stand, or that will stand, through all ages and temperatures; for gold rules the court, gold rules the camp, and men below, and heaven above.' 'Heaven above! Take care, Terry! Do you know what you're saying?' interrupted Lord Clonbrony. 'Do I? Don't I?' replied Terry. 'Deny, if you please, my lord, that it was for a golden pippin that the three goddesses FIT--and that the HIPPOMENES was about golden apples--and did not Hercules rob a garden for golden apples?--and did not the pious Eneas himself take a golden branch with him, to make himself welcome to his father in hell?' said Sir Terence, winking at Lord Colambre. 'Why, Terry, you know more about books than I should have suspected,' said Lord Clonbrony. 'Nor you would not have suspected me to have such a great acquaintance among the goddesses neither, would you, my lord? But, apropos, before we quit, of what material, think ye, was that same Venus's famous girdle, now, that made roses and lilies so quickly appear? Why, what was it, but a girdle of sterling gold, I'll engage?--for gold is the only true thing for a young man to look after in a wife.' Sir Terence paused, but no applause ensued. 'Let them talk of Cupids and darts, and the mother of the Loves and Graces. Minerva may sing odes and DYTHAMBRICS, or whatsoever her wisdomship pleases. Let her sing, or let her say she'll never get a husband in this world or the other, without she had a good thumping FORTIN, and then she'd go off like wildfire.' 'No, no, Terry, there you're out; Minerva has too bad a character for learning to be a favourite with gentlemen,' said Lord Clonbrony. 'Tut--Don't tell me!--I'd get her off before you could say Jack Robinson, and thank you too, if she had fifty thousand down, or a thousand a year in land. Would you have a man so d-d nice as to balk when house and land is a-going--a-going--a-going!--because of the encumbrance of a little learning? I never heard that Miss Broadhurst was anything of a learned lady.' 'Miss Broadhurst!' said Grace Nugent; 'how did you get round to Miss Broadhurst?' 'Oh! by the way of Tipperary,' said Lord Colambre. 'I beg your pardon, my lord, it was apropos to a good fortune, which, I hope, will not be out of your way, even if you went by Tipperary. She has, besides L100,000 in the funds, a clear landed property of L10,000 per annum. WELL! SOME PEOPLE TALK OF MORALITY, AND SOME OF RELIGION, BUT GIVE ME A LITTLE SNUG PROPERTY. But, my lord, I've a little business to transact this morning, and must not be idling and indulging myself here.' So, bowing to the ladies, he departed. 'Really, I am glad that man is gone,' said Lady Clonbrony. 'What a relief to one's ears! I am sure I wonder, my lord, how you can bear to carry that strange creature always about with you--so vulgar as he is.' 'He diverts me,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'while many of your correct-mannered fine ladies or gentlemen put me to sleep. What signifies what accent people speak in that have nothing to say--hey, Colambre?' Lord Colambre, from respect to his father, did not express his opinion, but his aversion to Sir Terence O'Fay was stronger even than his mother's; though Lady Clonbrony's detestation of him was much increased by perceiving that his coarse hints about Miss Broadhurst had operated against her favourite scheme. The next morning, at breakfast, Lord Clonbrony talked of bringing Sir Terence with him that night to her gala. She absolutely grew pale with horror. 'Good heavens! Lady Langdale, Mrs. Dareville, Lady Pococke, Lady Chatterton, Lady D--, Lady G--, his Grace of V--; what would they think of him? And Miss Broadhurst to see him going about with my Lord Clonbrony!'--It could not be. No; her ladyship made the most solemn and desperate protestation, that she would sooner give up her gala altogether--tie up the knocker--say she was sick--rather be sick, or be dead, than be obliged to have such a creature as Sir Terence O'Fay at her gala. 'Have it your own way, my dear, as you have everything else!' cried Lord Clonbrony, taking up his hat, and preparing to decamp; 'but, take notice, if you won't receive him you need not expect me. So a good morning to you, my Lady Clonbrony. You may find a worse friend in need, yet, than that same Sir Terence O'Fay.' 'I trust I shall never be in need, my lord,' replied her ladyship. 'It would be strange, indeed, if I were, with the fortune I brought.' 'Oh! that fortune of hers!' cried Lord Clonbrony, stopping both his ears as he ran out of the room; 'shall I never hear the end of that fortune, when I've seen the end of it long ago?' During this matrimonial dialogue, Grace Nugent and Lord Colambre never once looked at each other. Grace was very diligently trying the changes that could be made in the positions of a china-mouse, a cat, a dog, a cup, and a Brahmin, on the mantelpiece; Lord Colambre as diligently reading the newspaper. 'Now, my dear Colambre,' said Lady Clonbrony, 'put down the paper, and listen to me. Let me entreat you not to neglect Miss Broadhurst to-night, as I know that the family come here chiefly on your account.' 'My dear mother, I never can neglect any deserving young lady, and particularly one of your guests; but I shall be careful not to do more than not to neglect, for I never will pretend what I do not feel.' 'But, my dear Colambre, Miss Broadhurst is everything you could wish, except being a beauty.' 'Perhaps, madam,' said Lord Colambre, fixing his eyes on Grace Nugent, 'you think that I can see no farther than a handsome face?' The unconscious Grace Nugent now made a warm eulogium of Miss Broadhurst's sense, and wit, and independence of character. 'I did not know that Miss Broadhurst was a friend of yours, Miss Nugent?' 'She is, I assure you, a friend of mine; and, as a proof, I will not praise her at this moment. I will go farther still--I will promise that I never will praise her to you till you begin to praise her to me.' Lord Colambre smiled, and now listened, as if he wished that Grace should go on speaking, even of Miss Broadhurst. 'That's my sweet Grace!' cried Lady Clonbrony. 'Oh! she knows how to manage these men--not one of them can resist her!' Lord Colambre, for his part, did not deny the truth of this assertion. 'Grace,' added Lady Clonbrony, 'make him promise to do as we would have him.' 'No; promises are dangerous things to ask or to give,' said Grace. 'Men and naughty children never make promises, especially promises to be good, without longing to break them the next minute.' 'Well, at least, child, persuade him, I charge you, to make my gala go off well. That's the first thing we ought to think of now. Ring the bell! And all heads and hands I put in requisition for the gala.' CHAPTER III The opening of her gala, the display of her splendid reception-rooms, the Turkish tent, the Alhambra, the pagoda, formed a proud moment to Lady Clonbrony. Much did she enjoy, and much too naturally, notwithstanding all her efforts to be stiff and stately, much too naturally did she show her enjoyment of the surprise excited in some and affected by others on their first entrance. One young, very young lady expressed her astonishment so audibly as to attract the notice of all the bystanders. Lady Clonbrony, delighted, seized both her hands, shook them, and laughed heartily; then, as the young lady with her party passed on, her ladyship recovered herself, drew up her head, and said to the company near her-- 'Poor thing! I hope I covered her little NAIVETE properly? How NEW she must be!' Then, with well-practised dignity, and half-subdued self-complacency of aspect, her ladyship went gliding about--most importantly busy, introducing my lady THIS to the sphynx candelabra, and my lady THAT to the Trebisond trellice; placing some delightfully for the perspective of the Alhambra; establishing others quite to her satisfaction on seraglio ottomans; and honouring others with a seat under the statira canopy. Receiving and answering compliments from successive crowds of select friends, imagining herself the mirror of fashion, and the admiration of the whole world, Lady Clonbrony was, for her hour, as happy certainly as ever woman was in similar circumstances. Her son looked at her, and wished that this happiness could last. Naturally inclined to sympathy, Lord Colambre reproached himself for not feeling as gay at this instant as the occasion required. But the festive scene, the blazing lights, the 'universal hubbub,' failed to raise his spirits. As a dead weight upon them hung the remembrance of Mordicai's denunciations; and, through the midst of this Eastern magnificence, this unbounded profusion, he thought he saw future domestic misery and ruin to those he loved best in the world. The only object present on which his eye rested with pleasure was Grace Nugent. Beautiful--in elegant and dignified simplicity--thoughtless of herself--yet with a look of thought, and with an air of melancholy, which accorded exactly with his own feelings, and which he believed to arise from the same reflections that had passed in his own mind. 'Miss Broadhurst, Colambre! all the Broadhursts!' said his mother, wakening him, as she passed by, to receive them as they entered. Miss Broadhurst appeared, plainly dressed--plainly, even to singularity--without any diamonds or ornament. 'Brought Philippa to you, my dear Lady Clonbrony, this figure, rather than not bring her at all,' said puffing Mrs. Broadhurst; 'and had all the difficulty in the world to get her out at all, and now I've promised she shall stay but half an hour. Sore throat--terrible cold she took in the morning. I'll swear for her, she'd not have come for any one but you.' The young lady did not seem inclined to swear, or even to say this for herself; she stood wonderfully unconcerned and passive, with an expression of humour lurking in her eyes, and about the corners of her mouth; whilst Lady Clonbrony was 'shocked,' and 'gratified,' and 'concerned' and 'flattered' and whilst everybody was hoping, and fearing, and busying themselves about her--'Miss Broadhurst, you'd better sit here!'--'Oh, for Heaven's sake! Miss Broadhurst, not there!' 'Miss Broadhurst, if you'll take my opinion;' and 'Miss Broadhurst, if I may advise--' 'Grace Nugent!' cried Lady Clonbrony--'Miss Broadhurst always listens to you. Do, my dear, persuade Miss Broadhurst to take care of herself, and let us take her to the inner little pagoda, where she can be so warm and so retired--the very thing for an invalid. Colambre! pioneer the way for us, for the crowd's immense.' Lady Anne and Lady Catharine H--, Lady Langdale's daughters, were at this time leaning on Miss Nugent's arm, and moved along with this party to the inner pagoda. There was to be cards in one room, music in another, dancing in a third, and, in this little room, there were prints and chess-boards, etc. 'Here you will be quite to yourselves,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'let me establish you comfortably in this, which I call my sanctuary--my SNUGGERY--Colambre, that little table!--Miss Broadhurst, you play chess? Colambre, you'll play with Miss Broadhurst--' 'I thank your ladyship,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'but I know nothing of chess, but the moves. Lady Catharine, you will play, and I will look on.' Miss Broadhurst drew her seat to the fire; Lady Catharine sat down to play with Lord Colambre; Lady Clonbrony withdrew, again recommending Miss Broadhurst to Grace Nugent's care. After some commonplace conversation, Lady Anne H---, looking at the company in the adjoining apartment, asked her sister how old Miss Somebody was, who passed by. This led to reflections upon the comparative age and youthful appearance of several of their acquaintance, and upon the care with which mothers concealed the age of their daughters. Glances passed between Lady Catharine and Lady Anne. 'For my part,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'my mother would 'labour that point of secrecy in vain for me; for I am willing to tell my age, even if my face did not tell it for me, to all whom it may concern. I am past three-and-twenty--shall be four-and-twenty the 5th of next July.' 'Three-and-twenty! Bless me! I thought you were not twenty!' cried Lady Anne. 'Four-and-twenty next July!--impossible!' cried Lady Catharine. 'Very possible,' said Miss Broadhurst, quite unconcerned. 'Now, Lord Colambre, would you believe it? Can you believe it?' asked Lady Catharine. 'Yes, he can,' said Miss Broadhurst. 'Don't you see that he believes it as firmly as you and I do? Why should you force his lordship to pay a compliment contrary to his better judgment, or to extort a smile from him under false pretences? I am sure he sees that you, ladies, and I trust he perceives that I, do not think the worse of him for this.' Lord Colambre smiled now without any false pretence; and, relieved at once from all apprehension of her joining in his mother's views, or of her expecting particular attention from him, he became at ease with Miss Broadhurst, shelved a desire to converse with her, and listened eagerly to what she said. He recollected that Grace Nugent had told him that this young lady had no common character; and, neglecting his move at chess, he looked up at Grace as much as to say, 'DRAW HER OUT, pray.' But Grace was too good a friend to comply with that request; she left Miss Broadhurst to unfold her own character. 'It is your move, my lord,' said Lady Catharine. 'I beg your ladyship's pardon--' 'Are not these rooms beautiful, Miss Broadhurst?' said Lady Catharine, determined, if possible, to turn the conversation into a commonplace, safe channel; for she had just felt, what most of Miss Broadhurst's acquaintance had in their turn felt, that she had an odd way of startling people, by setting their own secret little motives suddenly before them, 'Are not these rooms beautiful?' 'Beautiful!--Certainly.' The beauty of the rooms would have answered Lady Catharine's purpose for some time, had not Lady Anne imprudently brought the conversation back again to Miss Broadhurst. 'Do you know, Miss Broadhurst,' said she, 'that if I had fifty sore throats, I could not have refrained from my diamonds on this GALA night; and such diamonds as you have! Now, really, I could not believe you to be the same person we saw blazing at the opera the other night!' 'Really! could not you, Lady Anne? That is the very thing that entertains me. I only wish that I could lay aside my fortune sometimes, as well as my diamonds, and see how few people would know me then. Might not I, Grace, by the golden rule, which, next to practice, is the best rule in the world, calculate and answer that question?' 'I am persuaded,' said Lord Colambre, 'that Miss Broadhurst has friends on whom the experiment would make no difference.' 'I am convinced of it,' said Miss Broadhurst; 'and that is what makes me tolerably happy, though I have the misfortune to be an heiress.' 'That is the oddest speech,' said Lady Anne. 'Now I should so like to be a great heiress, and to have, like you, such thousands and thousands at command.' 'And what can the thousands upon thousands do for me? Hearts, you know, Lady Anne, are to be won only by radiant eyes. Bought hearts your ladyship certainly would not recommend. They're such poor things--no wear at all. Turn them which way you will, you can make nothing of them.' 'You've tried then, have you?' said Lady Catharine. 'To my cost. Very nearly taken in by them half a dozen times; for they are brought to me by dozens; and they are so made up for sale, and the people do so swear to you that it's real, real love, and it looks so like it; and, if you stoop to examine it, you hear it pressed upon you by such elegant oaths--By all that's lovely!--By all my hopes of happiness!--By your own charming self! Why, what can one do but look like a fool, and believe; for these men, at the time, all look so like gentlemen, that one cannot bring oneself flatly to tell them that they are cheats and swindlers, that they are perjuring their precious souls. Besides, to call a lover a perjured creature is to encourage him. He would have a right to complain if you went back after that.' 'Oh dear! what a move was there!' cried Lady Catharine. 'Miss Broadhurst is so entertaining to-night, notwithstanding her sore throat, that one can positively attend to nothing else. And she talks of love and lovers too with such CONNAISSANCE DE FAIT--counts her lovers by dozens, tied up in true-lovers' knots!' 'Lovers!--no, no! Did I say lovers?--suitors I should have said. There's nothing less like a lover, a true lover, than a suitor, as all the world knows, ever since the days of Penelope. Dozens!--never had a lover in my life! And fear, with much reason, I never shall have one to my mind.' 'My lord, you've given up the game,' cried Lady Catharine; 'but you make no battle.' 'It would be so vain to combat against your ladyship,' said Lord Colambre, rising, and bowing politely to Lady Catharine, but turning the next instant to converse with Miss Broadhurst. But when I talked of liking to be an heiress,' said Lady Anne, 'I was not thinking of lovers.' 'Certainly. One is not always thinking of lovers, you know,' added Lady Catharine. 'Not always,' replied Miss Broadhurst. 'Well, lovers out of the question on all sides, what would your ladyship buy with the thousands upon thousands?' 'Oh, everything, if I were you,' said Lady Anne. 'Rank, to begin with,' said Lady Catharine. 'Still my old objection--bought rank is but a shabby thing.' 'But there is so little difference made between bought and hereditary rank in these days,' said Lady Catharine. 'I see a great deal still,' said Miss Broadhurst; 'so much, that I would never buy a title.' 'A title without birth, to be sure,' said Lady Anne, 'would not be so well worth buying; and as birth certainly is not to be bought--' 'And even birth, were it to be bought, I would not buy,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'unless I could be sure to have with it all the politeness, all the noble sentiments, all the magnanimity--in short, all that should grace and dignify high birth.' 'Admirable!' said Lord Colambre. Grace Nugent smiled. 'Lord Colambre, will you have the goodness to put my mother in mind I must go away?' 'I am bound to obey, but I am very sorry for it,' said his lordship. 'Are we to have any dancing to-night, I wonder?' said Lady Catharine. 'Miss Nugent, I am afraid we have made Miss Broadhurst talk so much, in spite of her hoarseness, that Lady Clonbrony will be quite angry with us. And here she comes!' My Lady Clonbrony came to hope, to beg, that Miss Broadhurst would not think of running away; but Miss Broadhurst could not be prevailed upon to stay. Lady Clonbrony was delighted to see that her son assisted Grace Nugent most carefully in SHAWLING Miss Broadhurst; his lordship conducted her to her carriage, and his mother drew many happy auguries from the gallantry of his manner, and from the young lady's having stayed three-quarters, instead of half an hour--a circumstance which Lady Catharine did not fail to remark. The dancing, which, under various pretences, Lady Clonbrony had delayed till Lord Colambre was at liberty, began immediately after Miss Broadhurst's departure; and the chalked mosaic pavement of the Alhambra was, in a few minutes, effaced by the dancers' feet. How transient are all human joys, especially those of vanity! Even on this long meditated, this long desired, this gala night, Lady Clonbrony found her triumph incomplete--inadequate to her expectations. For the first hour all had been compliment, success, and smiles; presently came the BUTS, and the hesitated objections, and the 'damning with faint praise.' All THAT could be borne. Everybody has his taste--and one person's taste is as good as another's; and while she had Mr. Soho to cite, Lady Clonbrony thought she might be well satisfied. But she could not be satisfied with Colonel Heathcock, who, dressed in black, had stretched his 'fashionable length of limb' under the statira canopy upon the snow-white swan-down couch. When, after having monopolised attention, and been the subject of much bad wit, about black swans and rare birds, and swans being geese and geese being swans, the colonel condescended to rise, and, as Mrs. Dareville said, to vacate his couch, that couch was no longer white--the black impression of the colonel remained on the sullied snow. 'Eh, now! really didn't recollect I was in black,' was all the apology he made. Lady Clonbrony was particularly vexed that the appearance of the statira, canopy should be spoiled before the effect had been seen by Lady Pococke, and Lady Chatterton, and Lady G--, Lady P--, and the Duke of V--, and a party of superlative fashionables, who had promised TO LOOK IN UPON HER, but who, late as it was, had not yet arrived. They came in at last. But Lady Clonbrony had no reason to regret for their sake the statira couch. It would have been lost upon them, as was everything else which she had prepared with so much pains and cost to excite their admiration, They came resolute not to admire. Skilled in the art of making others unhappy, they just looked round with an air of apathy. 'Ah! you've had Soho!--Soho has done wonders for you here! Vastly well!--Vastly well!--Soho's very clever in his way!' Others of great importance came in, full of some slight accident that had happened to themselves, or their horses, or their carriages; and, with privileged selfishness, engrossed the attention of all within their sphere of conversation. Well, Lady Clonbrony got over all this, and got over the history of a letter about a chimney that was on fire, a week ago, at the Duke of V's old house, in Brecknockshire. In gratitude for the smiling patience with which she listened to him, his Grace of V--fixed his glass to look at the Alhambra, and had just pronounced it to be 'Well!--very well!' when the Dowager Lady Chatterton made a terrible discovery--a discovery that filled Lady Clonbrony with astonishment and indignation--Mr. Soho had played her false! What was her mortification when the dowager assured her that these identical Alhambra hangings had not only been shown by Mr. Soho to the Duchess of Torcaster, but that her grace had had the refusal of them, and had actually rejected them, in consequence of Sir Horace Grant the great traveller's objecting to some of the proportions of the pillars. Soho had engaged to make a new set, vastly improved, by Sir Horace's suggestions, for her Grace of Torcaster. Now Lady Chatterton was the greatest talker extant; and she went about the rooms telling everybody of her acquaintance--and she was acquainted with everybody--how shamefully Soho had imposed upon poor Lady Clonbrony, protesting she could not forgive the man. 'For,' said she,' though the Duchess of Torcaster has been his constant customer for ages, and his patroness, and all that, yet this does not excuse him and Lady Clonbrony's being a stranger, and from Ireland, makes the thing worse.' From Ireland!--that was the unkindest cut of all but there was no remedy. In vain poor Lady Clonbrony followed the dowager about the rooms, to correct this mistake, and to represent, in justice to Mr. Soho, though he had used her so ill, that he knew she was an Englishwoman, The dowager was deaf, and no whisper could reach her ear. And when Lady Clonbrony was obliged to bawl an explanation in her car, the dowager only repeated-- 'In justice to Mr. Soho!--No, no; he has not done you justice, my dear Lady Clonbrony! and I'll expose him to everybody. Englishwoman--no, no, no!--Soho could not take you for an Englishwoman!' All who secretly envied or ridiculed Lady Clonbrony enjoyed this scene. The Alhambra hangings, which had been, in one short hour before, the admiration of the world, were now regarded by every eye with contempt, as CAST hangings, and every tongue was busy declaiming against Mr. Soho; everybody declared that, from the first, the want of proportion had 'struck them, but that they would not mention it till others found it out.' People usually revenge themselves for having admired too much, by afterwards despising and depreciating without mercy--in all great assemblies the perception of ridicule is quickly caught, and quickly too revealed. Lady Clonbrony, even in her own house, on her gala night, became an object of ridicule--decently masked, indeed, under the appearance of condolence with her ladyship, and of indignation against 'that abominable Mr. Soho!' Lady Langdale, who was now, for reasons of her own, upon her good behaviour, did penance, as she said, for her former imprudence, by abstaining even from whispered sarcasms. She looked on with penitential gravity, said nothing herself, and endeavoured to keep Mrs. Dareville in order; but that was no easy task. Mrs. Dareville had no daughters, had nothing to gain from the acquaintance of my Lady Clonbrony; and, conscious that her ladyship would bear a vast deal from her presence, rather than forego the honour of her sanction, Mrs. Dareville, without any motives of interest, or good-nature of sufficient power to restrain her talent and habit of ridicule, free from hope or fear, gave full scope to all the malice of mockery, and all the insolence of fashion. Her slings and arrows, numerous as they were and outrageous, were directed against such petty objects, and the mischief was so quick, in its aim and its operation, that, felt but not seen, it is scarcely possible to register the hits, or to describe the nature of the wounds. Some hits sufficiently palpable, however, were recorded for the advantage of posterity. When Lady Clonbrony led her to look at the Chinese pagoda, the lady paused, with her foot on the threshold, as if afraid to enter this porcelain Elysium, as she called it--Fool's Paradise, she would have said; and, by her hesitation, and by the half-pronounced word, suggested the idea--'None but belles without petticoats can enter here,' said she, drawing her clothes tight round her; 'fortunately, I have but two, and Lady Langdale has but one.' Prevailed upon to venture in, she walked on with prodigious care and trepidation, affecting to be alarmed at the crowd of strange forms and monsters by which she was surrounded. 'Not a creature here that I ever saw before in nature! Well, now I may boast I've been in a real Chinese pagoda!' 'Why yes, everything is appropriate here, I flatter myself,' said Lady Clonbrony. 'And how good of you, my dear Lady Clonbrony, in defiance of bulls and blunders, to allow us a comfortable English fireplace and plenty of Newcastle coal, in China!--And a white marble--no! white velvet hearthrug, painted with beautiful flowers--oh, the delicate, the USEFUL thing!' Vexed by the emphasis on the word USEFUL, Lady Clonbrony endeavoured to turn off the attention of the company. 'Lady Langdale, your ladyship's a judge of china--this vase is an unique, I am told.' 'I am told,' interrupted Mrs. Dareville, 'this is the very vase in which B--, the nabob's father, who was, you know, a China captain, smuggled his dear little Chinese wife and all her fortune out of Canton--positively, actually put the lid on, packed her up, and sent her off on shipboard!--True! true! upon my veracity! I'll tell you my authority!' With this story Mrs. Dareville drew all attention from the jar, to Lady Clonbrony's infinite mortification. Lady Langdale at length turned to look at a vast range of china jars. 'Ali Baba and the forty thieves!' exclaimed Mrs. Dareville; 'I hope you have boiling oil ready!' Lady Clonbrony was obliged to laugh, and to vow that Mrs. Dareville was uncommon pleasant to-night. 'But now,' said her ladyship, 'let me take you on to the Turkish tent.' Having with great difficulty got the malicious wit out of the pagoda and into the Turkish tent, Lady Clonbrony began to breathe more freely; for here she thought she was upon safe ground: 'Everything, I flatter myself' said she, 'is correct and appropriate, and quite picturesque.' The company, dispersed in happy groups, or reposing on seraglio ottomans, drinking lemonade and sherbet, beautiful Fatimas admiring, or being admired--'Everything here quite correct, appropriate, and picturesque,' repeated Mrs. Dareville. This lady's powers as a mimic were extraordinary, and she found them irresistible. Hitherto she had imitated Lady Clonbrony's air and accent only behind her back; but, bolder grown, she now ventured, in spite of Lady Langdale's warning pinches, to mimic her kind hostess before her face, and to her face. Now, whenever Lady Clonbrony saw anything that struck her fancy in the dress of her fashionable friends, she had a way of hanging her head aside, and saying, with a peculiar sentimental drawl-- 'How pretty!--how elegant! Now that quite suits my TEESTE! This phrase, precisely in the same accent, and with the head set to the same angle of affectation, Mrs. Dareville had the assurance to address to her ladyship, apropos to something which she pretended to admire in Lady Clonbrony's COSTUME--a costume which, excessively fashionable in each of its parts, was, all together, so extraordinarily unbecoming as to be fit for a print-shop. The perception of this, added to the effect of Mrs. Dareville's mimicry, was almost too much for Lady Langdale; she could not possibly have stood it, but for the appearance of Miss Nugent at this instant behind Lady Clonbrony. Grace gave one glance of indignation which seemed suddenly to strike Mrs. Dareville. Silence for a moment ensued, and afterwards the tone of the conversation was changed. 'Salisbury!--explain this to me,' said a lady, drawing Mr. Salisbury aside. 'If you are in the secret, do explain this to me; for unless I had seen it, I could not have believed it. Nay, though I have seen it, I do not believe it. How was that daring spirit laid? By what spell?' 'By the spell which superior minds always cast on inferior spirits.' 'Very fine,' said the lady, laughing, 'but as old as the days of Leonora de Galigai, quoted a million times. Now tell me something new and to the purpose, and better suited to modern days.' 'Well, then, since you will not allow me to talk of superior minds in the present days, let me ask you if you have never observed that a wit, once conquered in company by a wit of a higher order, is thenceforward in complete subjection to the conqueror, whenever and wherever they meet.' 'You would not persuade me that yonder gentle-looking girl could ever be a match for the veteran Mrs. Dareville? She may have the wit, but has she the courage?' 'Yes; no one has more courage, more civil courage, where her own dignity, or the interests of her friends are concerned. I will tell you an instance or two to-morrow.' 'To-morrow!--To-night!--tell it me now.' 'Not a safe place.' 'The safest in the world, in such a crowd as this. Follow my example. Take a glass of orgeat--sip from time to time, thus--speak low, looking innocent all the while straight forward, or now and then up at the lamps--keep on in an even tone--use no names--and you may tell anything.' 'Well, then, when Miss Nugent first came to London, Lady Langdale--' 'Two names already--did not I warn ye?' 'But how can I make myself intelligible?' 'Initials--can't you use--or genealogy? What stops you? 'It is only Lord Colambre, a very safe person, I have a notion, when the eulogium is of Grace Nugent.' Lord Colambre, who had now performed his arduous duties as a dancer, and had disembarrassed himself of all his partners, came into the Turkish tent just at this moment to refresh himself, and just in time to hear Mr. Salisbury's anecdotes. 'Now go on.' 'Lady Langdale, you know, sets an inordinate value upon her curtsies in public, and she used to treat Miss Nugent, as her ladyship treats many other people, sometimes noticing, and sometimes pretending not to know her, according to the company she happened to be with. One day they met in some fine company--Lady Langdale looked as if she was afraid of committing herself by a curtsy. Miss Nugent waited for a good opportunity; and, when all the world was silent, leant forward, and called to Lady Langdale, as if she had something to communicate of the greatest consequence, skreening her whisper with her hand, as in an aside on the stage,--'Lady Langdale, you may curtsy to me now--nobody is looking.' 'The retort courteous!' said Lord Colambre--'the only retort for a woman.' 'And her ladyship deserved it so well. But Mrs. Dareville, what happened about her?' 'Mrs. Dareville, you remember, some years ago, went to Ireland with some lady-lieutenant to whom she was related. There she was most hospitably received by Lord and Lady Clonbrony--went to their country house--was as intimate with Lady Clonbrony and with Miss Nugent as possible--stayed at Clonbrony Castle for a month; and yet, when Lady Clonbrony came to London, never took the least notice of her. At last, meeting at the house of a common friend, Mrs. Dareville could not avoid recognising her ladyship; but, even then, did it in the least civil manner and most cursory style possible. 'Ho! Lady Clonbrony!--didn't know you were in England!--When did you come?--How long shall you stay in town!--Hope, before you leave England, your Ladyship and Miss Nugent will give us a day?' A DAY!--Lady Clonbrony was so astonished by this impudence of ingratitude, that she hesitated how to TAKE IT; but Miss Nugent, quite coolly, and with a smile, answered, 'A DAY!--certainly--to you, who gave us a month!' 'Admirable! Now comprehend perfectly why Mrs. Dareville declines insulting Miss Nugent's friends in her presence.' Lord Colambre said nothing, but thought much. 'How I wish my mother,' thought he, 'had some of Grace Nugent's proper pride! She would not then waste her fortune, spirits, health, and life, in courting such people as these.' He had not seen--he could not have borne to have beheld--the manner in which his mother had been treated by some of her guests; but he observed that she now looked harassed and vexed; and he was provoked and mortified by hearing her begging and beseeching some of these saucy leaders of the ton to oblige her, to do her the favour, to do her the honour, to stay to supper. It was just ready--actually announced. 'No, they would not--they could not; they were obliged to run away--engaged to the Duchess of Torcaster.' 'Lord Colambre, what is the matter?' said Miss Nugent, going up to him, as he stood aloof and indignant: 'Don't look so like a chafed lion; others may perhaps read your countenance as well as I do.' 'None can read my mind so well,' replied he. 'Oh, my dear Grace!' 'Supper!--supper!' cried she; 'your duty to your neighbour, your hand to your partner.' Lady Catharine, as they went downstairs to supper, observed that Miss Nugent had not been dancing, that she had kept quite in the background all night--quite in the shade. 'Those,' said Lord Colambre, 'who are contented in the shade are the best able to bear the light; and I am not surprised that one so interesting in the background should not desire to be the foremost figure in a piece.' The supper room, fitted up at great expense, with scenery to imitate Vauxhall, opened into a superb greenhouse, lighted with coloured lamps, a band of music at a distance--every delicacy, every luxury that could gratify the senses, appeared in profusion. The company ate and drank--enjoyed themselves--went away--and laughed at their hostess. Some, indeed, who thought they had been neglected, were in too bad humour to laugh, but abused her in sober earnest; for Lady Clonbrony had offended half, nay, three-quarters of her guests, by what they termed her exclusive attention to those very leaders of the ton, from whom she had suffered so much, and who had made it obvious to all that they thought they did her too much honour in appearing at her gala. So ended the gala for which she had lavished such sums; for which she had laboured so indefatigably; and from which she had expected such triumph. 'Colambre, bid the musicians stop; they are playing to empty benches,' said Lady Clonbrony. 'Grace, my dear, will you see that these lamps are safely put out? I am so tired, so WORN OUT, I must go to bed; and I am sure I have caught cold too! What a NERVOUS BUSINESS it is to manage these things! I wonder how one gets through it, or WHY one does it!' CHAPTER IV Lady Clonbrony was taken ill the day after her gala; she had caught cold by standing, when much overheated, in a violent draught of wind, paying her parting compliments to the Duke of V--, who thought her a bore, and wished her in heaven all the time for keeping his horses standing. Her ladyship's illness was severe and long; she was confined to her room for some weeks by a rheumatic fever, and an inflammation in her eyes. Every day, when Lord Colambre went to see his mother, he found Miss Nugent in her apartment, and every hour he found fresh reason to admire this charming girl. The affectionate tenderness, the indefatigable patience, the strong attachment she showed for her aunt, actually raised Lady Clonbrony in her son's opinion. He was persuaded she must surely have some good or great qualities, or she could not have excited such strong affection. A few foibles out of the question, such as her love of fine people, her affectation of being English, and other affectations too tedious to mention, Lady Clonbrony was really a good woman, had good principles, moral and religious, and, selfishness not immediately interfering, she was good-natured; and though her soul and attention were so completely absorbed in the duties of acquaintanceship that she did not know it, she really had affections--they were concentrated upon a few near relations. She was extremely fond and extremely proud of her son. Next to her son, she was fonder of her niece than of any other creature. She had received Grace Nugent into her family when she was left an orphan, and deserted by some of her other relations. She had bred her up, and had treated her with constant kindness. This kindness and these obligations had raised the warmest gratitude in Miss Nugent's heart; and it was the strong principle of gratitude which rendered her capable of endurance and exertions seemingly far above her strength. This young lady was not of a robust appearance, though she now underwent extraordinary fatigue. Her aunt could scarcely bear that she should leave her for a moment: she could not close her eyes unless Grace sat up with her many hours every night. Night after night she bore this fatigue; and yet, with little sleep or rest, she preserved her health, at least supported her spirits; and every morning, when Lord Colambre came into his mother's room, he saw Miss Nugent look as blooming as if she had enjoyed the most refreshing sleep. The bloom was, as he observed, not permanent; it came and went, with every emotion of her feeling heart; and he soon learned to fancy her almost as handsome when she was pale as when she had a colour. He had thought her beautiful when he beheld her in all the radiance of light, and with all the advantages of dress at the gala, but he found her infinitely more lovely and interesting now, when he saw her in a sick-room--a half-darkened chamber--where often he could but just discern her form, or distinguish her, except by her graceful motion as she passed, or when, but for a moment, a window-curtain drawn aside let the sun shine upon her face, or on the unadorned ringlets of her hair. Much must be allowed for an inflammation in the eyes, and something for a rheumatic fever; yet it may seem strange that Lady Clonbrony should be so blind and deaf as neither to see nor hear all this time; that, having lived so long in the world, it should never occur to her that it was rather imprudent to have a young lady, not eighteen, nursing her--and such a young lady!--when her son, not one-and-twenty--and such a son!--came to visit her daily. But, so it was. Lady Clonbrony knew nothing of love--she had read of it, indeed, in novels, which sometimes for fashion's sake she had looked at, and over which she had been obliged to doze; but this was only love in books--love in real life she had never met with--in the life she led, how should she? She had heard of its making young people, and old people even, do foolish things; but those were foolish people; and if they were worse than foolish, why it was shocking, and nobody visited them. But Lady Clonbrony had not, for her own part, the slightest, notion how people could be brought to this pass, nor how anybody out of Bedlam could prefer to a good house, a decent equipage, and a proper establishment, what is called love in a cottage. As to Colambre, she had too good an opinion of his understanding--to say nothing of his duty to his family, his pride, his rank, and his being her son--to let such an idea cross her imagination. As to her niece; in the first place, she was her niece, and first cousins should never marry, because they form no new connexions to strengthen the family interest, or raise its consequence. This doctrine her ladyship had repeated for years so often and so dogmatically, that she conceived it to be incontrovertible, and of as full force as any law of the land, or as any moral or religious obligation. She would as soon have suspected her niece of an intention of stealing her diamond necklace as of purloining Colambre's heart, or marrying this heir of the house of Clonbrony. Miss Nugent was so well apprised, and so thoroughly convinced of all this, that she never for one moment allowed herself to think of Lord Colambre as a lover. Duty, honour, and gratitude--gratitude, the strong feeling and principle of her mind--forbade it; she had so prepared and habituated herself to consider him as a person with whom she could not possibly be united that, with perfect ease and simplicity, she behaved towards him exactly as if he was her brother--not in the equivocating sentimental romance style in which ladies talk of treating men as their brothers, whom they are all the time secretly thinking of and endeavouring to please as lovers--not using this phrase as a convenient pretence, a safe mode of securing herself from suspicion or scandal, and of enjoying the advantages of confidence and the intimacy of friendship, till the propitious moment, when it should be time to declare or avow THE SECRET OF THE HEART. No; this young lady was quite above all double-dealing; she had no mental reservation--no metaphysical subtleties--but, with plain, unsophisticated morality, in good faith and simple truth, acted as she professed, thought what she said, and was that which she seemed to be. As soon as Lady Clonbrony was able to see anybody, her niece sent to Mrs. Broadhurst, who was very intimate with the family; she used to come frequently, almost every evening, to sit with the invalid. Miss Broadhurst accompanied her mother, for she did not like to go out with any other chaperon--it was disagreeable to spend her time alone at home, and most agreeable to spend it with her friend Miss Nugent. In this she had no design, no coquetry; Miss Broadhurst had too lofty and independent a spirit to stoop to coquetry: she thought that, in their interview at the gala, she understood Lord Colambre, and that he understood her--that he was not inclined to court her for her fortune--that she would not be content with any suitor who was not a lover. She was two or three years older than Lord Colambre, perfectly aware of her want of beauty, yet with a just sense of her own merit, and of what was becoming and due to the dignity of her sex. This, she trusted, was visible in her manners, and established in Lord Colambre's mind; so that she ran no risk of being misunderstood by him; and as to what the rest of the world thought, she was so well used to hear weekly and daily reports of her going to be married to fifty different people, that she cared little for what was said on this subject. Indeed, conscious of rectitude, and with an utter contempt for mean and commonplace gossiping, she was, for a woman, and a young woman, rather too disdainful of the opinion of the world. Mrs. Broadhurst, though her daughter had fully explained herself respecting Lord Colambre, before she began this course of visiting, yet rejoiced that, even on this footing, there should be constant intercourse between them. It was Mrs. Broadhurst's warmest wish that her daughter should obtain rank, and connect herself with an ancient family: she was sensible that the young lady's being older than the gentleman might be an obstacle; and very sorry she was to find that her daughter had so imprudently, so unnecessarily, declared her age; but still this little obstacle might be overcome; much greater difficulties in the marriage of inferior heiresses were every day got over, and thought nothing of. Then, as to the young lady's own sentiments, her mother knew them better than she did herself; she understood her daughter's pride, that she dreaded to be made an object of bargain and sale; but Mrs. Broadhurst, who, with all her coarseness of mind, had rather a better notion of love matters than Lady Clonbrony, perceived, through her daughter's horror of being offered to Lord Colambre, through her anxiety that nothing approaching to an advance on the part of her family should be made, that if Lord Colambre should himself advance, he would stand a better chance of being accepted than any other of the numerous persons who had yet aspired to the favour of this heiress. The very circumstance of his having paid no court to her at first, operated in his favour; for it proved that he was not mercenary, and that, whatever attention he might afterwards show, she must be sure would be sincere and disinterested. 'And now, let them but see one another in this easy, intimate kind of way, and you will find, my dear Lady Clonbrony, things will go on of their own accord, all the better for our--minding our cards--and never minding anything else. I remember, when I was young--but let that pass--let the young people see one another, and manage their own affairs their own way--let them be together--that's all I say. Ask half the men you are acquainted with why they married, and their answer, if they speak truth, will be: "Because I met Miss such-a-one at such a place, and we were continually together." Propinquity! propinquity!--as my father used to say--and he was married five times, and twice to heiresses.' In consequence of this plan of leaving things to themselves, every evening Lady Clonbrony made out her own little card-table with Mrs. Broadhurst, and a Mr. and Miss Pratt, a brother and sister, who were the most obliging, convenient neighbours imaginable. From time to time, as Lady Clonbrony gathered up her cards, she would direct an inquiring glance to the group of young people at the other table; whilst the more prudent Mrs. Broadhurst sat plump with her back to them, pursing up her lips, and contracting her brows in token of deep calculation, looking down impenetrable at her cards, never even noticing Lady Clonbrony's glances, but inquiring from her partner, 'How many they were by honours?' The young party generally consisted of Miss Broadhurst, Lord Colambre, Miss Nugent, and her admirer, Mr. Salisbury. Mr. Salisbury was a middle-aged gentleman, very agreeable, and well informed; he had travelled; had seen a great deal of the world; had lived in the best company; had acquired what is called good TACT; was full of anecdote, not mere gossiping anecdotes that lead to nothing, but anecdotes characteristic of national manners, of human nature in general, or of those illustrious individuals who excite public curiosity and interest. Miss Nugent had seen him always in large companies, where he was admired for his SCAVOIR-VIVRE, and for his entertaining anecdotes, but where he had no opportunity of producing any of the higher powers of his understanding, or showing character. She found that Mr. Salisbury appeared to her quite a different person when conversing with Lord Colambre. Lord Colambre, with that ardent thirst for knowledge which it is always agreeable to gratify, had an air of openness and generosity, a frankness, a warmth of manner, which, with good breeding, but with something beyond it and superior to its established forms, irresistibly won the confidence and attracted the affection of those with whom he conversed. His manners were peculiarly agreeable to a person like Mr. Salisbury, tired of the sameness and egotism of men of the world. Miss Nugent had seldom till now had the advantage of hearing much conversation on literary subjects. In the life she had been compelled to lead she had acquired accomplishments, had exercised her understanding upon everything that passed before her, and from circumstances had formed her judgment and her taste by observations on real life; but the ample page of knowledge had never been unrolled to her eyes. She had never had opportunities of acquiring literature herself, but she admired it in others, particularly in her friend Miss Broadhurst. Miss Broadhurst had received all the advantages of education which money could procure, and had profited by them in a manner uncommon among those for whom they are purchased in such abundance; she not only had had many masters, and read many books, but had thought of what she read, and had supplied, by the strength and energy of her own mind, what cannot be acquired by the assistance of masters. Miss Nugent, perhaps overvaluing the information that she did not possess, and free from all idea of envy, looked up to her friend as to a superior being, with a sort of enthusiastic admiration; and now, with 'charmed attention,' listened, by turns, to her, to Mr. Salisbury, and to Lord Colambre, whilst they conversed on literary subjects--listened, with a countenance so full of intelligence, of animation so expressive of every good and kind affection, that the gentlemen did not always know what they were saying. 'Pray go on,' said she, once, to Mr. Salisbury; 'you stop, perhaps, from politeness to me--from compassion to my ignorance; but, though I am ignorant, you do not tire me, I assure you. Did you ever condescend to read the Arabian tales? Like him whose eyes were touched by the magical application from the dervise, I am enabled at once to see the riches of a new world--Oh! how unlike, how superior to that in which I have lived!--the GREAT world, as it is called.' Lord Colambre brought down a beautiful edition of the Arabian tales, looked for the story to which Miss Nugent had alluded, and showed it to Miss Broadhurst, who was also searching for it in another volume. Lady Clonbrony, from her card-table, saw the young people thus engaged. 'I profess not to understand these things so well as you say you do, my dear Mrs. Broadhurst,' whispered she; 'but look there now; they are at their books! What do you expect can come of that sort of thing? So ill-bred, and downright rude of Colambre, I must give him a hint.' 'No, no, for mercy's sake! my dear Lady Clonbrony, no hints, no hints, no remarks! What would you have!--she reading, and my lord at the back of her chair, leaning over--and allowed, mind, to lean over to read the same thing. Can't be better! Never saw any man yet allowed to come so near her! Now, Lady Clonbrony, not a word, not a look, I beseech.' 'Well, well!--but if they had a little music.' 'My daughter's tired of music. How much do I owe your ladyship now?--three rubbers, I think. Now, though you would not believe it of a young girl,' continued Mrs. Broadhurst, 'I can assure your ladyship, my daughter would often rather go to a book than a ball.' 'Well, now, that's very extraordinary, in the style in which she has been brought up; yet books and all that are so fashionable now, that it's very natural,' said Lady Clonbrony. About this time, Mr. Berryl, Lord Colambre's Cambridge friend, for whom his lordship had fought the battle of the curricle with Mordicai, came to town. Lord Colambre introduced him to his mother, by whom he was graciously received; for Mr. Berryl was a young gentleman of good figure, good address, good family, heir to a good fortune, and in every respect a fit match for Miss Nugent. Lady Clonbrony thought that it would be wise to secure him for her niece before he should make his appearance in the London world, where mothers and daughters would soon make him feel his own consequence. Mr. Berryl, as Lord Colambre's intimate friend, was admitted to the private evening parties at Lady Clonbrony's, and he contributed to render them still more agreeable. His information, his habits of thinking, and his views, were all totally different from Mr. Salisbury's; and their collision continually struck out that sparkling novelty which pleases peculiarly in conversation. Mr. Berryl's education, disposition, and tastes, fitted him exactly for the station which he was destined to fill in society--that of a COUNTRY GENTLEMAN; not meaning by that expression a mere eating, drinking, hunting, shooting, ignorant country squire of the old race, which is now nearly extinct; but a cultivated, enlightened, independent English country gentleman--the happiest, perhaps, of human beings. On the comparative felicity of the town and country life; on the dignity, utility, elegance, and interesting nature of their different occupations, and general scheme of passing their time, Mr. Berryl and Mr. Salisbury had one evening a playful, entertaining, and, perhaps, instructive conversation; each party, at the end, remaining, as frequently happens, of their own opinion. It was observed that Miss Broadhurst ably and warmly defended Mr. Berryl's side of the question; and in their views, plans, and estimates of life, there appeared a remarkable, and as Lord Colambre thought, a happy coincidence. When she was at last called upon to give her decisive judgment between a town and a country life, she declared that 'if she were condemned to the extremes of either, she should prefer a country life, as much as she should prefer Robinson Crusoe's diary to the journal of the idle man in the SPECTATOR.' 'Lord bless me! Mrs. Broadhurst, do you hear what your daughter is saying?' cried Lady Clonbrony, who, from the card-table, lent an attentive ear to all that was going forward. 'Is it possible that Miss Broadhurst, with her fortune, and pretensions, and sense, can really be serious in saying she would be content to live in the country?' 'What's that you say, child, about living in the country?' said Mrs. Broadhurst. Miss Broadhurst repeated what she had said. 'Girls always think so who have lived in town,' said Mrs. Broadhurst. 'They are always dreaming of sheep and sheephooks; but the first winter the country cures them; a shepherdess, in winter, is a sad and sorry sort of personage, except at a masquerade.' 'Colambre,' said Lady Clonbrony, 'I am sure Miss Broadhurst's sentiments about town life, and all that, must delight you; for do you know, ma'am, he is always trying to persuade me to give up living in town? Colambre and Miss Broadhurst perfectly agree.' 'Mind your cards, my dear Lady Clonbrony,' interrupted Mrs. Broadhurst, 'in pity to your partner. Mr. Pratt has certainly the patience of Job--your ladyship has revoked twice this hand.' Lady Clonbrony begged a thousand pardons, fixed her eyes and endeavoured to fix her mind on the cards; but there was something said at the other end of the room, about an estate in Cambridgeshire, which soon distracted her attention again. Mr. Pratt certainly had the patience of Job. She revoked, and lost the game, though they had four by honours. As soon as she rose from the card-table, and could speak to Mrs. Broadhurst apart, she communicated her apprehensions. 'Seriously, my dear madam,' said she, 'I believe I have done very wrong to admit Mr. Berryl just now, though it was on Grace's account I did it. But, ma'am, I did not know Miss Broadhurst had an estate in Cambridgeshire; their two estates just close to one another, I heard them say. Lord bless me, ma'am! there's the danger of propinquity indeed!' 'No danger, no danger,' persisted Mrs. Broadhurst. 'I know my girl better than you do, begging your ladyship's pardon. No one thinks less of estates than she does.' 'Well, I only know I heard her talking of them, and earnestly too.' 'Yes, very likely; but don't you know that girls never think of what they are talking about, or rather never talk of what they are thinking about? And they have always ten times more to say to the man they don't care for, than to him they do.' 'Very extraordinary!' said Lady Clonbrony. 'I only hope you are right.' 'I am sure of it,' said Mrs. Broadhurst. 'Only let things go on, and mind your cards, I beseech you, to-morrow night better than you did to-night; and you will see that things will turn out just as I prophesied. Lord Colambre will come to a point-blank proposal before the end of the week, and will be accepted, or my name's not Broadhurst. Why, in plain English, I am clear my girl likes him; and when that's the case, you know, can you doubt how the thing will end?' Mrs. Broadhurst was perfectly right in every point of her reasoning but one. From long habit of seeing and considering that such an heiress as her daughter might marry whom she pleased--from constantly seeing that she was the person to decide and to reject--Mrs. Broadhurst had literally taken it for granted that everything was to depend upon her daughter's inclinations: she was not mistaken, in the present case, in opining that the young lady would not be averse to Lord Colambre, if he came to what she called a point-blank proposal. It really never occurred to Mrs. Broadhurst that any man, whom her daughter was the least inclined to favour, could think of anybody else. Quick-sighted in these affairs as the matron thought herself, she saw but one side of the question: blind and dull of comprehension as she thought Lady Clonbrony on this subject, she was herself so completely blinded by her own prejudices, as to be incapable of discerning the plain thing that was before her eyes; VIDELICET, that Lord Colambre preferred Grace Nugent. Lord Colambre made no proposal before the end of the week, but this Mrs. Broadhurst attributed to an unexpected occurrence, which prevented things from going on in the train in which they had been proceeding so smoothly. Sir John Berryl, Mr. Berryl's father, was suddenly seized with a dangerous illness. The news was brought to Mr. Berryl one evening whilst he was at Lady Clonbrony's. The circumstances of domestic distress, which afterwards occurred in the family of his friend, entirely occupied Lord Colambre's time and attention. All thoughts of love were suspended, and his whole mind was given up to the active services of friendship. The sudden illness of Sir John Berryl spread an alarm among his creditors which brought to light at once the disorder of his affairs, of which his son had no knowledge or suspicion. Lady Berryl had been a very expensive woman, especially in equipages; and Mordicai, the coachmaker, appeared at this time the foremost and the most inexorable of their creditors. Conscious that the charges in his account were exorbitant, and that they would not be allowed if examined by a court of justice; that it was a debt which only ignorance and extravagance could have in the first instance incurred, swelled afterwards to an amazing amount by interest, and interest upon interest; Mordicai was impatient to obtain payment whilst Sir John yet lived, or at least to obtain legal security for the whole sum from the heir. Mr. Berryl offered his bond for the amount of the reasonable charges in his account; but this Mordicai absolutely refused, declaring that now he had the power in his own hands, he would use it to obtain the utmost penny of his debt; that he would not let the thing slip through his fingers; that a debtor never yet escaped him, and never should; that a man's lying upon his deathbed was no excuse to a creditor; that he was not a whiffler, to stand upon ceremony about disturbing a gentleman in his last moments; that he was not to be cheated out of his due by such niceties; that he was prepared to go all lengths the law would allow; for that, as to what people said of him, he did not care a doit--'Cover your face with your hands, if you like it, Mr. Berryl; you may be ashamed for me, but I feel no shame for myself--I am not so weak.' Mordicai's countenance said more than his words; livid with malice, and with atrocious determination in his eyes, he stood. 'Yes, sir,' said he, 'you may look at me as you please--it is possible I am in earnest. Consult what you'll do now, behind my back or before my face, it comes to the same thing; for nothing will do but my money or your bond, Mr. Berryl. The arrest is made on the person of your father, luckily made while the breath is still in the body. Yes--start forward to strike me, if you dare--your father, Sir John Berryl, sick or well, is my prisoner.' Lady Berryl and Mr. Berryl's sisters, in an agony of grief, rushed into the room. 'It's all useless,' cried Mordicai, turning his back upon the ladies; 'these tricks upon creditors won't do with me; I'm used to these scenes; I'm not made of such stuff as you think. Leave a gentleman in peace in his last moments. No! he ought not, nor shan't die in peace, if he don't pay his debts; and if you are all so mighty sorry, ladies, there's the gentleman you may kneel to; if tenderness is the order of the day, it's for the son to show it, not me. Ay, now, Mr. Berryl,' cried he, as Mr. Berryl took up the bond to sign it, 'you're beginning to know I'm not a fool to be trifled with. Stop your hand, if you choose it, sir--it's all the same to me; the person, or the money, I'll carry with me out of this house.' Mr. Beryl signed the bond, and threw it to him. 'There, monster!--quit the house!' 'Monster is not actionable--I wish you had called me rascal,' said Mordicai, grinning a horrible smile; and taking up the bond deliberately, returned it to Mr. Berryl. 'This paper is worth nothing to me, sir--it is not witnessed.' Mr. Berryl hastily left the room, and returned with Lord Colambre. Mordicai changed countenance and grew pale, for a moment, at sight of Lord Colambre. 'Well, my lord, since it so happens, I am not sorry that you should be witness to this paper,' said, he; 'and indeed not sorry that you should witness the whole proceeding; for I trust I shall be able to explain to you my conduct.' 'I do not come here, sir,' interrupted Lord Colambre, 'to listen to any explanations of your conduct, which I perfectly understand;--I come to witness a bond for my friend Mr. Berryl, if you think proper to extort from him such a bond.' 'I extort nothing, my lord. Mr. Berryl, it is quite a voluntary act, take notice, on your part; sign or not, witness or not, as you please, gentlemen,' said Mordicai, sticking his hands in his pockets, and recovering his look of black and fixed determination. 'Witness it, witness it, my dear lord,' said Mr. Berryl, looking at his mother and weeping sisters; 'witness it, quick!' 'Mr. Berryl must just run over his name again in your presence, my lord, with a dry pen,' said Mordicai, putting the pen into Mr. Berryl's hand. 'No, sir,' said Lord Colambre, 'my friend shall never sign it.' 'As you please, my lord--the bond or the body, before I quit this house,' said Mordicai. 'Neither, sir, shall you have; and you quit this house directly.' 'How! how!--my lord, how's this?' 'Sir, the arrest you have made is as illegal as it is inhuman.' 'Illegal, my lord!' said Mordicai, startled. 'Illegal, sir. I came into this house at the moment when your bailiff asked and was refused admittance. Afterwards, in the confusion of the family above stairs, he forced open the house door with an iron bar--I saw him--I am ready to give evidence of the fact. Now proceed at your peril.' Mordicai, without reply snatched up his hat, and walked towards the door; but Lord Colambre held the door open--the door was immediately at the head of the stairs--and Mordicai, seeing his indignant look and proud form, hesitated to pass; for he had always heard that Irishmen are 'quick in the executive part of justice.' 'Pass on, sir,' repeated Lord Colambre, with an air of ineffable contempt; 'I am a gentleman--you have nothing to fear.' Mordicai ran downstairs; Lord Colambre, before he went back into the room, waited to see Mordicai and his bailiff out of the house. When Mordicai was fairly at the bottom of the stairs, he turned, and, white with rage, looked up at Lord Colambre. 'Charity begins at home, my lord,' said he. 'Look at home--you shall pay for this,' added he, standing half-shielded by the house door, for Lord Colambre moved forward as he spoke the last words; 'and I give you this warning, because I know it will be of no use to you--Your most obedient, my lord.' The house door closed after Mordicai. 'Thank Heaven!' thought Lord Colambre, 'that I did not horsewhip that mean wretch! This warning shall be of use to me. But it is not time to think of that yet.' Lord Colambre turned from his own affairs to those of his friend, to offer all the assistance and consolation in his power. Sir John Berryl died that night. His daughters, who had lived in the highest style in London, were left totally unprovided for. His widow had mortgaged her jointure. Mr. Berryl had an estate now left to him, but without any income. He could not be so dishonest as to refuse to pay his father's just debts; he could not let his mother and sisters starve. The scene of distress to which Lord Colambre was witness in this family made a still greater impression upon him than had been made by the warning or the threats of Mordicai. The similarity between the circumstances of his friend's family and of his own struck him forcibly. All this evil had arisen from Lady Berryl's passion for living in London and at watering-places. She had made her husband an ABSENTEE--an absentee from his home, his affairs, his duties, and his estate. The sea, the Irish Channel, did not, indeed, flow between him and his estate; but it was of little importance whether the separation was effected by land or water--the consequences, the negligence, the extravagance, were the same. Of the few people of his age who are capable of profiting by the experience of others, Lord Colambre was one. 'Experience,' as an elegant writer has observed, 'is an article that may be borrowed with safety, and is often dearly bought.' CHAPTER V In the meantime, Lady Clonbrony had been occupied with thoughts very different from those which passed in the mind of her son. Though she had never completely recovered from her rheumatic pains, she had become inordinately impatient of confinement to her own house, and weary of those dull evenings at home, which had, in her son's absence, become insupportable. She told over her visiting tickets regularly twice a day, and gave to every card of invitation a heartfelt sigh. Miss Pratt alarmed her ladyship, by bringing intelligence of some parties given by persons of consequence, to which she was not invited. She feared that she should be forgotten in the world, well knowing how soon the world forgets those they do not see every day and everywhere. How miserable is the fine lady's lot who cannot forget the world, and who is forgot by the world in a moment! How much more miserable still is the condition of a would-be fine lady, working her way up in the world with care and pains! By her, every the slightest failure of attention, from persons of rank and fashion, is marked and felt with jealous anxiety, and with a sense of mortification the most acute--an invitation omitted is a matter of the most serious consequence, not only as it regards the present, but the future; for if she be not invited by Lady A, it will lower her in the eyes of Lady B, and of all the ladies of the alphabet. It will form a precedent of the most dangerous and inevitable application. If she has nine invitations, and the tenth be wanting, the nine have no power to make her happy. This was precisely Lady Clonbrony's case--there was to be a party at Lady St. James's, for which Lady Clonbrony had no card. 'So ungrateful, so monstrous, of Lady St. James!--What! was the gala so soon forgotten, and all the marked attentions paid that night to Lady St. James!--attentions, you know, Pratt, which were looked upon with a jealous eye, and made me enemies enough, I am told, in another quarter! Of all people, I did not expect to be slighted by Lady St. James!' Miss Pratt, who was ever ready to undertake the defence of any person who had a title, pleaded, in mitigation of censure, that perhaps Lady St. James might not be aware that her ladyship was yet well enough to venture out. 'Oh, my dear Miss Pratt, that cannot be the thing; for, in spite of my rheumatism, which really was bad enough last Sunday, I went on purpose to the Royal Chapel, to show myself in the closet, and knelt close to her ladyship. And, my dear, we curtsied, and she congratulated me, after church, upon my being abroad again, and was so happy to see me look so well, and all that--Oh! it is something very extraordinary and unaccountable!' 'But, I daresay, a card will come yet,' said Miss Pratt. Upon this hint, Lady Clonbrony's hope revived; and, staying her anger, she began to consider how she could manage to get herself invited. Refreshing tickets were left next morning at Lady St. James's with their corners properly turned up; to do the thing better, separate tickets for herself and for Miss Nugent were left for each member of the family; and her civil messages, left with the footman, extended to the utmost possibility of remainder. It had occurred to her ladyship that for Miss Somebody, THE COMPANION, of whom she had never in her life thought before, she had omitted to leave a card last time, and she now left a note of explanation; she further, with her rheumatic head and arm out of the coach-window, sat, the wind blowing keen upon her, explaining to the porter and the footman, to discover whether her former tickets had gone safely up to Lady St. James; and on the present occasion, to make assurance doubly sure, she slid handsome expedition money into the servant's hand--'Sir, you will be sure to remember.'--'Oh certainly, your ladyship!' She well knew what dire offence has frequently been taken, what sad disasters have occurred, in the fashionable world, from the neglect of a porter in delivering, or of a footman in carrying up one of those talismanic cards. But, in spite of all her manoeuvres, no invitation to the party arrived next day. Pratt was next set to work. Miss Pratt was a most convenient go-between, who, in consequence of doing a thousand little services, to which few others of her rank in life would stoop, had obtained the ENTREE to a number of great houses, and was behind the scenes in many fashionable families. Pratt could find out, and Pratt could hint, and Pratt could manage to get things done cleverly--and hints were given, in all directions, to WORK ROUND to Lady St. James. But still they did not take effect. At last Pratt suggested that, perhaps, though everything else had failed, dried salmon might be tried with success. Lord Clonbrony had just had some uncommonly good from Ireland, which Pratt knew Lady St. James would like to have at her supper, because a certain personage, whom she would not name, was particularly fond of it.--Wheel within wheel in the fine world, as well as in the political world!--Bribes for all occasions, and for all ranks! The timely present was sent, accepted with many thanks, and understood as it was meant. Per favour of this propitiatory offering, and of a promise of half a dozen pair of real Limerick gloves to Miss Pratt--a promise which Pratt clearly comprehended to be a conditional promise--the grand object was at length accomplished. The very day before the party was to take place came cards of invitation to Lady Clonbrony and to Miss Nugent, with Lady St. James's apologies; her ladyship was concerned to find that, by some negligence of her servants, these cards were not sent in proper time. 'How slight an apology will do from some people!' thought Miss Nugent; 'how eager to forgive, when it is for our interest or our pleasure; how well people act the being deceived, even when all parties know that they see the whole truth; and how low pride will stoop to gain its object!' Ashamed of the whole transaction, Miss Nugent earnestly wished that a refusal should be sent, and reminded her aunt of her rheumatism; but rheumatism and all other objections were overruled--Lady Clonbrony would go. It was just when this affair was thus, in her opinion, successfully settled, that Lord Colambre came in, with a countenance of unusual seriousness, his mind full of the melancholy scenes he had witnessed in his friend's family. 'What is the matter; Colambre?' He related what had passed; he described the brutal conduct of Mordicai; the anguish of the mother and sisters; the distress of Mr. Berryl. Tears rolled down Miss Nugent's cheeks. Lady Clonbrony declared it was very shocking; listened with attention to all the particulars; but never failed to correct her son, whenever he said Mr. Berryl. 'Sir ARTHUR Berryl, you mean.' She was, however, really touched with compassion when he spoke of Lady Berryl's destitute condition; and her son was going on to repeat what Mordicai had said to him, but Lady Clonbrony interrupted-- 'Oh, my dear Colambre! don't repeat that detestable man's impertinent speeches to me. If there is anything really about business, speak to your father. At any rate, don't tell us of it now, because I've a hundred things to do,' said her ladyship, hurrying out of the room, 'Grace--Grace Nugent! I want you!' Lord Colambre sighed deeply. 'Don't despair,' said Miss Nugent, as she followed to obey her aunt's summons. 'Don't despair; don't attempt to speak to her again till to-morrow morning. Her head is now full of Lady St. James's party. When it is emptied of that, you will have a better chance. Never despair.' 'Never, while you encourage me to hope--that any good can be done.' Lady Clonbrony was particularly glad that she had carried her point about this party at Lady St. James's; because, from the first private intimation that the Duchess of Torcaster was to be there, her ladyship flattered herself that the long-desired introduction might then be accomplished. But of this hope Lady St. James had likewise received intimation from the double-dealing Miss Pratt; and a warning note was despatched to the duchess to let her grace know that circumstances had occurred which had rendered it impossible not to ask THE CLONBRONIES. An excuse, of course, for not going to this party was sent by the duchess--her grace did not like large parties--she would have the pleasure of accepting Lady St. James's invitation for her select party on Wednesday the 10th. Into these select parties Lady Clonbrony had never been admitted. In return for her great entertainments she was invited to great entertainments, to large parties; but farther she could never penetrate. At Lady St, James's, and with her set, Lady Clonbrony suffered a different kind of mortification from that which Lady Langdale and Mrs. Dareville made her endure. She was safe from the witty raillery, the sly innuendo, the insolent mimicry; but she was kept at a cold, impassable distance, by ceremony--'So far shalt thou go, and no farther' was expressed in every look, in every word, and in a thousand different ways. By the most punctilious respect and nice regard to precedency, even by words of courtesy--'Your ladyship does me honour,' etc.--Lady St. James contrived to mortify and to mark the difference between those with whom she was, and with whom she was not, upon terms of intimacy and equality. Thus the ancient grandees of Spain drew a line of demarcation between themselves and the newly-created nobility. Whenever or wherever they met, they treated the new nobles with the utmost respect, never addressed them but with all their titles, with low bows, and with all the appearance of being, with the most perfect consideration, anything but their equals; whilst towards one another the grandees laid aside their state, and omitting their titles, it was, 'Alcala-Medina-Sidonia-Infantado,' and a freedom and familiarity which marked equality. Entrenched in etiquette in this manner, and mocked with marks of respect, it was impossible either to intrude or to complain of being excluded. At supper at Lady St. James's, Lady Clonbrony's present was pronounced by some gentleman to be remarkably high flavoured. This observation turned the conversation to Irish commodities and Ireland. Lady Clonbrony, possessed by the idea that it was disadvantageous to appear as an Irishwoman, or as a favourer of Ireland, began to be embarrassed by Lady St. James's repeated thanks. Had it been in her power to offer anything else with propriety, she would not have thought of sending her ladyship anything from Ireland. Vexed by the questions that were asked her about HER COUNTRY, Lady Clonbrony, as usual, denied it to be her country, and went on to depreciate and abuse everything Irish; to declare that there was no possibility of living in Ireland; and that, for her own part, she was resolved never to return thither. Lady St. James, preserving perfect silence, let her go on. Lady Clonbrony, imagining that this silence arose from coincidence of opinion, proceeded with all the eloquence she possessed, which was very little, repeating the same exclamations, and reiterating her vow of perpetual expatriation; till at last an elderly lady, who was a stranger to her, and whom she had till this moment scarcely noticed, took up the defence of Ireland with much warmth and energy: the eloquence with which she spoke, and the respect with which she was heard, astonished Lady Clonbrony. 'Who is she?' whispered her ladyship. 'Does not your ladyship know Lady Oranmore--the Irish Lady Oranmore?' 'Lord bless me!--what have I said!--what have I done! Oh! why did not you give me a hint, Lady St. James?' 'I was not aware that your ladyship was not acquainted with Lady Oranmore,' replied Lady St. James, unmoved by her distress. Everybody sympathised with Lady Oranmore, and admired the honest zeal with which she abided by her country, and defended it against unjust aspersions and affected execrations. Every one present enjoyed Lady Clonbrony's confusion, except Miss Nugent, who sat with her eyes bowed down by penetrative shame during the whole of this scene; she was glad that Lord Colambre was not witness to it; and comforted herself with the hope that, upon the whole, Lady Clonbrony would be benefited by the pain she had felt. This instance might convince her that it was not necessary to deny her country to be received in any company in England; and that those who have the courage and steadiness to be themselves, and to support what they feel and believe to be the truth, must command respect. Miss Nugent hoped that in consequence of this conviction Lady Clonbrony would lay aside the little affectations by which her manners were painfully constrained and ridiculous; and, above all, she hoped that what Lady Oranmore had said of Ireland might dispose her aunt to listen with patience to all Lord Colambre might urge in favour of returning to her home. But Miss Nugent hoped in vain. Lady Clonbrony never in her life generalised any observations, or drew any but a partial conclusion from the most striking facts. 'Lord! my dear Grace!' said she, as soon as they were seated in their carriage, 'what a scrape I got into to-night at supper, and what disgrace I came to!--and all this because I did not know Lady Oranmore. Now you see the inconceivable disadvantage of not knowing everybody--everybody of a certain rank, of course, I mean.' Miss Nugent endeavoured to slide in her own moral on the occasion, but it would not do. 'Yes, my dear, Lady Oranmore may talk in that kind of style of Ireland, because, on the other hand, she is so highly connected in England; and, besides, she is an old lady, and may take liberties; in short, she is Lady Oranmore, and that's enough.' The next morning, when they all met at breakfast, Lady Clonbrony complained bitterly of her increased rheumatism, of the disagreeable, stupid party they had had the preceding night, and of the necessity of going to another formal party that night, the next, and the next, and, in the true fine lady style, deplored her situation, and the impossibility of avoiding those things, Which felt they curse, yet covet still to feel.<br /> Miss Nugent determined to retire as soon as she could from the breakfast-room, to leave Lord Colambre an opportunity of talking over his family affairs at full liberty. She knew by the seriousness of his countenance that his mind was intent upon doing so, and she hoped that his influence with his father and mother would not be exerted in vain. But just as she was rising from the breakfast-table, in came Sir Terence O'Fay, and, seating himself quite at his ease, in spite of Lady Clonbrony's repulsive looks, his awe of Lord Colambre having now worn off-- 'I'm tired,' said he, 'and have a right to be tired; for it's no small walk I've taken for the good of this noble family this morning. And, Miss Nugent, before I say more, I'll take a cup of TA from you, if you please.' Lady Clonbrony rose, with great stateliness, and walked to the farthest end of the room, where she established herself at her writing-table, and began to write notes. Sir Terence wiped his forehead deliberately. 'Then I've had a fine run--Miss Nugent, I believe you never saw me run; but I can run, I promise you, when it's to serve a friend. And, my lord (turning to Lord Clonbrony), what do you think I run for this morning--to buy a bargain--and of what!--a bargain of a bad debt--a debt of yours, which I bargained for, and up just in time--and Mordicai's ready to hang himself this minute. For what do you think but that rascal was bringing upon you--but an execution?--he was.' 'An execution!' repeated everybody present, except Lord Colambre. 'And how has this been prevented, sir?' said Lord Colambre. 'Oh! let me alone for that,' said Sir Terence. 'I got a hint from my little friend, Paddy Brady, who would not be paid for it either, though he's as poor as a rat. Well! as soon as I got the hint, I dropped the thing I had in my hand, which was the DUBLIN EVENING, and ran for the bare life--for there wasn't a coach--in my slippers, as I was, to get into the prior creditor's shoes, who is the little solicitor that lives in Crutched Friars, which Mordicai never dreamt of, luckily; so he was very genteel, though he was taken on a sudden, and from his breakfast, which an Englishman don't like particularly--I popped him a douceur of a draught, at thirty-one days, on Garraghty, the agent; of which he must get notice; but I won't descant on the law before the ladies--he handed me over his debt and execution, and he made me prior creditor in a trice. Then I took coach in state, the first I met, and away with me to Long Acre--saw Mordicai. "Sir," says I, "I hear you're meditating an execution on a friend of mine." "Am I?" said the rascal; "who told you so?" "No matter," said I; "but I just called in to let you know there's no use in life of your execution; for there's a prior creditor with his execution to be satisfied first." So he made a great many black faces, and said a great deal, which I never listened to, but came off here clean to tell you all the story.' 'Not one word of which do I understand,' said Lady Clonbrony. 'Then, my dear, you are very ungrateful,' said Lord Clonbrony. Lord Colambre said nothing, for he wished to learn more of Sir Terence O'Fay's character, of the state of his father's affairs, and of the family methods of proceeding in matters of business. 'Faith! Terry, I know I'm very thankful to you--but an execution's an ugly thing--and I hope there's no danger--' 'Never fear!' said Sir Terence: 'Haven't I been at my wits' ends for myself or my friends ever since I come to man's estate--to years of discretion, I should say, for the deuce a foot of estate have I! But use has sharpened my wits pretty well for your service; so never be in dread, my good lord for look ye!' cried the reckless knight, sticking his arms akimbo 'look ye here! in Sir Terence O'Fay stands a host that desires no better than to encounter, single witted, all the duns in the united kingdoms, Mordicai the Jew inclusive.' 'Ah! that's the devil, that Mordicai,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'that's the only man an earth I dread.' 'Why, he is only a coachmaker, is not he!' said Lady Clonbrony: 'I can't think how you can talk, my lord, of dreading such a low man. Tell him, if he's troublesome, we won't bespeak any more carriages; and, I'm sure, I wish you would not be so silly, my lord, to employ him any more, when you know he disappointed me the last birthday about the landau, which I have not got yet.' 'Nonsense, my dear,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'you don't know what you are talking of. Terry, I say, even a friendly execution is an ugly thing.' 'Phoo! phoo!--an ugly thing! So is a fit of the gout--but one's all the better for it after. 'Tis just a renewal of life, my lord, for which one must pay a bit of a fine, you know. Take patience, and leave me to manage all properly--you know I'm used to these things, Only you recollect, if you please, how I managed my friend Lord --; it's bad to be mentioning names--but Lord EVERYBODY-KNOWS-WHO--didn't I bring him through cleverly, when there was that rascally attempt to seize the family plate? I had notice, and what did I do, but broke open a partition between that lord's house and my lodgings, which I had taken next door; and so, when the sheriff's officers were searching below on the ground floor, I just shoved the plate easy through to my bedchamber at a moment's warning, and then bid the gentlemen walk in, for they couldn't set a foot in my paradise, the devils! So they stood looking at it through the wall, and cursing me and I holding both my sides with laughter at their fallen faces.' Sir Terence and Lord Clonbrony laughed in concert. 'This is a good story,' said Miss Nugent, smiling; 'but surely, Sir Terence, such things are never done in real life?' 'Done! ay, are they; and I could tell you a hundred better strokes, my dear Miss Nugent.' 'Grace!' cried Lady Clonbrony, 'do pray have the goodness to seal and send these notes; for really,' whispered she, as her niece came to the table,'I CAWNT STEE, I cawnt bear that man's VICE, his accent grows horrider and horrider!' Her ladyship rose, and left the room. 'Why, then,' continued Sir Terence, following up Miss Nugent to the table, where she was sealing letters, 'I must tell you how I sarved that same man on another occasion, and got the victory too.' No general officer could talk of his victories, or fight his battles o'er again, with more complacency than Sir Terence O'Fay recounted his CIVIL exploits. 'Now I'll tell Miss Nugent. There was a footman in the family, not an Irishman, but one of your powdered English scoundrels that ladies are so fond of having hanging to the backs of their carriages; one Fleming he was, that turned spy, and traitor, and informer, went privately and gave notice to the creditors where the plate was hid in the thickness of the chimney; but if he did, what happened! Why, I had my counter-spy, an honest little Irish boy, in the creditor's shop, that I had secured with a little douceur of usquebaugh; and he outwitted, as was natural, the English lying valet, and gave us notice just in the nick, and I got ready for their reception; and, Miss Nugent, I only wish you'd seen the excellent sport we had, letting them follow the scent they got; and when they were sure of their game, what did they find?--Ha! ha! ha!--dragged out, after a world of labour, a heavy box of--a load of brickbats; not an item of my friend's plate--that was all snug in the coal-hole, where them dunces never thought of looking for it. Ha! ha! ha!' 'But come, Terry,' cried Lord Clonbrony, 'I'll pull down your pride. How finely, another time, your job of the false ceiling answered in the hall. I've heard that story, and have been told how the sheriffs fellow thrust his bayonet up through your false plaster, and down came tumbling the family plate hey, Terry? That hit cost your friend, Lord everybody-knows-who, more than your head's worth, Terry.' 'I ask your pardon, my lord, it never cost him a farthing.' 'When he paid L7000 for the plate, to redeem it?' 'Well! and did not I make up for that at the races of --? The creditors learned that my lord's horse, Naboclish, was to run at--races; and, as the sheriff's officer knew he dare not touch him on the race-ground, what does he do, but he comes down early in the morning on the mail-coach, and walks straight down to the livery stables. He had an exact description of the stables, and the stall, and the horse's body-clothes. 'I was there, seeing the horse taken care of; and, knowing the cut of the fellow's jib, what does I do, but whips the body-clothes off Naboclish, and claps them upon a garrone that the priest would not ride. 'In comes the bailiff--"Good morrow to you, sir," says I, leading out of the stable my lord's horse, with an OULD saddle and bridle on. '"Tim Neal," says I to the groom, who was rubbing down the garrone's heels, "mind your hits to-day, and WEE'L wet the plate to-night." '"Not so fast, neither," says the bailiff--"here's my writ for seizing the horse." '"Och," says I, "you wouldn't be so cruel."' "That's all my eye," says he, seizing the garrone, while I mounted Naboclish, and rode him off deliberately to --' 'Ha! ha! ha!--That was neat, I grant you, Terry,' said Lord Clonbrony. 'But what a dolt of a born ignoramus must that sheriffs fellow have been, not to know Naboclish when he saw him!' 'But stay, my lord--stay, Miss Nugent--I have more for you,' following her wherever she moved. 'I did not let him off so, even. At the cant, I bid and bid against them for the pretended Naboclish, till I, left him on their hands for 500 guineas. Ha! ha! ha!--was not that famous?' 'But,' said Miss Nugent, 'I cannot believe you are in earnest, Sir Terence. Surely this would be--' 'What?--out with it, my dear Miss Nugent.' 'I am afraid of offending you.' 'You can't, my dear, I defy you--say the word that came to the tongue's end; it's always the best.' 'I was going to say, swindling,' said the young lady, colouring deeply. 'Oh! you was going to say wrong, then! It's not called swindling amongst gentlemen who know the world--it's only jockeying--fine sport--and very honourable to help a friend at a dead lift. Anything to get a friend out of a present pressing difficulty.' 'And when the present difficulty is over, do your friends never think of the future?' 'The future! leave the future to posterity,' said Sir Terence; 'I'm counsel only for the present; and when the evil comes, it's time enough to think of it. I can't bring the guns of my wits to bear till the enemy's alongside of me, or within sight of me at the least. And besides, there never was a good commander yet, by sea or land, that would tell his little expedients beforehand, or before the very day of battle.' 'It must be a sad thing,' said Miss Nugent, sighing deeply, 'to be reduced to live by little expedients--daily expedients.' Lord Colambre struck his forehead, but said nothing. 'But if you are beating your brains about your own affairs, my Lord Colambre, my dear,' said Sir Terence, 'there's an easy way of settling your family affairs at once; and, since you don't like little daily expedients, Miss Nugent, there's one great expedient, and an expedient for life, that will settle it all to your satisfaction--and ours. I hinted it delicately to you before, but, between friends, delicacy is impertinent; so I tell you, in plain English, you've nothing to do but go and propose yourself, just as you stand, to the heiress Miss B--, that desires no better--' 'Sir!' cried Lord Colambre, stepping forward, red with sudden anger. Miss Nugent laid her hand upon his arm-- 'Oh, my lord!' 'Sir Terence O'Fay,' continued Lord Colambre, in a moderated tone, 'you are wrong to mention that young lady's name in such a manner.' 'Why, then, I said only Miss B--, and there are a whole hive of BEES. But I'll engage she'd thank me for what I suggested, and think herself the queen bee if my expedient was adopted by you.' 'Sir Terence,' said his lordship, smiling, 'if my father thinks proper that you should manage his affairs, and devise expedients for him, I have nothing to say on that point; but I must beg you will not trouble yourself to suggest expedients for me, and that you will have the goodness to leave me to settle my own affairs.' Sir Terence made a low bow, and was silent for five seconds; then turning to Lord Clonbrony, who looked much more abashed than he did-- 'By the wise one, my good lord, I believe there are some men--noblemen, too--that don't know their friends from their enemies. It's my firm persuasion, now, that if I had served you as I served my friend I was talking of, your son there would, ten to one, think I had done him an injury by saving the family plate.' 'I certainly should, sir. The family plate, sir, is not the first object in my mind,' replied Lord Colambre; 'family honour--Nay, Miss Nugent, I must speak,' continued his lordship, perceiving; by her countenance, that she was alarmed. 'Never fear, Miss Nugent dear,' said Sir Terence; 'I'm as cool as a cucumber. Faith! then, my Lord Colambre, I agree with you, that family honour's a mighty fine thing, only troublesome to one's self and one's friends, and expensive to keep up with all the other expenses and debts a gentleman has nowadays. So I, that am under no natural obligations to it by birth or otherwise, have just stood by through life, and asked myself, before I would volunteer being bound to it, what could this same family honour do for a man in this world? And, first and foremost, I never remember to see family honour stand a man in much stead in a court of law--never saw family honour stand against an execution, or a custodiam, or an injunction even. 'Tis a rare thing, this same family honour, and a very fine thing; but I never knew it yet, at a pinch, pay for a pair of boots even,' added Sir Terence, drawing up his own with much complacency. At this moment Sir Terence was called out of the room by one who wanted to speak to him on particular business. 'My dear father,' cried Lord Colambre, 'do not follow him; stay for one moment, and hear your son--your true friend.' Miss Nugent went out of the room, that she might leave the father and son at liberty. 'Hear your natural friend for one moment,' cried Lord Colambre. 'Let me beseech you, father, not to have recourse to any of these paltry expedients, but trust your son with the state of your affairs, and we shall find some honourable means--' 'Yes, yes, yes, very true; when you're of age, Colambre, we'll talk of it; but nothing can be done till then. We shall get on, we shall get through, very well, till then, with Terry's assistance. And I must beg you will not say a word more against Terry--I can't bear it--I can't hear it--I can't do without him. Pray don't detain me--I can say no more--except,' added he, returning to his usual concluding sentence, 'that there need, at all events, be none of this, if people would but live upon their own estates, and kill their own mutton.' He stole out of the room, glad to escape, however shabbily, from present explanation and present pain. There are persons without resource who in difficulties return always to the same point, and usually to the same words. While Lord Colambre was walking up and down the room, much vexed and disappointed at finding that he could make no impression on his father's mind, nor obtain his confidence as to his family affairs, Lady Clonbrony's woman, Mrs. Petito, knocked at the door, with a message from her lady, to beg, if Lord Colambre was BY HIMSELF; he would go to her dressing-room, as she wished to have a conference with him. He obeyed her summons. 'Sit down, my dear Colambre--' And she began precisely with her old sentence-- 'With the fortune I brought your father, and with my lord's estate, I CAWNT understand the meaning of all these pecuniary difficulties; and all that strange creature Sir Terence says is algebra to me, who speak English. And I am particularly sorry he was let in this morning--but he's such a brute that he does not think anything of forcing one's door, and he tells my footman he does not mind NOT AT HOME a pinch of snuff. Now what can you do with a man who could say that sort of thing, you know--the world's at an end.' 'I wish my father had nothing to do with him, ma'am, as much as you can wish it,' said Lord Colambre; 'but I have said all that a son can with propriety say, and without effect.' 'What particularly provokes me against him,' continued Lady Clonbrony, 'is what I have just heard from Grace, who was really hurt by it, too, for she is the warmest friend in the world: I allude to the creature's indelicate way of touching upon a tender PINT, and mentioning an amiable young heiress's name. My dear Colambre, I trust you have given me credit for my inviolable silence all this time upon the PINT nearest my heart. I am rejoiced to hear you was so warm when she was mentioned inadvertently by that brute, and I trust you now see the advantages of the projected union in as strong and agreeable a PINT of view as I do, my own Colambre; and I should leave things to themselves, and let you prolong the DEES of courtship as you please, only for what I now hear incidentally from my lord and the brute, about pecuniary embarrassments, and the necessity of something being done before next winter. And indeed I think now, in propriety, the proposal cannot be delayed much longer; for the world begins to talk of the thing as done; and even Mrs. Broadhurst, I know, had no doubt that, if this CONTRETEMPS about the poor Berryls had not occurred, your proposal would have been made before the end of last week.' Our hero was not a man to make a proposal because Mrs. Broadhurst expected it, or to marry because the world said he was going to be married. He steadily said that, from the first moment the subject had been mentioned, he had explained himself distinctly; that the young lady's friends could not, therefore, be under any doubt as to his intentions; that, if they had voluntarily deceived themselves, or exposed the lady in situations from which the world was led to make false conclusions, he was not answerable: he felt his conscience at ease--entirely so, as he was convinced that the young lady herself, for whose merit, talents, independence, and generosity of character he professed high respect, esteem, and admiration, had no doubts either of the extent or the nature of his regard. 'Regard, respect, esteem, admiration!--Why, my dearest Colambre! this is saying all I want; satisfies me, and I am sure would satisfy Mrs Broadhurst and Miss Broadhurst too.' 'No doubt it will, ma'am; but not if I aspired to the honour of Miss Broadhurst's hand, or professed myself her lover.' 'My dear, you are mistaken; Miss Broadhurst is too sensible a girl, a vast deal, to look for love, and a dying lover, and all that sort of stuff; I am persuaded--indeed I have it from good, from the best authority--that the young lady--you know one must be delicate in these cases, where a young lady of such fortune, and no despicable family too is concerned; therefore I cannot speak quite plainly--but I say I have it from the best authority, that you would be preferred to any other suitor, and, in short, that--' 'I beg your pardon, madam, for interrupting you,' cried Lord Colambre, colouring a good deal; 'but you must excuse me if I say, that the only authority on which I could believe this is one from which I am morally certain I shall never hear it from Miss Broadhurst herself.' 'Lord, child! if you would only ask her the question, she would tell you it is truth, I daresay.' 'But as I have no curiosity on the subject, ma'am--' 'Lord bless me! I thought everybody had curiosity. But still, without curiosity, I am sure it would gratify you when you did hear it; and can't you just put the simple question?' 'Impossible!' 'Impossible!--now that is so very provoking when the thing is all but done. Well, take your own time; all I will ask of you then is, to let things go on as they are going--smoothly and pleasantly; and I'll not press you farther on the subject at present, Let things go on smoothly, that's all I ask, and say nothing.' 'I wish I could oblige you, mother; but I cannot do this. Since you tell me that the world and Miss Broadhurst's friends have already misunderstood my intentions, it becomes necessary, in justice to the young lady and to myself, that I should make all further doubt impossible. I shall, therefore, put an end to it at once, by leaving town to-morrow.' Lady Clonbrony, breathless for a moment with surprise, exclaimed, 'Bless me! leave town to-morrow! Just at the beginning of the season! Impossible!--I never saw such a precipitate, rash young man. But stay only a few weeks, Colambre; the physicians advise Buxton for my rheumatism, and you shall take us to Buxton early in the season--you cannot refuse me that. Why, if Miss Broadhurst was a dragon, you could not be in a greater hurry to run away from her. What are you afraid of?' 'Of doing what is wrong--the only thing, I trust, of which I shall ever be afraid.' Lady Clonbrony tried persuasion and argument--such argument as she could use--but all in vain--Lord Colambre was firm in his resolution; at last, she came to tears; and her son, in much agitation, said-- 'I cannot bear this, mother! I would do anything you ask, that I could do with honour; but this is impossible.' 'Why impossible? I will take all blame upon myself; and you are sure that Miss Broadhurst does not misunderstand you, and you esteem her, and admire her, and all that; and all I ask is, that you'll go on as you are, and see more of her; and how do you know but you may fall in love with her, as you call it, to-morrow?' 'Because, madam, since you press me so far, my affections are engaged to another person. Do not look so dreadfully shocked, my dear mother--I have told you truly, that I think myself too young, much too young, yet to marry. In the circumstances in which I know my family are, it is probable that I shall not for some years be able to marry as I wish. You may depend upon it that I shall not take any step, I shall not even declare my attachment to the object of my affection, without your knowledge; and, far from being inclined to follow headlong my own passions--strong as they are--be assured that the honour of my family, your happiness, my mother, my father's, are my first objects: I shall never think of my own till these are secured.' Of the conclusion of this speech, Lady Clonbrony heard only the sound of the words; from the moment her son had pronounced that his affections were engaged, she had been running over in her head every probable and improbable person she could think of; at last, suddenly starting up, she opened one of the folding-doors into the next apartment, and called-- 'Grace!--Grace Nugent!--put down your pencil, Grace, this minute, and come here!' Miss Nugent obeyed with her usual alacrity; and the moment she entered the room, Lady Clonbrony, fixing her eyes full upon her, said-- 'There's your cousin Colambre tells me his affections are engaged.' 'Yes, to Miss Broadhurst, no doubt,' said Miss Nugent, smiling, with a simplicity and openness of countenance which assured Lady Clonbrony that all was safe in that quarter: a suspicion which had darted into her mind was dispelled. 'No doubt. Ay, do you hear that NO DOUBT, Colambre?--Grace, you see, has no doubt; nobody has any doubt but yourself, Colambre.' 'And are your affections engaged, and not to Miss Broadhurst?' said Miss Nugent, approaching Lord Colambre. 'There now! you see how you surprise and disappoint everybody, Colambre.' 'I am sorry that Miss Nugent should be disappointed,' said Lord Colambre. 'But because I am disappointed, pray do not call me Miss Nugent, or turn away from me, as if you were displeased.' 'It must, then, be some Cambridgeshire lady,' said Lady Clonbrony. 'I am sure I am very sorry he ever went to Cambridge,--Oxford I advised: one of the Miss Berryls, I presume, who have nothing. I'll have nothing more to do with those Berryls--there was the reason of the son's vast intimacy. Grace, you may give up all thoughts of Sir Arthur.' 'I have no thoughts to give up, ma'am,' said Miss Nugent, smiling. 'Miss Broadhurst,' continued she, going on eagerly with what she was saying to Lord Colambre--'Miss Broadhurst is my friend, a friend I love and admire; but you will allow that I strictly kept my promise, never to praise her to you, till you should begin to praise her to me. Now recollect, last night, you did praise her to me, so justly, that I thought you liked her, I confess; so that it is natural I should feel a little disappointed. Now you know the whole of my mind; I have no intention to encroach on your confidence; therefore, there is no occasion to look so embarrassed. I give you my word, I will never speak to you again upon the subject,' said she, holding out her hand to him, 'provided you will never again call me Miss Nugent. Am I not your own cousin Grace--Do not be displeased with her.' 'You are my own dear cousin Grace; and nothing can be farther from my mind than any thought of being displeased with her; especially just at this moment, when I am going away, probably for a considerable time.' 'Away!--when?--where?' 'To-morrow morning, for Ireland.' 'Ireland! of all places,' cried Lady Clonbrony. 'What upon earth puts it into your head to go to Ireland? You do very well to go out of the way of falling in love ridiculously, since that is the reason of your going; but what put Ireland into your head, child?' 'I will not presume to ask my mother what put Ireland out of her head,' said Lord Colambre, smiling; 'but she will recollect that it is my native country.' 'That was your father's fault, not mine,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'for I wished to have been confined in England; but he would have it to say that his son and heir was born at Clonbrony Castle--and there was a great argument between him and my uncle, and something about the Prince of Wales and Caernarvon Castle was thrown in, and that turned the scale, much against my will; for it was my wish that my son should be an Englishman born--like myself. But, after all, I don't see that having the misfortune to be born in a country should tie one to it in any sort of way; and I should have hoped your English EDICATION, Colambre, would have given you too liberal IDEARS for that--so I REELLY don't see why you should go to Ireland merely because it's your native country.' 'Not merely because it is my native country; but I wish to go thither--I desire to become acquainted with it--because it is the country in which my father's property lies, and from which we draw our subsistence.' 'Subsistence! Lord bless me, what a word! fitter for a pauper than a nobleman--subsistence! Then, if you are going to look after your father's property, I hope you will make the agents do their duty, and send us remittances. And pray how long do you mean to stay?' 'Till I am of age, madam, if you have no objection. I will spend the ensuing months in travelling in Ireland; and I will return here by the time I am of age, unless you and my father should, before that time, be in Ireland.' 'Not the least chance of that, if I can prevent it, I promise you,' said Lady Clonbrony. Lord Colambre and Miss Nugent sighed. 'And I am sure I shall take it very unkindly of you, Colambre, if you go and turn out a partisan for Ireland, after all, like Grace Nugent.' 'A partisan! no;--I hope not a partisan, but a friend,' said Miss Nugent. 'Nonsense, child!--I hate to hear people, women especially, and young ladies particularly, talk of being friends to this country or that country. What can they know about countries? Better think of being friends to themselves, and friends to their friends.' 'I was wrong,' said Miss Nugent, 'to call myself a friend to Ireland; I meant to say, that Ireland had been a friend to me; that I found Irish friends, when I had no other; an Irish home, when I had no other; that my earliest and happiest years, under your kind care, had been spent there; and that I can never forget THAT my dear aunt--I hope you do not wish that I should.' 'Heaven forbid, my sweet Grace!' said Lady Clonbrony, touched by her voice and manner--'Heaven forbid! I don't wish you to do or be anything but what you are; for I am convinced there's nothing I could ask you would not do for me; and, I can tell you, there's few things you could ask, love, I would not do for you.' A wish was instantly expressed in the eyes of her niece. Lady Clonbrony, though not usually quick at interpreting the wishes of others, understood and answered, before she ventured to make her request in words. 'Ask anything but THAT, Grace. Return to Clonbrony, while I am able to live in London? That I never can or will do for you or anybody!' looking at her son in all the pride of obstinacy; 'so there is an end of the matter. Go you where you please, Colambre; and I shall stay where I please:--I suppose, as your mother, I have a right to say this much?' Her son, with the utmost respect, assured her that he had no design to infringe upon her undoubted liberty of judging for herself; that he had never interfered, except so far as to tell her circumstances of her affairs, with which she seemed to be totally unacquainted, and of which it might be dangerous to her to continue in ignorance. 'Don't talk to me about affairs,' cried she, drawing her hand away from her son. 'Talk to my lord, or my lord's agents, since you are going to Ireland, about business--I know nothing about business; but this I know, I shall stay in England, and be in London, every season, as long as I can afford it; and when I cannot afford to live here, I hope I shall not live anywhere. That's my notion of life; and that's my determination, once for all; for, if none of the rest of the Clonbrony family have any, I thank Heaven I have some spirit.' Saying this, with her most stately manner she walked out of the room. Lord Colambre instantly followed her; for, after the resolution and the promise he had made, he did not dare to trust himself at this moment with Miss Nugent. There was to be a concert this night at Lady Clonbrony's, at which Mrs. and Miss Broadhurst were, of course, expected. That they might not be quite unprepared for the event of her son's going to Ireland, Lady Clonbrony wrote a note to Mrs. Broadhurst, begging her to come half an hour earlier than the time mentioned in the cards, 'that she might talk over something PARTICULAR that had just occurred.' What passed at this cabinet council, as it seems to have had no immediate influence on affairs, we need not record. Suffice it to observe, that a great deal was said, and nothing done. Miss Broadhurst, however, was not a young lady who could be easily deceived, even where her passions were concerned. The moment her mother told her of Lord Colambre's intended departure, she saw the whole truth. She had a strong mind--was capable of drawing aside, at once, the curtain of self-delusion, and looking steadily at the skeleton of truth--she had a generous, perhaps because a strong mind; for, surrounded, as she had been from her childhood, by every means of self-indulgence which wealth and flattery could bestow, she had discovered early, what few persons in her situation discover till late in life, that selfish gratifications may render us incapable of other happiness, but can never, of themselves, make us happy. Despising flatterers, she had determined to make herself friends to make them in the only possible way--by deserving them. Her father made his immense fortune by the power and habit of constant, bold, and just calculation. The power and habit which she had learned from him she applied on a far larger scale; with him, it was confined to speculations for the acquisition of money; with her, it extended to the attainment of happiness. He was calculating and mercenary: she was estimative and generous. Miss Nugent was dressing for the concert, or, rather, was sitting half-dressed before her glass, reflecting, when Miss Broadhurst came into her room. Miss Nugent immediately sent her maid out of the room. 'Grace,' said Miss Broadhurst, looking at Grace with an air of open, deliberate composure, 'you and I are thinking of the same thing--of the same person.' 'Yes, of Lord Colambre,' said Miss Nugent, ingenuously and sorrowfully. 'Then I can put your mind at ease, at once, my dear friend, by assuring you that I shall think of him no more. That I have thought of him, I do not deny--I have thought, that if, notwithstanding the difference in our ages, and other differences, he had preferred me, I should have preferred him to any person who has ever yet addressed me. On our first acquaintance, I clearly saw that he was not disposed to pay court to my fortune; and I had also then coolness of judgment sufficient to perceive that it was not probable he should fall in love with my person. But I was too proud in my humility, too strong in my honesty, too brave, too ignorant; in short, I knew nothing of the matter. We are all of us, more or less, subject to the delusions of vanity, or hope, or love--I--even I!--who thought myself so clear-sighted, did not know how, with one flutter of his wings, Cupid can set the whole atmosphere in motion; change the proportions, size, colour, value, of every object; lead us into a mirage, and leave us in a dismal desert.' 'My dearest friend!' said Miss Nugent, in a tone of true sympathy. 'But none but a coward, or a fool would sit down in the desert and weep, instead of trying to make his way back before the storm rises, obliterates the track, and overwhelms everything. Poetry apart, my dear Grace, you may be assured that I shall think no more of Lord Colambre.' 'I believe you are right. But I am sorry, very sorry, it must be so.' 'Oh, spare me your sorrow!' 'My sorrow is for Lord Colambre,' said Miss Nugent. 'Where will he find such a wife?--Not in Miss Berryl, I am sure--pretty as she is; a mere fine lady! Is it possible that Lord Colambre! Lord Colambre! should prefer such a girl--Lord Colambre!' Miss Broadhurst looked at her friend as she spoke, and saw truth in her eyes; saw that she had no suspicion that she was herself the person beloved. 'Tell me, Grace, are you sorry that Lord Colambre is going away?' 'No, I am glad. I was sorry when I first heard it; but now I am glad, very glad; it may save him from a marriage unworthy of him, restore him to himself, and reserve him for--the only woman I ever saw who is suited to him, who is equal to him, who would value and love him, as he deserves to be valued and loved.' 'Stop, my dear; if you mean me, I am not, and I never can be, that woman. Therefore, as you are my friend, and wish my happiness, as I sincerely believe you do, never, I conjure you, present such an idea before my mind again--it is out of my mind, I hope, for ever. It is important to me that you should know and believe this. At least I will preserve my friends. Now let this subject never be mentioned or alluded to again between us, my dear. We have subjects enough of conversation; we need not have recourse to pernicious sentimental gossipings. There is a great difference between wanting a CONFIDANTE, and treating a friend with confidence. My confidence you possess; all that ought, all that is to be known of my mind, you know, and--Now I will leave you in peace to dress for the concert.' 'Oh, don't go! you don't interrupt me. I shall be dressed in a few minutes; stay with me, and you may be assured, that neither now, nor at any other time, shall I ever speak to you on the subject you desire me to avoid. I entirely agree with you about CONFIDANTES and sentimental gossipings. I love you for not loving them.' A thundering knock at the door announced the arrival of company. 'Think no more of love, but as much as you please of friendship--dress yourself as fast as you can,' said Miss Broadhurst. 'Dress, dress is the order of the day.' Order of the day and order of the night, and all for people I don't care for in the least,' said Grace. 'So life passes!' 'Dear me, Miss Nugent,' cried Petito, Lady Clonbrony's woman, coming in with a face of alarm, 'not dressed yet! My lady is gone down, and Mrs. Broadhurst and my Lady Pococke's come, and the Honourable Mrs. Trembleham; and signor, the Italian singing gentleman, has been walking up and down the apartments there by himself, disconsolate, this half-hour, and I wondering all the time nobody rang for me--but my lady dressed, Lord knows how! without anybody. Oh, merciful! Miss Nugent, if you could stand still for one single particle of a second. So then I thought of stepping in to Miss Nugent; for the young ladies are talking so fast, says I to myself, at the door, they will never know how time goes, unless I give 'em a hint. But now my lady is below, there's no need, to be sure, to be nervous, so we may take the thing quietly, without being in a flustrum. Dear ladies, is not this now a very sudden motion of our young lord's for Ireland?--Lud a mercy! Miss Nugent, I'm sure your motions is sudden enough; and your dress behind is all, I'm sure, I can't tell how.'--'Oh, never mind,' said the young lady, escaping from her; 'it will do very well, thank you, Petito.' 'It will do very well, never mind,' repeated Petito muttering to herself, as she looked after the ladies, whilst they ran downstairs. 'I can't abide to dress any young lady who says never mind, and it will do very well. That, and her never talking to one confiDANtially, or trusting one with the least bit of her secrets, is the thing I can't put up with from Miss Nugent; and Miss Broadhurst holding the pins to me, as much as to say, Do your business, Petito, and don't talk.--Now, that's so impertinent, as if one wasn't the same flesh and blood, and had not as good a right to talk of everything, and hear of everything, as themselves. And Mrs. Broadhurst, too, cabinet-councilling with my lady, and pursing up her city mouth when I come in, and turning off the discourse to snuff, forsooth; as if I was an ignoramus, to think they closeted themselves to talk of snuff. Now, I think a lady of quality's woman has as good a right to be trusted with her lady's secrets as with her jewels; and if my Lady Clonbrony was a real lady of quality, she'd know that, and consider the one as much my paraphernalia as the other. So I shall tell my lady to-night, as I always do when she vexes me, that I never lived in an Irish family before, and don't know the ways of it--then she'll tell me she was born in Hoxfordshire--then I shall say, with my saucy look, "Oh, was you, my lady?--I always forget that you was an Englishwoman:" then maybe she'll say, "Forget!--you forget yourself strangely, Petito." Then I shall say, with a great deal of dignity, "If your ladyship thinks so, my lady, I'd better go." And I'd desire no better than that she would take me at my word; for my Lady Dashfort's is a much better place, I'm told, and she's dying to have me, I know.' And having formed this resolution, Petito concluded her apparently interminable soliloquy, and went with my lord's gentleman into the antechamber, to hear the concert, and give her judgment on everything; as she peeped in through the vista of heads into the Apollo saloon--for to-night the Alhambra was transformed into the Apollo saloon--she saw that whilst the company, rank behind rank, in close semicircles, had crowded round the performers to hear a favourite singer, Miss Broadhurst and Lord Colambre were standing in the outer semicircle, talking to one another earnestly. Now would Petito have given up her reversionary chance of the three nearly new gowns she expected from Lady Clonbrony, in case she stayed; or, in case she went, the reversionary chance of any dress of Lady Dashfort's except her scarlet velvet, merely to hear what Miss Broadhurst and Lord Colambre were saying. Alas! she could only see their lips move; and of what they were talking, whether of music or love, and whether the match was to be on or off; she could only conjecture. But the diplomatic style having now descended to waiting-maids, Mrs. Petito talked to her friends in the antechamber with as mysterious and consequential an air and tone, as a CHARGE D'AFFAIRES, or as the lady of a CHARGE D'AFFAIRES, could have assumed. She spoke of HER PRIVATE BELIEF; of THE IMPRESSION LEFT UPON HER MIND; and her CONFIDANTIAL reasons for thinking as she did; of her 'having had it from the FOUNTAIN'S head;' and of 'her fear of any COMMITTAL of her authorities.' Notwithstanding all these authorities, Lord Colambre left London next day, and pursued his way to Ireland, determined that he would see and judge of that country for himself, and decide whether his mother's dislike to residing there was founded on caprice or reasonable causes. In the meantime, it was reported in London that his lordship was gone to Ireland to make out the title to some estate, which would be necessary for his marriage settlement with the great heiress, Miss Broadhurst. Whether Mrs. Petito or Sir Terence O'Fay had the greater share in raising and spreading this report, it would be difficult to determine; but it is certain, however or by whomsoever raised, it was most useful to Lord Clonbrony, by keeping his creditors quiet. CHAPTER VI The tide did not permit the packet to reach the Pigeon-house, and the impatient Lord Colambre stepped into a boat, and was rowed across the bay of Dublin. It was a fine summer morning. The sun shone bright on the Wicklow mountains. He admired, he exulted in the beauty of the prospect; and all the early associations of his childhood, and the patriotic hopes of his riper years, swelled his heart as he approached the shores of his native land. But scarcely had he touched his mother earth, when the whole course of his ideas was changed; and if his heart swelled, it swelled no more with pleasurable sensations, for instantly he found himself surrounded and attacked by a swarm of beggars and harpies, with strange figures and stranger tones: some craving his charity, some snatching away his luggage, and at the same time bidding him 'never trouble himself,' and 'never fear.' A scramble in the boat and on shore for bags and parcels began, and an amphibious fight betwixt men, who had one foot on sea and one on land, was seen; and long and loud the battle of trunks and portmanteaus raged! The vanquished departed, clinching their empty hands at their opponents, and swearing inextinguishable hatred; while the smiling victors stood at ease, each grasping his booty--bag, basket, parcel, or portmanteau: 'And, your honour, where WILL these go?--Where WILL we carry 'em all to, for your honour?' was now the question. Without waiting for an answer, most of the goods were carried at the discretion of the porters to the custom-house, where, to his lordship's astonishment, after this scene of confusion, he found that he had lost nothing but his patience; all his goods were safe, and a few TINPENNIES made his officious porters happy men and boys; blessings were showered upon his honour, and he was left in peace at an excellent hotel in --Street, Dublin. He rested, refreshed himself, recovered his good-humour, and walked into the coffee-house, where he found several officers--English, Irish, and Scotch. One English officer, a very gentleman-like, sensible-looking man, of middle age, was sitting reading a little pamphlet, when Lord Colambre entered; he looked up from time to time, and in a few minutes rose and joined the conversation; it turned upon the beauties and defects of the city of Dublin. Sir James Brooke, for that was the name of the gentleman, showed one of his brother officers the book which he had been reading, observing that, in his opinion, it contained one of the best views of Dublin which he had ever seen, evidently drawn by the hand of a master, though in a slight, playful, and ironical style: it was 'AN INTERCEPTED LETTER FROM CHINA.' The conversation extended from Dublin to various parts of Ireland, with all which Sir James Brooke showed that he was well acquainted. Observing that this conversation was particularly interesting to Lord Colambre, and quickly perceiving that he was speaking to one not ignorant of books, Sir James spoke of different representations and misrepresentations of Ireland. In answer to Lord Colambre's inquiries, he named the works which had afforded him most satisfaction; and with discriminative, not superficial celerity, touched on all ancient and modern authors, from Spenser and Davies to Young and Beaufort. Lord Colambre became anxious to cultivate the acquaintance of a gentleman who appeared so able and willing to afford him information. Sir James Brooke, on his part, was flattered by this eagerness of attention, and pleased by our hero's manners and conversation; so that, to their mutual satisfaction, they spent much of their time together whilst they were at this hotel; and, meeting frequently in society in Dublin, their acquaintance every day increased and grew into intimacy--an intimacy which was highly advantageous to Lord Colambre's views of obtaining a just idea of the state of manners in Ireland. Sir James Brooke had at different periods been quartered in various parts of the country--had resided long enough in each to become familiar with the people, and had varied his residence sufficiently to form comparisons between different counties, their habits, and characteristics. Hence he had it in his power to direct the attention of our young observer at once to the points most worthy of his examination, and to save him from the common error of travellers--the deducing general conclusions from a few particular cases, or arguing from exceptions as if they were rules. Lord Colambre, from his family connexions, had of course immediate introduction into the best society in Dublin, or rather into all the good society of Dublin. In Dublin there is positively good company, and positively bad; but not, as in London, many degrees of comparison: not innumerable luminaries of the polite world, moving in different orbits of fashion, but all the bright planets of note and name move and revolve in the same narrow limits. Lord Colambre did not find that either his father's or his mother's representations of society in Dublin resembled the reality, which he now beheld. Lady Clonbrony had, in terms of detestation, described Dublin such as it appeared to her soon after the Union; Lord Clonbrony had painted it with convivial enthusiasm, such as he saw it long and long before the Union, when FIRST he drank claret at the fashionable clubs. This picture, unchanged in his memory, and unchangeable by his imagination, had remained, and ever would remain, the same. The hospitality of which the father boasted, the son found in all its warmth, but meliorated and refined; less convivial, more social; the fashion of hospitality had improved. To make the stranger eat or drink to excess, to set before him old wine and old plate, was no longer the sum of good breeding. The guest now escaped the pomp of grand entertainments; was allowed to enjoy ease and conversation, and to taste some of that feast of reason and that flow of soul so often talked of, and so seldom enjoyed. Lord Colambre found a spirit of improvement, a desire for knowledge, and a taste for science and literature, in most companies, particularly among gentlemen belonging to the Irish bar; nor did he in Dublin society see any of that confusion of ranks or predominance of vulgarity of which his mother had complained. Lady Clonbrony had assured him that, the last time she had been at the drawing-room at the Castle, a lady, whom she afterwards found to be a grocer's wife, had turned angrily when her ladyship had accidentally trodden on her train, and had exclaimed with a strong brogue, 'I'll thank you, ma'am, for the rest of my tail.' Sir James Brooke, to whom Lord Colambre, without GIVING UP HIS AUTHORITY, mentioned the fact, declared that he had no doubt the thing had happened precisely as it was stated; but that this was one of the extraordinary cases which ought not to pass into a general rule--that it was a slight instance of that influence of temporary causes, from which no conclusions, as to national manners, should be drawn. 'I happened,' continued Sir James, 'to be quartered in Dublin soon after the Union took place; and I remember the great but transient change that appeared. From the removal of both Houses of Parliament, most of the nobility, and many of the principal families among the Irish commoners, either hurried in high hopes to London, or retired disgusted and in despair to their houses in the country. Immediately, in Dublin, commerce rose into the vacated seats of rank; wealth rose into the place of birth. New faces and new equipages appeared; people, who had never been heard of before, started into notice, pushed themselves forward, not scrupling to elbow their way even at the Castle; and they were presented to my lord-lieutenant and to my lady-lieutenant; for their excellencies, for the time being, might have played their vice-regal parts to empty benches, had they not admitted such persons for the moment to fill their court. Those of former times, of hereditary pretensions and high-bred minds and manners, were scandalised at all this; and they complained, with justice, that the whole TONE of society was altered; that the decorum, elegance, polish, and charm of society was gone; and I among the rest (said Sir James) felt and deplored their change. But, now it is all over, we may acknowledge that, perhaps, even those things which we felt most disagreeable at the time were productive of eventual benefit. 'Formerly, a few families had set the fashion. From time immemorial everything had, in Dublin, been submitted to their hereditary authority; and conversation, though it had been rendered polite by their example, was, at the same time, limited within narrow bounds. Young people, educated upon a more enlarged plan, in time grew up; and, no authority or fashion forbidding it, necessarily rose to their just place, and enjoyed their due influence in society. The want of manners, joined to the want of knowledge in the new set, created universal disgust: they were compelled, some by ridicule, some by bankruptcies, to fall back into their former places, from which they could never more emerge. In the meantime, some of the Irish nobility and gentry who had been living at an unusual expense in London--an expense beyond their incomes--were glad to return home to refit; and they brought with them a new stock of ideas, and some taste for science and literature, which, within these latter years, have become fashionable, indeed indispensable, in London. That part of the Irish aristocracy, who, immediately upon the first incursions of the vulgarians, had fled in despair to their fastnesses in the country, hearing of the improvements which had gradually taken place in society, and assured of the final expulsion of the barbarians, ventured from their retreats, and returned to their posts in town. So that now,' concluded Sir James, 'you find a society in Dublin composed of a most agreeable and salutary mixture of birth and education, gentility and knowledge, manner and matter; and you see pervading the whole new life and energy, new talent, new ambition, a desire and a determination to improve and be improved--a perception that higher distinction can now be obtained in almost all company, by genius and merit, than by airs and dress.... So much for the higher order. Now, among the class of tradesmen and shopkeepers, you may amuse yourself, my lord, with marking the difference between them and persons of the same rank in London.' Lord Colambre had several commissions to execute for his English friends, and he made it his amusement in every shop to observe the manners and habits of the people. He remarked that there are in Dublin two classes of tradespeople: one, who go into business with intent to make it their occupation for life, and as a slow but sure means of providing for themselves and their families; another class, who take up trade merely as a temporary resource, to which they condescend for a few years, trusting that they shall, in that time, make a fortune, retire, and commence or recommence gentlemen. The Irish regular men of business are like all other men of business--punctual, frugal, careful, and so forth; with the addition of more intelligence, invention, and enterprise than are usually found in Englishmen of the same rank. But the Dublin tradesmen PRO TEMPORE are a class by themselves; they begin without capital, buy stock upon credit in hopes of making large profits, and, in the same hopes, sell upon credit. Now, if the credit they can obtain is longer than that which they are forced to give, they go on and prosper; if not, they break, turn bankrupts, and sometimes, as bankrupts, thrive. By such men, of course, every SHORT CUT to fortune is followed; whilst every habit, which requires time to prove its advantage, is disregarded; nor with such views can a character for PUNCTUALITY have its just value. In the head of a man who intends to be a tradesman to-day, and a gentleman to-morrow, the ideas of the honesty and the duties of a tradesman, and of the honour and the accomplishments of a gentleman, are oddly jumbled together, and the characteristics of both are lost in the compound. He will OBLIGE you, but he will not obey you; he will do you a favour, but he will not do you JUSTICE; he will do ANYTHING TO SERVE YOU, but the particular thing you order he neglects; he asks your pardon, for he would not, for all the goods in his warehouse, DISOBLIGE you; not for the sake of your custom, but he has a particular regard for your family. Economy, in the eyes of such a tradesman, is, if not a mean vice, at least a shabby virtue, which he is too polite to suspect his customers of, and particularly proud to prove himself superior to. Many London tradesmen, after making their thousands and their tens of thousands, feel pride in still continuing to live like plain men of business; but from the moment a Dublin tradesman of this style has made a few hundreds, he sets up his gig, and then his head is in his carriage, and not in his business; and when he has made a few thousands, he buys or builds a country-house--and then, and thenceforward, his head, heart, and soul are in his country-house, and only his body in the shop with his customers. Whilst he is making money, his wife, or rather his lady, is spending twice as much out of town as he makes in it. At the word country-house, let no one figure to himself a snug little box, like that in which a WARM London citizen, after long years of toil, indulges himself, one day out of seven, in repose--enjoying from his gazabo the smell of the dust, and the view of passing coaches on the London road. No: these Hibernian villas are on a much more magnificent scale; some of them formerly belonged to Irish members of Parliament, who are at a distance from their country-seats. After the Union these were bought by citizens and tradesmen, who spoiled, by the mixture of their own fancies, what had originally been designed by men of good taste. Some time after Lord Colambre's arrival in Dublin, he had an opportunity of seeing one of these villas, which belonged to Mrs. Raffarty, a grocer's lady, and sister to one of Lord Clonbrony's agents, Mr. Nicholas Garraghty. Lord Colambre was surprised to find that his father's agent resided in Dublin: he had been used to see agents, or stewards, as they are called in England, live in the country, and usually on the estate of which they have the management. Mr. Nicholas Garraghty, however, had a handsome house in a fashionable part of Dublin. Lord Colambre called several times to see him, but he was out of town, receiving rents for some other gentlemen, as he was agent for more than one property. Though our hero had not the honour of seeing Mr. Garraghty, he had the pleasure of finding Mrs. Raffarty one day at her brother's house. Just as his lordship came to the door, she was going, on her jaunting-car, to her villa, called Tusculum, situate near Bray. She spoke much of the beauties of the vicinity of Dublin; found his lordship was going with Sir James Brooke and a party of gentlemen to see the county of Wicklow; and his lordship and party were entreated to do her the honour of taking in his way a little collation at Tusculum. Our hero was glad to have an opportunity of seeing more of a species of fine lady with which he was unacquainted. The invitation was verbally made, and verbally accepted; but the lady afterwards thought it necessary to send a written invitation in due form, and the note she sent directed to the MOST RIGHT HONOURABLE the Lord Viscount Colambre. On opening it he perceived that it could not have been intended for him. It ran as follows: MY DEAR JULIANA O'LEARY, I have got a promise from Colambre, that he will be with us at Tusculum on Friday the 20th, in his way from the county of Wicklow, for the collation I mentioned; and expect a large party of officers; so pray come early, with your house, or as many as the jaunting-car can bring. And pray, my dear, be ELEGANT. You need not let it transpire to Mrs. O'G--; but make my apologies to Miss O'G--, if she says anything, and tell her I'm quite concerned I can't ask her for that day; because, tell her, I'm so crowded, and am to have none that day but REAL QUALITY.--Yours ever and ever, ANASTASIA RAFFARTY. P.S.--And I hope to make the gentlemen stop the night with me; so will not have beds. Excuse haste, and compliments, etc. TUSCULUM, Sunday 15. After a charming tour in the county of Wicklow, where the beauty of the natural scenery, and the taste with which those natural beauties had been cultivated, far surpassed the sanguine expectations Lord Colambre had formed, his lordship and his companions arrived at Tusculum, where he found Mrs. Raffarty, and Miss Juliana O'Leary, very elegant, with a large party of the ladies and gentlemen of Bray, assembled in a drawing-room, fine with bad pictures and gaudy gilding; the windows were all shut, and the company were playing cards with all their might. This was the fashion of the neighbourhood. In compliment to Lord Colambre and the officers, the ladies left the card-tables; and Mrs. Raffarty, observing that his lordship seemed PARTIAL to walking, took him out, as she said, 'to do the honours of nature and art.' His lordship was much amused by the mixture, which was now exhibited to him, of taste and incongruity, ingenuity and absurdity, genius and blunder; by the contrast between the finery and vulgarity, the affectation and ignorance of the lady of the villa. We should be obliged to STOP too long at Tusculum were we to attempt to detail all the odd circumstances of this visit; but we may record an example or two which may give a sufficient idea of the whole. In the first place, before they left the drawing-room, Miss Juliana O'Leary pointed out to his lordship's attention a picture over the drawing-room chimney-piece. 'Is not it a fine piece, my lord?' said she, naming the price Mrs. Raffarty had lately paid for it at an auction.--'It has a right to be a fine piece, indeed; for it cost a fine price!' Nevertheless this FINE piece was a vile daub; and our hero could only avoid the sin of flattery, or the danger of offending the lady, by protesting that he had no judgment in pictures. 'Indeed, I don't pretend to be a connoisseur or conoscenti myself; but I'm told the style is undeniably modern. And was not I lucky, Juliana, not to let that MEDONA be knocked down to me? I was just going to bid, when I heard such smart bidding; but fortunately the auctioneer let out that it was done by a very old master--a hundred years old. Oh! your most obedient, thinks I!--if that's the case, it's not for my money; so I bought this, in lieu of the smoke-dried thing, and had it a bargain.' In architecture, Mrs. Rafferty had as good a taste and as much skill as in painting. There had been a handsome portico in front of the house; but this interfering with the lady's desire to have a veranda, which she said could not be dispensed with, she had raised the whole portico to the second story, where it stood, or seemed to stand, upon a tarpaulin roof. But Mrs. Raffarty explained that the pillars, though they looked so properly substantial, were really hollow and as light as feathers, and were supported with cramps, without DISOBLIGING the front wall of the house at all to signify. 'Before she showed the company any farther,' she said, 'she must premise to his lordship, that she had been originally stinted in room for her improvements, so that she could not follow her genius liberally; she had been reduced to have some things on a confined scale, and occasionally to consult her pocket-compass; but she prided herself upon having put as much into a light pattern as could well be; that had been her whole ambition, study, and problem, for she was determined to have at least the honour of having a little TASTE of everything at Tusculum.' So she led the way to a little conservatory, and a little pinery, and a little grapery, and a little aviary, and a little pheasantry, and a little dairy for show, and a little cottage for ditto, with a grotto full of shells, and a little hermitage full of earwigs, and a little ruin full of looking-glass, 'to enlarge and multiply the effect of the Gothic.' 'But you could only put your head in, because it was just fresh painted, and though there had been a fire ordered in the ruin all night, it had only smoked.' In all Mrs. Raffarty's buildings, whether ancient or modern, there was a studied crookedness. 'Yes,' she said, 'she hated everything straight, it was so formal and UNPICTURESQUE. Uniformity and conformity, she observed, had their day; but now, thank the stars of the present day, irregularity and deformity bear the bell, and have the majority.' As they proceeded and walked through the grounds, from which Mrs. Raffarty, though she had done her best, could not take that which nature had given, she pointed out to my lord 'a happy moving termination,' consisting of a Chinese bridge, with a fisherman leaning over the rails. On a sudden, the fisherman was seen to tumble over the bridge into the water. The gentlemen ran to extricate the poor fellow, while they heard Mrs. Raffarty bawling to his lordship, to beg he would never mind, and not trouble himself. When they arrived at the bridge, they saw the man hanging from part of the bridge, and apparently struggling in the water; but when they attempted to pull him up, they found it was only a stuffed figure which had been pulled into the stream by a real fish, which had seized hold of the bait. Mrs. Raffarty, vexed by the fisherman's fall, and by the laughter it occasioned, did not recover herself sufficiently to be happily ridiculous during the remainder of the walk, nor till dinner was announced, when she apologised for 'having changed the collation, at first intended, into a dinner, which she hoped would be found no bad substitute, and which she flattered herself might prevail on my lord and the gentlemen to sleep, as there was no moon.' The dinner had two great faults--profusion and pretension. There was, in fact, ten times more on the table than was necessary; and the entertainment was far above the circumstances of the person by whom it was given; for instance, the dish of fish at the head of the table had been brought across the island from Sligo, and had cost five guineas; as the lady of the house failed not to make known. But, after all, things were not of a piece; there was a disparity between the entertainment and the attendants; there was no proportion or fitness of things--a painful endeavour at what could not be attained, and a toiling in vain to conceal and repair deficiencies and blunders. Had the mistress of the house been quiet; had she, as Mrs. Broadhurst would say, but let things alone, let things take their course, all would have passed off with well-bred people; but she was incessantly apologising, and fussing, and fretting inwardly and outwardly, and directing and calling to her servants--striving to make a butler who was deaf, a boy who was hare-brained, do the business of five accomplished footmen of PARTS and FIGURE. The mistress of the house called for 'plates, clean plates!-hot plates!' 'But none did come, when she did call for them.' Mrs. Raffarty called 'Larry! Larry! My lord's plate, there!--James! bread to Captain Bowles!--James! port wine to the major!--James! James Kenny! James!' 'And panting James toiled after her in vain.' At length one course was fairly got through, and after a torturing half-hour, the second course appeared, and James Kenny was intent upon one thing, and Larry upon another, so that the wine-sauce for the hare was spilt by their collision; but, what was worse, there seemed little chance that the whole of this second course should ever be placed altogether rightly upon the table. Mrs. Raffarty cleared her throat, and nodded, and pointed, and sighed, and set Larry after Kenny, and Kenny after Larry; for what one did, the other undid; and at last the lady's anger kindled, and she spoke: 'Kenny! James Kenny! set the sea-cale at this corner, and put down the grass cross-corners; and match your macaroni yonder with THEM puddens, set--Ogh! James! the pyramid in the middle, can't ye?' The pyramid, in changing places, was overturned. Then it was that the mistress of the feast, falling back in her seat, and lifting up her hands and eyes in despair, ejaculated, 'Oh, James! James!' The pyramid was raised by the assistance of the military engineers, and stood trembling again on its base; but the lady's temper could not be so easily restored to its equilibrium. The comedy of errors, which this day's visit exhibited, amused all the spectators. But Lord Colambre, after he had smiled, sometimes sighed.--Similar foibles and follies in persons of different rank, fortune, and manner, appear to common observers so unlike, that they laugh without scruples of conscience in one case, at what in another ought to touch themselves most nearly. It was the same desire to appear what they were not, the same vain ambition to vie with superior rank and fortune, or fashion, which actuated Lady Clonbrony and Mrs. Raffarty; and whilst this ridiculous grocer's wife made herself the sport of some of her guests, Lord Colambre sighed, from the reflection that what she was to them, his mother was to persons in a higher rank of fashion.--He sighed still more deeply, when he considered, that, in whatever station or with whatever fortune, extravagance, that is the living beyond our income, must lead to distress and meanness, and end in shame and ruin. In the morning, as they were riding away from Tusculum and talking over their visit, the officers laughed heartily, and rallying Lord Colambre upon his seriousness, accused him of having fallen in love with Mrs. Raffarty, or with the ELEGANT Miss Juliana. Our hero, who wished never to be nice overmuch, or serious out of season, laughed with those that laughed, and endeavoured to catch the spirit of the jest. But Sir James Brooke, who now was well acquainted with his countenance, and who knew something of the history of his family, understood his real feelings, and, sympathising in them, endeavoured to give the conversation a new turn. 'Look there, Bowles,' said he, as they were just riding into the town of Bray; 'look at the barouche, standing at that green door, at the farthest end of the town. Is not that Lady Dashfort's barouche?' 'It looks like what she sported in Dublin last year,' said Bowles; 'but you don't think she'd give us the same two seasons? Besides, she is not in Ireland, is she? I did not hear of her intending to come over again.' 'I beg your pardon,' said another officer; 'she will come again to so good a market, to marry her other daughter. I hear she said, or swore, that she will marry the young widow, Lady Isabel, to an Irish nobleman.' 'Whatever she says, she swears, and whatever she swears, she'll do,' replied Bowles. 'Have a care, my Lord Colambre; if she sets her heart upon you for Lady Isabel, she has you. Nothing can save you. Heart she has none, so there you're safe, my lord,' said the other officer; 'but if Lady Isabel sets her eye upon you, no basilisk's is surer.' 'But if Lady Dashfort had landed I am sure we should have heard of it, for she makes noise enough wherever she goes; especially in Dublin, where all she said and did was echoed and magnified, till one could hear of nothing else. I don't think she has landed.' 'I hope to Heaven they may never land again in Ireland!' cried Sir James Brooke; 'one worthless woman, especially one worthless Englishwoman of rank, does incalculable mischief in a country like this, which looks up to the sister country for fashion. For my own part, as a warm friend to Ireland, I would rather see all the toads and serpents, and venomous reptiles, that St. Patrick carried off in his bag, come back to this island, than these two DASHERS. Why, they would bite half the women and girls in the kingdom with the rage for mischief, before half the husbands and fathers could turn their heads about. And, once bit, there's no cure in nature or art.' 'No horses to this barouche!' cried Captain Bowles.--'Pray, sir, whose carriage is this?' said the captain to a servant who was standing beside it. 'My Lady Dashfort, sir, it belongs to,' answered the servant, in rather a surly English tone; and turning to a boy who was lounging at the door--'Pat, bid them bring out the horses, for my ladies is in a hurry to get home.' Captain Bowles stopped to make his servant alter the girths of his horse, and to satisfy his curiosity; and the whole party halted. Captain Bowles beckoned to the landlord of the inn, who was standing at his door. 'So, Lady Dashfort is here again?--This is her barouche, is not it?' 'Yes, sir, she is--it is.' 'And has she sold her fine horses?' 'Oh no, sir--this is not her carriage at all--she is not here. That is, she is here, in Ireland; but down in the county of Wicklow, on a visit. And this is not her own carriage at all;--that is to say, not that which she has with herself, driving; but only just the cast barouche like, as she keeps for the lady's maids.' 'For the lady's maids! that is good! that is new, faith! Sir James, do you hear that?' 'Indeed, then, and it's true, and not a word of a lie!' said the honest landlord. 'And this minute, we've got a directory of five of them abigails, sitting within in our house; as fine ladies, as great dashers, too, every bit as their principals; and kicking up as much dust on the road, every grain!--Think of them, now! The likes of them, that must have four horses, and would not stir a foot with one less!--As the gentleman's gentleman there was telling and boasting to me about now, when the barouche was ordered for them, there at the lady's house, where Lady Dashfort is on a visit--they said they would not get in till they'd get four horses; and their ladies backed them; and so the four horses was got; and they just drove out here, to see the points of view for fashion's sake, like their betters; and up with their glasses, like their ladies; and then out with their watches, and "Isn't it time to lunch?" So there they have been lunching within on what they brought with them; for nothing in our house could they touch, of course! They brought themselves a PICKNICK lunch, with Madeira and Champagne to wash it down. Why, gentlemen, what do you think, but a set of them, as they were bragging to me, turned out of a boarding-house at Cheltenham, last year, because they had not peach-pies to their lunch!--But here they come! shawls, and veils, and all!--streamers flying! But mum is my cue!--Captain, are these girths to your fancy now?' said the landlord, aloud; then, as he stooped to alter a buckle, he said, in a voice meant to be heard only by Captain Bowles, 'If there's a tongue, male or female, in the three kingdoms, it's in that foremost woman, Mrs. Petito.' 'Mrs. Petito!' repeated Lord Colambre, as the name caught his ear; and, approaching the barouche in which the five abigails were now seated, he saw the identical Mrs. Petito, who, when he left London, had been in his mother's service. She recognised his lordship with very gracious intimacy; and, before he had time to ask any questions, she answered all she conceived he was going to ask, and with a volubility which justified the landlord's eulogium of her tongue. 'Yes, my lord! I left my Lady Clonbrony some time back--the day after you left town; and both her ladyship and Miss Nugent was charmingly, and would have sent their loves to your lordship, I'm sure, if they'd any notion I should have met you, my lord, so soon. And I was very sorry to part with them; but the fact was, my lord,' said Mrs. Petito, laying a detaining hand upon Lord Colambre's whip, one end of which he unwittingly trusted within her reach,--'I and my lady had a little difference, which the best friends, you know, sometimes have; so my Lady Clonbrony was so condescending to give me up to my Lady Dashfort--and I knew no more than the child unborn that her ladyship had it in contemplation to cross the seas. But, to oblige my lady, and as Colonel Heathcock, with his regiment of militia, was coming for purtection in the packet at the same time, and we to have the government-yacht, I waived my objections to Ireland. And, indeed, though I was greatly frighted at first, having heard all we've heard, you know, my lord, from Lady Clonbrony, of there being no living in Ireland, and expecting to see no trees nor accommodation, nor anything but bogs all along; yet I declare, I was very agreeably surprised; for, as far as I've seen at Dublin and in the vicinity, the accommodations, and everything of that nature, now is vastly put-up-able with!'--'My lord,' said Sir James Brooke, 'we shall be late.' Lord Colambre, shortly withdrawing his whip from Mrs. Petito, turned his horse away. She, stretching over the back of the barouche as he rode off, bawled to him-- 'My lord, we're at Stephen's Green, when we're at Dublin.' But as he did not choose to hear, she raised her voice to its highest pitch, adding-- 'And where are you, my lord, to be found!--as I have a parcel of Miss Nugent's for you.' Lord Colambre instantly turned back, and gave his direction. 'Cleverly done, faith!' said the major. 'I did not hear her say when Lady Dashfort is to be in town,' said Captain Bowles. 'What, Bowles! have you a mind to lose more of your guineas to Lady Dashfort, and to be jockied out of another horse by Lady Isabel?' 'Oh! confound it--no! I'll keep out of the way of that--I have had enough,' said Captain Bowles; 'it is my Lord Colambre's turn now; you hear that Lady Dashfort would be very PROUD to see him. His lordship is in for it, and with such an auxiliary as Mrs. Petito, Lady Dashfort has him for Lady Isabel, as sure as he has a heart or hand.' 'My compliments to the ladies, but my heart is engaged,' said Lord Colambre; 'and my hand shall go with my heart, or not at all.' 'Engaged! engaged to a very amiable, charming woman, no doubt,' said Sir James Brooke. 'I have an excellent opinion of your taste; and if you can return the compliment to my judgment, take my advice: don't trust to your heart's being engaged, much less plead that engagement; for it would be Lady Dashfort's sport, and Lady Isabel's joy, to make you break your engagement, and break your mistress's heart; the fairer, the more amiable, the more beloved, the greater the triumph, the greater the delight in giving pain. All the time love would be out of the question; neither mother nor daughter would care if you were hanged, or, as Lady Dashfort would herself have expressed it, if you were d-d.' 'With such women, I should think a man's heart could be in no great danger,' said Lord Colambre. 'There you might be mistaken, my lord; there's a way to every man's heart, which no man in his own case is aware of, but which every woman knows right well, and none better than these ladies--by his vanity.' 'True,' said Captain Bowles. 'I am not so vain as to think myself without vanity,' said Lord Colambre; 'but love, I should imagine, is a stronger passion than vanity.' 'You should imagine! Stay till you are tried, my lord. Excuse me,' said Captain Bowles, laughing. Lord Colambre felt the good sense of this, and determined to have nothing to do with these dangerous ladies; indeed, though he had talked, he had scarcely yet thought of them; for his imagination was intent upon that packet from Miss Nugent, which Mrs. Petito said she had for him. He heard nothing of it, or of her, for some days. He sent his servant every day to Stephen's Green to inquire if Lady Dashfort had returned to town. Her ladyship at last returned; but Mrs. Petito could not deliver the parcel to any hand but Lord Colambre's own, and she would not stir out, because her lady was indisposed. No longer able to restrain his impatience, Lord Colambre went himself--knocked at Lady Dashfort's door--inquired for Mrs. Petito--was shown into her parlour. The parcel was delivered to him; but to his utter disappointment, it was a parcel FOR, not FROM Miss Nugent. It contained merely an odd volume of some book of Miss Nugent's which Mrs. Petito said she had put up along with her things IN A MISTAKE, and she thought it her duty to return it by the next opportunity of a safe conveyance. Whilst Lord Colambre, to comfort himself for his disappointment, was fixing his eyes upon Miss Nugent's name, written by her own hand, in the first leaf of the book, the door opened, and the figure of an interesting-looking woman, in deep mourning, appeared--appeared for one moment, and retired. 'Only my Lord Colambre, about a parcel I was bringing for him from England, my lady--my Lady Isabel, my lord,' said Mrs. Petito. Whilst Mrs. Petito was saying this, the entrance and retreat had been made, and made with such dignity, grace, and modesty; with such innocence, dove-like eyes had been raised upon him, fixed and withdrawn; with such a gracious bend the Lady Isabel had bowed to him as she retired; with such a smile, and with so soft a voice, had repeated 'Lord Colambre!' that his lordship, though well aware that all this was mere acting, could not help saying to himself as he left the house: 'It is a pity it is only acting. There is certainly something very engaging in this woman. It is a pity she is an actress. And so young! A much younger woman than I expected. A widow before most women are wives. So young, surely she cannot be such a fiend as they described her to be!' A few nights afterwards Lord Colambre was with some of his acquaintance at the theatre, when Lady Isabel and her mother came into the box, where seats had been reserved for them, and where their appearance instantly made that sensation which is usually created by the entrance of persons of the first notoriety in the fashionable world. Lord Colambre was not a man to be dazzled by fashion, or to mistake notoriety for deference paid to merit, and for the admiration commanded by beauty or talents. Lady Dashfort's coarse person, loud voice, daring manners, and indelicate wit, disgusted him almost past endurance, He saw Sir James Brooke in the box opposite to him; and twice determined to go round to him. His lordship had crossed the benches, and once his hand was upon the lock of the door; but attracted as much by the daughter as repelled by the mother, he could move no farther. The mother's masculine boldness heightened, by contrast, the charms of the daughter's soft sentimentality. The Lady Isabel seemed to shrink from the indelicacy of her mother's manners, and seemed peculiarly distressed by the strange efforts Lady Dashfort made, from time to time, to drag her forward, and to fix upon her the attention of gentlemen. Colonel Heathcock, who, as Mrs. Petito had informed Lord Colambre, had come over with his regiment to Ireland, was beckoned into their box by Lady Dashfort, by her squeezed into a seat next to Lady Isabel; but Lady Isabel seemed to feel sovereign contempt, properly repressed by politeness, for what, in a low whisper to a female friend on the other side of her, she called, 'the self-sufficient inanity of this sad coxcomb.' Other coxcombs, of a more vivacious style, who stationed themselves round her mother, or to whom her mother stretched from box to box to talk, seemed to engage no more of Lady Isabel's attention than just what she was compelled to give by Lady Dashfort's repeated calls of-- 'Isabel! Isabel! Colonel G-- Isabel! Lord D-- bowing to you, Belie! Belie! Sir Harry B-- Isabel, child, with your eyes on the stage? Did you never see a play before? Novice! Major P--waiting to catch your eye this quarter of an hour; and now her eyes gone down to her play-bill! Sir Harry, do take it from her. 'Were eyes so radiant only made to read?' Lady Isabel appeared to suffer so exquisitely and so naturally from this persecution, that Lord Colambre said to himself-- 'If this be acting, it is the best acting I ever saw. If this be art, it deserves to be nature.' And with this sentiment he did himself the honour of handing Lady Isabel to her carriage this night, and with this sentiment he awoke next morning; and by the time he had dressed and breakfasted he determined that it was impossible all that he had seen could be acting. 'No woman, no young woman, could have such art. Sir James Brooke had been unwarrantably severe; he would go and tell him so.' But Sir James Brooke this day received orders for his regiment to march to quarters in a distant part of Ireland. His head was full of arms, and ammunition, and knapsacks, and billets, and routes; and there was no possibility, even in the present chivalrous disposition of our hero, to enter upon the defence of the Lady Isabel. Indeed, in the regret he felt for the approaching and unexpected departure of his friend, Lord Colambre forgot the fair lady. But just when Sir James had his foot in the stirrup, he stopped. 'By the bye, my dear lord, I saw you at the play last night. You seemed to be much interested. Don't think me impertinent, if I remind you of our conversation when we were riding home from Tusculum; and if I warn you,' said he, mounting his horse, 'to beware of counterfeits--for such are abroad.' Reining in his impatient steed, Sir James turned again and added, 'DEEDS NOT WORDS, is my motto. Remember, we can judge better by the conduct of people towards others than by their manner towards ourselves.' CHAPTER VII Our hero was quite convinced of the good sense of his friend's last remark, that it is safer to judge of people by their conduct to others than by their manners towards ourselves; but as yet, he felt scarcely any interest on the subject of Lady Dashfort or Lady Isabel's characters; however, he inquired and listened to all the evidence he could obtain respecting this mother and daughter. He heard terrible reports of the mischief they had done in families; the extravagance into which they had led men; the imprudence, to say no worse, into which they had betrayed women. Matches broken off, reputations ruined, husbands alienated from their wives, and wives made jealous of their husbands. But in some of these stories he discovered exaggeration so flagrant as to make him doubt the whole; in others, it could not be positively determined whether the mother or daughter had been the person most to blame. Lord Colambre always followed the charitable rule of believing only half what the world says, and here he thought it fair to believe which half he pleased. He further observed, that, though all joined in abusing these ladies in their absence, when present they seemed universally admired. Though everybody cried 'Shame!' and 'shocking!' yet everybody visited them. No parties so crowded as Lady Dashfort's; no party deemed pleasant or fashionable where Lady Dashfort or Lady Isabel was not. The bon-mots of the mother were everywhere repeated; the dress and air of the daughter everywhere imitated. Yet Lord Colambre could not help being surprised at their popularity in Dublin, because, independently of all moral objections, there were causes of a different sort, sufficient, he thought, to prevent Lady Dashfort from being liked by the Irish; indeed by any society. She in general affected to be ill-bred, and inattentive to the feelings and opinions of others; careless whom she offended by her wit or by her decided tone. There are some persons in so high a region of fashion, that they imagine themselves above the thunder of vulgar censure. Lady Dashfort felt herself in this exalted situation, and fancied she might 'hear the innocuous thunder roll below.' Her rank was so high that none could dare to call her vulgar; what would have been gross in any one of meaner note, in her was freedom, or originality, or Lady Dashfort's way. It was Lady Dashfort's pleasure and pride to show her power in perverting the public taste. She often said to those English companions with whom she was intimate, 'Now see what follies I can lead these fools into. Hear the nonsense I can make them repeat as wit.' Upon some occasion, one of her friends VENTURED to fear that something she had said was TOO STRONG. 'Too strong, was it? Well, I like to be strong--woe be to the weak.' On another occasion she was told that certain visitors had seen her ladyship yawning. 'Yawn, did I?--glad of it--the yawn sent them away, or I should have snored;--rude, was I? they won't complain. To say I was rude to them would be to say, that I did not think it worth my while to be otherwise. Barbarians! are not we the civilised English, come to teach them manners and fashions? Whoever does not conform, and swear allegiance too, we shall keep out of the English pale.' Lady Dashfort forced her way, and she set the fashion: fashion, which converts the ugliest dress into what is beautiful and charming, governs the public mode in morals and in manners; and thus, when great talents and high rank combine, they can debase or elevate the public taste. With Lord Colambre she played more artfully; she drew him out in defence of his beloved country, and gave him opportunities of appearing to advantage; this he could not help feeling, especially when the Lady Isabel was present. Lady Dashfort had dealt long enough with human nature to know, that to make any man pleased with her, she should begin by making him pleased with himself. Insensibly the antipathy that Lord Colambre had originally felt to Lady Dashfort wore off; her faults, he began to think, were assumed; he pardoned her defiance of good breeding, when he observed that she could, when she chose it, be most engagingly polite. It was not that she did not know what was right, but that she did not think it always for her interest to practise it. The party opposed to Lady Dashfort affirmed that her wit depended merely on unexpectedness; a characteristic which may be applied to any impropriety of speech, manner, or conduct. In some of her ladyship's repartees, however, Lord Colambre now acknowledged there was more than unexpectedness; there was real wit; but it was of a sort utterly unfit for a woman, and he was sorry that Lady Isabel should hear it. In short, exceptionable as it was altogether, Lady Dashfort's conversation had become entertaining to him; and though he could never esteem or feel in the least interested about her, he began to allow that she could be agreeable. 'Ay, I knew how it would be,' said she, when some of her friends told her this. 'He began by detesting me, and did I not tell you that, if I thought it worth my while to make him like me, he must, sooner or later. I delight in seeing people begin with me as they do with olives, making all manner of horrid faces and silly protestations that they will never touch an olive again as long as they live; but, after a little time, these very folk grow so desperately fond of olives, that there is no dessert without them. Isabel, child, you are in the sweet line--but sweets cloy. You never heard of anybody living on marmalade, did ye?'--Lady Isabel answered by a sweet smile.--'To do you justice, you play Lydia Languish vastly well,' pursued the mother; 'but Lydia, by herself, would soon tire; somebody must keep up the spirit and bustle, and carry on the plot of the piece; and I am that somebody--as you shall see. Is not that our hero's voice, which I hear on the stairs?' It was Lord Colambre. His lordship had by this time become a constant visitor at Lady Dashfort's. Not that he had forgotten, or that he meant to disregard his friend Sir James Brooke's parting words. He promised himself faithfully, that if anything should occur to give him reason to suspect designs, such as those to which the warning pointed, he would be on his guard, and would prove his generalship by an able retreat. But to imagine attacks where none were attempted, to suspect ambuscades in the open country, would be ridiculous and cowardly. 'No,' thought our hero; 'Heaven forfend I should be such a coxcomb as to fancy every woman who speaks to me has designs upon my precious heart, or on my more precious estate!' As he walked from his hotel to Lady Dashfort's house, ingeniously wrong, he came to this conclusion, just as he ascended the stairs, and just as her ladyship had settled her future plan of operations. After talking over the nothings of the day, and after having given two or three CUTS at the society of Dublin, with two or three compliments to individuals, who, she knew, were favourites with his lordship, she suddenly turned to him-- 'My lord, I think you told me, or my own sagacity discovered, that you want to see something of Ireland, and that you don't intend, like most travellers, to turn round, see nothing, and go home content.' Lord Colambre assured her ladyship that she had judged him rightly, for, that nothing would content him but seeing all that was possible to be seen of his native country. It was for this special purpose he came to Ireland. 'Ah!--well--very good purpose--can't be better; but now, how to accomplish it. You know the Portuguese proverb says, "You go to hell for the good things you intend to do, and to heaven for those you do." Now let us see what you will do. Dublin, I suppose, you've seen enough of by this time; through and through--round and round this makes me first giddy and then sick. Let me show you the country--not the face of it, but the body of it--the people. Not Castle this, or Newtown that, but their inhabitants. I know them; I have the key, or the picklock to their minds. An Irishman is as different an animal on his guard, and off his guard, as a miss in school from a miss out of school. A fine country for game, I'll show you; and, if you are a good marksman, you may have plenty of shots "at folly as it flies."' Lord Colambre smiled. 'As to Isabel,' pursued her ladyship, 'I shall put her in charge of Heathcock, who is going with us. She won't thank me for that, but you will. Nay, no fibs, man; you know, I know, as who does not that has seen the world, that though a pretty woman is a mighty pretty thing, yet she is confoundedly in one's way, when anything else is to be seen, heard--or understood.' Every objection anticipated and removed, and so far a prospect held out of attaining all the information he desired, with more than all the amusement he could have expected, Lord Colambre seemed much tempted to accept the invitation; but he hesitated, because, as he said, her ladyship might be going to pay visits where he was not acquainted. 'Bless you! don't let that be a stumbling-block in the way of your tender conscience. I am going to Killpatrickstown, where you'll be as welcome as light. You know them, they know you; at least you shall have a proper letter of invitation from my Lord and my Lady Killpatrick, and all that. And as to the rest, you know a young man is always welcome every-where, a young nobleman kindly welcome,--I won't say such a young man, and such a young nobleman, for that might put you to pour bows or your blushes--but NOBILITAS by itself, nobility is enough in all parties, in all families, where there are girls, and of course balls, as there are always at Killpatrickstown. Don't be alarmed; you shall not be forced to dance, or asked to marry. I'll be your security. You shall be at full liberty; and it is a house where you can do just what you will. Indeed, I go to no others. These Killpatricks are the best creatures in the world; they think nothing good or grand enough for me. If I'd let them, they would lay down cloth of gold over their bogs for me to walk upon.--Good-hearted beings!' added Lady Dashfort, marking a cloud gathering on Lord Colambre's countenance. 'I laugh at them, because I love them. I could not love anything I might not laugh at--your lordship excepted. So you'll come--that's settled.' And so it was settled. Our hero went to Killpatrickstown. 'Everything here sumptuous and unfinished, you see,' said Lady Dashfort to Lord Colambre, the day after their arrival. 'All begun as if the projectors thought they had the command of the mines of Peru, and ended as if the possessors had not sixpence; DES ARRANGEMENS PROVISATOIRES, temporary expedients; in plain English, MAKE-SHIFTS. Luxuries, enough for an English prince of the blood; comforts, not enough for an English woman. And you may be sure that great repairs and alterations have gone on to fit this house for our reception, and for our English eyes!--Poor people!--English visitors, in this point of view, are horribly expensive to the Irish. Did you ever hear that, in the last century, or in the century before the last, to put my story far enough back, so that it shall not touch anybody living; when a certain English nobleman, Lord Blank A--, sent to let his Irish friend, Lord Blank B--, know that he and all his train were coming over to pay him a visit; the Irish nobleman, Blank B--, knowing the deplorable condition of his castle, sat down fairly to calculate whether it would cost him most to put the building in good and sufficient repair, fit to receive these English visitors, or to burn it to the ground. He found the balance to be in favour of burning, which was wisely accomplished next day. Perhaps Killpatrick would have done well to follow this example. Resolve me which is worst, to be burnt out of house and home, or to be eaten out of house and home. In this house, above and below stairs, including first and second table, housekeeper's room, lady's maids' room, butler's room, and gentleman's, one hundred and four people sit down to dinner every day, as Petito informs me, beside kitchen boys, and what they call CHAR-women who never sit down, but who do not eat or waste the less for that; and retainers and friends, friends to the fifth and sixth generation, who "must get their bit and their sup;" for, "sure, it's only Biddy," they say,' continued Lady Dashfort, imitating their Irish brogue, 'find, "sure, 'tis nothing at all, out of all his honour, my lord, has. How could he FEEL it! [Feel it: become sensible of it, know it.] Long life to him! He's not that way: not a couple in all Ireland, and that's saying a great dale, looks less after their own, nor is more off-handeder, or open-hearteder, or greater open-house-keepers, NOR [than] my Lord and my Lady Killpatrick." Now there's encouragement for a lord and a lady to ruin themselves.' Lady Dashfort imitated the Irish brogue in perfection; boasted that 'she was mistress of fourteen different brogues, and had brogues for all occasions.' By her mixture of mimickry, sarcasm, exaggeration, and truth, she succeeded continually in making Lord Colambre laugh at everything at which she wished to make him laugh; at every THING, but not every BODY whenever she became personal, he became serious, or at least endeavoured to become serious; and if he could not instantly resume the command of his risible muscles, he reproached himself. 'It is shameful to laugh at these people, indeed, Lady Dashfort, in their own house--these hospitable people, who are entertaining us.' 'Entertaining us! true, and if we are ENTERTAINED, how can we help laughing?' All expostulation was thus turned off by a jest, as it was her pride to make Lord Colambre laugh in spite of his better feelings and principles. This he saw, and this seemed to him to be her sole object; but there he was mistaken. OFF-HANDED as she pretended to be, none dealt more in the IMPROMPTU FAIT A LOISIR; and mentally short-sighted as she affected to be, none had more LONGANIMITY for their own interest. It was her settled purpose to make the Irish and Ireland ridiculous and contemptible to Lord Colambre; to disgust him with his native country; to make him abandon the wish of residing on his own estate. To confirm him an absentee was her object previously to her ultimate plan of marrying him to her daughter. Her daughter was poor, she would therefore be glad to GET an Irish peer for her; but would be very sorry, she said, to see Isabel banished to Ireland; and the young widow declared she could never bring herself to be buried alive in Clonbrony Castle. In addition to these considerations, Lady Dashfort received certain hints from Mrs. Petito, which worked all to the same point. 'Why, yes, my lady; I heard a great deal about all that when I was at Lady Clonbrony's,' said Petito, one day, as she was attending at her lady's toilette, and encouraged to begin chattering. 'And I own I was originally under the universal error, that my Lord Colambre was to be married to the great heiress, Miss Broadhurst; but I have been converted and reformed on that score, and am at present quite in another way and style of thinking.' Petito paused, in hopes that her lady would ask, what was her present way of thinking? But Lady Dashfort, certain that she would tell her without being asked, did not take the trouble to speak, particularly as she did not choose to appear violently interested on the subject.--'My present way of thinking,' resumed Petito, 'is in consequence of my having, with my own eyes and ears, witnessed and overheard his lordship's behaviour and words, the morning he was coming away from LUNNUN for Ireland; when he was morally certain nobody was up, nor overhearing, nor overseeing him, there did I notice him, my lady, stopping in the antechamber, ejaculating over one of Miss Nugent's gloves, which he had picked up. "Limerick!" said he, quite loud to himself; for it was a Limerick glove, my lady,--"Limerick!--dear Ireland! she loves you as well as I do!"--or words to that effect; and then a sigh, and downstairs and off: So, thinks I, now the cat's out of the bag. And I wouldn't give much myself for Miss Broadhurst's chance of that young lord, with all her bank stock, scrip, and OMNUM. Now, I see how the land lies, and I'm sorry for it; for she's no FORTIN; and she's so proud, she never said a hint to me of the matter; but my Lord Colambre is a sweet gentleman; and--' 'Petito! don't run on so; you must not meddle with what you don't understand: the Miss Killpatricks, to be sure, are sweet girls, particularly the youngest.'--Her ladyship's toilette was finished; and she left Petito to go down to my Lady Killpatrick's woman, to tell, as a very great secret, the schemes that were in contemplation among the higher powers, in favour of the youngest of the Miss Killpatricks. 'So Ireland is at the bottom of his heart, is it?' repeated Lady Dashfort to herself; 'it shall not be long so.' From this time forward, not a day, scarcely an hour passed, but her ladyship did or said something to depreciate the country, or its inhabitants, in our hero's estimation. With treacherous ability, she knew and followed all the arts of misrepresentation; all those injurious arts which his friend, Sir James Brooke, had, with such honest indignation, reprobated. She knew how, not only to seize the ridiculous points, to make the most respectable people ridiculous, but she knew how to select the worst instances, the worst exceptions; and to produce them as examples, as precedents, from which to condemn whole classes, and establish general false conclusions respecting a nation. In the neighbourhood of Killpatrickstown, Lady Dashfort said, there were several SQUIREENS, or little squires; a race of men who have succeeded to the BUCKEENS, described by Young and Crumpe. SQUIREENS are persons who, with good long leases, or valuable farms, possess incomes from three to eight hundred a year; who keep a pack of hounds; TAKE OUT a commission of the peace, sometimes before they can spell (as her ladyship said), and almost always before they know anything of law or justice! Busy and loud about small matters; JOBBERS AT ASSIZES, combining with one another, and trying upon every occasion, public or private, to push themselves forward, to the annoyance of their superiors, and the terror of those below them. In the usual course of things, these men are not often to be found in the society of gentry; except, perhaps, among those gentlemen or noblemen who like to see hangers-on at their tables; or who find it for their convenience to have underling magistrates, to protect their favourites, or to propose and CARRY jobs for them on grand juries. At election times, however, these persons rise into sudden importance with all who have views upon the county. Lady Dashfort hinted to Lord Killpatrick, that her private letters from England spoke of an approaching dissolution of Parliament; she knew that, upon this hint, a round of invitations would be sent to the squireens; and she was morally certain that they would be more disagreeable to Lord Colambre, and give him a worse idea of the country, than any other people who could be produced. Day after day some of these personages made their appearance; and Lady Dashfort took care to draw them out upon the subjects on which she knew that they would show the most self-sufficient ignorance, and the most illiberal spirit. This succeeded beyond her most sanguine expectations. 'Lord Colambre! how I pity you, for being compelled to these permanent sittings after dinner!' said Lady Isabel to him one night, when he came late to the ladies from the dining-room. 'Lord Killpatrick insisted upon my staying to help him to push about that never-ending, still-beginning electioneering bottle,' said Lord Colambre. 'Oh! if that were all; if these gentlemen would only drink;--but their conversation! I don't wonder my mother dreads returning to Clonbrony Castle, if my father must have such company as this. But, surely, it cannot be necessary. 'Oh, indispensable! Positively indispensable!' cried Lady Dashfort; 'no living in Ireland without it. You know, in every country in the world, you must live with the people of the country, or be torn to pieces; for my part, I should prefer being torn to pieces.' Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel knew how to take advantage of the contrast between their own conversation, and that of the persons by whom Lord Colambre was so justly disgusted; they happily relieved his fatigue with wit, satire, poetry, and sentiment; so that he every day became more exclusively fond of their company; for Lady Killpatrick and the Miss Killpatricks were mere commonplace people. In the mornings, he rode or walked with Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel: Lady Dashfort, by way of fulfilling her promise of showing him the people, used frequently to take him into the cabins, and talk to their inhabitants. Lord and Lady Killpatrick, who had lived always for the fashionable world, had taken little pains to improve the condition of their tenants; the few attempts they had made were injudicious. They had built ornamented, picturesque cottages, within view of their demesne; and favourite followers of the family, people with half a century's habit of indolence and dirt, were PROMOTED to these fine dwellings. The consequences were such as Lady Dashfort delighted to point out; everything let to go to ruin for the want of a moment's care, or pulled to pieces for the sake of the most trifling surreptitious profit; the people most assisted always appearing proportionally wretched and discontented. No one could, with more ease and more knowledge of her ground, than Lady Dashfort, do the DISHONOUR of a country. In every cabin that she entered, by the first glance of her eye at the head, kerchiefed in no comely guise, or by the drawn-down corners of the mouth, or by the bit of a broken pipe, which in Ireland never characterises STOUT LABOUR, or by the first sound of the voice, the drawling accent on 'your honour,' or, 'my lady,' she could distinguish the proper objects of her charitable designs, that is to say, those of the old uneducated race, whom no one can help, because they will never help themselves. To these she constantly addressed herself, making them give, in all their despairing tones, a history of their complaints and grievances; then asking them questions, aptly contrived to expose their habits of self-contradiction, their servility and flattery one moment, and their litigious and encroaching spirit the next: thus giving Lord Colambre the most unfavourable idea of the disposition and character of the lower class of the Irish people. Lady Isabel the while standing by, with the most amiable air of pity, with expressions of the finest moral sensibility, softening all her mother said, finding ever some excuse for the poor creatures, and following with angelic sweetness to heal the wounds her mother inflicted. When Lady Dashfort thought she had sufficiently worked upon Lord Colambre's mind to weaken his enthusiasm for his native country, and when Lady Isabel had, by the appearance of every virtue, added to a delicate preference, if not partiality, for our hero, ingratiated herself into his good opinion and obtained an interest in his mind, the wily mother ventured an attack of a more decisive nature; and so contrived it was, that, if it failed, it should appear to have been made without design to injure, and in total ignorance. One day, Lady Dashfort, who in fact was not proud of her family, though she pretended to be so, had herself prevailed on, though with much difficulty, by Lady Killpatrick, to do the very thing she wanted to do, to show her genealogy, which had been beautifully blazoned, and which was to be produced as evidence in the lawsuit that brought her to Ireland. Lord Colambre stood politely looking on and listening, while her ladyship explained the splendid inter-marriages of her family, pointing to each medallion that was filled gloriously with noble, and even with royal names, till at last she stopped short, and covering one medallion with her finger, she said-- 'Pass over that, dear Lady Killpatrick. You are not to see that, Lord Colambre--that's a little blot in our scutcheon. You know, Isabel, we never talk of that prudent match of great-uncle John's; what could he expect by marrying into THAT family, where you know all the men were not SANS PEUR, and none of the women SANS REPROCHE.' 'Oh mamma!' cried Lady Isabel, 'not one exception?' 'Not one, Isabel,' persisted Lady Dashfort; 'there was Lady --, and the other sister, that married the man with the long nose; and the daughter again, of whom they contrived to make an honest woman, by getting her married in time to a BLUE-RIBBAND, and who contrived to get herself into Doctors' Commons the very next year.' 'Well, dear mamma, that is enough, and too much. Oh! pray don't go on,' cried Lady Isabel, who had appeared very much distressed during her mother's speech. 'You don't know what you are saying; indeed, ma'am, you don't.' 'Very likely, child; but that compliment I can return to you on the spot, and with interest; for you seem to me, at this instant, not to know either what you are saying or what you are doing. Come, come, explain.' 'Oh no, ma'am--Pray say so no more; I will explain myself another time.' 'Nay, there you are wrong, Isabel; in point of good-breeding, anything is better than hints and mystery. Since I have been so unlucky as to touch upon the subject, better go through with it, and, with all the boldness of innocence ask the question, Are you, my Lord Colambre, or are you not, related or connected with any of the St. Omars?' 'Not that I know of,' said Lord Colambre; 'but I really am so bad a genealogist, that I cannot answer positively.' 'Then I must put the substance of my question into a new form. Have you, or have you not, a cousin of the name of Nugent?' 'Miss Nugent!--Grace Nugent!--Yes,' said Lord Colambre, with as much firmness of voice as he could command, and with as little change of countenance as possible; but, as the question came upon him so unexpectedly, it was not in his power to answer with an air of absolute indifference and composure. 'And her mother was--' said Lady Dashfort. 'My aunt, by marriage; her maiden name was Reynolds, I think. But she died when I was quite a child. I know very little about her. I never saw her in my life; but I am certain she was a Reynolds.' 'Oh, my dear lord,' continued Lady Dashfort; 'I am perfectly aware that she did take and bear the name of Reynolds; but that was not her maiden name--her maiden name was; but perhaps it is a family secret that has been kept, for some good reason from you, and from the poor girl herself; the maiden name was St. Omar, depend upon it. Nay, I would not have told this to you, my lord, if I could have conceived that it would affect you so violently,' pursued Lady Dashfort, in a tone of raillery; 'you see you are no worse off than we are. We have an intermarriage with the St. Omars. I did not think you would be so much shocked at a discovery, which proves that our family and yours have some little connexion.' Lord Colambre endeavoured to answer, and mechanically said something about, 'happy to have the honour.' Lady Dashfort, truly happy to see that her blow had hit the mark so well, turned from his lordship without seeming to observe how seriously he was affected; and Lady Isabel sighed, and looked with compassion on Lord Colambre, and then reproachfully at her mother. But Lord Colambre heeded not her looks, and heard not of her sighs; he heard nothing, saw nothing, though his eyes were intently fixed on the genealogy, on which Lady Dashfort was still descanting to Lady Killpatrick. He took the first opportunity he could of quitting the room, and went out to take a solitary walk. 'There he is, departed, but not in peace, to reflect upon what has been said,' whispered Lady Dashfort to her daughter. 'I hope it will do him a vast deal of good.' 'None of the women SANS REPROCHE! None!--without one exception,' said Lord Colambre to himself; 'and Grace Nugent's mother a St. Omar!--Is it possible? Lady Dashfort seems certain. She could not assert a positive falsehood--no motive. She does not know that Miss Nugent is the person to whom I am attached she spoke at random. And I have heard it first from a stranger--not from my mother. Why was it kept secret from me? Now I understand the reason why my mother evidently never wished that I should think of Miss Nugent--why she always spoke so vehemently against the marriages of relations, of cousins. Why not tell me the truth? It would have had the strongest effect, had she known my mind.' Lord Colambre had the greatest dread of marrying any woman whose mother had conducted herself ill. His reason, his prejudices, his pride, his delicacy, and even his limited experience, were all against it. All his hopes, his plans of future happiness, were shaken to their very foundation; he felt as if he had received a blow that stunned his mind, and from which he could not recover his faculties. The whole of that day he was like one in a dream. At night the painful idea continually recurred to him; and whenever he was falling asleep, the sound of Lady Dashfort's voice returned upon his ear, saying the words, 'What could he expect when he married one of the St. Omars? None of the women SANS REPROCHE.' In the morning he rose early; and the first thing he did was to write a letter to his mother, requesting (unless there was some important reason for her declining to answer the question) that she would immediately relieve his mind from a great UNEASINESS (he altered the word four times, but at last left it UNEASINESS). He stated what he had heard, and besought his mother to tell him the whole truth, without reserve. CHAPTER VIII One morning Lady Dashfort had formed an ingenious scheme for leaving Lady Isabel and Lord Colambre TETE-A-TETE; but the sudden entrance of Heathcock disconcerted her intentions. He came to beg Lady Dashfort's interest with Count O'Halloran, for permission to hunt and shoot on his grounds.--'Not for myself, 'pon honour, but for two officers who are quartered at the next town here, who will indubitably hang or drown themselves if they are debarred from sporting.' 'Who is this Count O'Halloran?' said Lord Colambre. Miss White, Lady Killpatrick's companion, said 'he was a great oddity;' Lady Dashfort, 'that he was singular;' and the clergyman of the parish, who was at breakfast, declared 'that he was a man of uncommon knowledge, merit, and politeness.' 'All I know of him,' said Heathcock, 'is, that he is a great sportsman, with a long queue, a gold-laced hat, and long skirts to a laced waistcoat.' Lord Colambre expressed a wish to see this extraordinary personage; and Lady Dashfort, to cover her former design, and, perhaps, thinking absence might be as effectual as too much propinquity, immediately offered to call upon the officers in their way, and carry them with Heathcock and Lord Colambre to Halloran Castle. Lady Isabel retired with much mortification, but with becoming grace; and Captain Benson and Captain Williamson were taken to the count's. Captain Benson, who was a famous WHIP, took his seat on the box of the barouche, and the rest of the party had the pleasure of her ladyship's conversation for three or four miles: of her ladyship's conversation--for Lord Colambre's thoughts were far distant; Captain Williamson had not anything to say; and Heathcock nothing but, 'Eh! re'lly now!--'pon honour!' They arrived at Halloran Castle--a fine old building, part of it in ruins, and part repaired with great judgment and taste. When the carriage stopped, a respectable-looking man-servant appeared on the steps, at the open hall-door. Count O'Halloran was out a-hunting; but his servant said 'that he would be at home immediately, if Lady Dashfort and the gentlemen would be pleased to walk in.' On one side of the lofty and spacious hall stood the skeleton of an elk; on the other side, the perfect skeleton of a moose-deer, which, as the servant said, his master had made out, with great care, from the different bones of many of this curious species of deer, found in the lakes in the neighbourhood. The brace of officers witnessed their wonder with sundry strange oaths and exclamations.--'Eh! 'pon honour--re'lly now!' said Heathcock; and, too genteel to wonder at or admire anything in the creation, dragged out his watch with some difficulty, saying, 'I wonder now whether they are likely to think of giving us anything to eat in this place?' And, turning his back upon the moose-deer, he straight walked out again upon the steps, called to his groom, and began to make some inquiry about his led horse. Lord Colambre surveyed the prodigious skeletons with rational curiosity, and with that sense of awe and admiration, by which a superior mind is always struck on beholding any of the great works of Providence. 'Come, my dear lord!' said Lady Dashfort; 'with our sublime sensations, we are keeping my old friend, Mr. Alick Brady, this venerable person, waiting, to show us into the reception-room.' The servant bowed respectfully--more respectfully than servants of modern date. 'My lady, the reception-room has been lately painted--the smell of paint may be disagreeable; with your leave, I will take the liberty of showing you into my master's study.' He opened the door, went in before her, and stood holding up his finger, as if making a signal of silence to some one within. Her ladyship entered, and found herself in the midst of an odd assembly: an eagle, a goat, a dog, an otter, several gold and silver fish in a glass globe, and a white mouse in a cage. The eagle, quick of eye but quiet of demeanour, was perched upon his stand; the otter lay under the table, perfectly harmless; the Angora goat, a beautiful and remarkably little creature of its kind, with long, curling, silky hair, was walking about the room with the air of a beauty and a favourite; the dog, a tall Irish greyhound--one of the few of that fine race which is now almost extinct--had been given to Count O'Halloran by an Irish nobleman, a relation of Lady Dashfort's. This dog, who had formerly known her ladyship, looked at her with ears erect, recognised her, and went to meet her the moment she entered. The servant answered for the peaceable behaviour of all the rest of the company of animals, and retired. Lady Dashfort began to feed the eagle from a silver plate on his stand; Lord Colambre examined the inscription on his collar; the other men stood in amaze. Heathcock, who came in last, astonished out of his constant 'Eh! re'lly now!' the moment he put himself in at the door, exclaimed, 'Zounds! what's all this live lumber?' and he stumbled over the goat, who was at that moment crossing the way. The colonel's spur caught in the goat's curly beard; the colonel shook his foot, and entangled the spur worse and worse; the goat struggled and butted; the colonel skated forward on the polished oak floor, balancing himself with outstretched arms. The indignant eagle screamed, and, passing by, perched on Heathcock's shoulders. Too well-bred to have recourse to the terrors of his beak, he scrupled not to scream, and flap his wings about the colonel's ears. Lady Dashfort, the while, threw herself back in her chair, laughing, and begging Heathcock's pardon. 'Oh, take care of the dog, my dear colonel!' cried she; 'for this kind of dog seizes his enemy by the back, and shakes him to death.' The officers, holding their sides, laughed, and begged--no pardon; while Lord Colambre, the only person who was not absolutely incapacitated, tried to disentangle the spur, and to liberate the colonel from the goat, and the goat from the colonel; an attempt in which he at last succeeded, at the expense of a considerable portion of the goat's beard. The eagle, however, still kept his place; and, yet mindful of the wrongs of his insulted friend the goat, had stretched his wings to give another buffet. Count O'Halloran entered; and the bird, quitting his prey, flew down to greet his master. The count was a fine old military-looking gentleman, fresh from the chace: his hunting accoutrements hanging carelessly about him, he advanced, unembarrassed, to the lady; and received his other guests with a mixture of military ease and gentleman-like dignity. Without adverting to the awkward and ridiculous situation in which he had found poor Heathcock, he apologised in general for his troublesome favourites. 'For one of them,' said he, patting the head of the dog, which lay quiet at Lady Dashfort's feet, 'I see I have no need to apologise; he is where he ought to be. Poor fellow! he has never lost his taste for the good company to which he was early accustomed. As to the rest,' said he, turning to Lady Dashfort, 'a mouse, a bird, and a fish, are, you know, tribute from earth, air, and water, for my conqueror--' 'But from no barbarous Scythian!' said Lord Colambre, smiling. The count looked at Lord Colambre, as at a person worthy his attention; but his first care was to keep the peace between his loving subjects and his foreign visitors. It was difficult to dislodge the old settlers, to make room for the newcomers; but he adjusted these things with admirable facility; and, with a master's hand and master's eye, compelled each favourite to retreat into the back settlements. With becoming attention, he stroked and kept quiet old Victory, his eagle, who eyed Colonel Heathcock still, as if he did not like him; and whom the colonel eyed, as if he wished his neck fairly wrung off. The little goat had nestled himself close up to his liberator, Lord Colambre, and lay perfectly quiet, with his eyes closed, going very wisely to sleep, and submitting philosophically to the loss of one half of his beard. Conversation now commenced, and was carried on by Count O'Halloran with much ability and spirit, and with such quickness of discrimination and delicacy of taste, as quite surprised and delighted our hero. To the lady, the count's attention was first directed: he listened to her as she spoke, bending with an air of deference and devotion. She made her request for permission for Major Benson and Captain Williamson to hunt and shoot in his grounds; this was instantly granted. 'Her ladyship's requests were to him commands,' the count said. 'His gamekeeper should be instructed to give the gentlemen, her friends, every liberty, and all possible assistance.' Then turning to the officers, he said he had just heard that several regiments of English militia had lately landed in Ireland; that one regiment was arrived at Killpatrickstown. He rejoiced in the advantages Ireland, and he hoped he might be permitted to add, England, would probably derive from the exchange of the militia of both countries; habits would be improved, ideas enlarged. The two countries have the same interest; and, from the inhabitants discovering more of each other's good qualities, and interchanging little good offices in common life, their esteem and affection for each other would increase, and rest upon the firm basis of mutual utility.' To all this Major Benson and Captain Williamson made no reply. 'The major looks so like a stuffed man of straw,' whispered Lady Dashfort to Lord Colambre; 'and the captain so like the knave of clubs, putting forth one manly leg.' Count O'Halloran now turned the conversation to field sports, and then the captain and major opened at once. 'Pray now, sir?' said the major, 'you fox-hunt in this country, I suppose; and now do you manage the thing here as we do? Over night, you know, before the hunt, when the fox is out, stopping up the earths of the cover we mean to draw, and all the rest for four miles round. Next morning we assemble at the cover's side, and the huntsman throws in the hounds. The gossip here is no small part of the entertainment; but as soon as we hear the hounds give tongue--' 'The favourite hounds,' interposed Williamson. 'The favourite hounds, to be sure,' continued Benson; 'there is a dead silence, till pug is well out of cover, and the whole pack well in; then cheer the hounds with tally-ho! till your lungs crack. Away he goes in gallant style, and the whole field is hard up, till pug takes a stiff country; then they who haven't pluck lag, see no more of him, and, with a fine blazing scent, there are but few of us in at the death.' 'Well, we are fairly in at the death, I hope,' said Lady Dashfort; 'I was thrown out sadly at one time in the chace.' Lord Colambre, with the count's permission, took up a book in which the count's pencil lay, PASLEY ON THE MILITARY POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN; it was marked with many notes of admiration, and with hands pointing to remarkable passages. 'That is a book that leaves a strong impression on the mind,' said the count. Lord Colambre read one of the marked passages, beginning with, 'All that distinguishes a soldier in outward appearance from a citizen is so trifling--' but at this instant our hero's attention was distracted by seeing in a black-letter book this title of a chapter: 'Burial-place of the Nugents.' 'Pray now, sir,' said Captain Williamson, 'if I don't interrupt you, as you are such a famous fox-hunter, maybe, you may be a fisherman too; and now in Ireland do you, MR.--' A smart pinch on his elbow from his major, who stood behind him, stopped the captain short, as he pronounced the word MR. Like all awkward people, he turned directly to ask, by his looks, what was the matter? The major took advantage of his discomfiture, and, stepping before him, determined to have the fishing to himself, and went on with-- 'Count O'Halloran, I presume you understand fishing too, as well as hunting?' The count bowed: 'I do not presume to say that, sir.' 'But pray, count, in this country, do you arm your hook this ways? Give me leave;' taking the whip from Williamson's reluctant hand, 'this ways, laying the outermost part of your feather this fashion next to your hook, and the point next to your shank, this wise, and that wise; and then, sir,--count, you take the hackle of a cock's neck----' 'A plover's topping's better,' said Williamson. 'And work your gold and silver thread,' pursued Benson, 'up to your wings, and when your head's made, you fasten all.' 'But you never showed how your head's made,' interrupted Williamson. 'The gentleman knows how a head's made; any man can make a head, I suppose; so, sir, you fasten all.' 'You'll never get your head fast on that way, while the world stands,' cried Williamson. 'Fast enough for all purposes; I'll bet you a rump and dozen, captain; and then, sir,--count, you divide your wings with a needle.' 'A pin's point will do,' said Williamson. The count, to reconcile matters, produced from an Indian cabinet, which he had opened for the lady's inspection, a little basket containing a variety of artificial flies of curious construction, which, as he spread them on the table, made Williamson and Benson's eyes almost sparkle with delight. There was the DUN-FLY, for the month of March; and the STONE-FLY, much in vogue for April; and the RUDDY-FLY, of red wool, black silk, and red capon's feathers. Lord Colambre, whose head was in the burial-place of the Nugents, wished them all at the bottom of the sea. 'And the GREEN-FLY, and the MOORISH-FLY!' cried Benson, snatching them up with transport; 'and, chief, the SAD-YELLOW-FLY, in which the fish delight in June; the SAD-YELLOW-FLY, made with the buzzard's wings, bound with black braked hemp, and the SHELL-FLY for the middle of July, made of greenish wool, wrapped about with the herle of a peacock's tail, famous for creating excellent sport.' All these and more were spread upon the table before the sportsmen's wondering eyes. 'Capital flies! capital, faith!' cried Williamson. 'Treasures, faith, real treasures, by G--!' cried Benson. 'Eh! 'pon honour! re'lly now,' were the first words which Heathcock had uttered since his battle with the goat. 'My dear Heathcock, are you alive still?' said Lady Dashfort; 'I had really forgotten your existence.' So had Count O'Halloran, but he did not say so. 'Your ladyship has the advantage of me there,' said Heathcock, stretching himself; 'I wish I could forget my existence, for, in my mind, existence is a horrible BORE.' 'I thought you WAS a sportsman,' said Williamson. 'Well, sir?' 'And a fisherman?' 'Well, sir?' 'Why, look you there, sir,' pointing to the flies, 'and tell a body life's a bore.' 'One can't ALWAYS fish, or shoot, I apprehend, sir,' said Heathcock. 'Not always--but sometimes,' said Williamson, laughing; 'for I suspect shrewdly you've forgot some of your sporting in Bond Street.' 'Eh! 'pon honour! re'lly now!' said the colonel, retreating again to his safe entrenchment of affectation, from which he never could venture without imminent danger. ''Pon honour,' cried Lady Dashfort, 'I can swear for Heathcock, that I have eaten excellent hares and ducks of his shooting, which, to my knowledge,' added she, in a loud whisper, 'he bought in the market.' EMPTUM APRUM!' said Lord Colambre to the count, without danger of being understood by those whom it concerned. The count smiled a second time; but politely turning the attention of the company from the unfortunate colonel by addressing himself to the laughing sportsmen, 'Gentlemen, you seem to value these,' said he, sweeping the artificial flies from the table into the little basket from which they had been taken; 'would you do me the honour to accept of them? They are all of my own making, and consequently of Irish manufacture.' Then, ringing the bell, he asked Lady Dashfort's permission to have the basket put into her carriage. Benson and Williamson followed the servant, to prevent them from being tossed into the boot. Heathcock stood still in the middle of the room taking snuff. Count O'Halloran turned from him to Lord Colambre, who had just got happily to THE BURIAL-PLACE OF THE NUGENTS, when Lady Dashfort, coming between them, and spying the title of the chapter, exclaimed-- 'What have you there?--Antiquities! my delight!--but I never look at engravings when I can see realities.' Lord Colambre was then compelled to follow, as she led the way into the hall, where the count took down golden ornaments, and brass-headed spears, and jointed horns of curious workmanship, that had been found on his estate; and he told of spermaceti wrapped in carpets, and he showed small urns, enclosing ashes; and from among these urns he selected one, which he put into the hands of Lord Colambre, telling him that it had been lately found in an old abbey-ground in his neighbourhood, which had been the burial-place of some of the Nugent family. 'I was just looking at the account of it, in the book which you saw open on my table.--And as you seem to take an interest in that family, my lord, perhaps,' said the count, 'you may think this urn worth your acceptance.' Lord Colambre said, 'It would be highly valuable to him--as the Nugents were his near relations.' Lady Dashfort little expected this blow; she, however, carried him off to the moose-deer, and from moose-deer to round-towers, to various architectural antiquities, and to the real and fabulous history of Ireland, on all which the count spoke with learning and enthusiasm. But now, to Colonel Heathcock's great joy and relief, a handsome collation appeared in the dining-room, of which Ulick opened the folding-doors. 'Count, you have made an excellent house of your castle,' said Lady Dashfort. 'It will be, when it is finished,' said the count. 'I am afraid,' added he, smiling, 'I live like many other Irish gentlemen, who never are, but always to be, blest with a good house. I began on too large a scale, and can never hope to live to finish it.' ''Pon honour! here's a good thing, which I hope we shall live to finish,' said Heathcock, sitting down before the collation; and heartily did he eat of grouse pie, and of Irish ortolans, which, as Lady Dashfort observed, 'afforded him indemnity for the past, and security for the future.' 'Eh! re'lly now! your Irish ortolans are famous good eating,' said Heathcock. 'Worth being quartered in Ireland, faith! to taste 'em,' said Benson. The count recommended to Lady Dashfort some of 'that delicate sweetmeat, the Irish plum.' 'Bless me, sir--count!' cried Williamson, 'it's by far the best thing of the kind I ever tasted in all my life: where could you get this?' 'In Dublin, at my dear Mrs. Godey's; where ONLY, in his Majesty's dominions, it is to be had,' said the count. The whole dish vanished in a few seconds. ''Pon honour! I do believe this is the thing the queen's so fond of,' said Heathcock. Then heartily did he drink of the count's excellent Hungarian wines; and, by the common bond of sympathy between those who have no other tastes but eating and drinking, the colonel, the major, and the captain were now all the best companions possible for one another. Whilst 'they prolonged the rich repast,' Lady Dashfort and Lord Colambre went to the window to admire the prospect; Lady Dashfort asked the count the name of some distant hill. 'Ah!' said the count, 'that hill was once covered with fine wood; but it was all cut down two years ago.' 'Who could have been so cruel?' said her ladyship. 'I forget the present proprietor's name,' said the count; 'but he is one of those who, according to THE CLAUSE OF DISTRESS in their leases, LEAD, DRIVE, AND CARRY AWAY, but never ENTER their lands; one of those enemies to Ireland--these cruel absentees!' Lady Dashfort looked through her glass at the mountain; Lord Colambre sighed, and, endeavouring to pass it off with a smile, said frankly to the count-- 'You are not aware, I am sure, count, that you are speaking to the son of an Irish absentee family.--Nay, do not be shocked, my dear sir; I tell you only, because I thought it fair to do so; but let me assure you, that nothing you could say on that subject could hurt me personally, because I feel that I am not, that I never can be, an enemy to Ireland. An absentee, voluntarily, I never yet have been; and as to the future, I declare--' 'I declare you know nothing of the future,' interrupted Lady Dashfort, in a half-peremptory, half-playful tone--'you know nothing; make no rash vows, and you will break none.' The undaunted assurance of Lady Dashfort's genius for intrigue gave her an air of frank imprudence, which prevented Lord Colambre from suspecting that more was meant than met the ear. The count and he took leave of one another with mutual regard; and Lady Dashfort rejoiced to have got our hero out of Halloran Castle. CHAPTER IX Lord Colambre had waited with great impatience for an answer to the letter of inquiry which he had written about Miss Nugent's mother. A letter from Lady Clonbrony arrived; he opened it with the greatest eagerness--passed over 'Rheumatism warm weather--warm bath--Buxton balls--Miss Broadhurst--your FRIEND, Sir Arthur Berryl, very assiduous!' The name of Grace Nugent he found at last, and read as follows: Her mother's maiden name was ST. OMAR; and there was a FAUX PAS, certainly. She was, I am told (for it was before my time), educated at a convent abroad; and there was an affair with a Captain Reynolds, a young officer, which her friends were obliged to hush up. She brought an infant to England with her, and took the name of Reynolds--but none of that family would acknowledge her; and she lived in great obscurity, till your uncle Nugent saw, fell in love with her, and (knowing her whole history) married her. He adopted the child, gave her his name, and, after some years, the whole story was forgotten. Nothing could be more disadvantageous to Grace than to have it revived: this is the reason we kept it secret. Lord Colambre tore the letter to bits. From the perturbation which Lady Dashfort saw in his countenance, she guessed the nature of the letter which he had been reading, and for the arrival of which he had been so impatient. 'It has worked!' said she to herself. 'POUR LE COUP PHILIPPE JE TE TIENS!' Lord Colambre appeared this day more sensible, than he had ever yet seemed, to the charms of the fair Isabel. 'Many a tennis-ball, and many a heart is caught at the rebound,' said Lady Dashfort. 'Isabel! now is your time!' And so it was--or so, perhaps, it would have been, but for a circumstance which her ladyship, with all her genius for intrigue, had never taken into her consideration. Count O'Halloran came to return the visit which had been paid to him; and, in the course of conversation, he spoke of the officers who had been introduced to him, and told Lady Dashfort that he had heard a report which shocked him much--he hoped it could not be true--that one of these officers had introduced his mistress as his wife to Lady Oranmore, who lived in the neighbourhood. This officer, it was said, had let Lady Oranmore send her carriage for this woman; and that she had dined at Oranmore with her ladyship and her daughters. [Fact.] 'But I cannot believe it! I cannot believe it to be possible, that any gentleman, that any officer, could do such a thing!' said the count. 'And is this all?' exclaimed Lady Dashfort. 'Is this all the terrible affair, my good count, which has brought your face to this prodigious length?' The count looked at Lady Dashfort with astonishment. 'Such a look of virtuous indignation,' continued she, 'did I never behold, on or off the stage. Forgive me for laughing, count; but, believe me, comedy goes through the world better than tragedy, and, take it all in all, does rather less mischief. As to the thing in question, I know nothing about it: I dare say, it is not true; but, now, suppose it was--it is only a silly QUIZ, of a raw young officer, upon a prudish old dowager. I know nothing about it, for my part; but, after all, what irreparable mischief has been done? Laugh at the thing, and then it is a jest--a bad one, perhaps, but still only a jest--and there's an end of it; but take it seriously, and there is no knowing where it might end--in half a dozen duels, maybe.' 'Of that, madam,' said the count, 'Lady Oranmore's prudence and presence of mind have prevented all danger. Her ladyship WOULD not understand the insult. She said, or she acted as if she said, "JE NE VEUX RIEN VOIR, RIEN ECOUTER, RIEN SAVOIR." Lady Oranmore is one of the most respectable--' 'Count, I beg your pardon!' interrupted Lady Dashfort; 'but I must tell you that your favourite, Lady Oranmore, has behaved very ill to me; purposely omitted to invite Isabel to her ball; offended and insulted me:--her praises, therefore, cannot be the most agreeable subject of conversation you can choose for my amusement; and as to the rest, you, who have such variety and so much politeness, will, I am sure, have the goodness to indulge my caprice in this instance.' I shall obey your ladyship, and be silent, whatever pleasure it might give me to speak on that subject,' said the count; 'and I trust Lady Dashfort will reward me by the assurance that, however playfully she may have just now spoken, she seriously disapproves and is shocked.' 'Oh, shocked! shocked to death! if that will satisfy you, my dear count.' The count, obviously, was not satisfied; he had civil, as well as military courage, and his sense of right and wrong could stand against the raillery and ridicule of a fine lady. The conversation ended: Lady Dashfort thought it would have no further consequences; and she did not regret the loss of a man like Count O'Halloran, who lived retired in his castle, and who could not have any influence upon the opinion of the fashionable world. However, upon turning from the count to Lord Colambre, who she thought had been occupied with Lady Isabel, and to whom she imagined all this dispute was uninteresting, she perceived, by his countenance, that she had made a great mistake. Still she trusted that her power over Lord Colambre was sufficient easily to efface whatever unfavourable impression this conversation had made upon his mind. He had no personal interest in the affair; and she had generally found that people are easily satisfied about any wrong or insult, public or private, in which they have no immediate concern. But all the charms of her conversation were now tried in vain to reclaim him from the reverie into which he had fallen. His friend Sir James Brooke's parting advice occurred to our hero; his eyes began to open to Lady Dashfort's character; and he was, from this moment, freed from her power. Lady Isabel, however, had taken no part in all this--she was blameless; and, independently of her mother, and in pretended opposition of sentiment, she might have continued to retain the influence she had gained over Lord Colambre, but that a slight accident revealed to him her real disposition. It happened, on the evening of this day, that Lady Isabel came into the library with one of the young ladies of the house, talking very eagerly, without perceiving Lord Colambre, who was sitting in one of the recesses reading. 'My dear creature, you are quite mistaken,' said Lady Isabel, 'he was never a favourite of mine; I always detested him; I only flirted with him to plague his wife. Oh that wife, my dear Elizabeth, I do hate!' cried she, clasping her hands, and expressing hatred with all her soul and with all her strength. 'I detest that Lady de Cresey to such a degree, that, to purchase the pleasure of making her feel the pangs of jealousy for one hour, look, I would this moment lay down this finger and let it be cut off.' The face, the whole figure of Lady Isabel at this moment appeared to Lord Colambre suddenly metamorphosed; instead of the soft, gentle, amiable female, all sweet charity and tender sympathy, formed to love and to be loved, he beheld one possessed and convulsed by an evil spirit--her beauty, if beauty it could be called, the beauty of a fiend. Some ejaculation, which he unconsciously uttered, made Lady Isabel start. She saw him--saw the expression of his countenance, and knew that all was over. Lord Colambre, to the utter astonishment and disappointment of Lady Dashfort, and to the still greater mortification of Lady Isabel, announced this night that it was necessary he should immediately pursue his tour in Ireland. We pass over all the castles in the air which the young ladies of the family had built, and which now fell to the ground. We pass all the civil speeches of Lord and Lady Killpatrick; all the vehement remonstrances of Lady Dashfort; and the vain sighs of Lady Isabel, To the last moment Lady Dashfort said-- 'He will not go.' But he went; and, when he was gone, Lady Dashfort exclaimed, 'That man has escaped from me.' And after a pause, turning to her daughter, she, in the most taunting and contemptuous terms, reproached her as the cause of this failure, concluding by a declaration that she must in future manage her own affairs, and had best settle her mind to marry Heathcock, since every one else was too wise to think of her. Lady Isabel of course retorted. But we leave this amiable mother and daughter to recriminate in appropriate terms, and we follow our hero, rejoiced that he has been disentangled from their snares. Those who have never been in similar peril will wonder much that he did not escape sooner; those who have ever been in like danger will wonder more that he escaped at all. Those who are best acquainted with the heart or imagination of man will be most ready to acknowledge that the combined charms of wit, beauty, and flattery, may, for a time, suspend the action of right reason in the mind of the greatest philosopher, or operate against the resolutions of the greatest of heroes. Lord Colambre pursued his way to Castle Halloran, desirous, before he quitted this part of the country, to take leave of the count, who had shown him much civility, and for whose honourable conduct, and generous character, he had conceived a high esteem, which no little peculiarities of antiquated dress or manner could diminish. Indeed, the old-fashioned politeness of what was formerly called a well-bred gentleman pleased him better than the indolent or insolent selfishness of modern men of the ton. Perhaps, notwithstanding our hero's determination to turn his mind from everything connected with the idea of Miss Nugent, some latent curiosity about the burial-place of the Nugents might have operated to make him call upon the count. In this hope he was disappointed; for a cross miller to whom the abbey-ground was set, on which the burial-place was found, had taken it into his head to refuse admittance, and none could enter his ground. Count O'Halloran was much pleased by Lord Colambre's visit. The very day of Lord Colambre's arrival at Halloran Castle, the count was going to Oranmore; he was dressed, and his carriage was waiting; therefore Lord Colambre begged that he might not detain him, and the count requested his lordship to accompany him. 'Let me have the honour of introducing you, my lord, to a family, with whom, I am persuaded, you will be pleased; by whom you will be appreciated; and at whose house you will have an opportunity of seeing the best manner of living of the Irish nobility.' Lord Colambre accepted the invitation, and was introduced at Oranmore. The dignified appearance and respectable character of Lady Oranmore; the charming unaffected manners of her daughters; the air of domestic happiness and comfort in her family; the becoming magnificence, free from ostentation, in her whole establishment; the respect and affection with which she was treated by all who approached her, delighted and touched Lord Colambre; the more, perhaps, because he had heard this family so unjustly abused; and because he saw Lady Oranmore and her daughter, in immediate contrast to Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel. A little circumstance which occurred during this visit increased his interest for the family. When Lady de Cresey's little boys came in after dinner, one of them was playing with a seal, which had just been torn from a letter. The child showed it to Lord Colambre, and asked him to read the motto. The motto was, 'Deeds, not words'--his friend Sir James Brooke's motto, and his arms. Lord Colambre eagerly inquired if this family was acquainted with Sir James, and he soon perceived that they were not only acquainted with him, but that they were particularly interested about him. Lady Oranmore's second daughter, Lady Harriet, appeared particularly pleased by the manner in which Lord Colambre spoke of Sir James. And the child, who had now established himself on his lordship's knee, turned round, and whispered in his ear, ''Twas Aunt Harriet gave me the seal; Sir James is to be married to Aunt Harriet, and then he will be my uncle.' Some of the principal gentry of this part of the country happened to dine at Oranmore one of the days Lord Colambre was there. He was surprised at the discovery, that there were so many agreeable, well-informed, and well-bred people, of whom, while he was at Killpatrickstown, he had seen nothing. He now discerned how far he had been deceived by Lady Dashfort. Both the count, and Lord and Lady Oranmore, who were warmly attached to their country, exhorted him to make himself amends for the time he had lost, by seeing with his own eyes, and judging with his own understanding, of the country and its own inhabitants, during the remainder of the time he was to stay in Ireland. The higher classes, in most countries, they observed were generally similar; but, in the lower class, he would find many characteristic differences. When he first came to Ireland, he had been very eager to go and see his father's estate, and to judge of the conduct of his agents, and the condition of his tenantry; but this eagerness had subsided, and the design had almost faded from his mind, whilst under the influence of Lady Dashfort's misrepresentations. A mistake, relative to some remittance from his banker in Dublin, obliged him to delay his journey a few days, and during that time Lord and Lady Oranmore showed him the neat cottages, the well-attended schools, in their neighbourhood. They showed him not only what could be done, but what had been done, by the influence of great proprietors residing on their own estates, and encouraging the people by judicious kindness. He saw, he acknowledged the truth of this; but it did not come home to his feelings now as it would have done a little while ago. His views and plans were altered; he looked forward to the idea of marrying and settling in Ireland, and then everything in the country was interesting to him; but since he had forbidden himself to think of a union with Miss Nugent, his mind had lost its object and its spring; he was not sufficiently calm to think of the public good; his thoughts were absorbed by his private concern. He knew, and repeated to himself, that he ought to visit his own and his father's estates, and to see the condition of his tenantry; he desired to fulfil his duties, but they ceased to appear to him easy and pleasurable, for hope and love no longer brightened his prospects. That he might see and hear more than he could as heir-apparent to the estate, he sent his servant to Dublin to wait for him there. He travelled INCOGNITO, wrapped himself in a shabby greatcoat, and took the name of Evans. He arrived at a village, or, as it was called, a town, which bore the name of Colambre. He was agreeably surprised by the air of neatness and finish in the houses and in the street, which had a nicely-swept paved footway. He slept at a small but excellent inn--excellent, perhaps, because it was small, and proportioned to the situation and business of the place. Good supper, good bed, good attendance; nothing out of repair; no things pressed into services for what they were never intended by nature or art; none of what are vulgarly called MAKE-SHIFTS. No chambermaid slipshod, or waiter smelling of whisky; but all tight and right, and everybody doing their own business, and doing it as if it was their everyday occupation, not as if it was done by particular desire, for first or last time this season. The landlord came in at supper to inquire whether anything was wanted. Lord Colambre took this opportunity of entering into conversation with him, and asked him to whom the town belonged, and who were the proprietors of the neighbouring estates. 'The town belongs to an absentee lord--one Lord Clonbrony, who lives always beyond the seas, in London; and never seen the town since it was a town, to call a town.' 'And does the land in the neighbourhood belong to this Lord Clonbrony?' 'It does, sir; he's a great proprietor, but knows nothing of his property, nor of us. Never set foot among us, to my knowledge, since I was as high as the table. He might as well be a West India planter, and we negroes, for anything he knows to the contrary--has no more care, nor thought about us, than if he were in Jamaica, or the other world. Shame for him!--But there's too many to keep him in countenance.' Lord Colambre asked him what wine he could have; and then inquired who managed the estate for this absentee. 'Mr. Burke, sir. And I don't know why God was so kind to give so good an agent to an absentee like Lord Clonbrony, except it was for the sake of us, who is under him, and knows the blessing, and is thankful for the same.' 'Very good cutlets,' said Lord Colambre. 'I am happy to hear it, sir. They have a right to be good, for Mrs. Burke sent her own cook to teach my wife to dress cutlets.' 'So the agent is a good agent, is he?' 'He is, thanks be to Heaven! And that's what few can boast, especially when the landlord's living over the seas: we have the luck to have got a good agent over us, in Mr. Burke, who is a right bred gentleman; a snug little property of his own, honestly made; with the good will and good wishes, and respect of all.' 'Does he live in the neighbourhood?' 'Just CONVANIENT [CONVENIENT: near.] At the end of the town; in the house on the hill, as you passed, sir; to the left, with the trees about it, all of his planting, finely grown too--for there's a blessing on all he does, and he has done a deal.--There's salad, sir, if you are partial to it. Very fine lettuce. Mrs. Burke sent us the plants herself.' 'Excellent salad! So this Mr. Burke has done a great deal, has he? In what way!' 'In every way, sir--sure was not it he that had improved, and fostered, and made the town of Colambre?--no thanks to the proprietor, nor to the young man whose name it bears, neither!' 'Have you any porter, pray, sir?' 'We have, sir, as good, I hope, as you'd drink in London, for it's the same you get there, I understand, from Cork. And I have some of my own brewing, which, they say, you could not tell the difference between it and Cork quality--if you'd be pleased to try. Harry, the corkscrew.' The porter of his own brewing was pronounced to be extremely good; and the landlord observed it was Mr. Burke encouraged him to learn to brew, and lent him his own brewer for a time to teach him. 'Your Mr. Burke, I find, is APROPOS to porter, APROPOS to salad, APROPOS to cutlets, APROPOS to everything,' said Lord Colambre, smiling; 'he seems to be a NON-PAREIL of an agent. I suppose you are a great favourite of his, and you do what you please with him?' 'Oh no, sir, I could not say that; Mr. Burke does not have favourites anyway; but according to my deserts, I trust, I stand well enough with him, for, in truth, he is a right good agent.' Lord Colambre still pressed for particulars; he was an Englishman, and a stranger, he said, and did not exactly know what was meant in Ireland by a good agent. 'Why, he is the man that will encourage the improving tenant; and show no favour or affection, but justice, which comes even to all, and does best for all at the long run; and, residing always in the country, like Mr. Burke, and understanding country business, and going about continually among the tenantry, he knows when to press for the rent, and when to leave the money to lay out upon the land; and, according as they would want it, can give a tenant a help or a check properly. Then no duty-work called for, no presents, nor GLOVE-MONEY, nor SEALING-MONEY even, taken or offered; no underhand hints about proposals, when land would be out of lease, but a considerable preference, if desArved, to the old tenant, and if not, a fair advertisement, and the best offer and tenant accepted; no screwing of the land to the highest penny, just to please the head landlord for the minute, and ruin him at the end, by the tenant's racking the land, and running off with the year's rent; nor no bargains to his own relations or friends did Mr. Burke ever give or grant, but all fair between landlord and tenant; and that's the thing that will last; and that's what I call the good agent.' Lord Colambre poured out a glass of wine, and begged the innkeeper to drink the good agent's health, in which he was heartily pledged. 'I thank your honour;--Mr. Burke's health! and long may he live over and amongst us; he saved me from drink and ruin, when I was once inclined to it, and made a man of me and all my family.' The particulars we cannot stay to detail: this grateful man, however, took pleasure in sounding the praises of his benefactor, and in raising him in the opinion of the traveller. 'As you've time, and are curious about such things, sir, perhaps you'd walk up to the school that Mrs. Burke has for the poor children; and look at the market-house, and see how clean he takes a pride to keep the town; and any house in the town, from the priest to the parson's, that you'd go into, will give you the same character as I do of Mr. Burke: from the brogue to the boot, all speak the same of him, and can say no other. God for ever bless and keep him over us!' Upon making further inquiries, everything the innkeeper had said was confirmed by different inhabitants of the village. Lord Colambre conversed with the shopkeepers, with the cottagers; and, without making any alarming inquiries, he obtained all the information he wanted. He went to the village school--a pretty, cheerful house, with a neat garden and a play-green; met Mrs. Burke; introduced himself to her as a traveller. The school was shown to him: it was just what it ought to be--neither too much nor too little had been attempted; there was neither too much interference nor too little attention. Nothing for exhibition; care to teach well, without any vain attempt to teach in a wonderfully short time. All that experience proves to be useful, in both Dr. Bell's and Mr. Lancaster's modes of teaching, Mrs. Burke had adopted; leaving it to 'graceless zealots' to fight about the rest. That no attempts at proselytism had been made, and that no illiberal distinctions had been made in this school, Lord Colambre was convinced, in the best manner possible, by seeing the children of Protestants and Catholics sitting on the same benches, learning from the same books, and speaking to one another with the same cordial familiarity. Mrs. Burke was an unaffected, sensible woman, free from all party prejudices, and, without ostentation, desirous and capable of doing good. Lord Colambre was much pleased with her, and very glad that she invited him to dinner. Mr. Burke did not come in till late; for he had been detained portioning out some meadows, which were of great consequence to the inhabitants of the town. He brought home to dine with him the clergyman and the priest of the parish, both of whom he had taken successful pains to accommodate with the land which suited their respective convenience. The good terms on which they seemed to be with each other, and with him, appeared to Lord Colambre to do honour to Mr. Burke. All the favourable accounts his lordship had received of this gentleman were confirmed by what he saw and heard. After the clergyman and priest had taken leave, upon Lord Colambre's expressing some surprise, mixed with satisfaction, at seeing the harmony which subsisted between them, Mr. Burke assured him that this was the same in many parts of Ireland. He observed, that 'as the suspicion of ill-will never fails to produce it,' so he had often found, that taking it for granted that no ill-will exists has the most conciliating effect. He said, to please opposite parties, he used no arts; but he tried to make all his neighbours live comfortably together, by making them acquainted with each other's good qualities; by giving them opportunities of meeting sociably, and, from time to time, of doing each other little services and good offices. 'Fortunately, he had so much to do,' he said, 'that he had no time for controversy. He was a plain man, made it a rule not to meddle with speculative points, and to avoid all irritating discussions; he was not to rule the country, but to live in it, and make others live as happily as he could.' Having nothing to conceal in his character, opinions, or circumstances, Mr. Burke was perfectly open and unreserved in his manner and conversation; freely answered all the traveller's inquiries, and took pains to show him everything he desired to see. Lord Colambre said he had thoughts of settling in Ireland; and declared, with truth, that he had not seen any part of the country he should like better to live in than this neighbourhood. He went over most of the estate with Mr. Burke, and had ample opportunities of convincing himself that this gentleman was indeed, as the innkeeper had described him, 'a right good gentleman, and a right good agent.' He paid Mr. Burke some just compliments on the state of the tenantry, and the neat and flourishing appearance of the town of Colambre. 'What pleasure it will give the proprietor when he sees all you have done!' said Lord Colambre. 'Oh, sir, don't speak of it!--that breaks my heart, he never has shown the least interest in anything I have done; he is quite dissatisfied with me, because I have not ruined his tenantry, by forcing them to pay more than the land is worth; because I have not squeezed money from them by fining down rents; and--but all this, as an Englishman, sir, must be unintelligible to you. The end of the matter is, that, attached as I am to this place and the people about me, and, as I hope, the tenantry are to me--I fear I shall be obliged to give up the agency.' 'Give up the agency! How so?--you must not,' cried Lord Colambre, and, for the moment, he forgot himself; but Mr. Burke took this only for an expression of good-will. 'I must, I am afraid,' continued he. 'My employer, Lord Clonbrony, is displeased with me--continual calls for money come upon me from England, and complaints of my slow remittances.' 'Perhaps Lord Clonbrony is in embarrassed circumstances said Lord Colambre. 'I never speak of my employer's affairs, sir,' replied Mr. Burke; now for the first time assuming an air of reserve. 'I beg pardon, sir--I seem to have asked an indiscreet question.' Mrs. Burke was silent. 'Lest my reserve should give you a false impression, I will add, sir,' resumed Mr. Burke, 'that I really am not acquainted with the state of his lordship's affairs in general. I know only what belongs to the estate under my own management. The principal part of his lordship's property, the Clonbrony estate, is under another agent, Mr. Garraghty.' 'Garraghty!' repeated Lord Colambre; 'what sort of a person is he? But I may take it for granted, that it cannot fall to the lot of one and the same absentee to have two such agents as Mr. Burke.' Mr. Burke bowed, and seemed pleased by the compliment, which he knew he deserved--but not a word did he say of Mr. Garraghty; and Lord Colambre, afraid of betraying himself by some other indiscreet question, changed the conversation. That very night the post brought a letter to Mr. Burke, from Lord Clonbrony, which Mr. Burke gave to his wife as soon as he had read it, saying-- 'See the reward of all my services!' Mrs. Burke glanced her eye over the letter, and, being extremely fond of her husband, and sensible of his deserving far different treatment, burst into indignant exclamations-- 'See the reward of all your services, indeed!--What an unreasonable, ungrateful man!--So, this is the thanks for all you have done for Lord Clonbrony!' 'He does not know what I have done, my dear. He never has seen what I have done.' 'More shame for him!' 'He never, I suppose, looks over his accounts, or understands them.' 'More shame for him!' He listens to foolish reports, or misrepresentations, perhaps. He is at a distance, and cannot find out the truth.' 'More shame for him!' 'Take it quietly, my dear; we have the comfort of a good conscience. The agency may be taken from me by this lord; but the sense of having done my duty, no lord or man upon earth can give or take away.' 'Such a letter!' said Mrs. Burke, taking it up again. 'Not even the civility to write with his own hand!--only his signature to the scrawl--looks as if it was written by a drunken man, does not it, Mr. Evans?' said she, showing the letter to Lord Colambre, who immediately recognised the writing of Sir Terence O'Fay. 'It does not look like the hand of a gentleman, indeed,' said Lord Colambre. 'It has Lord Clonbrony's own signature, let it be what it will,' said Mr. Burke, looking closely at it; 'Lord Clonbrony's own writing the signature is, I am clear of that.' Lord Clonbrony's son was clear of it also; but he took care not to give any opinion on that point. 'Oh, pray, read it, sir, read it,' said Mrs. Burke, pleased by his tone of indignation; 'read it, pray; a gentleman may write a bad hand, but no GENTLEMAN could write such a letter as that to Mr. Burke--pray read it, sir; you who have seen something of what Mr. Burke has done for the town of Colambre, and what he has made of the tenantry and the estate of Lord Clonbrony.' Lord Colambre read, and was convinced that his father had never written or read the letter, but had signed it, trusting to Sir Terence O'Fay's having expressed his sentiments properly. SIR, As I have no further occasion for your services, you will take notice, that I hereby request you will forthwith hand over, on or before the 1st of November next, your accounts, with the balance due of the HANGING-GALE (which, I understand, is more than ought to be at this season) to Nicholas O'Garraghty, Esq., College Green, Dublin, who in future will act as agent, and shall get, by post, immediately, a power of attorney for the same, entitling him to receive and manage the Colambre as well as the Clonbrony estate, for, Sir, your obedient humble servant, CLONBRONY. 'GROSVENOR SQUARE.' Though misrepresentation, caprice, or interest, might have induced Lord Clonbrony to desire to change his agent, yet Lord Colambre knew that his father never could have announced his wishes in such a style; and, as he returned the letter to Mrs. Burke, he repeated, he was convinced that it was impossible that any nobleman could have written such a letter; that it must have been written by some inferior person; and that his lordship had signed it without reading it. 'My dear, I'm sorry you showed that letter to Mr. Evans,' said Mr. Burke; 'I don't like to expose Lord Clonbrony; he is a well-meaning gentleman, misled by ignorant or designing people; at all events, it is not for us to expose him.' 'He has exposed himself,' said Mrs. Burke; 'and the world should know it.' 'He was very kind to me when I was a young man,' said Mr. Burke; 'we must not forget that now, because we are angry, my love.' 'Why, no, my love, to be sure we should not; but who could have recollected it just at this minute but yourself?--And now, sir,' turning to Lord Colambre, 'you see what kind of a man this is: now is it not difficult for me to bear patiently to see him ill-treated?' 'Not only difficult, but impossible, I should think, madam,' said Lord Colambre; 'I know, even I, who am a stranger, cannot help feeling for both of you, as you must see I do.' 'And half the world, who don't know him,' continued Mrs. Burke, 'when they hear that Lord Clonbrony's agency is taken from him, will think, perhaps, that he is to blame.' 'No, madam,' said Lord Colambre; 'that you need not fear; Mr. Burke may safely trust to his character; from what I have within these two days seen and heard, I am convinced that such is the respect he has deserved and acquired, that no blame can touch him.' 'Sir, I thank you,' said Mrs. Burke, the tears coming into her eyes; 'you can judge--you do him justice; but there are so many who don't know him, and who will decide without knowing any of the facts.' 'That, my dear, happens about everything to everybody,' said Mr. Burke; 'but we must have patience; time sets all judgments right, sooner or later.' 'But the sooner the better,' said Mrs. Burke. 'Mr. Evans, I hope you will be so kind, if ever you hear this business talked of--' 'Mr. Evans lives in Wales, my dear.' But he is travelling through Ireland, my dear, and he said he should return to Dublin, and, you know, there he certainly will hear it talked of; and I hope he will do me the favour to state what he has seen and knows to be the truth.' 'Be assured that I will do Mr. Burke justice--as far as it is in my power,' said Lord Colambre, restraining himself much, that he might not say more than became his assumed character. He took leave of this worthy family that night, and, early the next morning, departed. 'Ah!' thought he, as he drove away from this well-regulated and flourishing place, 'how happy I might be, settled here with such a wife as--her of whom I must think no more.' He pursued his way to Clonbrony, his father's other estate, which was at a considerable distance from Colambre; he was resolved to know what kind of agent Mr. Nicholas Garraghty might be, who was to supersede Mr. Burke, and by power of attorney to be immediately entitled to receive and manage the Colambre as well as the Clonbrony estate. CHAPTER X Towards the evening of the second day's journey, the driver of Lord Colambre's hackney chaise stopped, and jumping off the wooden bar, on which he had been seated, exclaimed-- 'We're come to the bad step, now. The bad road's beginning upon us, please your honour.' 'Bad road! that is very uncommon in this country. I never saw such fine roads as you have in Ireland.' 'That's true; and God bless your honour, that's sensible of that same, for it's not what all the foreign quality I drive have the manners to notice. God bless your honour! I heard you're a Welshman, but whether or no, I am sure you are a gentleman, anyway, Welsh or other.' Notwithstanding the shabby greatcoat, the shrewd postillion perceived, by our hero's language, that he was a gentleman. After much dragging at the horses' heads, and pushing and lifting, the carriage was got over what the postillion said was the worst part of THE BAD STEP; but as the road 'was not yet to say good,' he continued walking beside the carriage. 'It's only bad just hereabouts, and that by accident,' said he, 'on account of there being no jantleman resident in it, nor near; but only a bit of an under-agent, a great little rogue, who gets his own turn out of the roads, and of everything else in life. I, Larry Brady, that am telling your honour, have a good right to know, for myself, and my father, and my brother. Pat Brady, the wheelwright, had once a farm under him; but was ruined, horse and foot, all along with him, and cast out, and my brother forced to fly the country, and is now working in some coachmaker's yard, in London; banished he is!--and here am I, forced to be what I am--and now that I'm reduced to drive a hack, the agent's a curse to me still, with these bad roads, killing my horses and wheels and a shame to the country, which I think more of--Bad luck to him!' 'I know your brother; he lives with Mr. Mordicai, in Long Acre, in London.' 'Oh, God bless you for that!' They came at this time within view of a range of about four-and-twenty men and boys, sitting astride on four-and-twenty heaps of broken stones, on each side of the road; they were all armed with hammers, with which they began to pound with great diligence and noise as soon as they saw the carriage. The chaise passed between these batteries, the stones flying on all sides. 'How are you, Jem?--How are you, Phil?' said Larry. 'But hold your hand, can't ye, while I stop and get the stones out of the horses' FEET. So you're making up the rent, are you, for St. Dennis?' 'Whoosh!' said one of the pounders, coming close to the postillion, and pointing his thumb back towards the chaise. 'Who have you in it?' 'Oh, you need not scruple, he's a very honest man; he's only a man from North Wales, one Mr. Evans, an innocent jantleman, that's sent over to travel up and down the country, to find is there any copper mines in it.' 'How do you know, Larry?' 'Because I know very well, from one that was tould, and I SEEN him tax the man of the King's Head, with a copper half-crown, at first sight, which was only lead to look at, you'd think, to them that was not skilful in copper. So lend me a knife, till I cut a linch-pin out of the hedge, for this one won't go far.' Whilst Larry was making the linch-pin, all scruple being removed, his question about St. Dennis and the rent was answered. 'Ay, it's the rint, sure enough, we're pounding out for him; for he sent the driver round last-night-was-eight days, to warn us old Nick would be down a'-Monday, to take a sweep among us; and there's only six clear days, Saturday night, before the assizes, sure; so we must see and get it finished anyway, to clear the presentment again' the swearing day, for he and Paddy Hart is the overseers themselves, and Paddy is to swear to it.' 'St. Dennis, is it? Then you've one great comfort and security--that he won't be PARTICULAR about the swearing; for since ever he had his head on his shoulders, an oath never stuck in St. Dennis's throat, more than in his own brother, old Nick's.' 'His head upon his shoulders!' repeated Lord Colambre. 'Pray, did you ever hear that St. Dennis's head was off his shoulders?' 'It never was, plase your honour, to my knowledge.' 'Did you never, among your saints, hear of St. Dennis carrying his head in his hand?' said Colambre. 'The RAEL saint!' said the postillion, suddenly changing his tone, and looking shocked. 'Oh, don't be talking that way of the saints, plase your honour.' 'Then of what St, Dennis were you talking just now?--Whom do you mean by St. Dennis, and whom do you call old Nick?' 'Old Nick,' answered the postillion, coming close to the side of the carriage, and whispering--'Old Nick, plase your honour, is our nickname for one Nicholas Garraghty, Esq., of College Green, Dublin, and St. Dennis is his brother Dennis, who is old Nick's brother in all things, and would fain be a saint, only he is a sinner. He lives just by here, in the country, under-agent to Lord Clonbrony, as old Nick is upper-agent--it's only a joke among the people, that are not fond of them at all. Lord Clonbrony himself is a very good jantleman, if he was not an absentee, resident in London, leaving us and everything to the likes of them.' Lord Colambre listened with all possible composure and attention; but the postillion having now made his linch-pin of wood, and FIXED HIMSELF; he mounted his bar, and drove on, saying to Lord Colambre, as he looked at the road-makers-- 'Poor CRATURES! They couldn't keep their cattle out of pound, or themselves out of jail, but by making this road.' 'Is road-making, then, a very profitable business?--Have road-makers higher wages than other men in this part of the country?' 'It is, and it is not--they have, and they have not--plase your honour.' 'I don't understand you.' 'No, becaase you're an Englishman--that is, a Welshman--I beg your honour's pardon. But I'll tell you how that is, and I'll go slow over these broken stones for I can't go fast: it is where there's no jantleman over these under-agents, as here, they do as they plase; and when they have set the land they get rasonable from the head landlords, to poor cratures at a rack-rent, that they can't live and pay the rent, they say--' 'Who says?' 'Them under-agents, that have no conscience at all. Not all--but SOME, like Dennis, says, says he, "I'll get you a road to make up the rent:" that is, plase your honour, the agent gets them a presentment for so many perches of road from the grand jury, at twice the price that would make the road. And tenants are, by this means, as they take the road by contract, at the price given by the county, able to pay all they get by the job, over and above potatoes and salt, back again to the agent, for the arrear on the land. Do I make your honour SENSIBLE?' [Do I make you understand?] 'You make me much more sensible than I ever was before,' said Lord Colambre; 'but is not this cheating the county?' 'Well, and suppose,' replied Larry, 'is not it all for my good, and yours too, plase your honour?' said Larry, looking very shrewdly. 'My good!' said Lord Colambre, startled. 'What have I to do with it?' 'Haven't you to do with the roads as well as me, when you're travelling upon them, plase your honour? And sure, they'd never be got made at all, if they weren't made this ways; and it's the best way in the wide world, and the finest roads we have. And when the RAEL jantlemen's resident in the country, there's no jobbing can be, because they're then the leading men on the grand jury; and these journeymen jantlemen are then kept in order, and all's right.' Lord Colambre was much surprised at Larry's knowledge of the manner in which county business is managed, as well as by his shrewd good sense: he did not know that this is not uncommon in his rank of life in Ireland. Whilst Larry was speaking, Lord Colambre was looking from side to side at the desolation of the prospect. 'So this is Lord Clonbrony's estate, is it?' 'Ay, all you see, and as far and farther than you can see. My Lord Clonbrony wrote, and ordered plantations here, time back; and enough was paid to labourers for ditching and planting. And, what next?--Why, what did the under-agent do, but let the goats in through gaps, left o' purpose, to bark the trees, and then the trees was all banished. And next, the cattle was let in trespassing, and winked at, till the land was all poached; and then the land was waste, and cried down; and St. Dennis wrote up to Dublin to old Nick, and he over to the landlord, how none would take it, or bid anything at all for it; so then it fell to him a cheap bargain. Oh, the tricks of them! who knows 'em, if I don't?' Presently, Lord Colambre's attention was roused again, by seeing a man running, as if for his life, across a bog, near the roadside; he leaped over the ditch, and was upon the road in an instant. He seemed startled at first, at the sight of the carriage; but, looking at the postillion, Larry nodded, and he smiled and said-- 'All's safe!' 'Pray, my good friend, may I ask what that is you have on your shoulder?' said Lord Colambre. PLASE your honour, it is only a private still, which I've just caught out yonder in the bog; and I'm carrying it in with all speed to the gauger, to make a discovery, that the JANTLEMAN may benefit by the reward; I expect he'll make me a compliment.' 'Get up behind, and I'll give you a lift,' said the postillion. 'Thank you kindly--but better my legs!' said the man; and turning down a lane, off he ran again as fast as possible. 'Expect he'll make me a compliment,' repeated Lord Colambre, 'to make a discovery!' Ay, plase your honour; for the law is,' said Larry, 'that, if an unlawful still, that is, a still without license for whisky, is found, half the benefit of the fine that's put upon the parish goes to him that made the discovery; that's what that man is after, for he's an informer.' 'I should not have thought, from what I see of you,' said Lord Colambre, smiling, 'that you, Larry, would have offered an informer a lift.' 'Oh, plase your honour!' said Larry, smiling archly, 'would not I give the laws a lift, when in my power?' Scarcely had he uttered these words, and scarcely was the informer out of sight, when across the same bog, and over the ditch, came another man, a half kind of gentleman, with a red silk handkerchief about his neck, and a silver-handled whip in his hand. 'Did you see any man pass the road, friend?' said he to the postillion. 'Oh! who would I see? or why would I tell?' replied Larry, in a sulky tone. 'Came, come, be smart!' said the man with the silver whip, offering to put half a crown into the postillion's hand; 'point me which way he took.' 'I'll have none a' your silver! don't touch me with it!' said Larry. 'But, if you'll take my advice, you'll strike across back, and follow the fields, out to Killogenesawee.' The exciseman set out again immediately, in an opposite direction to that which the man who carried the still had taken. Lord Colambre now perceived that the pretended informer had been running off to conceal a still of his own. 'The gauger, plase your honour,' said Larry, looking back at Lord Colambre; 'the gauger is a STILL-HUNTING!' 'And you put him on a wrong scent!' said Lord Colambre. 'Sure, I told him no lie; I only said, "If you'll take my advice." And why was he such a fool as to take my advice, when I wouldn't take his fee?' 'So this is the way, Larry, you give a lift to the laws!' 'If the laws would give a lift to me, plase your honour, maybe I'd do as much by them. But it's only these revenue laws I mean; for I never, to my knowledge, broke another commandment; but it's what no honest poor man among his neighbours would scruple to take--a glass of POTSHEEN.' 'A glass of what, in the name of Heaven?' said Lord Colambre. POTSHEEN, plase your honour;--becaase it's the little whisky that's made in the private still or pot; and SHEEN, becaase it's a fond word for whatsoever we'd like, and for what we have little of, and would make much of: after taking the glass of it, no man could go and inform to ruin the CRATURES, for they all shelter on that estate under favour of them that go shares, and make rent of 'em--but I'd never inform again' 'em. And, after all, if the truth was known, and my Lord Clonbrony should be informed against, and presented, for it's his neglect is the bottom of the nuisance--' 'I find all the blame is thrown upon this poor Lord Clonbrony,' said Lord Colambre. 'Becaase he is absent,' said Larry. 'It would not be so was he PRISINT. But your honour was talking to me about the laws. Your honour's a stranger in this country, and astray about them things. Sure, why would I mind the laws about whisky, more than the quality, or the judge on the bench?' 'What do you mean?' 'Why! was not I PRISINT in the court-house myself, when the JIDGE on the bench judging a still, and across the court came in one with a sly jug of POTSHEEN for the JIDGE himself, who prefarred it, when the right thing, to claret; and when I SEEN that, by the laws! a man might talk himself dumb to me after again' potsheen, or in favour of the revenue, or revenue-officers. And there they may go on, with their gaugers, and their surveyors, and their supervisors, and their WATCHING-OFFICERS, and their coursing-officers, setting 'em one after another, or one over the head of another, or what way they will--we can baffle and laugh at 'em. Didn't I know, next door to our inn, last year, ten WATCHING-OFFICERS set upon one distiller, and he was too cunning for them; and it will always be so, while ever the people think it no sin. No, till then, not all their dockets and permits signify a rush, or a turf. And the gauging rod even! who fears it? They may spare that rod, for it will never mend the child.' How much longer Larry's dissertation on the distillery laws would have continued, had not his ideas been interrupted, we cannot guess; but he saw he was coming to a town, and he gathered up the reins, and plied the whip, ambitious to make a figure in the eyes of its inhabitants. This TOWN consisted of one row of miserable huts, sunk beneath the side of the road, the mud walls crooked in every direction; some of them opening in wide cracks, or zigzag fissures, from top to bottom, as if there had just been an earthquake--all the roofs sunk in various places--thatch off, or overgrown with grass--no chimneys, the smoke making its way through a hole in the roof, or rising in clouds from the top of the open door--dunghills before the doors, and green standing puddles--squalid children, with scarcely rags to cover them, gazing at the carriage. 'Nugent's town,' said the postillion, 'once a snug place, when my Lady Clonbrony was at home to whitewash it, and the like.' As they drove by, some men and women put their heads through the smoke out of the cabins; pale women with long, black, or yellow locks--men with countenances and figures bereft of hope and energy. 'Wretched, wretched people!' said Lord Colambre. 'Then it's not their fault neither,' said Larry; 'for my own uncle's one of them, and as thriving and hard a working man as could be in all Ireland, he was, AFORE he was tramped under foot, and his heart broke. I was at his funeral, this time last year; and for it, may the agent's own heart, if he has any, burn--' Lord Colambre interrupted this denunciation by touching Larry's shoulder, and asking some question, which, as Larry did not distinctly comprehend, he pulled up the reins, and the various noises of the vehicle stopped suddenly. I did not hear well, plase your honour.' 'What are those people?' pointing to a man and woman, curious figures, who had come out of a cabin, the door of which the woman, who came out last, locked, and carefully hiding the key in the thatch, turned her back upon the man, and they walked away in different directions: the woman bending under a huge bundle on her back, covered by a yellow petticoat turned over her shoulders; from the top of this bundle the head of an infant appeared; a little boy, almost naked, followed her with a kettle, and two girls, one of whom could but just walk, held her hand and clung to her ragged petticoat; forming, altogether, a complete group of beggars. The woman stopped, and looked back after the man. The man was a Spanish-looking figure, with gray hair; a wallet hung at the end of a stick over one shoulder, a reaping-hook in the other hand; he walked off stoutly, without ever casting a look behind him. 'A kind harvest to you, John Dolan,' cried the postillion, 'and success to ye, Winny, with the quality. There's a luck-penny for the child to begin with,' added he, throwing the child a penny. 'Your honour, they're only poor CRATURES going up the country to beg, while the man goes over to reap the harvest in England. Nor this would not be, neither, if the lord was in it to give 'em EMPLOY. That man, now, was a good and a willing SLAVE in his day: I mind him working with myself in the shrubberies at Clonbrony Castle, when I was a boy--but I'll not be detaining your honour, now the road's better.' The postillion drove on at a good rate for some time, till he came to a piece of the road freshly covered with broken stones, where he was obliged again to go slowly. They overtook a string of cars, on which were piled up high, beds, tables, chairs, trunks, boxes, bandboxes. 'How are you, Finnucan? you've fine loading there--from Dublin, are you?' 'From Bray.' 'And what news?' 'GREAT news and bad, for old Nick, or some belonging to him, thanks be to Heaven! for myself hates him.' 'What's happened him?' 'His sister's husband that's failed, the great grocer that was, the man that had the wife that OW'D [Owned] the fine house near Bray, that they got that time the Parliament FLITTED, and that I seen in her carriage flaming--well, it's all out; they're all DONE UP. 'Tut! is that all? then they'll thrive, and set up again grander than ever, I'll engage; have not they old Nick for an attorney at their back? a good warrant!' 'Oh, trust him for that! he won't go security nor pay a farthing for his SHISTER, nor wouldn't was she his father; I heard him telling her so, which I could not have done in his place at that time, and she crying as if her heart would break, and I standing by in the parlour.' 'The NEGER! [NEGER, quasi negro; meo periculo, NIGGARD] And did he speak that way, and you by?' 'Ay did he; and said, "Mrs. Raffarty," says he, "it's all your own fault; you're an extravagant fool, and ever was, and I wash my hands of you;" that was the word he spoke; and she answered, and said, "And mayn't I send the beds and blankets," said she, "and what I can, by the cars, out of the way of the creditors, to Clonbrony Castle; and won't you let me hide there from the shame, till the bustle's over?"--"You may do that," says he, "for what I care; but remember," says he, "that I've the first claim to them goods;" and that's all he would grant. So they are coming down all o' Monday--them are her bandboxes and all to settle it; and faith it was a pity of her! to hear her sobbing, and to see her own brother speak and look so hard! and she a lady.' 'Sure she's not a lady born, no more than himself,' said Larry; 'but that's no excuse for him. His heart's as hard as that stone,' said Larry; 'and my own people knew that long ago, and now his own know it; and what right have we to complain, since he's as bad to his own flesh and blood as to us?' With this consolation, and with a 'God speed you,' given to the carman, Larry was driving off; but the carman called to him, and pointed to a house, at the corner of which, on a high pole, was swinging an iron sign of three horse-shoes, set in a crooked frame, and at the window hung an empty bottle, proclaiming whisky within. 'Well, I don't care if I do,' said Larry; 'for I've no other comfort left me in life now. I beg your honour's pardon, sir, for a minute,' added he, throwing the reins into the carriage to Lord Colambre, as he leaped down. All remonstrance and power of lungs to reclaim him vain! He darted into the whisky-house with the carman--reappeared before Lord Colambre could accomplish getting out, remounted his seat, and, taking the reins, 'I thank your honour,' said he; 'and I'll bring you into Clonbrony before it's pitch-dark yet, though it's nightfall, and that's four good miles, but "a spur in the head is worth two in the heel."' Larry, to demonstrate the truth of his favourite axiom, drove off at such a furious rate over great stones left in the middle of the road by carmen, who had been driving in the gudgeons of their axle-trees to hinder them from lacing, [Opening; perhaps from LACHER, to loosen.] that Lord Colambre thought life and limb in imminent danger; and feeling that at all events the jolting and bumping was past endurance, he had recourse to Larry's shoulder, and shook and pulled, and called to him to go slower, but in vain; at last the wheel struck full against a heap of stones at a turn of the road, the wooden linch-pin came off, and the chaise was overset: Lord Colambre was a little bruised, but glad to escape without fractured bones. 'I beg your honour's pardon,' said Larry, completely sobered; 'I'm as glad as the best pair of boots ever I see, to see your honour nothing the worse for it. It was the linch-pin, and them barrows of loose stones, that ought to be fined anyway, if there was any justice in the country.' 'The pole is broke; how are we to get on?' said Lord Colambre. 'Murder! murder!--and no smith nearer than Clonbrony; nor rope even. It's a folly to talk, we can't get to Clonbrony, nor stir a step backward or forward the night.' 'What, then, do you mean to leave me all night in the middle of the road?' cried Lord Colambre, quite exasperated. 'Is it me! please your honour? I would not use any jantleman so ill, BARRING I could do no other,' replied the postillion, coolly; then, leaping across the ditch, or, as he called it, the GRIPE of the ditch, he scrambled up, and while he was scrambling, said, 'If your honour will lend me your hand till I pull you up the back of the ditch, the horses will stand while we go. I'll find you as pretty a lodging for the night, with a widow of a brother of my shister's husband that was, as ever you slept in your life; for old Nick or St. Dennis has not found 'em out yet; and your honour will be, no compare, snugger than the inn at Clonbrony, which has no roof, the devil a stick. But where will I get your honour's hand; for it's coming on so dark, I can't see rightly. There, you're up now safe. Yonder candle's the house.' 'Go and ask whether they can give us a night's lodging.' 'Is it ASK? when I see the light!--Sure they'd be proud to give the traveller all the beds in the house, let alone one. Take care of the potato furrows, that's all, and follow me straight. I'll go on to meet the dog, who knows me and might be strange to your honour.' 'Kindly welcome,' were the first words Lord Colambre heard when he approached the cottage; and 'kindly welcome' was in the sound of the voice and in the countenance of the old woman who came out, shading her rush-candle from the wind, and holding it so as to light the path. When he entered the cottage, he saw a cheerful fire and a neat pretty young woman making it blaze: she curtsied, put her spinning-wheel out of the way, set a stool by the fire for the stranger, and repeating, in a very low tone of voice, 'Kindly welcome,' retired. 'Put down some eggs, dear, there's plenty in the bowl,' said the old woman, calling to her; 'I'll do the bacon. Was not we lucky to be up--The boy's gone to bed, but waken him,' said she, turning to the postillion; 'and he'll help you with the chay, and put your horses in the bier for the night.' No; Larry chose to go on to Clonbrony with the horses, that he might get the chaise mended betimes for his honour. The table was set; clean trenchers, hot potatoes, milk, eggs, bacon, and 'kindly welcome to all.' 'Set the salt, dear; and the butter, love; where's your head, Grace, dear!' 'Grace!' repeated Lord Colambre, looking up; and, to apologise for his involuntary exclamation, he added, 'Is Grace a common name in Ireland?' 'I can't say, plase your honour, but it was give her by Lady Clonbrony, from a niece of her own that was her foster-sister, God bless her! and a very kind lady she was to us and to all when she was living in it; but those times are gone past,' said the old woman, with a sigh. The young woman sighed too; and, sitting down by the fire, began to count the notches in a little bit of stick, which she held in her hand; and, after she had counted them, sighed again. 'But don't be sighing, Grace, now,' said the old woman; 'sighs is bad sauce for the traveller's supper; and we won't be troubling him with more,' added she, turning to Lord Colambre with a smile. 'Is your egg done to your liking?' 'Perfectly, thank you.' 'Then I wish it was a chicken for your sake, which it should have been, and roast too, had we time. I wish I could see you eat another egg.' 'No more, thank you, my good lady; I never ate a better supper, nor received a more hospitable welcome.' 'Oh, the welcome is all we have to offer.' 'May I ask what that is?' said Lord Colambre, looking at the notched stick, which the young woman held in her hand, and on which her eyes were still fixed. It's a TALLY, plase your honour. Oh, you're a foreigner;--it's the way the labourers do keep the account of the day's work with the overseer, the bailiff; a notch for every day the bailiff makes on his stick, and the labourer the like on his stick, to tally; and when we come to make up the account, it's by the notches we go. And there's been a mistake, and is a dispute here between our boy and the overseer; and she was counting the boy's tally, that's in bed, tired, for in troth he's overworked.' 'Would you want anything more from me, mother?' said the girl, rising and turning her head away. 'No, child; get away, for your heart's full.' She went instantly. 'Is the boy her brother?' said Lord Colambre. 'No; he's her bachelor,' said the old woman, lowering her voice. 'Her bachelor?' 'That is, her sweetheart: for she is not my daughter, though you heard her call me mother. The boy's my son; but I am afeard they must give it up; for they're too poor, and the times is hard, and the agent's harder than the times; there's two of them, the under and the upper; and they grind the substance of one between them, and then blow one away like chaff: but we'll not be talking of that to spoil your honour's night's rest. The room's ready, and here's the rushlight.' She showed him into a very small but neat room. 'What a comfortable-looking bed!' said Lord Colambre. 'Ah, these red check curtains,' said she, letting them down; 'these have lasted well; they were give me by a good friend, now far away, over the seas--my Lady Clonbrony; and made by the prettiest hands ever you see, her niece's, Miss Grace Nugent's, and she a little child that time; sweet love! all gone!' The old woman wiped a tear from her eye, and Lord Colambre did what he could to appear indifferent. She set down the candle, and left the room; Lord Colambre went to bed, but he lay awake, 'revolving sweet and bitter thoughts.' CHAPTER XI The kettle was on the fire, tea-things set, everything prepared for her guest by the hospitable hostess, who, thinking the gentleman would take tea to his breakfast, had sent off a GOSSOON by the FIRST LIGHT to Clonbrony, for an ounce of tea, a QUARTER OF SUGAR, and a loaf of white bread; and there was on the little table good cream, milk, butter, eggs--all the promise of an excellent breakfast. It was a FRESH morning, and there was a pleasant fire on the hearth, neatly swept up. The old woman was sitting in her chimney corner, behind a little skreen of whitewashed wall, built out into the room, for the purpose of keeping those who sat at the fire from the BLAST OF THE DOOR. There was a loophole in this wall, to let the light in, just at the height of a person's head, who was sitting near the chimney. The rays of the morning sun now came through it, shining across the face of the old woman, as she sat knitting; Lord Colambre thought he had seldom seen a more agreeable countenance, intelligent eyes, benevolent smile, a natural expression of cheerfulness, subdued by age and misfortune. 'A good-morrow to you kindly, sir, and I hope you got the night well?--A fine day for us this Sunday morning; my Grace is gone to early prayers, so your honour will be content with an old woman to make your breakfast. Oh, let me put in plenty, or it will never be good; and if your honour takes stir-about, an old hand will engage to make that to your liking, anyway; for, by great happiness, we have what will just answer for you of the nicest meal the miller made my Grace a compliment of, last time she went to the mill.' Lord Colambre observed, that this miller had good taste; and his lordship paid some compliment to Grace's beauty, which the old woman received with a smile, but turned off the conversation. 'Then,' said she, looking out of the window, 'is not that there a nice little garden the boy dug for her and me, at his breakfast and dinner hours? Ah! he's a good boy, and a good warrant to work; and the good son DESARVES the good wife, and it's he that will make the good husband; and with my goodwill he, and no other, shall get her, and with her goodwill the same; and I bid 'em keep up their heart, and hope the best, for there's no use in fearing the worst till it comes.' Lord Colambre wished very much to know the worst. 'If you would not think a stranger impertinent for asking,' said he, 'and if it would not be painful to you to explain.' 'Oh, impertinent, your honour! it's very kind--and, sure, none's a stranger to one's heart, that feels for one. And for myself, I can talk of my troubles without thinking of them. So, I'll tell you all--if the worst comes to the worst--all that is, is, that we must quit, and give up this little snug place, and house, and farm, and all, to the agent--which would be hard on us, and me a widow, when my husband did all that is done to the land; and if your honour was a judge, you could see, if you stepped out, there has been a deal done, and built the house, and all--but it plased Heaven to take him. Well, he was too good for this world, and I'm satisfied--I'm not saying a word again' that--I trust we shall meet in heaven, and be happy, surely. And, meantime, here's my boy, that will make me as happy as ever widow was on earth--if the agent will let him. And I can't think the agent, though they that know him best call him old Nick, would be so wicked to take from us that which he never gave us. The good lord himself granted us the LASE; the life's dropped, and the years is out; but we had a promise of renewal in writing from the landlord. God bless him! if he was not away, he'd be a good gentleman, and we'd be happy and safe.' 'But if you have a promise in writing of a renewal, surely you are safe, whether your landlord is absent or present?' 'Ah, no I that makes a great DIFFER, when there's no eye or hand over the agent. I would not wish to speak or think ill of him or any man; but was he an angel, he could not know to do the tenantry justice, the way he is living always in Dublin, and coming down to the country only the receiving days, to make a sweep among us, and gather up the rents in a hurry, and he in such haste back to town--can just stay to count over our money, and give the receipts. Happy for us, if we get that same!--but can't expect he should have time to see or hear us, or mind our improvements, any more than listen to our complaints! Oh, there's great excuse for the gentleman, if that was any comfort for us,' added she, smiling. 'But, if he does not live amongst you himself, has not he some under-agent, who lives in the country?' said Lord Colambre. 'He has so.' 'And he should know your concerns: does he mind them?' 'He should know--he should know better; but as to minding our concerns, your honour knows,' continued she, smiling again, 'every one in this world must mind their own concerns; and it would be a good world, if it was even so. There's a great deal in all things, that don't appear at first sight. Mr. Dennis wanted Grace for a wife for his bailiff; but she would not have him; and Mr. Dennis was very sweet to her himself--but Grace is rather high with him as proper, and he has a grudge AGAIN' us ever since. Yet, indeed, there,' added she, after another pause, 'as you say, I think we are safe; for we have that memorandum in writing, with a pencil, given under his own hand, on the back of the LASE, to me, by the same token when my good lord had his foot on the step of the coach, going away; and I'll never forget the smile of her that got that good turn done for me, Miss Grace. And just when she was going to England and London, and, young as she was, to have the thought to stop and turn to the likes of me! Oh, then, if you could see her, and know her, as I did! THAT was the comforting angel upon earth--look and voice, and heart and all! Oh, that she was here present, this minute!--But did you scald yourself?' said the widow to Lord Colambre. 'Sure you must have scalded yourself; for you poured the kettle straight over your hand, and it boiling!--O DEEAR! to think of so young a gentleman's hand shaking so like my own. Luckily, to prevent her pursuing her observations from the hand to the face, which might have betrayed more than Lord Colambre wished she should know, her own Grace came in at this instant. 'There it's for you, safe, mother dear--the LASE!' said Grace, throwing a packet into her lap. The old woman lifted up her hands to heaven, with the lease between them.--'Thanks be to Heaven!' Grace passed on, and sunk down on the first seat she could reach. Her face flushed, and, looking much fatigued, she loosened the strings of her bonnet and cloak--'Then, I'm tired;' but, recollecting herself, she rose, and curtsied to the gentleman. 'What tired ye, dear?' 'Why, after prayers, we had to go--for the agent was not at prayers, nor at home for us, when we called--we had to go all the way up to the castle; and there, by great good luck, we found Mr. Nick Garraghty himself, come from Dublin, and the LASE in his hands; and he sealed it up that way, and handed it to me very civil. I never saw him so good--though he offered me a glass of spirits, which was not manners to a decent young woman, in a morning--as Brian noticed after. Brian would not take any either, nor never does. We met Mr. Dennis and the driver coming home; and he says, the rent must be paid to-morrow, or, instead of renewing, he'll seize and sell all. Mother dear, I would have dropped with the walk, but for Brian's arm.'--'It's a wonder, dear, what makes you so weak, that used to be so strong,'--'But if we can sell the cow for anything at all to Mr. Dennis, since his eye is set upon her, better let him have her, mother dear; and that and my yarn, which Mrs. Garraghty says she'll allow me for, will make up the rent--and Brian need not talk of America. But it must be in golden guineas, the agent will take the rent no other way; and you won't get a guinea for less than five shillings. Well, even so, it's easy selling my new gown to one that covets it, and that will give me in exchange the price of the gold; or, suppose that would not do, add this cloak,--it's handsome, and I know a friend would be glad to take it, and I'd part it as ready as look at it--Any-thing at all, sure, rather than that he should be forced to talk of emigrating; or, oh, worse again, listing for the bounty--to save us from the cant or the jail, by going to the hospital, or his grave, maybe--Oh, mother!' 'Oh, child! This is what makes you weak, fretting. Don't be that way. Sure here's the LASE, and that's good comfort; and the soldiers will be gone out of Clonbrony to-morrow, and then that's off your mind. And as to America, it's only talk--I won't let him, he's dutiful; and would sooner sell my dresser and down to my bed, dear, than see you sell anything of yours, love. Promise me you won't. Why didn't Brian come home all the way with you, Grace?' 'He would have seen me home,' said Grace,' only that he went up a piece of the mountain for some stones or ore for the gentleman--for he had the manners to think of him this morning, though, shame for me, I had not, when I come in, or I would not have told you all this, and he himself by. See, there he is, mother.' Brian came in very hot, out of breath, with his hat full of stones. 'Good morrow to your honour. I was in bed last night; and sorry they did not call me up to be of SARVICE. Larry was telling us, this morning, your honour's from Wales, and looking for mines in Ireland, and I heard talk that there was one on our mountain--maybe, you'd be CUROUS to see, and so I brought the best I could, but I'm no judge.' 'Nor I, neither,' thought Lord Colambre; but he thanked the young man, and determined to avail himself of Larry's misconception or false report; examined the stones very gravely, and said, 'This promises well. Lapis caliminaris, schist, plum-pudding stone, rhomboidal, crystal, blend, garrawachy,' and all the strange names he could think of, jumbling them together at a venture. 'The LASE!--Is it?' cried the young man, with joy sparkling in his eyes, as his mother held up the packet. 'Then all's safe! and he's an honest man, and shame on me, that could suspect he meant us wrong. Lend me the papers.' He cracked the seals, and taking off the cover,--'It's the LASE, sure enough. Shame on me!--But stay, where's the memorandum?' 'It's there, sure,' said his mother, 'where my lord's pencil writ it. I don't read.--Grace, dear, look.' The young man put it into her hands, and stood without power to utter a syllable. 'It's not here! It's gone!--no sign of it.' 'Gracious Heaven! that can't be,' said the old woman, putting on her spectacles; 'let me see--I remember the very spot.' 'It's taken away--it's rubbed clean out!--Oh, wasn't I fool? But who could have thought he'd be the villain!' The young man seemed neither to see nor hear; but to be absorbed in thought. Grace, with her eyes fixed upon him, grew as pale as death--'He'll go--he's gone.' 'She's gone!' cried Lord Colambre, and the mother just caught her in her arms as she was falling. 'The chaise is ready, PLASE your honour,' said Larry, coming into the room. 'Death! what's here?' 'Air!--she's coming to,' said the young man--'Take a drop of water, my own Grace.' 'Young man, I, promise you,' cried Lord Colambre (speaking in the tone of a master), striking the young man's shoulder, who was kneeling at Grace's feet; but recollecting and restraining himself, he added, in a quiet voice--'I promise you I shall never forget the hospitality I have received in this house, and I am sorry to be obliged to leave you in distress.' These words uttered with difficulty, he hurried out of the house, and into his carriage. 'Go back to them,' said he to the postillion; 'go back and ask whether, if I should stay a day or two longer in this country, they would let me return at night and lodge with them. And here, man, stay, take this,' putting money into his hands, 'for the good woman of the house.' The postillion went in, and returned. 'She won't at all--I knew she would not.' 'Well, I am obliged to her for the night's lodging she did give me; I have no right to expect more.' 'What is it?--Sure she bid me tell you--"and welcome to the lodging; for," said she, "he is a kind-hearted gentleman;" but here's the money; it's that I was telling you she would not have at all.' 'Thank you. Now, my good friend Larry, drive me to Clonbrony, and do not say another word, for I'm not in a talking humour.' Larry nodded, mounted, and drove to Clonbrony. Clonbrony was now a melancholy scene. The houses, which had been built in a better style of architecture than usual, were in a ruinous condition; the dashing was off the walls, no glass in the windows, and many of the roofs without slates. For the stillness of the place Lord Colambre in some measure accounted by considering that it was Sunday; therefore, of course, all the shops were shut up, and all the people at prayers. He alighted at the inn, which completely answered Larry's representation of it. Nobody to be seen but a drunken waiter, who, as well as he could articulate, informed Lord Colambre that 'his mistress was in her bed since Thursday-was-a-week; the hostler at the WASH-WOMAN'S, and the cook at second prayers.' Lord Colambre walked to the church, but the church gate was locked and broken--a calf, two pigs, and an ass, in the churchyard; and several boys (with more of skin apparent than clothes) were playing at hustlecap upon a tombstone, which, upon nearer observation, he saw was the monument of his own family. One of the boys came to the gate, and told Lord Colambre 'there was no use in going into the church, becaase there was no church there; nor had not been this twelvemonth; becaase there was no curate; and the parson was away always, since the lord was at home--that is, was not at home--he nor the family.' Lord Colambre returned to the inn, where, after waiting a considerable time, he gave up the point--he could not get any dinner--and in the evening he walked out again into the town. He found several ale-houses, however, open, which were full of people; all of them as busy and as noisy as possible. He observed that the interest was created by an advertisement of several farms on the Clonbrony estate, to be set by Nicholas Garraghty, Esq. He could not help smiling at his being witness incognito to various schemes for outwitting the agents and defrauding the landlord; but, on a sudden, the scene was changed; a boy ran in, crying out, that 'St. Dennis was riding down the hill into the town; and, if you would not have the license,' said the boy, 'take care of yourself.' 'IF YOU WOULDN'T HAVE THE LICENCE,' Lord Colambre perceived, by what followed, meant, 'IF YOU HAVE NOT A LICENCE.' Brannagan immediately snatched an untasted glass of whisky from a customer's lips (who cried, Murder!) gave it and the bottle he held in his hand to his wife, who swallowed the spirits, and ran away with the bottle and glass into some back hole; whilst the bystanders laughed, saying, 'Well thought of, Peggy!' 'Clear out all of you at the back door, for the love of heaven, if you wouldn't be the ruin of me,' said the man of the house, setting a ladder to a corner of the shop. 'Phil, hoist me up the keg to the loft,' added he, running up the ladder; 'and one of YEES step up street, and give Rose M'Givney notice, for she's selling too.' The keg was hoisted up; the ladder removed; the shop cleared of all the customers; the shutters shut; the door barred; the counter cleaned. 'Lift your stones, sir, if you plase,' said the wife, as she rubbed the counter, 'and say nothing of what you SEEN at all; but that you're a stranger and a traveller seeking a lodging, if you're questioned, or waiting to see Mr. Dennis. There's no smell of whisky in it now, is there, sir?' Lord Colambre could not flatter her so far as to say this--he could only hope no one would perceive it. 'Oh, and if he would, the smell of whisky was nothing,' as the wife affirmed, 'for it was everywhere in nature, and no proof again' any one, good or bad.' 'Now St. Dennis may come when he will, or old Nick himself!' So she tied up a blue handkerchief over her head, and had the toothache, 'very bad.' Lord Colambre turned to look for the man of the house. 'He's safe in bed,' said the wife. 'In bed! When?' 'Whilst you turned your head, while I was tying the handkerchief over my face. Within the room, look, he is snug.' And there he was in bed certainly, and his clothes on the chest. A knock, a loud knock at the door. 'St. Dennis himself!--Stay, till I unbar the door,' said the woman; and, making a great difficulty, she let him in, groaning, and saying-- 'We was all done up for the night, PLASE your honour, and myself with the toothache, very bad--And the lodger, that's going to take an egg only, before he'd go into his bed. My man's in it, and asleep long ago.' With a magisterial air, though with a look of blank disappointment, Mr. Dennis Garraghty walked on, looked into THE ROOM, saw the good man of the house asleep, heard him snore, and then, returning, asked Lord Colambre 'who he was, and what brought him there?' Our hero said he was from England, and a traveller; and now, bolder grown as a geologist, he talked of his specimens, and his hopes of finding a mine in the neighbouring mountains; then adopting, as well as he could, the servile tone and abject manner in which he found Mr. Dennis was to be addressed, 'he hoped he might get encouragement from the gentleman at the head of the estate.' 'To bore, is it?--Well, don't BORE me about it. I can't give you any answer now, my good friend; I'm engaged.' Out he strutted. 'Stick to him up the town, if you have a mind to get your answer,' whispered the woman. Lord Colambre followed, for he wished to see the end of this scene. 'Well, sir, what are you following and sticking to me, like my shadow, for?' said Mr. Dennis, turning suddenly upon Lord Colambre. His lordship bowed low. 'Waiting for my answer, sir, when you are at leisure. Or, may I call upon you tomorrow?' 'You seem to be a civil kind of fellow; but, as to boring, I don't know--if you undertake it at your own expense. I dare say there may be minerals in the ground. Well, you may call at the castle to-morrow, and when my brother has done with the tenantry, I'll speak to him FOR you, and we'll consult together, and see what we think. It's too late to-night. In Ireland, nobody speaks to a gentleman about business after dinner--your servant, sir; anybody can show you the way to the castle in the morning.' And, pushing by his lordship, he called to a man on the other side of the street, who had obviously been waiting for him; he went under a gateway with this man, and gave him a bag of guineas. He then called for his horse, which was brought to him by a man whom Colambre had heard declaring that he would bid for the land that was advertised; whilst another, who had the same intentions, most respectfully held St. Dennis's stirrup, whilst he mounted without thanking either of these men. St. Dennis clapped spurs to his steed, and rode away. No thanks, indeed, were deserved; for the moment he was out of hearing, both cursed him after the manner of their country. 'Bad luck go with you, then!--And may you break your neck before you get home, if it was not for the LASE I'm to get, and that's paid for.' Lord Colambre followed the crowd into a public-house, where a new scene presented itself to his view. The man to whom St. Dennis gave the bag of gold was now selling this very gold to the tenants, who were to pay their rent next day at the castle. The agent would take nothing but gold. The same guineas were bought and sold several times over, to the great profit of the agent and loss of the poor tenants; for, as the rents were paid, the guineas were resold to another set, and the remittances made through bankers to the landlord; who, as the poor man who explained the transaction to Lord Colambre expressed it, 'gained nothing by the business, bad or good, but the ill-will of the tenantry.' The higgling for the price of the gold; the time lost in disputing about the goodness of the notes, among some poor tenants, who could not read or write, and who were at the mercy of the man with the bag in his hand; the vexation, the useless harassing of all who were obliged to submit ultimately--Lord Colambre saw; and all this time he endured the smell of tobacco and whisky, and of the sound of various brogues, the din of men wrangling, brawling, threatening, whining, drawling, cajoling, cursing, and every variety of wretchedness. 'And is this my father's town of Clonbrony?' thought Lord Colambre. 'Is this Ireland?--No, it is not Ireland. Let me not, like most of those who forsake their native country, traduce it. Let me not, even to my own mind, commit the injustice of taking a speck for the whole. What I have just seen is the picture only of that to which an Irish estate and Irish tenantry may be degraded in the absence of those whose duty and interest it is to reside in Ireland, to uphold justice by example and authority; but who, neglecting this duty, commit power to bad hands and bad hearts--abandon their tenantry to oppression, and their property to ruin.' It was now fine moonlight, and Lord Colambre met with a boy, who said he could show him a short way across the fields to the widow O'Neill's cottage. CHAPTER XII All were asleep at the cottage, when Lord Colambre arrived, except the widow, who was sitting up, waiting for him; and who had brought her dog into the house, that he might not fly at him, or bark at his return. She had a roast chicken ready for her guest, and it was--but this she never told him the only chicken she had left; all the others had been sent with the DUTY-FOWL as a present to the under-agent's lady. While he was eating his supper, which he ate with the better appetite, as he had had no dinner, the good woman took down from the shelf a pocket-book, which she gave him: 'Is not that your book?' said she. 'My boy Brian found it after you in the potato furrow, where you dropped it.' 'Thank you,' said Lord Colambre; 'there are bank notes in it, which I could not afford to lose.' 'Are there?' said she; 'he never opened it--nor I.' Then, in answer to his inquiries about Grace and the young man, the widow answered, 'They are all in heart now, I thank ye kindly, sir, for asking; they'll sleep easy to-night anyway, and I'm in great spirits for them and myself--for all's smooth now. After we parted you, Brian saw Mr. Dennis himself about the LASE and memorandum, which he never denied, but knew nothing about. "But, be that as it may," says he, "you're improving tenants, and I'm confident my brother will consider ye; so what you'll do is, you'll give up the possession to-morrow to myself, that will call for it by cock-crow, just for form's sake; and then go up to the castle with the new LASE ready drawn, in your hand, and if all's paid off clear of the rent, and all that's due, you'll get the new LASE signed; I'll promise you that upon the word and honour of a gentleman." And there's no going beyond that, you know, sir. So my boy came home as light as a feather, and as gay as a lark, to bring us the good news; only he was afraid we might not make up the rent, guineas and all; and because he could not get paid for the work he done, on account of the mistake in the overseer's tally, I sold the cow to a neighbour--dog-cheap; but needs must, as they say, when old Nick DRIVES,' said the widow, smiling. 'Well, still it was but paper we got for the cow; then that must be gold before the agent would take or touch it so I was laying out to sell the dresser, and had taken the plates and cups, and little things off it, and my boy was lifting it out with Andy the carpenter, that was agreeing for it, when in comes Grace, all rosy, and out of breath--it's a wonder I minded her run out, and not missed her. "Mother," says she, "here's the gold for you! don't be stirring your dresser."--"And where's your gown and cloak, Grace?" says I. But I beg your pardon, sir; maybe I'm tiring you?' Lord Colambre encouraged her to go on. '"Where's your gown and cloak, Grace!" says I.--"Gone," says she. "The cloak was too warm and heavy, and I don't doubt, mother, but it was that helped to make me faint this morning. And as to the gown, sure I've a very nice one here, that you spun for me yourself, mother; and that I prize above all the gowns ever came out of a loom; and that Brian said become me to his fancy above any gown ever he see me wear; and what could I wish for more?" Now I'd a mind to scold her for going to sell the gown unknown'st to me, but I don't know how it was, I couldn't scold her just then, so kissed her, and Brian the same, and that was what no man ever did before. And she had a mind to be angry with him, but could not, nor ought not, says I; "for he's as good as your husband now, Grace; and no man can part yees now," says I, putting their hands together. Well, I never saw her look so pretty; nor there was not a happier boy that minute on God's earth than my son, nor a happier mother than myself; and I thanked God that had given them to me; and down they both fell on their knees for my blessing, little worth as it was; and my heart's blessing they had, and I laid my hands upon them. "It's the priest you must get to do this for you to-morrow," says I. And Brian just held up the ring, to show me all was ready on his part, but could not speak. "Then there's no America any more!" said Grace low to me, and her heart was on her lips; but the colour came and went, and I was AFEARED she'd have swooned again, but not for sorrow, so I carried her off. Well, if she was not my own--but she is not my own born so I may say it--there never was a better girl, nor a more kind-hearted, nor generous; never thinking anything she could do, or give, too much for them she loved, and anything at all would do for herself; the sweetest natured and tempered both, and always was, from this high; the bond that held all together, and joy of the house.' 'Just like her namesake,' cried Lord Colambre. 'Plase your honour?' 'Is not it late?' said Lord Colambre, stretching himself and gaping; 'I've walked a great way to-day.' The old woman lighted his rushlight, showed him to his red check bed, and wished him a very good night; not without some slight sentiment of displeasure at his gaping thus at the panegyric on her darling Grace. Before she left the room, however, her short-lived resentment vanished, upon his saying that he hoped, with her permission, to be present at the wedding of the young couple. Early in the morning Brian went to the priest, to ask his reverence when it would be convenient to marry him; and, whilst he was gone, Mr. Dennis Garraghty came to the cottage, to receive the rent and possession. The rent was ready, in gold, and counted into his hand. 'No occasion for a receipt; for a new LASE is a receipt in full for everything.' 'Very well, sir, said the widow; 'I know nothing of law. You know best--whatever you direct--for you are acting as a friend to us now. My son got the attorney to draw the pair of new LASES yesterday, and here they are ready, all to signing.' Mr. Dennis said his brother must settle that part of the business, and that they must carry them up to the castle; 'but first give me the possession.' Then, as he instructed her, she gave up the key of the door to him, and a bit of the thatch of the house; and he raked out the fire, and said every living creature must go out. 'It's only form of law,' said he. 'And must my lodger get up and turn out, sir?' said she. 'He must turn out, to be sure--not a living soul must be left in it, or it's no legal possession properly. Who is your lodger?' On Lord Colambre's appearing, Mr. Dennis showed some surprise, and said, 'I thought you were lodging at Brannagan's; are not you the man who spoke to me at his house about the gold mines?' 'No, sir, he never lodged at Brannagan's,' said the widow. 'Yes, sir, I am the person who spoke to you about the gold mines at Brannagan's; but I did not like to lodge--' 'Well, no matter where you liked to lodge; you must walk out of this lodging now, if you please, my good friend.' So Mr. Dennis pushed his lordship out by the shoulders, repeating, as the widow turned back and looked with some surprise and alarm, 'Only for form sake, only for form sake!' then locking the door, took the key, and put it into his pocket. The widow held out her hand for it: 'The form's gone through now, sir, is not it? Be plased to let us in again.' 'When the new lease is signed, I'll give you possession again; but not till then--for that's the law. So make away with you to the castle; and mind,' added he, winking slily, 'mind you take sealing-money with you, and something to buy gloves.' 'Oh, where will I find all that?' said the widow. 'I have it, mother; don't fret,' said Grace. 'I have it--the price of---what I can want. [What I can do without.] So let us go off to the castle without delay. Brian will meet us on the road, you know.' They set off for Clonbrony Castle, Lord Colambre accompanying them. Brian met them on the road. 'Father Tom is ready, dear mother; bring her in, and he'll marry us. I'm not my own man till she's mine. Who knows what may happen?' 'Who knows? that's true,' said the widow. 'Better go to the castle first,' said Grace. 'And keep the priest waiting! You can't use his reverence so.' said Brian. So she let him lead her into the priest's house, and she did not make any of the awkward draggings back, or ridiculous scenes of grimace sometimes exhibited on these occasions; but blushing rosy red, yet with more self-possession than could have been expected from her timid nature, she gave her hand to the man she loved, and listened with attentive devotion to the holy ceremony. 'Ah!' thought Lord Colambre, whilst he congratulated the bride, 'shall I ever be as happy as these poor people are at this moment?' He longed to make them some little present, but all he could venture at this moment was to pay the priest's DUES. The priest positively refused to take anything. 'They are the best couple in my parish,' said he; 'and I'll take nothing, sir, from you, a stranger and my guest.' 'Now, come what will, I'm a match for it. No trouble can touch me,' said Brian. 'Oh, don't be bragging,' said the widow. 'Whatever trouble God sends, He has given one now will help to bear it, and sure I may be thankful,' said Grace. 'Such good hearts must be happy--shall be happy!' said Lord Colambre. 'Oh, you're very kind,' said the widow, smiling; 'and I wouldn't doubt you, if you had the power. I hope, then, the agent will give you encouragement about them mines, that we may keep you among us.' 'I am determined to settle among you, warm-hearted, generous people!' cried Lord Colambre, 'whether the agent gives me encouragement or not,' added he. It was a long walk to Clonbrony Castle; the old woman, as she said herself, would not have been able for it, but for a LIFT given to her by a friendly carman, whom they met on the road with an empty car. This carman was Finnucan, who dissipated Lord Colambre's fears of meeting and being recognised by Mrs. Raffarty; for he, in answer to the question of, 'Who is at the castle?' replied, 'Mrs. Raffarty will be in it afore night; but she's on the road still. There's none but old Nick in it yet; and he's more of a NEGER than ever; for think, that he would not pay me a farthing for the carriage of his SHISTER'S boxes and bandboxes down. If you're going to have any dealings with him, God grant ye a safe deliverance!' 'Amen!' said the widow, and her son and daughter. Lord Colambre's attention was now engaged by the view of the castle and park of Clonbrony. He had not seen it since he was six years old. Some faint reminiscence from his childhood made him feel or fancy that he knew the place. It was a fine castle, spacious park; but all about it, from the broken piers at the great entrance, to the messy gravel and loose steps at the hall-door, had an air of desertion and melancholy. Walks overgrown, shrubberies wild, plantations run up into bare poles; fine trees cut down, and lying on the gravel in lots to be sold. A hill that had been covered with an oak wood, in which, in his childhood, our hero used to play, and which he called the black forest, was gone; nothing to be seen but the white stumps of the trees, for it had been freshly cut down, to make up the last remittances.--'And how it went, when sold!--but no matter,' said Finnucan; 'it's all alike.--It's the back way into the yard, I'll take you, I suppose.' And such a yard! 'But it's no matter,' repeated Lord Colambre to himself; 'it's all alike.' In the kitchen a great dinner was dressing for Mr. Garraghty's friends, who were to make merry with him when the business of the day was over. 'Where's the keys of the cellar, till I get out the claret for after dinner,' says one; 'and the wine for the cook--sure there's venison,' cries another.--'Venison!--That's the way my lord's deer goes,' says a third, laughing.--'ay, sure! and very proper, when he's not here to eat 'em.'--'Keep your nose out of the kitchen, young man, if you PLASE,' said the agent's cook, shutting the door in Lord Colambre's face. 'There's the way to the office, if you've money to pay, up the back stairs.' 'No; up the grand staircase they must--Mr. Garraghty ordered,' said the footman; 'because the office is damp for him, and it's not there he'll see anybody to-day; but in my lady's dressing-room.' So up the grand staircase they went, and through the magnificent apartments, hung with pictures of great value, spoiling with damp. 'Then, isn't it a pity to see them? There's my lady, and all spoiling,' said the widow. Lord Colambre stopped before a portrait of Miss Nugent.--'Shamefully damaged!' cried he. 'Pass on, or let me pass, if you PLASE,' said one of the tenants; 'and don't be stopping the doorway.' 'I have business more nor you with the agent,' said the surveyor; 'where is he?' 'In the PRESENCE-CHAMBER,' replied another; 'where should the viceroy be but in the PRESENCE-CHAMBER?' There was a full levee, and fine smell of greatcoats. 'Oh! would you put your hats on the silk cushions?' said the widow to some men in the doorway, who were throwing off their greasy hats on a damask sofa.--'Why not? where else?' 'If the lady was in it, you wouldn't,' said she, sighing.--'No, to be sure, I wouldn't; great news! would I make no DIFFER in the presence of old Nick and my lady?' said he, in Irish. 'Have I no sense or manners, good woman, think ye?' added he, as he shook the ink out of his pen on the Wilton carpet, when he had finished signing his name to a paper on his knee. 'You may wait long before you get to the speech of the great man,' said another, who was working his way through numbers. They continued pushing forward, till they came within sight of Mr. Nicholas Garraghty, seated in state; and a worse countenance, or a more perfect picture of an insolent, petty tyrant in office, Lord Colambre had never beheld. We forbear all further detail of this levee. 'It's all the same!' as Lord Colambre repeated to himself, on every fresh instance of roguery or oppression to which he was witness; and, having completely made up his mind on the subject, he sat down quietly in the background, waiting till it should come to the widow's turn to be dealt with, for he was now interested only to see how she would be treated. The room gradually thinned; Mr. Dennis Garraghty came in, and sat down at the table, to help his brother to count the heaps of gold. 'Oh, Mr. Dennis, I'm glad to see you as kind as your promise, meeting me here,' said the widow O'Neill, walking up to him; 'I'm sure you'll speak a good word for me; here's the LASES--who will I offer this to?' said she, holding the GLOVE-MONEY and SEALING-MONEY,--'for I'm strange and ashamed.' 'Oh, don't be ashamed--there's no strangeness in bringing money or taking it,' said Mr. Nicholas Garraghty, holding out his hand. 'Is this the proper compliment?' 'I hope so, sir; your honour knows best.' 'Very well,' slipping it into his private purse. 'Now, what's your business?' 'The LASES to sign--the rent's all paid up.' 'Leases! Why, woman, is the possession given up?' 'It was, PLASE your honour; and Mr. Dennis has the key of our little place in his pocket.' 'Then I hope he'll keep it there. YOUR little place--it's no longer yours; I've promised it to the surveyor. You don't think I'm such a fool as to renew to you at this rent.' 'Mr. Dennis named the rent. But anything your honour PLASES--anything at all that we can pay.' 'Oh, it's out of the question--put it out of your head. No rent you can offer would do, for I've promised it to the surveyor.' 'Sir, Mr. Dennis knows my lord gave us his promise in writing of a renewal, on the back of the OULD LASE.' 'Produce it.' 'Here's the LASE, but the promise is rubbed out.' 'Nonsense! coming to me with a promise that's rubbed out. Who'll listen to that in a court of justice, do you think?' 'I don't know, plase your honour; but this I'm sure of, my lord and Miss Nugent, though but a child at the time, God bless her! who was by when my lord wrote it with his pencil, will remember it.' 'Miss Nugent! what can she know of business?--What has she to do with the management of my Lord Clonbrony's estate, pray?' 'Management!--no, sir.' 'Do you wish to get Miss Nugent turned out of the house?' 'Oh, God forbid!--how could that be?' 'Very easily; if you set about to make her meddle and witness in what my lord does not choose.' 'Well then, I'll never mention Miss Nugent's name in it at all, if it was ever so with me. But be PLASED, sir, to write over to my lord, and ask him; I'm sure he'll remember it.' 'Write to my lord about such a trifle--trouble him about such nonsense!' 'I'd be sorry to trouble him. Then take it on my word, and believe me, sir; for I would not tell a lie, nor cheat rich or poor, if in my power, for the whole estate, nor the whole world: for there's an eye above.' 'Cant! nonsense!--Take those leases off the table; I never will sign them. Walk off; ye canting hag; it's an imposition--I will never sign them.' 'You WILL then, sir,' cried Brian, growing red with indignation; 'for the law shall make you, so it shall; and you'd as good have been civil to my mother, whatever you did--for I'll stand by her while I've life; and I know she has right, and shall have law. I saw the memorandum written before ever it went into your hands, sir, whatever became of it after; and will swear to it, too.' 'Swear away, my good friend; much your swearing will avail in your own case in a court of justice,' continued old Nick. 'And against a gentleman of my brother's established character and property,' said St. Dennis. 'What's your mother's character against a gentleman's like his?' 'Character! take care how you go to that, anyway, sir,' cried Brian. Grace put her hand before his mouth, to stop him. 'Grace, dear, I must speak, if I die for it; sure it's for my mother,' said the young man, struggling forward, while his mother held him back; 'I must speak.' 'Oh, he's ruin'd, I see it,' said Grace, putting her hand before her eyes, 'and he won't mind me.' 'Go on, let him go on, pray, young woman,' said Mr. Garraghty, pale with anger and fear, his lips quivering; 'I shall be happy to take down his words.' 'Write them; and may all the world read it, and welcome!' His mother and wife stopped his mouth by force. 'Write you, Dennis,' said Mr. Garraghty, giving the pen to his brother; for his hand shook so he could not form a letter. 'Write the very words, and at the top' (pointing) after warning, WITH MALICE PREPENSE.' 'Write, then--mother, Grace--let me,' cried Brian, speaking in a smothered voice, as their hands were over his mouth. 'Write then, that, if you'd either of you a character like my mother, you might defy the world; and your word would be as good as your oath.' 'OATH! mind that, Dennis,' said Mr. Garraghty. 'Oh, sir! sir! won't you stop him?' cried Grace, turning suddenly to Lord Colambre. 'Oh dear, dear, if you haven't lost your feeling for us,' cried the widow. 'Let him speak,' said Lord Colambre, in a tone of authority; 'let the voice of truth be heard.' 'TRUTH!' cried St. Dennis, and dropped the pen. 'And who the devil are you, sir?' said old Nick. 'Lord Colambre, I protest!' exclaimed a female voice; and Mrs. Raffarty at this instant appeared at the open door. 'Lord Colambre!' repeated all present, in different tones. 'My lord, I beg pardon;' continued Mrs. Raffarty, advancing as if her legs were tied; 'had I known you was down here, I would not have presumed. I'd better retire; for I see you're busy.' 'You'd best; for you're mad, sister,' said St. Dennis, pushing her back; 'and we are busy; go to your room, and keep quiet, if you can.' 'First, madam,' said Lord Colambre, going between her and the door, 'let me beg that you will consider yourself as at home in this house, whilst any circumstances make it desirable to you. The hospitality you showed me you cannot think that I now forget.' 'Oh, my lord, you're too good--how few--too kind--kinder than my own,' and bursting into tears, she escaped out of the room. Lord Colambre returned to the party round the table, who were in various attitudes of astonishment, and with faces of fear, horror, hope, joy, doubt. 'Distress,' continued his lordship, 'however incurred, if not by vice, will always find a refuge in this house. I speak in my father's name, for I know I speak his sentiments. But never more shall vice,' said he, darting such a look at the brother agents as they felt to the backbone--'never more shall vice, shall fraud enter here.' He paused, and there was a momentary silence. 'There spoke the true thing! and the RAEL gentleman; my own heart's satisfied,' said Brian, folding his arms, and standing erect. 'Then so is mine,' said Grace, taking breath, with a deep sigh. The widow advancing, put on her spectacles, and, looking up close at Lord Colambre's face--'Then it's a wonder I didn't know the family likeness.' Lord Colambre now recollecting that he still wore the old greatcoat, threw it off. 'Oh, bless him! Then now I'd know him anywhere. I'm willing to die now, for we'll all be happy.' 'My lord, since it is so--my lord, may I ask you,' said Mr. Garraghty, now sufficiently recovered to be able to articulate, but scarcely to express his ideas; 'if what your lordship hinted just now--' 'I hinted nothing, sir; I spoke plainly.' 'I beg pardon, my lord,' said old Nick;--'respecting vice, was levelled at me; because, if it was, my lord,' trying to stand erect; 'let me tell your lordship, if I could think it was--' 'If it did not hit you, sir, no matter at whom it was levelled.' 'And let me ask, my lord, if I may presume, whether, in what you suggested by the word fraud, your lordship had any particular meaning?' said St. Dennis. 'A very particular meaning, sir,--feel in your pocket for the key of this widow's house, and deliver it to her.' 'Oh, if that's all the meaning, with all the pleasure in life. I never meant to detain it longer than till the leases were signed,' said St. Dennis. 'And I'm ready to sign the leases this minute,' said the brother. 'Do it, sir, this minute; I have read them; I will be answerable to my father.' 'Oh, as to that, my lord, I have power to sign for your father.' He signed the leases; they were duly witnessed by Lord Colambre. 'I deliver this as my act and deed,' said Mr. Garraghty;--'My lord,' continued he, 'you see, at the first word from you; and had I known sooner the interest you took in the family, there would have been no difficulty; for I'd make it a principle to oblige you, my lord.' 'Oblige me!' said Lord Colambre, with disdain. 'But when gentlemen and noblemen travel INCOGNITO, and lodge in cabins,' added St. Dennis, with a satanic smile, glancing his eye on Grace, 'they have good reasons, no doubt.' 'Do not judge my heart by your own, sir,' said Lord Colambre, coolly; 'no two things in nature can, I trust, be more different. My purpose in travelling INCOGNITO has been fully answered: I was determined to see and judge how my father's estates were managed; and I have seen, compared, and judged. I have seen the difference between the Clonbrony and the Colambre property; and I shall represent what I have seen to my father.' 'As to that, my lord, if we are to come to that but I trust your lordship will suffer me to explain these matters.--Go about your business, my good friends; you have all you want;--and, my lord, after dinner, when you are cool, I hope I shall be able to make you sensible that things have been represented to your lordship in a mistaken light; and I flatter myself I shall convince you I have not only always acted the part of a friend to the family, but am particularly willing to conciliate your lordship's goodwill,' said he, sweeping the rouleaus of gold into a bag; 'any accommodation in my power, at any time.' 'I want no accommodation, sir,--were I starving, I would accept of none from you. Never can you conciliate my goodwill; for you can never deserve it.' 'If that be the case, my lord, I must conduct myself accordingly; but it's fair to warn you, before you make any representation to my Lord Clonbrony, that if he should think of changing his agent, there are accounts to be settled between us--that may be a consideration.' 'No, sir; no consideration--my father never shall be the slave of such a paltry consideration.' 'Oh, very well, my lord; you know best. If you choose to make an assumpsit, I'm sure I shall not object to the security. Your lordship will be of age soon, I know--I'm sure I'm satisfied--but,' added he with a malicious smile, 'I rather apprehend you don't know what you undertake; I only premise that the balance of accounts between us is not what can properly be called a paltry consideration.' 'On that point, perhaps, sir, you and I may differ.' 'Very well, my lord, you will follow your own principles, if it suits your convenience.' 'Whether it does or not, sir, I shall abide by my principles.' 'Dennis! the letters to the post.--When do you go to England, my lord?' 'Immediately, sir,' said Lord Colambre; his lordship saw new leases from his father to Mr. Dennis Garraghty, lying on the table, unsigned. 'Immediately!' repeated Messrs. Nicholas and Dennis, with an air of dismay. Nicholas got up, looked out of the window, and whispered something to his brother, who instantly left the room. 'Lord Colambre saw the post-chaise at the door, which had brought Mrs. Raffarty to the castle, and Larry standing beside it; his lordship instantly threw up the sash, and holding between his finger and thumb a six-shilling piece, cried, 'Larry, my friend, let me have the horses!' 'You shall have 'em--your honour,' said Larry. Mr. Dennis Garraghty appeared below, speaking in a magisterial tone. 'Larry, my brother must have the horses.' 'He can't, PLASE your honour--they're engaged.' Half a crown! a crown!--half a guinea!' said Mr. Dennis Garraghty, raising his voice, as he increased his proffered bribe. To each offer Larry replied, 'You can't, PLASE your honour, they're engaged;'--and, looking up to the window at Lord Colambre, he said, 'as soon as they have eaten their oats, you shall have 'em.' No other horses were to be had. The agent was in consternation. Lord Colambre ordered that Larry should have some dinner, and whilst the postillion was eating, and the horses finishing their oats, his lordship wrote the following letter to his father, which, to prevent all possibility of accident, he determined to put, with his own hand, into the post-office at Clonbrony, as he passed through the town. MY DEAR FATHER, I hope to be with you in a few days. Lest anything should detain me on the road, I write this, to make an earnest request to you, that you will not sign any papers, or transact any farther business with Messrs. Nicholas or Dennis Garraghty, before you see your affectionate son, COLAMBRE. The horses came out. Larry sent word he was ready, and Lord Colambre, having first eaten a slice of his own venison, ran down to the carriage, followed by the thanks and blessings of the widow, her son, and daughter, who could hardly make their way after him to the chaise-door, so great was the crowd which had gathered on the report of his lordship's arrival. 'Long life to your honour! Long life to your lordship!' echoed on all sides. 'Just come, and going, are you?' 'Good-bye to you all, good people!' 'Then GOOD-BYE is the only word we wouldn't wish to hear from your honour.' 'For the sake both of landlord and tenant, I must leave you now, my good friends; but I hope to return to you at some future time.' 'God bless you! and speed ye! and a safe journey to your honour!--and a happy return to us, and soon!' cried a multitude of voices. Lord Colambre stopped at the chaise-door and beckoned to the widow O'Neill, before whom others had pressed. An opening was made for her instantly. There! that was the very way his father stood with his feet on the steps. And Miss Nugent was IN IT.' Lord Colambre forgot what he was going to say--with some difficulty recollected. 'This pocket-book,' said he, 'which your son restored to me--I intend it for your daughter--don't keep it, as your son kept it for me, without opening it. Let what is within-side,' added he, as he got into the carriage, 'replace the cloak and gown, and let all things necessary for a bride be bought; "for the bride that has all things to borrow has surely mickle to do."--Shut the door, and drive on.' 'Blessings be WID you,' cried the widow, 'and God give you grace!' CHAPTER XIII Larry drove off at full gallop, and kept on at a good rate, till he got out of the great gate, and beyond the sight of the crowd; then, pulling up, he turned to Lord Colambre--'PLASE your honour, I did not know nor guess ye was my lord, when I let you have the horses; did not know who you was from Adam, I'll take my affidavit.' 'There's no occasion,' said Lord Colambre; 'I hope you don't repent letting me have the horses, now you do know who I am?' 'Oh! not at all, sure; I'm as glad as the best horse I ever crossed, that your honour is my lord--but I was only telling your honour, that you might not be looking upon me as a TIME-SERVER.' 'I do not look upon you as a TIME-SERVER, Larry; but keep on, that time may serve me.' In two words, he explained his cause of haste; and no sooner explained than understood. Larry thundered away through the town of Clonbrony, bending over his horses, plying the whip, and lending his very soul at every lash. With much difficulty, Lord Colambre stopped him at the end of the town, at the post-office. The post was gone out-gone a quarter of an hour. 'Maybe we'll overtake the mail,' said Larry; and, as he spoke, he slid down from his seat, and darted into the public-house, reappearing, in a few moments, with a copper of ale and a horn in his hand; he and another man held open the horses' mouths, and poured the ale through the horn down their throats. 'Now, they'll go with spirit!' And, with the hope of overtaking the mail, Larry made them go 'for life or death,' as he said; but in vain! At the next stage, at his own inn-door, Larry roared for fresh horses till he got them, harnessed them with his own hands, holding the six-shilling piece, which Lord Colambre had given him, in his mouth, all the while; for he could not take time to put it into his pocket. 'Speed ye! I wish I was driving you all the way, then,' said he. The other postillion was not yet ready. 'Then your honour sees,' said he, putting his head into the carriage, 'CONSARNING of them Garraghties--old Nick and St. Dennis--the best part, that is the worst part, of what I told you, proved true; and I'm glad of it, that is, I'm sorry for it--but glad your honour knows it in time. So Heaven prosper you! And may all the saints (BARRING St. Dennis) have charge of you, and all belonging to you, till we see you here again!--And when will it be?' 'I cannot say when I shall return to you myself, but I will do my best to send your landlord to you soon. In the meantime, my good fellow, keep away from the sign of the Horse-shoe--a man of your sense to drink and make an idiot and a brute of yourself!' 'True!--And it was only when I had lost hope I took to it--but now! Bring me the book, one of YEES, out of the landlady's parlour.--By the virtue of this book, and by all the books that ever was shut and opened, I won't touch a drop of spirits, good or bad, till I see your honour again, or some of the family, this time twelvemonth--that long I'll live on hope--but mind, if you disappoint me, I don't swear but I'll take to the whisky, for comfort, all the rest of my days. But don't be staying here, wasting your time, advising me. Bartley! take the reins, can't ye?' cried he, giving them to the fresh postillion; 'and keep on, for your life, for there's thousands of pounds depending on the race--so, off, off, Bartley, with speed of light!' Bartley did his best; and such was the excellence of the roads, that, notwithstanding the rate at which our hero travelled, he arrived safely in Dublin, and just in time to put his letter into the post-office, and to sail in that night's packet. The wind was fair when Lord Colambre went on board, but before they got out of the bay it changed; they made no way all night; in the course of the next day, they had the mortification to see another packet from Dublin sail past them, and when they landed at Holyhead, were told the packet, which had left Ireland twelve hours after them, had been in an hour before them. The passengers had taken their places in the coach, and engaged what horses could be had. Lord Colambre was afraid that Mr. Garraghty was one of them; a person exactly answering his description had taken four horses, and set out half an hour before in great haste for London. Luckily, just as those who had taken their places in the mail were getting into the coach, Lord Colambre saw among them a gentleman, with whom he had been acquainted in Dublin, a barrister, who was come over during the long vacation, to make a tour of pleasure in England. When Lord Colambre explained the reason he had for being in haste to reach London, he had the good-nature to give up to him his place in the coach. Lord Colambre travelled all night, and delayed not one moment, till he reached his father's house in London. 'My father at home?' 'Yes, my lord, in his own room--the agent from Ireland with him, on particular business--desired not to be interrupted--but I'll go and tell him, my lord, you are come.' Lord Colambre ran past the servant, as he spoke--made his way into the room--found his father, Sir Terence O'Fay, and Mr. Garraghty--leases open on the table before them; a candle lighted; Sir Terence sealing; Garraghty emptying a bag of guineas on the table, and Lord Clonbrony actually with a pen in his hand, ready to sign. As the door opened, Garraghty started back, so that half the contents of his bag rolled upon the floor. 'Stop, my dear father, I conjure you,' cried Lord Colambre, springing forward, and kneeling to his father; at the same moment snatching the pen from his hand. Colambre! God bless you, my dear boy! at all events. But how came you here?--And what do you mean?' said his father. 'Burn it!' cried Sir Terence, pinching the sealing-wax; 'for I burnt myself with the pleasure of the surprise.' Garraghty, without saying a word, was picking up the guineas that were scattered upon the floor. 'How fortunate I am,' cried Lord Colambre, 'to have arrived just in time to tell you, my dear father, before you put your signature to these papers, before you conclude this bargain, all I know, all I have seen, of that man!' 'Nick Garraghty, honest old Nick; do you know him, my lord?' said Sir Terence. 'Too well, sir.' 'Mr. Garraghty, what have you done to offend my son? I did not expect this,' said Lord Clonbrony. 'Upon my conscience, my lord, nothing to my knowledge,' said Mr. Garraghty, picking up the guineas; 'but showed him every civility, even so far as offering to accommodate him with cash without security; and where will you find the other agent, in Ireland or anywhere else, will do that? To my knowledge, I never did anything, by word or deed, to offend my Lord Colambre; nor could not, for I never saw him, but for ten minutes, in my days; and then he was in such a foaming passion--begging his lordship's pardon--owing to the misrepresentations he met with of me, I presume, from a parcel of blackguards that he went amongst, INCOGNITO, he would not let me or my brother Dennis say a word to set him right; but exposed me before all the tenantry, and then threw himself into a hack, and drove off here, to stop the signing of these leases, I perceive. But I trust,' concluded he, putting the replenished money-bag down with a heavy sound on the table, opposite to Lord Clonbrony,--'I trust, my Lord Clonbrony will do me justice; that's all I have to say.' 'I comprehend the force of your last argument fully, sir,' said Lord Colambre. 'May I ask how many guineas there are in the bag? I don't ask whether they are my father's or not.' 'They are to be your lordship's father's, sir, if he thinks proper,' replied Garraghty. 'How many, I don't know that I can justly, positively say--five hundred, suppose.' 'And they would be my father's if he signed those leases--I understand that perfectly, and understand that my father would lose three times that sum by the bargain.--My dear father, you start--but it is true. Is not this the rent, sir, at which you were going to let Mr. Garraghty have the land?' placing a paper before Lord Clonbrony. 'It is--the very thing.' 'And here, sir, written with my own hand, are copies of the proposals I saw, from responsible, respectable tenants, offered and refused.--Is it so, or is it not, Mr. Garraghty?--deny it, if you can.' Mr. Garraghty grew pale; his lips quivered; he stammered; and, after a shocking convulsion of face, could at last articulate--only-- 'That there was a great difference between tenant and tenant, his lordship must be sensible, especially for so large a rent.'--'As great a difference as between agent and agent, I am sensible--especially for so large a property!' said Lord Colambre, with cool contempt. 'You find, sir, I am well informed with regard to this transaction; you will find, also, that I am equally well informed with respect to every part of your conduct towards my father and his tenantry. If, in relating to him what I have seen and heard, I should make any mistakes, you are here; and I am glad you are, to set me right, and to do yourself justice.' 'Oh! as to that, I should not presume to contradict anything your lordship asserts from your own authority: where would be the use? I leave it all to your lordship. But, as it is not particularly agreeable to stay to hear one's self abused--Sir Terence! I'll thank you to hand me my hat!--And if you'll have the goodness, my Lord Clonbrony, to look over finally the accounts before morning, I'll call at your leisure to settle the balance, as you find convenient; as to the leases, I'm quite indifferent.' So saying, he took up his money-bag. 'Well, you'll call again in the morning, Mr. Garraghty!' said Sir Terence; 'and, by that time, I hope we shall understand this misunderstanding better.' Sir Terence pulled Lord Clonbrony's sleeve: 'Don't let him go with the money--it's much wanted!' 'Let him go,' said Lord Colambre; 'money can be had by honourable means.' 'Wheugh!--He talks as if he had the Bank of England at his command, as every young man does,' said Sir Terence. Lord Colambre deigned no reply. Lord Clonbrony walked undecidedly between his agent and his son--looked at Sir Terence, and said nothing. Mr. Garraghty departed; Lord Clonbrony called after him from the head of the stairs, 'I shall be at home and at leisure in the morning.' Sir Terence ran downstairs after him; Lord Colambre waited quietly for their return. 'Fifteen hundred guineas, at a stroke of a goose-quill!--That was a neat hit, narrowly missed, of honest Nick's!' said Lord Clonbrony. 'Too bad! too bad, faith!--I am much, very much obliged to you, Colambre, for that hint; by to-morrow morning we shall have him in another tune.' 'And he must double the bag, or quit,' said Sir Terence. 'Treble it, if you please, Terry. Sure, three times five's fifteen;--fifteen hundred down, or he does not get my signature to those leases for his brother, nor get the agency of the Colambre estate.--Colambre, what more have you to tell of him? for, since he is making out his accounts against me, it is no harm to have a PER CONTRA against him that may ease my balance.' 'Very fair! very fair!' said Sir Terence. 'My lord, trust me for remembering all the charges against him--every item; and when he can't clear himself, if I don't make him buy a good character dear enough, why, say I'm a fool, and don't know the value of character, good or bad!' 'If you know the value of character, Sir Terence,' said Lord Colambre, 'you know that it is not to be bought or sold.' Then, turning from Sir Terence to his father, he gave a full and true account of all he had seen in his progress through his Irish estates; and drew a faithful picture both of the bad and good agent. Lord Clonbrony, who had benevolent feelings, and was fond of his tenantry, was touched; and, when his son ceased speaking, repeated several times-- 'Rascal! rascal! How dare he use my tenants so--the O'Neills in particular!--Rascal! bad heart!-I'll have no more to do with him.' But, suddenly recollecting himself, he turned to Sir Terence, and added, 'That's sooner said than done--I'll tell you honestly, Colambre, your friend Mr. Burke may be the best man in the world--but he is the worst man to apply to for a remittance, or a loan, in a HURRY! He always tells me "he can't distress the tenants."'--'And he never, at coming into the agency even,' said Sir Terence, 'ADVANCED a good round sum to the landlord, by way of security for his good behaviour. Now honest Nick did that much for us at coming in.' 'And at going out is he not to be repaid?' said Lord Colambre. 'That's the devil!' said Lord Clonbrony; that's the very reason I can't conveniently turn him out.' 'I will make it convenient to you, sir, if you will permit me,' said Lord Colambre. 'In a few days I shall be of age, and will join with you in raising whatever sum you want, to free you from this man. Allow me to look over his account; and whatever the honest balance may be, let him have it.' 'My dear boy!' said Lord Clonbrony, 'you're a generous fellow. Fine Irish heart!--glad you're my son! But there's more, much more, that you don't know,' added he, looking at Sir Terence, who cleared his throat; and Lord Clonbrony, who was on the point of opening all his affairs to his son, stopped short. 'Colambre,' said he, 'we will not say anything more of this at present; for nothing effectual can be done till you are of age, and then we shall see all about it.' Lord Colambre perfectly understood what his father meant, and what was meant by the clearing of Sir Terence's throat. Lord Clonbrony wanted his son to join him in opening the estate to pay his debts; and Sir Terence feared that, if Lord Colambre were abruptly told the whole sum total of the debts he would never be persuaded to join in selling or mortgaging so much of his patrimony as would be necessary for their payment. Sir Terence thought that the young man, ignorant probably of business, and unsuspicious of the state of his father's affairs, might be brought, by proper management, to any measures they desired. Lord Clonbrony wavered between the temptation to throw himself upon the generosity of his son, and the immediate convenience of borrowing a sum of money from his agent, to relieve his present embarrassments. 'Nothing can be settled,' repeated he, 'till Colambre is of age; so it does not signify talking of it.' 'Why so, sir?' said Lord Colambre. 'Though my act, in law, may not be valid, till I am of age, my promise, as a man of honour, is binding now; and, I trust, would be as satisfactory to my father as any legal deed whatever.' 'Undoubtedly, my dear boy; but--' 'But what?' said Lord Colambre, following his father's eye, which turned to Sir Terence O'Fay, as if asking his permission to explain. 'As my father's friend, sir, you ought, permit me to say, at this moment to use your influence to prevail upon him to throw aside all reserve with a son, whose warmest wish is to serve him, and to see him at ease and happy.' 'Generous, dear boy,' cried Lord Clonbrony. 'Terence, I can't stand it; but how shall I bring myself to name the amount of the debts?' 'At some time or other, I must know it,' said Lord Colambre; 'I cannot be better prepared at any moment than the present; never more disposed to give my assistance to relieve all difficulties. Blindfold, I cannot be led to any purpose, sir,' said he, looking at Sir Terence; 'the attempt would be degrading and futile. Blindfolded I will not be--but, with my eyes open, I will see, and go straight and prompt as heart can go, to my father's interest, without a look or thought to my own.' 'By St. Patrick! the spirit of a prince, and an Irish prince, spoke there,' cried Sir Terence; 'and if I'd fifty hearts, you'd have all in your hand this minute, at your service, and warm. Blindfold you! after that, the man that would attempt it DESARVES to be shot; and I'd have no sincerer pleasure in life than shooting him this moment, was he my best friend. But it's not Clonbrony, or your father, my lord, would act that way, no more than Sir Terence O'Fay--there's the schedule of the debts,' drawing a paper from his bosom; 'and I'll swear to the lot, and not a man on earth could do that but myself.' Lord Colambre opened the paper. His father turned aside, covering his face with both his hands. 'Tut, man,' said Sir Terence; 'I know him now better than you; he will stand, you'll find, the shock of that regiment of figures--he is steel to the backbone, and proof spirit.' 'I thank you, my dear father,' said Lord Colambre, 'for trusting me thus at once with a view of the truth. At first sight it is, I acknowledge, worse than I expected; but I make no doubt that, when you allow me to examine Mr. Garraghty's accounts and Mr. Mordicai's claims, we shall be able to reduce this alarming total considerably, my dear father. You think we learn nothing but Latin and Greek at Cambridge; but you are mistaken.' 'The devil a pound, nor a penny,' said Sir Terence; 'for you have to deal with a Jew and old Nick; and I'm not a match for them. I don't know who is; and I have no hope of getting any abatement. I've looked over the accounts till I'm sick.' 'Nevertheless, you will observe that fifteen hundred guineas have been saved to my father, at one stroke, by his not signing those leases.' 'Saved to you, my lord; not your father, if you plase,' said Sir Terence. 'For now I'm upon the square with you, I must be straight as an arrow, and deal with you as the son and friend of my friend; before, I was considering you only as the son and heir, which is quite another thing, you know; accordingly, acting for your father here, I was making the best bargain against you I could; honestly, now, I tell you. I knew the value of the lands well enough; we were as sharp as Garraghty, and he knew it; we were to have had THE DIFFERENCE from him, partly in cash and partly in balance of accounts--you comprehend--and you only would have been the loser, and never would have known it, maybe, till after we all were dead and buried; and then you might have set aside Garraghty's lease easy, and no harm done to any but a rogue that DESARVED it; and, in the meantime, an accommodation to my honest friend, my lord, your father, here. But, as fate would have it, you upset all by your progress INCOGNITO through them estates. Well, it's best as it is, and I am better pleased to be as we are, trusting all to a generous son's own heart. Now put the poor father out of pain, and tell us what you'll do, my dear.' 'In one word, then,' said Lord Colambre, 'I will, upon two conditions, either join my father in levying fines to enable him to sell or mortgage whatever portion of his estate is necessary for the payment of these debts; or I will, in whatever other mode he can point out, as more agreeable or more advantageous to him, join in giving security to his creditors.' 'Dear, noble fellow!' cried Sir Terence; 'none but an Irishman could do it.' Lord Clonbrony, melted to tears, could not articulate, but held his arms open to embrace his son. 'But you have not heard my conditions yet,' said Lord Colambre. 'Oh, confound the conditions!' cried Sir Terence. 'What conditions could he ask that I could refuse at this minute?' said Lord Clonbrony. 'Nor I--was it my heart's blood, and were I to be hanged for it,' cried Sir Terence. 'And what are the conditions?' 'That Mr. Garraghty shall be dismissed from the agency.' 'And welcome, and glad to get rid of him--the rogue, the tyrant,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'and, to be beforehand with you in your next wish, put Mr. Burke into his place.' 'I'll write the letter for you to sign, my lord, this minute,' cried Terry, 'with all the pleasure in life. No; it's my Lord Colambre should do that in all justice.' 'But what's your next condition? I hope it's no worse,' said Lord Clonbrony. 'That you and my mother should cease to be absentees.' 'Oh murder!' said Sir Terence; 'maybe that's not so easy; for there are two words to that bargain.' Lord Clonbrony declared that, for his own part, he was ready to return to Ireland next morning, and to promise to reside on his estate all the rest of his days; that there was nothing he desired more, provided Lady Clonbrony would consent to it; but that he could not promise for her; that she was as obstinate as a mule on that point; that he had often tried, but that there was no moving her; and that, in short, he could not promise on her part. But it was on this condition, Lord Colambre said, he must insist. Without this condition was granted, he would not engage to do anything. 'Well, we must only see how it will be when she comes to town; she will come up from Buxton the day you're of age to sign some papers,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'but,' added he, with a very dejected look and voice, 'if all's to depend on my Lady Clonbrony's consenting to return to Ireland, I'm as far from all hope of being at ease as ever.' 'Upon my conscience, we're all at sea again,' said Sir Terence. Lord Colambre was silent: but in his silence there was such an air of firmness, that both Lord Clonbrony and Sir Terence were convinced entreaties would on this point be fruitless--Lord Clonbrony sighed deeply. 'But when it's ruin or safety, and her husband and all belonging to her at stake, the woman can't persist in being a mule,' said Sir Terence. 'Of whom are you talking?' said Lord Colambre. 'Of whom? Oh, I beg your lordship's pardon--I thought I was talking to my lord; but, in other words, as you are her son, I'm persuaded her ladyship, your mother, will prove herself a reasonable woman--when she sees she can't help it. So, my Lord Clonbrony, cheer up; a great deal may be done by the fear of Mordicai, and an execution, especially now the prior creditor. Since there's no reserve between you and I now, my Lord Colambre,' said Sir Terence, 'I must tell you all, and how we shambled on those months while you were in Ireland. First, Mordicai went to law, to prove I was in a conspiracy with your father, pretending to be prior creditor, to keep him off and out of his own; which, after a world of swearing and law---law always takes time to do justice, that's one comfort--the villain proved at last to be true enough, and so cast us; and I was forced to be paid off last week. So there's no prior creditor, or any shield of pretence that way. Then his execution was coming down upon us, and nothing to stay it till I thought of a monthly annuity to Mordicai, in the shape of a wager. So, the morning after he cast us, I went to him: "Mr. Mordicai," says I, "you must be PLASED to see a man you've beaten so handsomely; and though I'm sore, both for myself and my friend, yet you see I can laugh still; though an execution is no laughing matter, and I'm sinsible you've one in petto in your sleeve for my friend Lord Clonbrony. But I'll lay you a wager of a hundred guineas in paper that a marriage of his son with a certain heiress, before next Lady-day, will set all to rights, and pay you with a compliment too."' 'Good heavens, Sir Terence! surely you said no such thing?' 'I did--but what was it but a wager? which is nothing but a dream; and, when lost, as I am as sinsible as you are that it must be, why, what is it, after all, but a bonus, in a gentleman-like form, to Mordicai? which, I grant you, is more than he deserves, for staying the execution till you be of age; and even for my Lady Clonbrony's sake, though I know she hates me like poison, rather than have her disturbed by an execution, I'd pay the hundred guineas this minute out of my own pocket, if I had' em in it.' A thundering knock at the door was heard at this moment. 'Never heed it; let 'em thunder,' said Sir Terence; 'whoever it is, they won't get in; for my lord bid them let none in for their life. It's necessary for us to be very particular about the street-door now; and I advise a double chain for it, and to have the footmen well tutored to look before they run to a double rap; for a double rap might be a double trap.' 'My lady and Miss Nugent, my lord,' said a footman, throwing open the door. 'My mother! Miss Nugent!' cried Lord Colambre, springing eagerly forward. 'Colambre! here!' said his mother; 'but it's all too late now, and no matter where you are.' Lady Clonbrony coldly suffered her son to embrace her; and he, without considering the coldness of her manner, scarcely hearing, and not at all understanding the words she said, fixed his eyes on his cousin, who, with a countenance all radiant with affectionate joy, held out her hand to him. 'Dear cousin Colambre, what an unexpected pleasure!' He seized the hand; but, as he was going to kiss it, the recollection of ST. OMAR crossed his mind; he checked himself, and said something about joy and pleasure, but his countenance expressed neither; and Miss Nugent, much surprised by the coldness of his manner, withdrew her hand, and, turning away, left the room. 'Grace! darling!' called Lord Clonbrony, 'whither so fast, before you've given me a word or a kiss?' She came back, and hastily kissed her uncle, who folded her in his arms. 'Why must I let you go? And what makes you so pale, my dear child?' 'I am a little--a little tired. I will be with you again soon.' Her uncle let her go. 'Your famous Buxton baths don't seem to have agreed with her, by all I can see,' said Lord Clonbrony. 'My lord, the Buxton baths are no way to blame; but I know what is to blame, and who is to blame,' said Lady Clonbrony, in a tone of displeasure, fixing her eyes upon her son. 'Yes, you may well look confounded, Colambre; but it is too late now--you should have known your own mind in time. I see you have heard it, then--but I am sure I don't know how; for it was only decided the day I left Buxton. The news could hardly travel faster than I did. Pray, how did you hear it?' 'Hear what, ma'am?' said Lord Colambre. 'Why, that Miss Broadhurst is going to be married.' 'Oh, is that all, ma'am!' said our hero, much relieved. 'All! Now, Lord Colambre, you REELLY are too much for my patience. But I flatter myself you will feel, when I tell you, that it is your friend, Sir Arthur Berryl, as I always prophesied, who has carried off the prize from you.' 'But for the fear of displeasing my dear mother, I should say, that I do feel sincere pleasure in this marriage--I always wished it: my friend, Sir Arthur, from the first moment, trusted me with the secret of his attachment; he knew that he had my warm good wishes for his success; he knew that I thought most highly of the young lady; but that I never thought of her as a wife for myself.' 'And why did not you? that is the very thing I complain of,' said Lady Clonbrony. 'But it is all over now. You may set your heart at ease, for they are to be married on Thursday; and poor Mrs. Broadhurst is ready to break her heart, for she was set upon a coronet for her daughter; and you, ungrateful as you are, you don't know how she wished you to be the happy man. But only conceive, after all that had passed, Miss Broadhurst had the assurance to expect I would let my niece be her bridesmaid. Oh, I flatly refused; that is, I told Grace it could not be; and, that there might be no affront to Mrs. Broadhurst, who did not deserve it, I pretended Grace had never mentioned it; but ordered my carriage, and left Buxton directly. Grace was hurt, for she is very warm in her friendships. I am sorry to hurt Grace. But REELLY I could not let her be bridesmaid;--and that, if you must know, is what vexed her, and made the tears come in her eyes, I suppose--and I'm sorry for it; but one must keep up one's dignity a little. After all, Miss Broadhurst was only a citizen--and REELLY now, a very odd girl; never did anything like anybody else; settled her marriage at last in the oddest way. Grace, can you tell the particulars? I own, I am tired of the subject, and tired of my journey. My lord, I shall take leave to dine in my own room to-day,' continued her ladyship, as she quitted the room. 'I hope her ladyship did not notice me,' said Sir Terence O'Fay, coming from behind a window-curtain. 'Why, Terry, what did you hide for?' said Lord Clonbrony. 'Hide! I didn't hide, nor wouldn't from any man living, let alone any woman. [Leaving any woman out of the question.] Hide! no; but I just stood looking out of the window, behind this curtain, that my poor Lady Clonbrony might not be discomfited and shocked by the sight of one whom she can't abide, the very minute she come home. Oh, I've some consideration--it would have put her out of humour worse with both of you too; and for that there's no need, as far as I see. So I'll take myself off to my coffee-house to dine, and maybe you may get her down and into spirits again. But, for your lives, don't touch upon Ireland the night, nor till she has fairly got the better of the marriage. APROPOS--there's my wager to Mordicai gone at a slap. It's I that ought to be scolding you, my Lord Colambre; but I trust you will do as well yet, not in point of purse, maybe. But I'm not one of those that think that money's everything--though, I grant you, in this world, there's nothing to be had without it--love excepted--which most people don't believe in--but not I--in particular cases. So I leave you, with my blessing, and I've a notion, at this time, that is better than my company--your most devoted--' The good-natured Sir Terence would not be persuaded by Lord Clonbrony to stay. Nodding at Lord Colambre as he went out of the room, he said, 'I've an eye, in going, to your heart's ease too. When I played myself, I never liked standers-by.' Sir Terence was not deficient in penetration, but he never could help boasting of his discoveries. Lord Colambre was grateful for his judicious departure; and followed his equally judicious advice, not to touch upon Ireland this night. Lady Clonbrony was full of Buxton, and he was glad to be relieved from the necessity of talking; and he indulged himself in considering what might be passing in Miss Nugent's mind. She now appeared in remarkably good spirits; for her aunt had given her a hint that she thought her out of humour because she had not been permitted to be Miss Broadhurst's bridesmaid, and she was determined to exert herself to dispel this notion. This it was now easy for her to do, because she had, by this time, in her own imagination, found a plausible excuse for that coldness in Lord Colambre's reception of her, by which she had at first been hurt; she had settled it, that he had taken it for granted she was of his mother's sentiments respecting Miss Broadhurst's marriage, and that this idea, and perhaps the apprehension of her reproaches, had caused his embarrassment--she knew that she could easily set this misunderstanding right. Accordingly, when Lady Clonbrony had talked herself to sleep about Buxton, and was taking her afternoon's nap, as it was her custom to do when she had neither cards nor company to keep her awake, Miss Nugent began to explain her own sentiments, and to give Lord Colambre, as her aunt had desired, an account of the manner in which Miss Broadhurst's marriage had been settled. 'In the first place,' said she, 'let me assure you that I rejoice in this marriage; I think your friend, Sir Arthur Berryl, is every way deserving of my friend, Miss Broadhurst; and this from me,' said she, smiling, 'is no slight eulogium. I have marked the rise and progress of their attachment; and it has been founded on the perception of such excellent qualities on each side, that I have no fear for its permanence. Sir Arthur Berryl's honourable conduct in paying his father's debts, and his generosity to his mother and sisters, whose fortunes were left entirely dependent upon him, first pleased my friend. It was like what she would have done herself, and like--in short, it is what few young men, as she said, of the present day would do. Then his refraining from all personal expenses, his going without equipage and without horses, that he might do what he felt to be right, whilst it exposed him continually to the ridicule of fashionable young men, or to the charge of avarice, made a very different impression on Miss Broadhurst's mind; her esteem and admiration were excited by these proofs of strength of character, and of just and good principles.' 'If you go on, you will make me envious and jealous of my friend,' said Lord Colambre. 'You jealous!--Oh, it is too late now--besides, you cannot be jealous, for you never loved.' 'I never loved Miss Broadhurst, I acknowledge.' 'There was the advantage Sir Arthur Berryl had over you--he loved, and my friend saw it.' 'She was clear-sighted,' said Lord Colambre. 'She was clear-sighted,' repeated Miss Nugent; 'but if you mean that she was vain, and apt to fancy people in love with her, I can assure you that you are mistaken. Never was woman, young or old, more clear-sighted to the views of those by whom she was addressed. No flattery, no fashion, could blind her judgment.' 'She knew how to choose a friend well, I am sure,' said Lord Colambre. 'And a friend for life too, I am sure you will allow and she had such numbers, such strange variety of admirers, as might have puzzled the choice and turned the brain of any inferior person. Such a succession of lovers as she has had this summer, ever since you went to Ireland--they appeared and vanished like figures in a magic-lantern. She had three noble admirers--rank in three different forms offered themselves. First came in, hobbling, rank and gout; next, rank and gaming; then rank, Very high rank, over head and ears in debt. All of these were rejected; and, as they moved off; I thought Mrs. Broadhurst would have broken her heart. Next came fashion, with his head, heart, and soul in his cravat--he quickly made his bow, or rather his nod, and walked off, taking a pinch of snuff. Then came a man of gallantry, but,' whispered Miss Nugent, 'there was a mistress in the wood; and my friend could have nothing to do with that gentleman.' 'Now, if she liked the man, interrupted Lord Clonbrony, 'and I suppose she did, for all women, but yourself, Grace, like men of gallantry, Miss Broadhurst was a goose for refusing him on account of the mistress; because she might have been bought up, and settled with a few thousand pounds.' 'Be that as it may,' said Miss Nugent; 'my friend did not like, and would not accept, of the man of gallantry; so he retired and comforted himself with a copy of verses. Then came a man of wit--but still it was wit without worth; and presently came "worth without wit." She preferred "wit and worth united," which she fortunately at last found, Lord Colambre, in your friend, Sir Arthur Berryl.' 'Grace, my girl!' said her uncle, 'I'm glad to see you've got up your spirits again, though you were not to be bridesmaid. Well, I hope you'll be bride soon--I'm sure you ought to be--and you should think of rewarding that poor Mr. Salisbury, who plagues me to death, whenever he can catch hold of me, about you. He must have our definitive at last, you know, Grace.' A silence ensued, which neither Miss Nugent nor Lord Colambre seemed willing, or able, to break. Very good company, faith, you three!--One of ye asleep, and the other two saying nothing, to keep one awake. Colambre, have you no Dublin news? Grace, have you no Buxton scandal? What was it Lady Clonbrony told us you'd tell us, about the oddness of Miss Broadhurst's settling her marriage? Tell me that, for I love to hear odd things.' 'Perhaps you will not think it odd,' said she. 'One evening--but I should begin by telling you that three of her admirers, beside Sir Arthur Berryl, had followed her to Buxton, and had been paying their court to her all the time we were there; and at last grew impatient for her decision.' 'Ay, for her definitive!' said Lord Clonbrony. Miss Nugent was put out again, but resumed-- 'So one evening, just before the dancing began, the gentlemen were all standing round Miss Broadhurst; one of them said, "I wish Miss Broadhurst would decide--that whoever she dances with to-night should be her partner for life; what a happy man he would be!" '"But how can I decide?" said Miss Broadhurst. '"I wish I had a friend to plead for me!" said one of the suitors, looking at me. '"Have you no friend of your own?" said Miss Broadhurst. '"Plenty of friends," said the gentleman. '"Plenty!--then you must be a very happy man," replied Miss Broadhurst. "Come," said she, laughing, "I will dance with that man who can convince me--that he has, near relations excepted, one true friend in the world! That man who has made the best friend, I dare say, will make the best husband!" 'At that moment,' continued Miss Nugent, 'I was certain who would be her choice. The gentlemen all declared at first that they had abundance of excellent friends the best friends in the world! but when Miss Broadhurst cross-examined them, as to what their friends had done for them, or what they were willing to do, modern friendship dwindled into a ridiculously small compass. I cannot give you the particulars of the cross-examination, though it was conducted with great spirit and humour by Miss Broadhurst; but I can tell you the result--that Sir Arthur Berryl, by incontrovertible facts, and eloquence warm from the heart, convinced everybody present that he had the best friend in the world; and Miss Broadhurst, as he finished speaking, gave him her hand, and he led her off in triumph--So you see, Lord Colambre, you were at last the cause of my friend's marriage!' She turned to Lord Colambre as she spoke these words, with such an affectionate smile, and such an expression of open, inmost tenderness in her whole countenance, that our hero could hardly resist the impulse of his passion--could hardly restrain himself from falling at her feet that instant, and declaring his love. 'But St. Omar! St. Omar!--It must not be!' 'I must be gone!' said Lord Clonbrony, pulling out his watch. 'It is time to go to my club; and poor Terry will wonder what has become of me.' Lord Colambre instantly offered to accompany his father; much to Lord Clonbrony's, and more to Miss Nugent's surprise. 'What!' said she to herself, 'after so long an absence, leave me!--Leave his mother, with whom he always used to stay--on purpose to avoid me! What can I have done to displease him? It is clear it was not about Miss Broadhurst's marriage he was offended; for he looked pleased, and like himself, whilst I was talking of that; but the moment afterwards, what a constrained, unintelligible expression of countenance and leaves me to go to a club which he detests!' As the gentlemen shut the door on leaving the room, Lady Clonbrony wakened, and, starting up, exclaimed-- 'What's the matter? Are they gone? Is Colambre gone?' 'Yes, ma'am, with my uncle.' 'Very odd! very odd of him to go and leave me! he always used to stay with me--what did he say about me?' 'Nothing, ma'am.' 'Well, then, I have nothing to say about him, or about anything, indeed, for I'm excessively tired and stupid--alone in London's as bad as anywhere else. Ring the bell, and we'll go to bed directly--if you have no objection, Grace.' Grace made no objection; Lady Clonbrony went to bed and to sleep in ten minutes, Miss Nugent went to bed; but she lay awake, considering what could be the cause of her cousin Colambre's hard unkindness, and of 'his altered eye.' She was openness itself and she determined that, the first moment she could speak to him alone, she would at once ask for an explanation. With this resolution, she rose in the morning, and went down to the breakfast-room, in hopes of meeting him, as it had formerly been his custom to be early; and she expected to find him reading in his usual place. CHAPTER XIV No--Lord Colambre was not in his accustomed place, reading in the breakfast-room: nor did he make his appearance till both his father and mother had been some time at breakfast. 'Good morning to you, my Lord Colambre,' said his mother, in a reproachful tone, the moment he entered; 'I am much obliged to you for your company last night.' 'Good morning to you, Colambre,' said his father, in a more jocose tone of reproach; 'I am obliged to you for your good company last night.' 'Good morning to you, Lord Colambre,' said Miss Nugent; and though she endeavoured to throw all reproach from her looks, and to let none be heard in her voice, yet there was a slight tremulous motion in that voice which struck our hero to the heart. 'I thank you, ma'am, for missing me,' said he, addressing himself to his mother; 'I stayed away but half an hour; I accompanied my father to St. James's Street, and when I returned I found that every one had retired to rest.' 'Oh, was that the case?' said Lady Clonbrony; 'I own I thought it very unlike you to leave me in that sort of way.' 'And, lest you should be jealous of that half-hour when he was accompanying me,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'I must remark, that, though I had his body with me, I had none of his mind; that he left at home with you ladies, or with some fair one across the water, for the deuce of two words did he bestow upon me, with all his pretence of accompanying me.' 'Lord Colambre seems to have a fair chance of a pleasant breakfast,' said Miss Nugent, smiling; 'reproaches on all sides.' 'I have heard none on your side, Grace,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'and that's the reason, I suppose, he wisely takes his seat beside you. But, come, we will not badger you any more, my dear boy. We have given him as fine a complexion amongst us as if he had been out hunting these three hours; have not we, Grace?' 'When Colambre has been a season or two more in Lon'on, he'll not be so easily put out of countenance,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'you don't see young men of fashion here blushing about nothing.' 'No, nor about anything, my dear,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'but that's no proof they do nothing they ought to blush for.' 'What they do, there's no occasion for ladies to inquire,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'but this I know, that it's a great disadvantage to a young man of a certain rank to blush; for no people, who live in a certain set, ever do; and it is the most opposite thing possible to a certain air, which, I own, I think Colambre wants; and now that he has done travelling in Ireland, which is no use in PINT of giving a gentleman a travelled air, or anything of that sort, I hope he will put himself under my conduct for next winter's campaign in town.' Lord Clonbrony looked as if he did not know how to look; and, after drumming on the table for some seconds, said-- 'Colambre, I told you how it would be. That's a fatal hard condition of yours.' 'Not a hard condition, I hope, my dear father,' said Lord Colambre. 'Hard it must be, since it can't be fulfilled, or won't be fulfilled, which comes to the same thing,' replied Lord Clonbrony, sighing. 'I am persuaded, sir, that it will be fulfilled,' said Lord Colambre; 'I am persuaded that, when my mother hears the truth, and the whole truth--when she finds that your happiness, and the happiness of her whole family, depend upon her yielding her taste on one subject--' 'Oh, I see now what you are about,' cried Lady Clonbrony; 'you are coming round with your persuasions and prefaces to ask me to give up Lon'on, and go back with you to Ireland, my lord. You may save yourselves the trouble, all of you, for no earthly persuasions shall make me do it. I will never give up my taste on that PINT. My happiness has a right to be as much considered as your father's, Colambre, or anybody's; and, in one word, I won't do it,' cried she, rising angrily from the breakfast-table. 'There! did not I tell you how it would be?' cried Lord Clonbrony. 'My mother has not heard me, yet,' said Lord Colambre, laying his hand upon his mother's arm, as she attempted to pass; 'hear me, madam, for your own sake. You do not know what will happen, this very day--this very hour, perhaps--if you do not listen to me.' 'And what will happen?' said Lady Clonbrony, stopping short. 'Ay, indeed; she little knows,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'what's hanging over her head.' 'Hanging over my head?' said Lady Clonbrony, looking up; 'nonsense! what?' An execution, madam!' said Lord Colambre. 'Gracious me! an execution!' said Lady Clonbrony, sitting down again; 'but I heard you talk of an execution months ago, my lord, before my son went to Ireland, and it blew over I heard no more of it.' 'If won't blow over now,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'you'll hear more of it now. Sir Terence O'Fay it was, you may remember, that settled it then.' 'Well, and can't he settle it now? Send for him, since he understands these cases; and I will ask him to dinner myself, for your sake, and be very civil to him, my lord.' 'All your civility, either for my sake or your own, will not signify a straw, my dear, in this case--anything that poor Terry could do, he'd do, and welcome, without it; but he can do nothing.' 'Nothing!--that's very extraordinary. But I'm clear no one dare to bring a real execution against us in earnest; and you are only trying to frighten me to your purpose, like a child; but it shan't do.' 'Very well, my dear; you'll see--too late.' A knock at the house door. 'Who is it?--What is it?' cried Lord Clonbrony, growing very pale. Lord Colambre changed colour too, and ran downstairs. 'Don't let 'em let anybody in, for your life, Colambre; under any pretence,' cried Lord Clonbrony, calling from the head of the stairs; then running to the window, 'By all that's good, it's Mordicai himself! and the people with him.' 'Lean your head on me, my dear aunt,' said Miss Nugent. Lady Clonbrony leant back, trembling, and ready to faint. 'But he's walking off now; the rascal could not get in--safe for the present!' cried Lord Clonbrony, rubbing his hands, and repeating, 'safe for the present!' 'Safe for the present!' repeated Lord Colambre, coming again into the room. 'Safe for the present hour.' 'He could not get in, I suppose--oh, I warned all the servants well,' said Lord Clonbrony,' and so did Terry. Ay, there's the rascal, Mordicai, walking off, at the end of the street; I know his walk a mile off. Gad! I can breathe again. I am glad he's gone. But he will come back and always lie in wait, and some time or other, when we're off our guard (unawares), he'll slide in.' Slide in! Oh, horrid!' cried Lady Clonbrony, sitting up, and wiping away the water which Miss Nugent had sprinkled on her face. 'Were you much alarmed?' said Lord Colambre, with a voice of tenderness, looking at his mother first, but his eyes fixing on Miss Nugent. 'Shockingly!' said Lady Clonbrony; 'I never thought it would REELLY come to this.' 'It will really come to much more, my dear,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'that you may depend upon, unless you prevent it.' 'Lord! what can I do?--I know nothing of business; how should I, Lord Clonbrony; but I know there's Colambre--I was always told that when he was of age everything should be settled; and why can't he settle it when he's upon the spot?' 'And upon one condition, I will,' cried Lord Colambre; 'at what loss to myself, my dear mother, I need not mention.' 'Then I will mention it,' cried Lord Clonbrony; 'at the loss it will be of nearly half the estate he would have had, if we had not spent it.' 'Loss! Oh, I am excessively sorry my son's to be at such a loss--it must not be.' 'It cannot be otherwise,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'nor it can't be this way either, my Lady Clonbrony, unless you comply with his condition, and consent to return to Ireland.' 'I cannot--I will not,' replied Lady Clonbrony. 'Is this your condition, Colambre?--I take it exceedingly ill of you. I think it very unkind, and unhandsome, and ungenerous, and undutiful of you, Colambre; you, my son!' She poured forth a torrent of reproaches; then came to entreaties and tears. But our hero, prepared for this, had steeled his mind; and he stood resolved not to indulge his own feelings, or to yield to caprice or persuasion, but to do that which he knew was best for the happiness of hundreds of tenants who depended upon them--best for both his father and his mother's ultimate happiness and respectability. 'It's all in vain,' cried Lord Clonbrony; 'I have no resource but one, and I must condescend now to go to him this minute, for Mordicai will be back and seize all--I must sign and leave all to Garraghty.' 'Well, sign, sign, my lord, and settle with Garraghty.--Colambre, I've heard all the complaints you brought over against that man. My lord spent half the night telling them to me; but all agents are bad, I suppose; at any rate I can't help it--sign, sign, my lord; he has money--yes, do; go and settle with him, my lord.' Lord Colambre and Miss Nugent, at one and the same moment, stopped Lord Clonbrony as he was quitting the room, and then approached Lady Clonbrony with supplicating looks; but she turned her head to the other side, and, as if putting away their entreaties, made a repelling motion with both her hands, and exclaimed, 'No, Grace Nugent!--no, Colambre--no--no, Colambre! I'll never hear of leaving Lon'on--there's no living out of Lon'on--I can't, I won't live out of Lon'on, I say.' Her son saw that the LONDONOMANIA was now stronger than ever upon her, but resolved to make one desperate appeal to her natural feelings, which, though smothered, he could not believe were wholly extinguished; he caught her repelling hands, and pressing them with respectful tenderness to his lips-- 'Oh, my dear mother, you once loved your son,' said he; 'loved him better than anything in this world; if one spark of affection for him remains, hear him now, and forgive him, if he pass the bounds--bounds he never passed before of filial duty. Mother, in compliance with your wishes my father left Ireland--left his home, his duties, his friends, his natural connexions, and for many years he has lived in England, and you have spent many seasons in London.' 'Yes, in the very best company--in the very first circles,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'cold as the high-bred English are said to be in general to strangers.' 'Yes,' replied Lord Colambre; 'the very best company (if you mean the most fashionable) have accepted of our entertainments. We have forced our way into their frozen circles; we have been permitted to breathe in these elevated regions of fashion; we have it to say, that the duke of this, and my lady that, are of our acquaintance. We may say more; we may boast that we have vied with those whom we could never equal. And at what expense have we done all this? For a single season, the last winter (I will go no farther), at the expense of a great part of your timber, the growth of a century--swallowed in the entertainments of one winter in London! Our hills to be bare for another half century to come! But let the trees go; I think more of your tenants--of those left under the tyranny of a bad agent, at the expense of every comfort, every hope they enjoyed!--tenants, who were thriving and prosperous; who used to smile upon you, and to bless you both! In one cottage, I have seen--' Here Lord Clonbrony, unable to restrain his emotion, hurried out of the room. 'Then I am sure it is not my fault,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'for I brought my lord a large fortune; and I am confident I have not, after all, spent more any season, in the best company, than he has among a set of low people, in his muddling, discreditable way.' 'And how has he been reduced to this?' said Lord Colambre. 'Did he not formerly live with gentlemen, his equals, in his own country; his contemporaries? Men of the first station and character, whom I met in Dublin, spoke of him in a manner that gratified the heart of his son; he was respectable and respected at his own home; but when he was forced away from that home, deprived of his objects, his occupations induced him to live in London, or at watering-places, where he could find no employments that were suitable to him--set down, late in life, in the midst of strangers, to him cold and reserved--himself too proud to bend to those who disdained him as an Irishman--is he not more to be pitied than blamed for--yes, I, his son, must say the word--the degradation which has ensued? And do not the feelings, which have this moment forced him to leave the room, show that he is capable?--Oh, mother!' cried Lord Colambre, throwing himself at Lady Clonbrony's feet, 'restore my father to himself! Should such feelings be wasted?--No; give them again to expand in benevolent, in kind, useful actions; give him again to his tenantry, his duties, his country, his home; return to that home yourself, dear mother! leave all the nonsense of high life--scorn the impertinence of these dictators of fashion, by whom, in return for all the pains we take to imitate, to court them--in return for the sacrifice of health, fortune, peace of mind, they bestow sarcasm, contempt, ridicule, and mimickry!' 'Oh, Colambre! Colambre! mimickry--I'll never believe it.' 'Believe me--believe me, mother; for I speak of what I know. Scorn them--quit them! Return to an unsophisticated people--to poor, but grateful hearts, still warm with the remembrance of your kindness, still blessing you for favours long since conferred, ever praying to see you once more. Believe me, for I speak of what I know--your son has heard these prayers, has felt these blessings. Here! at my heart felt, and still feel them, when I was not known to be your son, in the cottage of the widow O'Neill.' 'Oh, did you see the widow O'Neill? and does she remember me?' said Lady Clonbrony. 'Remember you! and you, Miss Nugent! I have slept in the bed--I would tell you more, but I cannot.' 'Well! I never should have thought they would have remembered me so long!--poor people!' said Lady Clonbrony. 'I thought all in Ireland must have forgotten me, it is now so long since I was at home.' 'You are not forgotten in Ireland by any rank, I can answer for that. Return home, my dearest mother--let me see you once more among your natural friends, beloved, respected, happy!' 'Oh, return! let us return home!' cried Miss Nugent, with a voice of great emotion. 'Return, let us return home! My beloved aunt, speak to us! say that you grant our request!' She kneeled beside Lord Colambre, as she spoke. 'Is it possible to resist that voice--that look?' thought Lord Colambre. 'If anybody knew,' said Lady Clonbrony, 'if anybody could conceive, how I detest the sight, the thoughts of that old yellow damask furniture, in the drawing-room at Clonbrony Castle--' 'Good heavens!' cried Lord Colambre, starting up, and looking at his mother in stupefied astonishment; 'is THAT what you are thinking of, ma'am?' 'The yellow damask furniture!' said her niece, smiling. Oh, if that's all, that shall never offend your eyes again. Aunt, my painted velvet chairs are finished; and trust the furnishing that room to me. The legacy lately left me cannot be better applied you shall see how beautifully it will be furnished.' 'Oh, if I had money, I should like to do it myself; but it would take an immensity to new furnish Clonbrony Castle properly.' 'The furniture in this house,' said Miss Nugent, looking round. 'Would do a great deal towards it, I declare,' cried Lady Clonbrony; 'that never struck me before, Grace, I protest--and what would not suit one might sell or exchange here--and it would be a great amusement to me--and I should like to set the fashion of something better in that country. And I declare, now, I should like to see those poor people, and that widow O'Neill. I do assure you, I think I was happier at home; only, that one gets, I don't know how, a notion, one's nobody out of Lon'on. But, after all, there's many drawbacks in Lon'on--and many people are very impertinent, I'll allow--and if there's a woman in the world I hate, it is Mrs. Dareville--and, if I was leaving Lon'on, I should not regret Lady Langdale neither--and Lady St. James is as cold as a stone. Colambre may well say FROZEN CIRCLES--these sort of people are really very cold, and have, I do believe, no hearts. I don't verily think there is one of them would regret me more--Hey! let me see, Dublin--the winter Merrion Square--new furnished--and the summer--Clonbrony Castle!' Lord Colambre and Miss Nugent waited in silence till her mind should have worked itself clear. One great obstacle had been removed; and now that the yellow damask had been taken out of her imagination, they no longer despaired. Lord Clonbrony put his head into the room. 'What hopes?--any? if not, let me go.' He saw the doubting expression of Lady Clonbrony's countenance--hope in the face of his son and niece. 'My dear, dear Lady Clonbrony, make us all happy by one word,' said he, kissing her. 'You never kissed me so since we left Ireland before,' said Lady Clonbrony. 'Well, since it must be so, let us go,' said she. 'Did I ever see such joy!' said Lord Clonbrony, clasping his hands; 'I never expected such joy in my life!--I must go and tell poor Terry!' and off he ran. 'And now, since we are to go,' said Lady Clonbrony, 'pray let us go immediately, before the thing gets wind, else I shall have Mrs. Dareville, and Lady Langdale, and Lady St. James, and all the world, coming to condole with me, just to satisfy their own curiosity; and then Miss Pratt, who hears everything that everybody says, and more than they say, will come and tell me how it is reported everywhere that we are ruined. 'Oh! I never could bear to stay and hear all this. I'll tell you what I'll do--you are to be of age the day after to-morrow, Colambre--very well, there are some papers for me to sign--I must stay to put my name to them, and that done, that minute I'll leave you and Lord Clonbrony to settle all the rest; and I'll get into my carriage with Grace, and go down to Buxton again; where you can come for me, and take me up, when you're all ready to go to Ireland--and we shall be so far on our way. Colambre, what do you say to this?' 'That--if you like it, madam,' said he, giving one hasty glance at Miss Nugent, and withdrawing his eyes, 'it is the best possible arrangement.' 'So,' thought Grace, 'that is the best possible arrangement which takes us away.' 'If I like it!' said Lady Clonbrony; 'to be sure I do, or I should not propose it. What is Colambre thinking of? I know, Grace, at all events, what you and I must think of--of having the furniture packed up, and settling what's to go, and what's to be exchanged, and all that. Now, my dear, go and write a note directly to Mr. Soho, and bid him come himself, immediately; and we'll go and make out a catalogue this instant of what furniture I will have packed.' So, with her head full of furniture, Lady Clonbrony retired. 'I go to my business, Colambre; and I leave you to settle yours in peace.' In peace!--Never was our hero's mind less at peace than at this moment. The more his heart felt that it was painful, the more his reason told him it was necessary that he should part from Grace Nugent. To his union with her there was an obstacle, which his prudence told him ought to be insurmountable; yet he felt that, during the few days he had been with her, the few hours he had been near her, he had, with his utmost power over himself, scarcely been master of his passion, or capable of concealing it from its object. It could not have been done but for her perfect simplicity and innocence. But how could this be supposed on his part? How could he venture to live with this charming girl? How could he settle at home? What resource? His mind turned towards the army; he thought that abroad, and in active life, he should lose all the painful recollections, and drive from his heart all the resentments, which could now be only a source of unavailing regret. But his mother--his mother, who had now yielded her own taste to his entreaties, for the good of her family--she expected him to return and live with her in Ireland. Though not actually promised or specified, he knew that she took it for granted; that it was upon this hope, this faith, she consented; he knew that she would be shocked at the bare idea of his going into the army. There was one chance--our hero tried, at this moment, to think it the best possible chance--that Miss Nugent might marry Mr. Salisbury, and settle in England. On this idea he relied as the only means of extricating him from difficulties. It was necessary to turn his thoughts immediately to business, to execute his promises to his father. Two great objects were now to be accomplished--the payment of his father's debts, and the settlement of the Irish agent's accounts; and, in transacting this complicated business, he derived considerable assistance from Sir Terence O'Fay, and from Sir Arthur Berryl's solicitor, Mr. Edwards. Whilst acting for Sir Arthur, on a former occasion, Lord Colambre had gained the entire confidence of this solicitor, who was a man of the first eminence. Mr. Edwards took the papers and Lord Clonbrony's title-deeds home with him, saying that he would give an answer the next morning. He then waited upon Lord Colambre, and informed him, that he had just received a letter from Sir Arthur Berryl, who, with the consent and desire of his lady, requested that whatever money might be required by Lord Clonbrony should be immediately supplied on their account, without waiting till Lord Colambre should be of age, as the ready money might be of same convenience to him in accelerating the journey to Ireland, which Sir Arthur and Lady Berryl knew was his lordship's object. Sir Terence O'Fay now supplied Mr. Edwards with accurate information as to the demands that were made upon Lord Clonbrony, and of the respective characters of the creditors. Mr. Edwards undertook to settle with the fair claimants; Sir Terence with the rogues; so that by the advancement of ready money from THE BERRYLS, and by the detection of false and exaggerated charges, which Sir Terence made among the inferior class, the debts were reduced nearly to one half of their former amount. Mordicai, who had been foiled in his vile attempt to become sole creditor, had, however, a demand of more than seven thousand pounds upon Lord Clonbrony, which he had raised to this enormous sum in six or seven years, by means well known to himself. He stood the foremost in the list, not from the greatness of the sum, but from the danger of his adding to it the expenses of law. Sir Terence undertook to pay the whole with five thousand pounds. Lord Clonbrony thought it impossible; the solicitor thought it improvident, because he knew that upon a trial a much greater abatement would be allowed; but Lord Colambre was determined, from the present embarrassments of his own situation, to leave nothing undone that could be accomplished immediately. Sir Terence, pleased with his commission, immediately went to Mordicai. 'Well, Sir Terence,' said Mordicai, 'I hope you are come to pay me my hundred guineas; for Miss Broadhurst is married!' 'Well, Mister Mordicai, what then? The ides of March are come, but not gone! Stay, if you plase, Mister Mordicai, till Lady-day, when it becomes due; in the meantime, I have a handful, or rather an armful, of bank-notes for you, from my Lord Colambre.' 'Humph!' said Mordicai; 'how's that? he'll not be of age these three days.' 'Don't matter for that; he has sent me to look over your account, and to hope that you will make some small ABATEMENT in the total.' 'Harkee, Sir Terence you think yourself very clever in things of this sort, but you've mistaken your man; I have an execution for the whole, and I'll be d--d if all your cunning shall MAKE me take up with part!' 'Be easy, Mister Mordicai!--you shan't make me break your bones, nor make me drop one actionable word against your high character; for I know your clerk there, with that long goose-quill behind his ear, would be ready evidence again' me. But I beg to know, in one word, whether you will take five thousand down, and GIVE Lord Clonbrony a discharge?' 'No, Mr. Terence! nor six thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds. My demand is L7130, odd shillings: if you have that money, pay it; if not, I know how to get it, and along with it complete revenge for all the insults I have received from that greenhorn, his son.' 'Paddy Brady!' cried Sir Terence, 'do you hear that? Remember that word, REVENGE!--Mind, I call you to witness!' 'What, sir, will you raise a rebellion among my workmen?' 'No, Mr. Mordicai, no rebellion; and I hope you won't cut the boy's ears off for listening to a little of the brogue--So listen, my good lad. Now, Mr. Mordicai, I offer you here, before little goose-quill, L5000 ready penny--take it, or leave it; take your money, and leave your revenge; or, take your revenge, and lose your money.' 'Sir Terence, I value neither your threats nor your cunning. Good morning to you.' 'Good morning to you, Mr. Mordicai--but not kindly! Mr. Edwards, the solicitor, has been at the office to take off the execution; so now you may have law to your heart's content! And it was only to plase the young lord that the OULD one consented to my carrying this bundle to you,'--showing the bank-notes. 'Mr. Edwards employed!' cried Mordicai. 'Why, how the devil did Lord Clonbrony get into such hands as his? The execution taken off! Well, sir, go to law I am ready for you; Jack Latitat is A MATCH for your sober solicitor.' 'Good morning again to you, Mr. Mordicai; we're fairly out of your clutches, and we have enough to do with our money.' 'Well, Sir Terence, I must allow you have a very wheedling way--Here, Mr. Thompson, make out a receipt for Lord Clonbrony: I never go to law with an old customer, if I can help it.' This business settled, Mr. Soho was next to be dealt with. He came at Lady Clonbrony's summons; and was taking directions, with the utmost SANG FROID, for packing up and sending off the very furniture for which he was not paid. Lord Colambre called him into his father's study; and, producing his bill, he began to point out various articles which were charged at prices that were obviously extravagant. 'Why, really, my lord, they are ABUNDANTLY extravagant; if I charged vulgar prices, I should be only a vulgar tradesman. I, however, am not a broker, nor a Jew. Of the article superintendence, which is only L500, I cannot abate a dolt; on the rest of the bill, if you mean to offer READY, I mean, without any negotiation, to abate thirty per cent; and I hope that is a fair and gentlemanly offer.' 'Mr. Soho, there is your money!' 'My Lord Colambre! I would give the contents of three such bills to be sure of such noblemanly conduct as yours. Lady Clonbrony's furniture shall be safely packed, without costing her a farthing.' With the help of Mr. Edwards, the solicitor, every other claim was soon settled; and Lord Clonbrony, for the first time since he left Ireland, found himself out of debt, and out of danger. Old Nick's account could not be settled in London. Lord Colambre had detected numerous false charges, and sundry impositions; the land, which had been purposely let to run wild, so far from yielding any rent, was made a source of constant expense, as remaining still unset: this was a large tract, for which St. Dennis had at length offered a small rent. Upon a fair calculation of the profits of the ground, and from other items in the account, Nicholas Garraghty, Esq., appeared at last to be, not the creditor, but the debtor to Lord Clonbrony. He was dismissed with disgrace, which perhaps he might not have felt, if it had not been accompanied by pecuniary loss, and followed by the fear of losing his other agencies, and by the dread of immediate bankruptcy. Mr. Burke was appointed agent in his stead to the Clonbrony as well as the Colambre estate. His appointment was announced to him by the following letter:-- To MRS. BURKE, AT COLAMBRE. DEAR MADAM, The traveller whom you so hospitably received some months ago was Lord Colambre--he now writes to you in his proper person. He promised you that he would, as far as it might be in his power, do justice to Mr. Burke's conduct and character, by representing what he had done for Lord Clonbrony in the town of Colambre, and in the whole management of the tenantry and property under his care. Happily for my father, my dear madam, he is now as fully convinced as you could wish him to be of Mr. Burke's merits; and he begs me to express his sense of the obligations he is under to him and to you. He entreats that you will pardon the impropriety of a letter, which, as I assured you the moment I saw it, he never wrote or read. This will, he says, cure him, for life, of putting his signature to any paper without reading it. He hopes that you will forget that such a letter was ever received, and that you will use your influence with Mr. Burke to induce him to continue to our family his regard and valuable services. Lord Clonbrony encloses a power of attorney, enabling Mr. Burke to act in future for him, if Mr. Burke will do him that favour, in managing the Clonbrony as well as the Colambre estate. Lord Clonbrony will be in Ireland in the course of next month, and intends to have the pleasure of soon paying his respects in person to Mr. Burke, at Colambre.--I am, dear madam, your obliged guest, and faithful servant, COLAMBRE. GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON. Lord Colambre was so continually occupied with business during the two days previous to his coming of age, every morning at his solicitor's chambers, every evening in his father's study, that Miss Nugent never saw him but at breakfast or dinner; and, though she watched for it most anxiously, never could find an opportunity of speaking to him alone, or of asking an explanation of the change and inconsistencies of his manner. At last, she began to think that, in the midst of so much business of importance, by which he seemed harassed, she should do wrong to torment him, by speaking of any small disquietude that concerned only herself. She determined to suppress her doubts, to keep her feelings to herself, and to endeavour, by constant kindness, to regain that place in his affections which she imagined that she had lost. 'Everything will go right again,' thought she, 'and we shall all be happy, when he returns with us to Ireland--to that dear home which he loves as well as I do!' The day Lord Colambre was of age, the first thing he did was to sign a bond for five thousand pounds, Miss Nugent's fortune, which had been lent to his father, who was her guardian. 'This, sir, I believe,' said he, giving it to his father as soon as signed--'this, I believe, is the first debt you would wish to have secured.' 'Well thought of, my dear boy I--God bless you!--that has weighed more upon my conscience and heart than all the rest, though I never said anything about it. I used, whenever I met Mr. Salisbury, to wish myself fairly down at the centre of the earth; not that he ever thought of fortune, I'm sure; for he often told me, and I believed him, he would rather have Miss Nugent without a penny, if he could get her, than the first fortune in the empire. But I'm glad she will not go to him penniless, for all that; and by my fault, especially. There, there's my name to it--do witness it, Terry. But, Colambre, you must give it to her--you must take it to Grace.' 'Excuse me, sir; it is no gift of mine--it is a debt of yours. I beg you will take the bond to her yourself, my dear father.' 'My dear son, you must not always have your own way, and hide everything good you do, or give me the honour of it. I won't be the jay in borrowed feathers. I have borrowed enough in my life, and I've done with borrowing now, thanks to you, Colambre--so come along with me; for I'll be hanged if ever I give this joint bond to Miss Nugent, without you along with me. Leave Lady Clonbrony here to sign these papers. Terry will witness them properly, and you come along with me.' 'And pray, my lord,' said her ladyship, 'order the carriage to the door; for, as soon as you have my signature, I hope you'll let me off to Buxton.' 'Oh, certainly--the carriage is ordered--everything ready, my dear.' 'And pray tell Grace to be ready,' added Lady Clonbrony. 'That's not necessary; for she is always ready,' said Lord Clonbrony. 'Come, Colambre,' added he, taking his son under the arm, and carrying him up to Miss Nugent's dressing-room. They knocked, and were admitted. 'Ready!' said Lord Clonbrony; 'ay, always ready--so I said. Here's Colambre, my darling,' continued he, 'has secured your fortune to you to my heart's content; but he would not condescend to come up to tell you so, till I made him. Here's the bond; put your hand to it, Colambre; you were ready enough to do that when it cost you something; and now, all I have to ask of you is, to persuade her to marry out of hand, that I may see her happy before I die. Now my heart's at ease! I can meet Mr. Salisbury with a safe conscience. One kiss, my little Grace. If anybody can persuade you, I'm sure it's that man that's now leaning against the mantelpiece. It's Colambre's will, or your heart's not made like mine--so I leave you.' And out of the room walked he, leaving his poor son in as awkward, embarrassing, and painful a situation, as could well be conceived. Half a dozen indistinct ideas crossed his mind; quick conflicting feelings made his heart beat and stop. And how it would have ended, if he had been left to himself, whether he would have stood or fallen, have spoken or have continued silent, can never now be known, for all was decided without the action of his will. He was awakened from his trance by these simple words from Miss Nugent-- 'I'm much obliged to you, cousin Colambre--more obliged to you for your kindness in thinking of me first, in the midst of all your other business, than by your securing my fortune. Friendship--and your friendship--is worth more to me than fortune. May I believe that is secured?' 'Believe it! Oh, Grace, can you doubt it?' 'I will not; it would make me too unhappy. I will not.' 'You need not.' 'That is enough--I am satisfied--I ask no farther explanation. You are truth itself--one word from you is security sufficient. We are friends for life,' said she, taking his hand between both of hers; 'are not we?' 'We are--and therefore sit down, cousin Grace, and let me claim the privilege of friendship, and speak to you of him who aspires to be more than your friend for life, Mr.--' Mr. Salisbury!' said Miss Nugent; 'I saw him yesterday. We had a very long conversation; I believe he understands my sentiments perfectly, and that he no longer thinks of being more to me than a friend for life.' 'You have refused him!' 'Yes. I have a high opinion of Mr. Salisbury's understanding, a great esteem for his character; I like his manners and conversation; but I do not love him, and therefore, you know, I could not marry him.' 'But, my dear Miss Nugent, with a high opinion, a great esteem, and liking his manners and conversation, in such a well-regulated mind as yours, can there be a better foundation for love?' 'It is an excellent foundation,' said she; 'but I never went any farther than the foundation; and, indeed, I never wished to proceed any farther.' Lord Colambre scarcely dared to ask why; but, after some pause, he said-- 'I don't wish to intrude upon your confidence.' 'You cannot intrude upon my confidence; I am ready to give it to you entirely, frankly; I hesitated only because another person was concerned. Do you remember, at my aunt's gala, a lady who danced with Mr. Salisbury?' 'Not in the least.' 'A lady with whom you and Mr. Salisbury were talking, just before supper, in the Turkish tent.' 'Not in the least.' 'As we went down to supper, you told me you had had a delightful conversation with her--that you thought her a charming woman.' 'A charming woman!--I have not the slightest recollection of her.' 'And you told me that she and Mr. Salisbury had been praising me A L'ENVIE L'UNE ET L'AUTRE.' 'Oh, I recollect her now perfectly,' said Lord Colambre; 'But what of her?' 'She is the woman who, I hope, will be Mrs. Salisbury. Ever since I have been acquainted with them both, I have seen that they were suited to each other; and fancy, indeed I am almost sure, that she could love him, tenderly love him--and, I know, I could not. But my own sentiments, you may be sure, are all I ever told Mr. Salisbury.' 'But of your own sentiments you may not be sure,' said Lord Colambre; 'and I see no reason why you should give him up from false generosity.' 'Generosity?' interrupted Miss Nugent; 'you totally misunderstand me; there is no generosity, nothing for me to give up in the case. I did not refuse Mr. Salisbury from generosity, but because I did not love him. Perhaps my seeing this at first prevented me from thinking of him as a lover; but, from whatever cause, I certainly never felt love for Mr. Salisbury, nor any of that pity which is said to lead to love; perhaps,' added she, smiling, 'because I was aware that he would be so much better off after I refused him--so much happier with one suited to him in age, talents, fortune, and love--"What bliss, did he but know his bliss," were HIS!' 'Did he but know his bliss,' repeated Lord Colambre; 'but is not he the best judge of his own bliss?' 'And am not I the best judge of mine?' said Miss Nugent; 'I go no farther.' 'You are; and I have no right to go farther. Yet, this much permit me to say, my dear Grace, that it would give me sincere pleasure, that is, real satisfaction, to see you happily--established.' 'Thank you, my dear Lord Colambre; but you spoke that like a man of seventy at least, with the most solemn gravity of demeanour.' 'I meant to be serious, not solemn,' said Lord Colambre, endeavouring to change his tone. 'There now,' said she, in a playful tone, 'you have SERIOUSLY accomplished the task my good uncle set you; so I will report well of you to him, and certify that you did all that in you lay to exhort me to marry; that you have even assured me that it would give you sincere pleasure, that is, real satisfaction, to see me happily established.' 'Oh, Grace, if you knew how much I felt when I said that, you would spare this raillery.' 'I will be serious--I am most seriously convinced of the sincerity of your affection for me; I know my happiness is your object in all you have said, and I thank you from my heart for the interest you take about me. But really and truly, I do not wish to marry. This is not a mere commonplace speech; but I have not yet seen any man I could love. I like you, cousin Colambre, better than Mr. Salisbury--I would rather live with you than with him; you know that is a certain proof that I am not likely to be in love with him. I am happy as I am, especially now we are all going to dear Ireland, home, to live together: you cannot conceive with what pleasure I look forward to that.' Lord Colambre was not vain; but love quickly sees love where it exists, or foresees the probability, the possibility of its existence. He saw that Miss Nugent might love him tenderly, passionately; but that duty, habit, the prepossession that it was impossible she could marry her cousin Colambre--a prepossession instilled into her by his mother--had absolutely prevented her from ever yet thinking of him as a lover. He saw the hazard for her, he felt the danger for himself. Never had she appeared to him so attractive as at this moment, when he felt the hope that he could obtain return of love. 'But St. Omar!--Why! why is she a St, Omar!--illegitimate!--"No St. Omar SANS REPROCHE." My wife she cannot be--I will not engage her affections.' Swift as thoughts in moments of strong feeling pass in the mind without being put into words, our hero thought all this, and determined, cost what it would, to act honourably. 'You spoke of my returning to Ireland, my dear Grace. I have not yet told you my plans.' 'Plans! are not you returning with us?' said she, precipitately; 'are not you going to Ireland--home--with us?' 'No--I am going to serve a campaign or two abroad. I think every young man in these times--' 'Good heavens! What does this mean? What can you mean?' cried she, fixing her eyes upon his, as if she would read his very soul. 'Why? what reason?--Oh, tell me the truth and at once.' His change of colour--his hand that trembled, and withdrew from hers--the expression of his eyes as they met hers--revealed the truth to her at once. As it flashed across her mind, she started back; her face grew crimson, and, in the same instant, pale as death. 'Yes--you see, you feel the truth now,' said Lord Colambre. 'You see, you feel, that I love you--passionately.' 'Oh, let me not hear it!' said she; 'I must not--ought not. Never, till this moment, did such a thought cross my mind--I thought it impossible--oh, make me think so still.' 'I will--it is impossible that we can ever be united.' 'I always thought so,' said she, taking breath with a deep sigh. 'Then why not live as we have lived?' 'I cannot--I cannot answer for myself--I will not run the risk; and therefore I must quit you--knowing, as I do, that there is an invincible obstacle to our union, of what nature I cannot explain; I beg you not to inquire.' 'You need not beg it--I shall not inquire--I have no curiosity--none,' said she, in a passive, dejected tone; 'that is not what I am thinking of in the least. I know there are invincible obstacles; I wish it to be so. But, if invincible, you who have so much sense, honour, and virtue--' 'I hope, my dear cousin, that I have honour and virtue. But there are temptations to which no wise, no good man will expose himself. Innocent creature! you do not know the power of love. I rejoice that you have always thought it impossible--think so still--it will save you from--all I must endure. Think of me but as your cousin, your friend--give your heart to some happier man. As your friend, your true friend, I conjure you, give your heart to some more fortunate man. Marry, if you can feel love--marry, and be happy. Honour! virtue! Yes, I have both, and I will not forfeit them. Yes, I will merit your esteem and my own--by actions, not words; and I give you the strongest proof, by tearing myself from you at this moment. Farewell!' 'The carriage at the door, Miss Nugent, and my lady calling for you,' said her maid. 'Here's your key, ma'am, and here's your gloves, my dear ma'am.' 'The carriage at the door, Miss Nugent,' said Lady Clonbrony's woman, coming eagerly with parcels in her hand, as Miss Nugent passed her and ran downstairs; 'and I don't know where I laid my lady's NUMBRELLA, for my life--do your Anne?' 'No, indeed--but I know here's my own young lady's watch that she has left. Bless me! I never knew her to forget anything on a journey before.' 'Then she is going to be married, as sure as my name's Le Maistre, and to my Lord Colambre; for he has been here this hour, to my certain Bible knowledge. Oh, you'll see, she will be Lady Colambre!' 'I wish she may, with all my heart' said Anne; 'but I must run down--they're waiting.' 'Oh no,' said Mrs. le Maistre, seizing Anne's arm, and holding her fast; 'stay--you may safely--for they're all kissing and taking leave, and all that, you know; and my lady is talking on about Mr. Soho, and giving a hundred directions about legs of TABLES, and so forth, I warrant--she's always an hour after she's ready before she gets in--and I'm looking for the NUMBRELLA. So stay, and tell me--Mrs. Petito wrote over word it was to be Lady Isabel; and then a contradiction came--it was turned into the youngest of the Killpatricks; and now here he's in Miss Nugent's dressing-room to the last moment. Now, in my opinion, that am not censorious, this does not look so pretty; but, according to my verdict, he is only making a fool of Miss Nugent, like the rest; and his lordship seems too like what you might call a male COCKET, or a masculine jilt.' 'No more like a masculine jilt than yourself, Mrs. le Maistre,' cried Anne, taking fire. 'And my young lady is not a lady to be made a fool of, I promise you; nor is my lord likely to make a fool of any woman.' 'Bless us all! that's no great praise for any young nobleman. Miss Anne.' 'Mrs. le Maistre! Mrs. le Maistre! are you above?' cried a footman from the bottom of the stairs; 'my lady's calling for you.' 'Very well! very well!' said sharp Mrs. le Maistre; 'very well! and if she is--manners, sir!--Come up for one, can't you, and don't stand bawling at the bottom of the stairs, as if one had no ears to be saved. I'm coming as fast as I conveniently can.' Mrs. le Maistre stood in the doorway, so as to fill it up, and prevent Anne from passing. 'Miss Anne! Miss Anne! Mrs. le Maistre!' cried another footman; 'my lady's in the carriage, and Miss Nugent.' 'Miss Nugent!--is she?' cried Mrs. le Maistre, running downstairs, followed by Anne. 'Now, for the world in pocket-pieces wouldn't I have missed seeing him hand Miss Nugent in; for by that I could have judged definitively.' 'My lord, I beg pardon!--I'm AFEARD I'm late,' said Mrs. le Maistre, as she passed Lord Colambre, who was standing motionless in the hall. 'I beg a thousand pardons; but I was hunting high and low, for my lady's NUMBRELLA.' Lord Colambre did not hear or heed her; his eyes were fixed, and they never moved. Lord Clonbrony was at the open carriage-door, kneeling on the step, and receiving Lady Clonbrony's 'more last words' for Mr. Soho. The two waiting-maids stood together on the steps. 'Look at our young lord, how he stands,' whispered Mrs. le Maistre to Anne, 'the image of despair! And she, the picture of death!--I don't know what to think.' 'Nor I; but don't stare if you can help it,' said Anne. 'Get in, get in, Mrs. le Maistre,' added she, as Lord Clonbrony now rose from the step, and made way for them. 'Ay, in with you--in with you, Mrs. le Maistre,' said Lord Clonbrony. 'Good-bye to you, Anne, and take care of your young mistress at Buxton; let me see her blooming when we meet again; I don't half like her looks, and I never thought Buxton agreed with her.' 'Buxton never did anybody harm,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'and as to bloom, I'm sure, if Grace has not bloom enough in her cheeks this moment to please you, I don't know what you'd have, my dear lord--Rouge?--Shut the door, John! Oh, stay!--Colambre! Where upon earth's Colambre?' cried her ladyship, stretching from the farthest side of the coach to the window. 'Colambre!' Colambre was forced to appear. 'Colambre, my dear! I forgot to say that, if anything detains you longer than Wednesday se'nnight, I beg you will not fail to write, or I shall be miserable.' 'I will write; at all events, my dearest mother, you shall hear from me.' 'Then I shall be quite happy. Go on!' The carriage drove on. 'I do believe Colambre's ill; I never saw a man look so ill in my life--did you, Grace?--as he did the minute we drove on. He should take advice. I've a mind, cried Lady Clonbrony, laying her hand on the cord to stop the coachman--'I've a mind to turn about, tell him so, and ask what is the matter with him.' 'Better not!' said Miss Nugent; 'he will write to you, and tell you--if anything is the matter with him. Better go on now to Buxton!' continued she, scarcely able to speak. Lady Clonbrony let go the cord. 'But what is the matter with you, my dear Grace? for you are certainly going to die too!' 'I will tell you--as soon as I can; but don't ask me now, my dear aunt!' 'Grace, Grace! pull the cord!' cried Lady Clonbrony--'Mr. Salisbury's phaeton!--Mr. Salisbury, I'm happy to see you! We're on our way to Buxton--as I told you.' 'So am I,' said Mr. Salisbury. 'I hope to be there before your ladyship; will you honour me with any commands!--of course, I will see that everything is ready for your reception.' Her ladyship had not any commands. Mr. Salisbury drove on rapidly. Lady Clonbrony's ideas had now taken the Salisbury channel. 'You didn't know that Mr. Salisbury was going to Buxton to meet you, did you, Grace?' said Lady Clonbrony. 'No, indeed, I did not!' said Miss Nugent; 'and I am very sorry for it.' 'Young ladies, as Mrs. Broadhurst says, "never know, or at least never tell, what they are sorry or glad for,"' replied Lady Clonbrony. 'At all events, Grace, my love, it has brought the fine bloom back to your cheeks; and I own I am satisfied.' CHAPTER XV 'Gone! for ever gone from me!' said Lord Colambre to himself, as the carriage drove away. 'Never shall I see her more--never WILL I see her more, till she is married.' Lord Colambre went to his own room, locked the door, and was relieved in some degree by the sense of privacy; by the feeling that he could now indulge his reflections undisturbed. He had consolation--he had done what was honourable--he had transgressed no duty, abandoned no principle--he had not injured the happiness of any human being--he had not, to gratify himself, hazarded the peace of the woman he loved--he had not sought to win her heart. Of her innocent, her warm, susceptible heart, he might perhaps have robbed her--he knew it--but he had left it untouched, he hoped entire, in her own power, to bless with it hereafter some man worthy of her. In the hope that she might be happy, Lord Colambre felt relief; and in the consciousness that he had made his parents happy, he rejoiced. But, as soon as his mind turned that way for consolation, came the bitter concomitant reflection, that his mother must be disappointed in her hopes of his accompanying her home, and of his living with her in Ireland; she would be miserable when she should hear that he was going abroad into the army--and yet it must be so--and he must write, and tell her so. 'The sooner this difficulty is off my mind, the sooner this painful letter is written, the better,' thought he. 'It must be done--I will do it immediately.' He snatched up his pen, and began a letter. My dear mother--Miss Nugent--' He was interrupted by a knock at his door. 'A gentleman below, my lord,' said a servant, 'who wishes to see you.' I cannot see any gentleman. Did you say I was at home?' 'No, my lord; I said you was not at home; for I thought you would not choose to be at home, and your own man was not in the way for me to ask--so I denied you; but the gentleman would not be denied; he said I must come and see if you was at home. So, as he spoke as if he was a gentleman not used to be denied, I thought it might be somebody of consequence, and I showed him into the front drawing-room. I think he said he was sure you'd be at home for a friend from Ireland.' 'A friend from Ireland! Why did not you tell me that sooner?' said Lord Colambre, rising, and running downstairs. 'Sir James Brooke, I daresay.' No, not Sir James Brooke; but one he was almost as glad to see--Count O'Halloran! 'My dear count! the greater pleasure for being unexpected.' 'I came to London but yesterday,' said the count; 'but I could not be here a day, without doing myself the honour of paying my respects to Lord Colambre.' 'You do me not only honour, but pleasure, my dear count. People when they like one another, always find each other out, and contrive to meet even in London.' 'You are too polite to ask what brought such a superannuated militaire as I am,' said the count, 'from his retirement into this gay world again. A relation of mine, who is one of our Ministry, knew that I had some maps, and plans, and charts, which might be serviceable in an expedition they are planning. I might have trusted my charts across the channel, without coming myself to convoy them, you will say. But my relation fancied--young relations, you know, if they are good for anything, are apt to overvalue the heads of old relations--fancied that mine was worth bringing all the way from Halloran Castle to London, to consult with TETE-A-TETE. So you know, when this was signified to me by a letter from the secretary in office, PRIVATE, MOST CONFIDENTIAL, what could I do, but do myself the honour to obey? For though honour's voice cannot provoke the silent dust, yet "flattery soothes the dull cold ear of AGE."--But enough, and too much of myself,' said the count: 'tell me, my dear lord, something of yourself. I do not think England seems to agree with you so well as Ireland; for, excuse me, in point of health, you don't look like the same man I saw some weeks ago.' 'My mind has been ill at ease of late,' said Lord Colambre. 'Ay, there's the thing! The body pays for the mind--but those who have feeling minds, pain and pleasure altogether computed, have the advantage; or at least they think so; for they would not change with those who have them not, were they to gain by the bargain the most robust body that the most selfish coxcomb, or the heaviest dunce extant, ever boasted. For instance, would you now, my lord, at this moment change altogether with Major Benson, or Captain Williamson, or even our friend, 'Eh, really now, "pon honour"--would you!--I'm glad to see you smile.' 'I thank you for making me smile, for I assure you I want it. I wish--if you would not think me encroaching upon your politeness and kindness in honouring me with this visit--You see,' continued he, opening the doors of the back drawing-room, and pointing to large packages--'you see we are all preparing for a march; my mother has left town half an hour ago--my father engaged to dine abroad--only I at home--and, in this state of confusion, could I even venture to ask Count O'Halloran to stay and dine with me, without being able to offer him Irish ortolans or Irish plums--in short, will you let me rob you of two or three hours of your time? I am anxious to have your opinion on a subject of some importance to me, and on one where you are peculiarly qualified to judge and decide for me.' 'My dear lord, frankly, I have nothing half so good or so agreeable to do with my time; command my hours. I have already told you how much it flatters me to be consulted by the most helpless clerk in office; how much more about the private concerns of an enlightened young--friend, will Lord Colambre permit me to say? I hope so; for though the length of our acquaintance might not justify the word, yet regard and intimacy are not always in proportion to the time people have known each other, but to their mutual perception of certain attaching qualities, a certain similarity and suitableness of character.' The good count, seeing that Lord Colambre was in much distress of mind, did all he could to soothe him by kindness; far from making any difficulty about giving up a few hours of his time, he seemed to have no other object in London, and no purpose in life, but to attend to our hero. To put him at ease, and to give him time to recover and arrange his thoughts, the count talked of indifferent subjects. 'I think I heard you mention the name of Sir James Brooke.' 'Yes, I expected to have seen him when the servant first mentioned a friend from Ireland; because Sir James had told me that, as soon as he could get leave of absence, he would come to England.' 'He is come; is now at his estate is Huntingdonshire; doing, what do you think? I will give you a leading hint; recollect the seal which the little De Cresey put into your hands the day you dined at Oranmore. Faithful to his motto, "Deeds not words," he is this instant, I believe, at deeds, title-deeds; making out marriage settlements, getting ready to put his seal to the happy articles.' 'Happy man! I give him joy,' said Lord Colambre; 'happy man! going to be married to such a woman--daughter of such a mother.' 'Daughter of such a mother! That is indeed a great addition and a great security to his happiness,' said the count. 'Such a family to marry into; good from generation to generation; illustrious by character as well as by genealogy; "all the sons brave, and all the daughters chaste."'--Lord Colambre with difficulty repressed his feelings.--'if I could choose, I would rather that a woman I loved were of such a family than that she had for her dower the mines of Peru.' 'So would I,' cried Lord Colambre. 'I am glad to hear you say so, my lord, and with such energy; so few young men of the present day look to what I call good connexion. In marrying, a man does not, to be sure, marry his wife's mother; and yet a prudent man, when he begins to think of the daughter, would look sharp at the mother; ay, and back to the grandmother too, and along the whole female line of ancestry.' 'True--most true--he ought he must.' 'And I have a notion,' said the count, smiling, 'your lordship's practice has been conformable to your theory.' 'I!--mine!' said Lord Colambre, starling, and looking at the count with surprise. 'I beg your pardon,' said the count; 'I did not intend to surprise your confidence. But you forget that I was present, and saw the impression which was made on your mind by a mother's want of a proper sense of delicacy and propriety--Lady Dashfort.' 'Oh, Lady Dashfort! she was quite out of my head.' 'And Lady Isabel?--I hope she is quite out of your heart.' 'She never was in it,' said Lord Colambre. 'Only laid siege to it,' said the count. 'Well, I am glad your heart did not surrender at discretion, or rather without discretion. Then I may tell you, without fear or preface, that the Lady Isabel, who "talks of refinement, delicacy, sense," is going to stoop at once, and marry--Heathcock.' Lord Colambre was not surprised, but concerned and disgusted, as he always felt, even when he did not care for the individual, from hearing anything which tended to lower the female sex in public estimation. 'As to myself,' said he, 'I cannot say I have had an escape, for I don't think I ever was in much danger.' 'It is difficult to measure danger when it is over--past danger, like past pain, is soon forgotten,' said the old general. 'At all events, I rejoice in your present safety.' 'But is she really going to be married to Heathcock?' said Lord Colambre. 'Positively; they all came over in the same packet with me, and they are all in town now, buying jewels, and equipages, and horses. Heathcock, you know, is as good as another man, A PEU PRES, for all those purposes; his father is dead, and left him a large estate. QUE VOULEZ VOUS? as the French valet said to me on the occasion. C'EST QUE MONSIEUR EST UN HOMME DE BIEN: IL A DES BIENS, A CE QU'ON DIT.' Lord Colambre could not help smiling. 'How they got Heathcock to fall in love is what puzzles me,' said his lordship. 'I should as soon have thought of an oyster's falling in love as that being!' 'I own I should have sooner thought,' replied the count, 'Of his falling in love with an oyster; and so would you, if you had seen him, as I did, devouring oysters on shipboard. 'Say, can the lovely HEROINE hope to vie<br /> With a fat turtle or a ven'son pie?<br /> But that is not our affair; let the Lady Isabel look to it.' Dinner was announced; and no farther conversation of any consequence passed between the count and Lord Colambre till the cloth was removed and the servants had withdrawn. Then our hero opened on the subject which was heavy at his heart. 'My dear count--to go back to the BURIAL PLACE OF THE NUGENTS, where my head was lost the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you--you know, or, possibly,' said he, smiling, 'you do not know, that I have a cousin of the name of Nugent?' 'You told me,' replied the count, 'that you had near relations of that name; but I do not recollect that you mentioned any one in particular.' 'I never named Miss Nugent to you. No! it is not easy to me to talk of her, and impossible to me to describe her. If you had come one half-hour sooner this morning, you would have seen her: I know she is exactly suited to your excellent taste. But it is not at first sight she pleases most; she gains upon the affections, attaches the heart, and unfolds upon the judgment. In temper, manners, and good sense, in every quality a man can or should desire in a wife, I never saw her equal. Yet, there is an obstacle, an invincible obstacle, the nature of which I cannot explain to you, that forbids me to think of her as a wife. She lives with my father and mother: they are returning to Ireland, I wished, earnestly wished, on many accounts, to have accompanied them, chiefly on my mother's; but it cannot be. The first thing a man must do is to act honourably; and, that he may do so, he must keep out of the way of a temptation which he believes to be above his strength. I will never see Miss Nugent again till she is married; I must either stay in England, or go abroad. I have a mind to serve a campaign or two, if I could get a commission in a regiment going to Spain; but I understand so many are eager to go at this moment, that it is very difficult to get a commission in such a regiment.' 'It is difficult,' said the count. 'But,' added he, after thinking for a moment, 'I have it! I can get the thing done for you, and directly. Major Benson, in consequence of that affair, you know, about his mistress, is forced to quit the regiment. When the lieutenant-colonel came to quarters, and the rest of the officers heard the fact, they would not keep company with Benson, and would not mess with him. I know he wants to sell out; and that regiment is to be ordered immediately to Spain. I will have the thing done for you, if you request it.' 'First, give me your advice, Count O'Halloran; you are well acquainted with the military profession, with military life. Would you advise me--I won't speak of myself, because we judge better by general views than by particular cases--would you advise a young man at present to go into the army?' The count was silent for a few minutes, and then replied: 'Since you seriously ask my opinion, my lord, I must lay aside my own prepossessions, and endeavour to speak with impartiality. To go into the army in these days, my lord, is, in my sober opinion, the most absurd and base, or the wisest and noblest thing a young man can do. To enter into the army, with the hope of escaping from the application necessary to acquire knowledge, letters, and science--I run no risk, my lord, in saying this to you--to go into the army, with the hope of escaping from knowledge, letters, science, and morality; to wear a red coat and an epaulette; to be called captain; to figure at a ball; to lounge away time in country sports, at country quarters, was never, even in times of peace, creditable; but it is now absurd and base. Submitting to a certain portion of ennui and contempt, this mode of life for an officer was formerly practicable--but now cannot be submitted to without utter, irremediable disgrace. Officers are now, in general, men of education and information; want of knowledge, sense, manners, must consequently be immediately detected, ridiculed, and despised in a military man. Of this we have not long since seen lamentable examples in the raw officers who have lately disgraced themselves in my neighbourhood in Ireland--that Major Benson and Captain Williamson. But I will not advert to such insignificant individuals, such are rare exceptions--I leave them out of the question--I reason on general principles. The life of an officer is not now a life of parade, of coxcombical, or of profligate idleness--but of active service, of continual hardship and danger. All the descriptions which we see in ancient history of a soldier's life--descriptions which, in times of peace, appeared like romance--are now realised; military exploits fill every day's newspapers, every day's conversation. A martial spirit is now essential to the liberty and the existence of our own country. In the present state of things, the military must be the most honourable profession, because the most useful. Every movement of an army is followed, wherever it goes, by the public hopes and fears. Every officer must now feel, besides this sense of collective importance, a belief that his only dependence must be on his own merit and thus his ambition, his enthusiasm, are raised; and when once this noble ardour is kindled in the breast, it excites to exertion, and supports under endurance. But I forget myself,' said the count, checking his enthusiasm; 'I promised to speak soberly. If I have said too much, your own good sense, my lord, will correct me, and your good-nature will forgive the prolixity of an old man, touched upon his favourite subject--the passion of his youth.' Lord Colambre, of course, assured the count that he was not tired. Indeed, the enthusiasm with which this old officer spoke of his profession, and the high point of view in which he placed it, increased our hero's desire to serve a campaign abroad. Good sense, politeness, and experience of the world preserved Count O'Halloran from that foible with which old officers are commonly reproached, of talking continually of their own military exploits. Though retired from the world, he had contrived, by reading the best books, and corresponding with persons of good information, to keep up with the current of modern affairs; and he seldom spoke of those in which he had been formerly engaged. He rather too studiously avoided speaking of himself; and this fear of egotism diminished the peculiar interest he might have inspired: it disappointed curiosity, and deprived those with whom he conversed of many entertaining and instructive anecdotes. However, he sometimes made exceptions to his general rule in favour of persons who peculiarly pleased him, and Lord Colambre was of this number. He this evening, for the first time, spoke to his lordship of the years he had spent in the Austrian service; told him anecdotes of the emperor; spoke of many distinguished public characters whom he had known abroad; of those officers who had been his friends and companions. Among others he mentioned, with particular regard, a young English officer who had been at the same time with him in the Austrian service, a gentleman of the name of Reynolds. The name struck Lord Colambre; it was the name of the officer who had been the cause of the disgrace of Miss St. Omar--of Miss Nugent's mother. 'But there are so many Reynoldses.' He eagerly asked the age--the character of this officer. 'He was a gallant youth,' said the count, 'but too adventurous--too rash. He fell, after distinguishing himself in a glorious manner, in his twentieth year--died in my arms.' 'Married or unmarried?' cried Lord Colambre. 'Married--he had been privately married, less than a year before his death, to a very young English lady, who had been educated at a convent in Vienna. He was heir to a considerable property, I believe, and the young lady had little fortune; and the affair was kept secret from the fear of offending his friends, or for some other reason--I do not recollect the particulars.' 'Did he acknowledge his marriage?' said Lord Colambre. 'Never till he was dying--then he confided his secret to me.' 'Do you recollect the name of the young lady he married?' 'Yes--Miss St. Omar.' 'St. Omar!' repeated Lord Colambre, with an expression of lively joy in his countenance. 'But are you certain, my dear count, that she was really married, legally married, to Mr. Reynolds? Her marriage has been denied by all his friends and relations--hers have never been able to establish it--her daughter is--My dear count, were you present at the marriage?' 'No,' said the count, 'I was not present at the marriage; I never saw the lady, nor do I know anything of the affair, except that Mr. Reynolds, when he was dying, assured me that he was privately married to a Miss St. Omar, who was then boarding at a convent in Vienna. The young man expressed great regret at leaving her totally unprovided for; but said that he trusted his father would acknowledge her, and that her friends would be reconciled to her. He was not of age, he said, to make a will; but I think he told me that his child, who at that time was not born, would, even if it should be a girl, inherit a considerable property. With this, I cannot, however, charge my memory positively; but he put a packet into my hands which, he told me, contained a certificate of his marriage, and, I think he said, a letter to his father; this he requested that I would transmit to England by some safe hand. Immediately after his death, I went to the English ambassador, who was then leaving Vienna, and delivered the packet into his hands; he promised to have it safely delivered. I was obliged to go the next day, with the troops, to a distant part of the country. When I returned, I inquired at the convent what had become of Miss St. Omar--I should say Mrs. Reynolds; and I was told that she had removed from the convent to private lodgings in the town, some time previous to the birth of her child. The abbess seemed much scandalised by the whole transaction; and I remember I relieved her mind by assuring her that there had been a regular marriage. For poor young Reynolds's sake, I made farther inquiries about the widow, intending, of course, to act as a friend, if she was in any difficulty or distress. But I found, on inquiry at her lodgings, that her brother had come from England for her, and had carried her and her infant away. The active scenes,' continued the count, 'in which I was immediately afterwards engaged, drove the whole affair from my mind. Now that your questions have recalled them, I feel certain of the facts I have mentioned; and I am ready to establish them by my testimony.' Lord Colambre thanked him with an eagerness that showed how much he was interested in the event. It was clear, he said, either that the packet left with the ambassador had not been delivered, or that the father of Mr. Reynolds had suppressed the certificate of the marriage, as it had never been acknowledged by him or by any of the family. Lord Colambre now frankly told the count why he was so anxious about this affair; and Count O'Halloran, with all the warmth of youth, and with all the ardent generosity characteristic of his country, entered into his feelings, declaring that he would never rest till he had established the truth. 'Unfortunately,' said the count, 'the ambassador who took the packet in charge is dead. I am afraid we shall have difficulty.' 'But he must have had some secretary,' said Lord Colambre; 'who was his secretary?--we can apply to him.' 'His secretary is now CHARGE D'AFFAIRES in Vienna--we cannot get at him.' 'Into whose hands have that ambassador's papers fallen--who is his executor?' said Lord Colambre. 'His executor!--now you have it,' cried the count. 'His executor is the very man who will do your business--your friend Sir James Brooke is the executor. All papers, of course, are in his hands; or he can have access to any that are in the hands of the family. The family seat is within a few miles of Sir James Brooke's, in Huntingdonshire, where, as I told you before, he now is.' 'I'll go to him immediately--set out in the mail this night. Just in time!' cried Lord Colambre, pulling out his watch with one hand, and ringing the bell with the other. 'Run and take a place for me in the mail for Huntingdon. Go directly,' said Lord Colambre to the servant. 'And take two places, if you please, sir,' said the count. 'My lord, I will accompany you.' But this Lord Colambre would not permit, as it would be unnecessary to fatigue the good old general; and a letter from him to Sir James Brooke would do all that the count could effect by his presence; the search for the papers would be made by Sir James, and if the packet could be recovered, or if any memorandum or mode of ascertaining that it had actually been delivered to old Reynolds could be discovered, Lord Colambre said he would then call upon the count for his assistance, and trouble him to identify the packet; or to go with him to Mr. Reynolds to make farther inquiries; and to certify, at all events, the young man's dying acknowledgment of his marriage and of his child. The place in the mail, just in time, was taken. Lord Colambre sent a servant in search of his father, with a note explaining the necessity of his sudden departure. All the business which remained to be done in town he knew Lord Clonbrony could accomplish without his assistance. Then he wrote a few lines to his mother, on the very sheet of paper on which, a few hours before, he had sorrowfully and slowly begun-- MY DEAR MOTHER MISS NUGENT. He now joyfully and rapidly went on--MY DEAR MOTHER AND MISS NUGENT, I hope to be with you on Wednesday se'nnight; but if unforeseen circumstances should delay me, I will certainly write to you again.--Dear mother, believe me, your obliged and grateful son, COLAMBRE. The count, in the meantime, wrote a letter for him to Sir James Brooke, describing the packet which he had given to the ambassador, and relating all the circumstances that could lead to its recovery. Lord Colambre, almost before the wax was hard, seized possession of the letter; the count seeming almost as eager to hurry him off as he was to set out. He thanked the count with few words, but with strong feeling. Joy and love returned in full tide upon our hero's soul; all the military ideas, which but an hour before filled his imagination, were put to flight: Spain vanished, and green Ireland reappeared. Just as they shook hands at parting, the good old general, with a smile, said to him, 'I believe I had better not stir in the matter of Benson's commission till I hear more from you. My harangue, in favour of the military profession, will, I fancy, prove like most other harangues, EN PURE PERTE.' CHAPTER XVI In what words of polite circumlocution, or of cautious diplomacy, shall we say, or hint, that the deceased ambassador's papers were found in shameful disorder. His excellency's executor, Sir James Brooke, however, was indefatigable in his researches. He and Lord Colambre spent two whole days in looking over portfolios of letters and memorials, and manifestoes, and bundles of paper of the most heterogeneous sorts; some of them without any docket or direction to lead to a knowledge of their contents; others written upon in such a manner as to give an erroneous notion of their nature; so that it was necessary to untie every paper separately. At last, when they had opened, as they thought, every paper, and, wearied and in despair, were just on the point of giving up the search, Lord Colambre spied a bundle of old newspapers at the bottom of a trunk. 'They are only old Vienna Gazettes; I looked at them,' said Sir James. Lord Colambre, upon this assurance, was going to throw them into the trunk again; but observing that the bundle had not been untied, he opened it, and within-side of the newspapers he found a rough copy of the ambassador's journal, and with it the packet, directed to Ralph Reynolds sen., Esq., Old Court, Suffolk, per favour of his excellency, Earl --, a note on the cover, signed O'Halloran, stating when received by him, and the date of the day when delivered to the ambassador--seals unbroken. Our hero was in such a transport of joy at the sight of this packet, and his friend Sir James Brooke so full of his congratulations, that they forgot to curse the ambassador's carelessness, which had been the cause of so much evil. The next thing to be done was to deliver the packet to Ralph Reynolds, Old Court, Suffolk. But when Lord Colambre arrived at Old Court, Suffolk, he found all the gates locked, and no admittance to be had. At last an old woman came out of the porter's lodge, who said Mr. Reynolds was not there, and she could not say where he was. After our hero had opened her heart by the present of half a guinea, she explained, that she 'could not JUSTLY say where he was, because that he never let anybody of his own people know where he was any day; he had several different houses and places in different parts, and far-off counties, and other shires, as she heard, and by times he was at one, and by times at another.' The names of two of the places, Toddrington and Little Wrestham, she knew; but there were others to which she could give no direction. He had houses in odd parts of London, too, that he let; and sometimes, when the lodgers' time was out, he would go, and be never heard of for a month, maybe, in one of them. In short, there was no telling or saying where he was or would be one day of the week, by where he had been the last.' When Lord Colambre expressed some surprise that an old gentleman, as he conceived Mr. Ralph Reynolds to be, should change places so frequently, the old woman answered, 'That though her master was a deal on the wrong side of seventy, and though, to look at him, you'd think he was glued to his chair, and would fall to pieces if he should stir out of it, yet was as alert, and thought no more of going about, than if he was as young as the gentleman who was now speaking to her. It was old Mr. Reynolds's delight to come down and surprise his people at his different places, and see that they were keeping all tight.' 'What sort of a man is he;--Is he a miser?' said Lord Colambre. 'He is a miser, and he is not a miser,' said the woman. 'Now he'd think as much of the waste of a penny as another man would of a hundred pounds, and yet he would give a hundred pounds easier than another would give a penny, when he's in the humour. But his humour is very odd, and there's no knowing where to have him; he's gross-grained, and more POSITIVER-like than a mule; and his deafness made him worse in this, because he never heard what nobody said, but would say on his own way--he was very ODD but not CRACKED--no, he was as clear-headed, when he took a thing the right way, as any man could be, and as clever, and could talk as well as any member of Parliament,--and good-natured, and kind-hearted, where he would take a fancy--but then, maybe, it would be to a dog (he was remarkable fond of dogs), or a cat, or a rat even, that he would take a fancy, and think more of 'em than he would of a Christian. But, Poor gentleman, there's great allowance,' said she, 'to be made for him, that lost his son and heir--that would have been heir to all, and a fine youth that he doted upon. But,' continued the old woman, in whose mind the transitions from GREAT to little, from serious to trivial, were ludicrously abrupt, 'that was no reason why the old gentleman should scold me last time he was here, as he did, for as long as ever he could stand over me, only because I killed a mouse who was eating my cheese; and, before night, he beat a boy for stealing a piece of that same cheese; and he would never, when down here, let me set a mouse-trap.' 'Well, my good woman,' interrupted Lord Colambre, who was little interested in this affair of the mouse-trap, and nowise curious to learn more of Mr. Reynolds's domestic economy, 'I'll not trouble you any farther, if you can be so good as to tell me the road to Toddrington, or to Little Wickham, I think you call it.' Little Wickham!' repeated the woman, laughing--' Bless you, sir, where do you come from?--It's Little Wrestham; surely everybody knows, near Lantry; and keep the PIKE till you come to the turn at Rotherford, and then you strike off into the by-road to the left, and then again turn at the ford to the right. But, if you are going to Toddrington, you don't go the road to market, which is at the first turn to the left, and the cross-country road, where there's no quarter, and Toddrington lies--but for Wrestham, you take the road to market.' It was some time before our hero could persuade the old woman to stick to Little Wrestham, or to Toddrington, and not to mix the directions for the different roads together--he took patience, for his impatience only confused his director the more. In process of time, he made out, and wrote down, the various turns that he was to follow, to reach Little Wrestham; but no human power could get her from Little Wrestham to Toddrington, though she knew the road perfectly well; but she had, for the seventeen last years, been used to go 'the other road,' and all the carriers went that way, and passed the door, and that was all she could certify. Little Wrestham, after turning to the left and right as often as his directory required, our hero happily reached; but, unhappily, he found no Mr. Reynolds there; only a steward, who gave nearly the same account of his master as had been given by the old woman, and could not guess even where the gentleman might now be. Toddrington was as likely as any place--but he could not say. 'Perseverance against fortune.' To Toddrington our hero proceeded, through cross-country roads--such roads!--very different from the Irish roads. Waggon ruts, into which the carriage wheels sunk nearly to the nave--and, from time to time, 'sloughs of despond,' through which it seemed impossible to drag, walk, wade, or swim, and all the time with a sulky postillion. 'Oh, how unlike my Larry!' thought Lord Colambre. At length, in a very narrow lane, going up a hill, said to be two miles of ascent, they overtook a heavy laden waggon, and they were obliged to go step by step behind it, whilst, enjoying the gentleman's impatience much, and the postillion's sulkiness more, the waggoner, in his embroidered frock, walked in state, with his long sceptre in his hand. The postillion muttered 'curses not loud, but deep.' Deep or loud, no purpose would they have answered; the waggoner's temper was proof against curse in or out of the English language; and from their snail's pace neither DICKENS nor devil, nor any postillion in England, could make him put his horses. Lord Colambre jumped out of the chaise, and, walking beside him, began to talk to him; and spoke of his horses, their bells, their trappings; the beauty and strength of the thill-horse--the value of the whole team, which his lordship happening to guess right within ten pounds, and showing, moreover, some skill about road-making and waggon-wheels, and being fortunately of the waggoner's own opinion in the great question about conical and cylindrical rims, he was pleased with the young chap of a gentleman; and, in spite of the chuffiness of his appearance and churlishness of his speech, this waggoner's bosom 'being made of penetrating stuff,' he determined to let the gentleman pass. Accordingly, when half-way up the hill, and the head of the fore-horse came near an open gate, the waggoner, without saying one word or turning his head, touched the horse with his long whip--and the horse turned in at the gate, and then came-- 'Dobbin!--Jeho!' and strange calls and sounds, which all the other horses of the team obeyed; and the waggon turned into the farmyard. 'Now, master! while I turn, you may pass.' The covering of the waggon caught in the hedge as the waggon turned in; and as the sacking was drawn back, some of the packages were disturbed--a cheese was just rolling off on the side next Lord Colambre; he stopped it from falling; the direction caught his quick eye--'To Ralph Reynolds, Esq.'--'TODDRINGTON' scratched out; 'Red Lion Square, London,' written in another hand below. 'Now I have found him! And surely I know that hand!' said Lord Colambre to himself, looking more closely at the direction. The original direction was certainly in a handwriting well known to him it was Lady Dashfort's. 'That there cheese, that you're looking at so cur'ously,' said the waggoner, has been a great traveller; for it came all the way down from Lon'on, and now it's going all the way up again back, on account of not finding the gentleman at home; and the man that booked it told me as how it came from foreign parts.' Lord Colambre took down the direction, tossed the honest waggoner a guinea, wished him good-night, passed, and went on. As soon as he could, he turned into the London road--at the first town, got a place in the mail--reached London--saw his father--went directly to his friend, Count O'Halloran, who was delighted when he beheld the packet. Lord Colambre was extremely eager to go immediately to old Reynolds, fatigued as he was; for he had travelled night and day, and had scarcely allowed himself, mind or body, one moment's repose. 'Heroes must sleep, and lovers too; or they soon will cease to be heroes or lovers!' said the count. 'Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! this night; and to-morrow morning we'll finish the adventure in Red Lion Square, or I will accompany you when and where you will; if necessary, to earth's remotest bounds.' The next morning Lord Colambre went to breakfast with the count. The count, who was not in love, was not up, for our hero was half an hour earlier than the time appointed. The old servant Ulick, who had attended his master to England, was very glad to see Lord Colambre again, and, showing him into the breakfast parlour, could not help saying, in defence of his master's punctuality-- 'Your clocks, I suppose, my lord, are half an hour faster than ours; my master will be ready to the moment.' The count soon appeared--breakfast was soon over, and the carriage at the door; for the count sympathised in his young friend's impatience. As they were setting out, the count's large Irish dog pushed out of the house door to follow them and his master would have forbidden him, but Lord Colambre begged that he might be permitted to accompany them; for his lordship recollected the old woman's having mentioned that Mr. Reynolds was fond of dogs. They arrived in Red Lion Square, found the house of Mr. Reynolds, and, contrary to the count's prognostics, found the old gentleman up, and they saw him in his red night-cap at his parlour window. After some minutes' running backwards and forwards of a boy in the passage, and two or three peeps taken over the blinds by the old gentleman, they were admitted. The boy could not master their names; so they were obliged reciprocally to announce themselves--'Count O'Halloran and Lord Colambre.' The names seemed to make no impression on the old gentleman; but he deliberately looked at the count and his lordship, as if studying WHAT rather than WHO they were. In spite of the red night-cap, and a flowered dressing-gown, Mr. Reynolds looked like a gentleman, an odd gentleman--but still a gentleman. As Count O'Halloran came into the room, and as his large dog attempted to follow, the count's voice expressed: 'Say, shall I let him in, or shut the door?' 'Oh, let him in, by all means, sir, if you please! I am fond of dogs; and a finer one I never saw; pray, gentlemen, be seated,' said he--a portion of the complacency inspired by the sight of the dog, diffusing itself over his manner towards the master of so fine an animal, and even extending to the master's companion, though in an inferior degree. Whilst Mr. Reynolds stroked the dog, the count told him that 'the dog was of a curious breed, now almost extinct--the Irish greyhound, of which only one nobleman in Ireland, it is said, has now a few of the species remaining in his possession--Now, lie down, Hannibal,' said the count. 'Mr. Reynolds, we have taken the liberty, though strangers, of waiting upon you--' 'I beg your pardon, sir,' interrupted Mr. Reynolds; 'but did I understand you rightly, that a few of the same species are still to be had from one nobleman in Ireland? pray, what is his name?' said he, taking out his pencil. The count wrote the name for him, but observed, that 'he had asserted only that a few of these dogs remained in the possession of that nobleman; he could not answer for it that they were TO BE HAD.' 'Oh, I have ways and means,' said old Reynolds; and, rapping his snuff-box, and talking, as it was his custom, loud to himself, 'Lady Dashfort knows all those Irish lords; she shall get one for me--ay! ay!' Count O'Halloran replied, as if the words had been addressed to him-- 'Lady Dashfort is in England.' 'I know it, sir; she is in London,' said Mr. Reynolds, hastily. 'What do you know of her?' 'I know, sir, that she is not likely to return to Ireland, and that I am; and so is my young friend here; and if the thing can be accomplished, we will get it done for you.' Lord Colambre joined in this promise, and added that, 'if the dog could be obtained, he would undertake to have him safely sent over to England.' 'Sir--gentlemen! I'm much obliged; that is, when you have done the thing I shall be much obliged. But, maybe, you are only making me civil speeches!' 'Of that, sir,' said the count, smiling with much temper, 'your own sagacity and knowledge of the world must enable you to judge.' 'For my own part, I can only say,' cried Lord Colambre, 'that I am not in the habit of being reproached with saying one thing and meaning another.' 'Hot! I see,' said old Reynolds, nodding, as he looked at Lord Colambre. 'Cool!' added he, nodding at the count. 'But a time for everything; I was hot once--both answers good, for their ages.' This speech Lord Colombre and the count tacitly agreed to consider as another APART, which they were not to hear, or seem to hear. The count began again on the business of their visit, as he saw that Lord Colambre was boiling with impatience, and feared that he should BOIL OVER, and spoil all. The count commenced with-- 'Mr. Reynolds, your name sounds to me like the name of a friend; for I had once a friend of that name; I had once the pleasure (and a very great pleasure it was to me) to be intimately acquainted abroad, on the Continent, with a very amiable and gallant youth--your son!' 'Take care, sir,' said the old man, starting up from his chair, and instantly sinking down again--'take care! Don't mention him to me--unless you would strike me dead on the spot!' The convulsed motions of his fingers and face worked for some moments; whilst the count and Lord Colambre, much shocked and alarmed, stood in silence. The convulsed motions ceased; and the old man unbuttoned his waistcoat, as if to relieve some sense of expression; uncovered his gray hairs; and, after leaning back to rest himself, with his eyes fixed, and in reverie for a few moments, he sat upright again in his chair, and exclaimed, as he looked round-- 'Son!--Did not somebody say that word? Who is so cruel to say that word before me? Nobody has ever spoken of him to me--but once, since his death! Do you know, sir,' said he, fixing his eyes on Count O'Halloran, and laying his cold hand on him, 'do you know where he was buried, I ask you, sir? do you remember how he died?' 'Too well! too well!' cried the count, so much affected as to be scarcely able to pronounce the words; 'he died in my arms; I buried him myself!' 'Impossible!' cried Mr. Reynolds. 'Why do you say so, sir?' said he, studying the count's face with a sort of bewildered earnestness. 'Impossible! His body was sent over to me in a lead coffin; and I saw it and I was asked--and I answered, "in the family vault." But the shock is over,' said he; 'and, gentlemen, if the business of your visit relates to that subject, I trust I am now sufficiently composed to attend to you. Indeed, I ought to be prepared; for I had reason, for years, to expect the stroke; and yet, when it came, it seemed sudden!--it stunned me--put an end to all my worldly prospects--left me childless, without a single descendant or relation near enough to be dear to me! I am an insulated being!' 'No, sir, you are not an insulated being,' said Lord Colambre 'you have a near relation, who will, who must be dear to you; who will make you amends for all you have lost, all you have suffered--who will bring peace and joy to your heart. You have a grand-daughter.' 'No, sir; I have no grand-daughter,' said old Reynolds, his face and whole form becoming rigid with the expression of obstinacy. 'Rather have no descendant than be forced to acknowledge an illegitimate child.' 'My lord, I entreat as a friend--I command you to be patient,' said the count, who saw Lord Colambre's indignation suddenly rise. 'So, then, this is the purpose of your visit,' continued old Reynolds; 'and you come from my enemies, from the St. Omars, and you are in a league with them,' continued old Reynolds; 'and all this time it is of my eldest son you have been talking.' 'Yes, sir,' replied the count; 'of Captain Reynolds, who fell in battle, in the Austrian service, about nineteen years ago--a more gallant and amiable youth never lived.' Pleasure revived through the dull look of obstinacy in the father's eyes. 'He was, as you say, sir, a gallant, an amiable youth, once and he was my pride, and I loved him, too, once but did not you know I had another?' 'No, sir, we did not--we are, you may perceive, totally ignorant of your family and of your affairs we have no connexion whatever or knowledge of any of the St. Omars.' 'I detest the sound of the name,' cried Lord Colambre. 'Oh, good! good!--Well! well! I beg your pardon, gentlemen, a thousand times--I am a hasty, very hasty old man; but I have been harassed, persecuted, hunted by wretches, who got a scent of my gold; often in my rage I longed to throw my treasure-bags to my pursuers, and bid them leave me to die in peace. You have feelings, I see, both of you, gentlemen; excuse me, and bear with my temper.' 'Bear with you! Much enforced, the best tempers will emit a hasty spark,' said the count, looking at Lord Colambre, who was now cool again; and who, with a countenance full of compassion, sat with his eyes fixed upon the poor--no, not the poor, but the unhappy old man. 'Yes, I had another son,' continued Mr. Reynolds, 'and on him all my affections concentrated when I lost my eldest, and for him I desired to preserve the estate which his mother brought into my family. Since you know nothing of my affairs, let me explain to you; that estate was so settled, that it would have gone to the child, even the daughter of my eldest son, if there had been a legitimate child. But I knew there was no marriage, and I held out firm to my opinion. "If there was a marriage," said I, "show me the marriage certificate, and I will acknowledge the marriage, and acknowledge the child;" but they could not, and I knew they could not; and I kept the estate for my darling boy,' cried the old gentleman, with the exultation of successful positiveness again appearing strong in his physiognomy; but suddenly changing and relaxing, his countenance fell, and he added, 'But now I have no darling boy. What use all!--all must go to the heir-at-law, or I must will it to a stranger--a lady of quality, who has just found out she is my relation--God knows how--I'm no genealogist--and sends me Irish cheese and Iceland moss, for my breakfast, and her waiting-gentlewoman to namby-pamby me. Oh, I'm sick of it all--see through it--wish I was blind--wish I had a hiding-place, where flatterers could not find me--pursued, chased--must change my lodgings again to-morrow--will, will--I beg your pardon, gentlemen, again; you were going to tell me, sir, something more of my eldest son; and how I was led away from the subject, I don't know; but I meant only to have assured you that his memory was dear to me, till I was so tormented about that unfortunate affair of his pretended marriage, that at length I hated to hear him named; but the heir-at-law, at last, will triumph over me.' 'No, my good sir, not if you triumph over yourself, and do justice,' cried Lord Colambre; 'if you listen to the truth, which my friend will tell you, and if you will read and believe the confirmation of it, under your son's own hand, in this packet.' 'His own hand indeed! His seal unbroken. But how--when where--why was it kept so long, and how came it into your hands?' Count O'Halloran told Mr. Reynolds that the packet had been given to him by Captain Reynolds on his deathbed; related the dying acknowledgment which Captain Reynolds had made of his marriage; and gave an account of the delivery of the packet to the ambassador, who had promised to transmit it faithfully. Lord Colambre told the manner in which it had been mislaid, and at last recovered from among the deceased ambassador's papers. The father still gazed at the direction, and re-examined the seals. 'My son's handwriting--my son's seals! But where is the certificate of the marriage?' repeated he; 'if it is withinside of this packet, I have done great IN- but I am convinced it never was a marriage. 'Yet I wish now it could be proved--only, in that case, I have for years done great--' 'Won't you open the packet, sir?' said Lord Colambre. Mr. Reynolds looked up at him with a look that said, 'I don't clearly know what interest you have in all this.' But, unable to speak, and his hands trembling so that he could scarcely break the seals, he tore off the cover, laid the papers before him, sat down, and took breath. Lord Colambre, however impatient, had now too much humanity to hurry the old gentleman; he only ran for the spectacles, which he espied on the chimney-piece, rubbed them bright, and held them ready. Mr. Reynolds stretched his hand out for them, put them on, and the first paper he opened was the certificate of the marriage; he read it aloud, and, putting it down, said-- 'Now I acknowledge the marriage. I always said, if there is a marriage there must be a certificate. And you see now there is a certificate I acknowledge the marriage.' 'And now,' cried Lord Colambre, 'I am happy, positively happy. Acknowledge your grand-daughter, sir--acknowledge Miss Nugent.' 'Acknowledge who, sir?' 'Acknowledge Miss Reynolds--your grand-daughter; I ask no more--do what you will with your fortune.' 'Oh, now I understand--I begin to understand this young gentleman is in love--but where is my grand-daughter?--how shall I know she is my grand-daughter? I have not heard of her since she was an infant--I forgot her existence--I have done her great injustice.' 'She knows nothing of it, sir,' said Lord Colambre, who now entered into a full explanation of Miss Nugent's history, and of her connexion with his family, and of his own attachment to her; concluding the whole by assuring Mr. Reynolds that his grand-daughter had every virtue under heaven. 'And as to your fortune, sir, I know that she will, as I do, say--' 'No matter what she will say,' interrupted old Reynolds; 'where is she? When I see her, I shall hear what she says. Tell me where she is, let me see her. I long to see whether there is any likeness to her poor father. Where is she? Let me see her immediately.' 'She is one hundred and sixty miles off, sir, at Buxton.' 'Well, my lord, and what is a hundred and sixty miles? I suppose you think I can't stir from my chair, but you are mistaken. I think nothing of a journey of a hundred and sixty miles--I'm ready to set off to-morrow--this instant.' Lord Colambre said, that he was sure Miss Reynolds would obey her grandfather's slightest summons, as it was her duty to do, and would be with him as soon as possible, if this would be more agreeable to him. 'I will write to her instantly,' said his lordship, 'if you will commission me.' 'No, my lord, I do not commission--I will go--I think nothing, I say, of a journey of a hundred and sixty miles--I'll go--and set out to-morrow morning.' Lord Colambre and the count, perfectly satisfied with the result of their visit, now thought it best to leave old Reynolds at liberty to rest himself, after so many strong and varied feelings. They paid their parting compliments, settled the time for the next day's journey, and were just going to quit the room when Lord Colambre heard in the passage a well-known voice the voice of Mrs. Petito. 'Oh no, my compliments, and my Lady Dashfort's best compliments, and I will call again.' 'No, no,' cried old Reynolds, pulling his bell; 'I'll have no calling again--I'll be hanged if I do! Let her in now, and I'll see her--Jack! let in that woman now or never.' 'The lady's gone, sir, out of the street door.' 'After her, then--now or never, tell her.' 'Sir, she was in a hackney coach.' Old Reynolds jumped up, and went to the window himself, and, seeing the hackney coachman just turning beckoned at the window, and Mrs. Petito was set down again, and ushered in by Jack, who announced her as-- 'The lady, sir.' The only lady he had seen in that house. 'My dear Mr. Reynolds, I'm so obliged to you for letting me in,' cried Mrs. Petito, adjusting her shawl in the passage, and speaking in a voice and manner well mimicked after her betters. 'You are so very good and kind, and I am so much obliged to you.' 'You are not obliged to me, and I am neither good nor kind,' said old Reynolds. 'You strange man,' said Mrs. Petito, advancing graceful in shawl drapery; but she stopped short. 'My Lord Colambre and Count O'Halloran, as I hope to be saved!' 'I did not know Mrs. Petito was an acquaintance of yours, gentlemen,' said Mr. Reynolds, smiling shrewdly. Count O'Halloran was too polite to deny his acquaintance with a lady who challenged it by thus naming him; but he had not the slightest recollection of her, though it seems he had met her on the stairs when he visited Lady Dashfort at Killpatrickstown. Lord Colambre was 'indeed UNDENIABLY AN OLD AQUAINTANCE:' and as soon as she had recovered from her first natural start and vulgar exclamation, she with very easy familiarity hoped 'My Lady Clonbrony, and my lord, and Miss Nugent, and all her friends in the family, were well;' and said, 'she did not know whether she was to congratulate his lordship or not upon Miss Broadhurst, my Lady Berryl's marriage, but she should soon have to hope for his lordship's congratulations for another marriage in HER present family--lady Isabel to Colonel Heathcock, who has come in for a large portion, and they are buying the wedding clothes--sights of clothes--and the di'monds, this day; and Lady Dashfort and my Lady Isabel sent me especially, sir, to you, Mr. Reynolds, and to tell you, sir, before anybody else; and to hope the cheese COME safe up again at last; and to ask whether the Iceland moss agrees with your chocolate, and is palatable; it's the most DILUENT thing upon the universal earth, and the most TONIC and fashionable--the DUTCHES of Torcaster takes it always for breakfast, and Lady St. James' too is quite a convert, and I hear the Duke of V--takes it too.' 'And the devil may take it too, for anything that I care,' said old Reynolds. 'Oh, my dear, dear sir! you are so refractory a patient.' 'I am no patient at all, ma'am, and have no patience either; I am as well as you are, or my Lady Dashfort either, and hope, God willing, long to continue so.' Mrs. Petito smiled aside at Lord Colambre, to mark her perception of the man's strangeness. Then, in a cajoling voice, addressing herself to the old gentleman-- 'Long, long, I hope, to continue so, if Heaven grants my daily and nightly prayers, and my Lady Dashfort's also. So, Mr. Reynolds, if the ladies' prayers are of any avail, you ought to be purely, and I suppose ladies' prayers have the precedency in efficacy. But it was not of prayers and deathbed affairs I came commissioned to treat--not of burials, which Heaven above forbid, but of weddings my diplomacy was to speak; and to premise my Lady Dashfort would have come herself in her carriage, but is hurried out of her senses, and my Lady Isabel could not in proper modesty; so they sent me as their DOUBLE to hope you, my dear Mr. Reynolds, who is one of the family relations, will honour the wedding with your presence.' 'It would be no honour, and they know that as well as I do,' said the intractable Mr. Reynolds. 'It will be no advantage, either; but that they do not know as well as I do. Mrs. Petito, to save you and your lady all trouble about me in future, please to let my Lady Dashfort know that I have just received and read the certificate of my son Captain Reynolds's marriage with Miss St. Omar. I have acknowledged the marriage. Better late than never; and to-morrow morning, God willing, shall set out with this young nobleman for Buxton, where I hope to see, and intend publicly to acknowledge, my grand-daughter--provided she will acknowledge me.' 'CRIMINI!' exclaimed Mrs. Petito, 'what new turns are here! Well, sir, I shall tell my lady of the METAMORPHOSES that have taken place, though by what magic (as I have not the honour to deal in the black art) I can't guess. But, since it seems annoying and inopportune, I shall take my FINALE, and shall thus have a verbal P.P.C.--as you are leaving town, it seems, for Buxton so early in the morning. My Lord Colambre, if I see rightly into a millstone, as I hope and believe I do on the present occasion, I have to congratulate your lordship (haven't I?) upon something like a succession, or a windfall, in this DENEWMENT. And I beg you'll make my humble respects acceptable to the ci-devant Miss Grace Nugent that was; and I won't DERROGATE her by any other name in the interregnum, as I am persuaded it will only be a temporary name, scarce worth assuming, except for the honour of the public adoption; and that will, I'm confident, be soon exchanged for a viscount's title, or I have no sagacity nor sympathy. I hope I don't (pray don't let me) put you to the blush, my lord.' Lord Colambre would not have let her, if he could have helped it. 'Count O'Halloran, your most obedient! I had the honour of meeting you at Killpatrickstown,' said Mrs. Petito, backing to the door, and twitching her shawl. She stumbled, nearly fell down, over the large dog--caught by the door, and recovered herself. Hannibal rose and shook his ears. 'Poor fellow! you are of my acquaintance too.' She would have stroked his head; but Hannibal walked off indignant, and so did she. Thus ended certain hopes; for Mrs. Petito had conceived that her DIPLOMACY might be turned to account; that in her character of an ambassadress, as Lady Dashfort's double, by the aid of Iceland moss in chocolate, flattery properly administered; that, by bearing with all her DEAR Mr. Reynolds's ODDNESSES and ROUGHNESES, she might in time--that is to say, before he made a new will become his dear Mrs. Petito; or (for stranger things have happened and do happen every day) his dear Mrs. Reynolds! Mrs. Petito, however, was good at a retreat; and she flattered herself that at least nothing of this underplot had appeared; and at all events she secured by her services in this embassy, the long-looked-for object of her ambition, Lady Dashfort's scarlet velvet gown--'not yet a thread the worse for the wear!' One cordial look at this comforted her for the loss of her expected OCTOGENAIRE; and she proceeded to discomfit her lady, by repeating the message with which strange old Mr. Reynolds had charged her. So ended all Lady Dashfort's hopes of his fortune. Since the death of his youngest son, she had been indefatigable in her attentions, and sanguine in her hopes; the disappointment affected both her interest and her pride, as an INTRIGANTE. It was necessary, however, to keep her feelings to herself; for if Heathcock should hear anything of the matter before the articles were signed, he might 'be off!'--so she put him and Lady Isabel into her coach directly--drove to Gray's, to make sure at all events of the jewels. In the meantime Count O'Halloran and Lord Colambre, delighted with the result of their visit, took leave of Mr. Reynolds, after having arranged the journey, and appointed the hour for setting off the next day. Lord Colambre proposed to call upon Mr. Reynolds in the evening, and introduce his father, Lord Clonbrony; but Mr. Reynolds said-- 'No, no! I'm not ceremonious. I have given you proofs enough of that, I think, in the short time we've been already acquainted. Time enough to introduce your father to me when we are in a carriage, going our journey; then we can talk, and get acquainted; but merely to come this evening in a hurry, and say, "Lord Clonbrony, Mr. Reynolds;--Mr. Reynolds, Lord Clonbrony," and then bob our two heads at one another, and scrape one foot back, and away!--where's the use of that nonsense at my time of life, or at any time of life? No, no! we have enough to do without that, I daresay.--Good morning to you, Count O'Halloran! I thank you heartily. From the first moment I saw you, I liked you; lucky too that you brought your dog with you! 'Twas Hannibal made me first let you in; I saw him over the top of the blind.--Hannibal, my good fellow! I'm more obliged to you than you can guess.' 'So are we all,' said Lord Colambre. Hannibal was well patted, and then they parted. In returning home they met Sir James Brooke. 'I told you,' said Sir James, 'I should be in London almost as soon as you. Have you found old Reynolds!' 'Just come from him.' 'How does your business prosper! I hope as well as mine.' A history of all that had passed up to the present moment was given, and hearty congratulations received. 'Where are you going now, Sir James?--cannot you come with us?' said Lord Colambre and the count. 'Impossible,' replied Sir James;--'but, perhaps, you can come with me--I'm going to Gray's, to give some old family diamonds, either to be new set or exchanged. Count O'Halloran, I know you are a judge of these things; pray, come and give me your opinion.' 'Better consult your bride elect!' said the count. 'No; she knows little of the matter--and cares less,' replied Sir James. 'Not so this bride elect, or I mistake her much,' said the count, as they passed by the window and saw Lady Isabel, who, with Lady Dashfort, had been holding consultation deep with the jeweller; and Heathcock, playing PERSONNAGE MUET. Lady Dashfort, who had always, as old Reynolds expressed it, 'her head upon her shoulders'--presence of mind where her interests were concerned--ran to the door before the count and Lord Colambre could enter, giving a hand to each--as if they had all parted the best friends in the world. 'How do? how do?--Give you joy! give me joy! and all that. But mind! not a word,' said she, laying her finger upon her lips--'not a word before Heathcock of old Reynolds, or of the best part of the old fool,--his fortune!' The gentlemen bowed, in sign of submission to her ladyship's commands; and comprehended that she feared Heathcock might be OFF, if the best part of his bride (her fortune, or her EXPECTATIONS) were lowered in value or in prospect. 'How low is she reduced,' whispered Lord Colambre, 'when such a husband is thought a prize--and to be secured by a manoeuvre!' He sighed. 'Spare that generous sigh!' said Sir James Brooke; 'it is wasted.' Lady Isabel, as they approached, turned from a mirror, at which she was trying on a diamond crescent. Her face clouded at sight of Count O'Halloran and Lord Colambre, and grew dark as hatred when she saw Sir James Brooke. She walked away to the farther end of the shop, and asked one of the shopmen the price of a diamond necklace which lay upon the counter. The man said, 'He really did not know; it belonged to Lady Oranmore; it had just been new set for one of her ladyship's daughters, who is going to be married to Sir James Brooke--one of the gentlemen, my lady, who are just come in.' Then, calling to his master, he asked him the price of the necklace; he named the value, which was considerable. 'I really thought Lady Oranmore and her daughters were vastly too philosophical to think of diamonds,' said Lady Isabel to her mother, with a sort of sentimental sneer in her voice and countenance. 'But it is some comfort to me to find, in these pattern-women, philosophy and love do not so wholly engross the heart, that they "feel every vanity in fondness lost."' ''Twould be difficult, in some cases,' thought many present. ''Pon honour, di'monds are cursed expensive things, I know!' said Heathcock. 'But, be that as it may,' whispered he to the lady, though loud enough to be heard by others, 'I've laid a damned round wager, that no woman's diamonds married this winter, under a countess, in Lon'on, shall eclipse Lady Isabel Heathcock's!--and Mr. Gray here's to be judge.' Lady Isabel paid for this promise one of her sweetest smiles; with one of those smiles which she had formerly bestowed upon Lord Colambre, and which he had once fancied expressed so much sensibility--such discriminative and delicate application. Our hero felt so much contempt, that he never wasted another sigh of pity for her degradation. Lady Dashfort came up to him as he was standing alone; and, whilst the count and Sir James were settling about the diamonds-- 'My Lord Colambre,' said she, in a low voice, 'I know your thoughts, and I could moralise as well as you, if I did not prefer laughing--you are right enough; and so am I, and so is Isabel; we are all right. For look here: women have not always the liberty of choice, and therefore they can't be expected to have always the power of refusal.' The mother, satisfied with her convenient optimism, got into her carriage with her daughter, her daughter's diamonds, and her precious son-in-law, her daughter's companion for life. 'The more I see,' said Count O'Halloran to Lord Colambre, as they left the shop, 'the more I find reason to congratulate you upon your escape, my dear lord.' 'I owe it not to my own wit or wisdom,' said Lord Colambre; 'but much to love, and much to friendship,' added he, turning to Sir James Brooke; 'here was the friend who early warned me against the siren's voice; who, before I knew Lady Isabel, told me what I have since found to be true, that, 'Two passions alternately govern her fate--<br /> Her business is love, but her pleasure is hate.'<br /> 'That is dreadfully severe, Sir James,' said Count O'Halloran; 'but I am afraid it is just.' 'I am sure it is just, or I would not have said it,' replied Sir James Brooke. 'For the foibles of the sex, I hope, I have as much indulgence as any man, and for the errors of passion as much pity; but I cannot repress the indignation, the abhorrence I feel against women, cold and vain, who use their wit and their charms only to make others miserable.' Lord Colambre recollected at this moment Lady Isabel's look and voice, when she declared that 'she would let her little finger be cut off to purchase the pleasure of inflicting on Lady de Cresey, for one hour, the torture of jealousy.' 'Perhaps,' continued Sir James Brooke, 'now that I am going to marry into an Irish family, I may feel, with peculiar energy, disapprobation of this mother and daughter on another account; but you, Lord Colambre, will do me the justice to recollect that, before I had any personal interest in the country, I expressed, as a general friend to Ireland, antipathy to those who return the hospitality they received from a warm-hearted people, by publicly setting the example of elegant sentimental hypocrisy, or daring disregard of decorum, by privately endeavouring to destroy the domestic peace of families, on which, at last, public as well as private virtue and happiness depend. I do rejoice, my dear Lord Colambre, to hear you say that I had any share in saving you from the siren; and now, I will never speak of these ladies more. I am sorry you cannot stay in town to see--but why should I be sorry--we shall meet again, I trust, and I shall introduce you; and you, I hope, will introduce me to a very different charmer. Farewell!--you have my warm good wishes wherever you go.' Sir James turned off quickly to the street in which Lady Oranmore lived, and Lord Colambre had not time to tell him that he knew and admired his intended bride. Count O'Halloran promised to do this for him. 'And now,' said the good count, 'I am to take leave of you; and I assure you I do it with so much reluctance that nothing less than positive engagements to stay in town would prevent me from setting off with you to-morrow; but I shall be soon, very soon, at liberty to return to Ireland; and Clonbrony Castle, if you will give me leave, I will see before I see Halloran Castle.' Lord Colambre joyfully thanked his friend for this promise. 'Nay, it is to indulge myself. I long to see you happy--long to behold the choice of such a heart as yours. Pray do not steal a march upon me--let me know in time. I will leave everything--even the siege of--for your wedding. But I trust I shall be in time.' 'Assuredly you will, my dear count; if ever that wedding--' 'IF,' repeated the count. 'IF,' repeated Lord Colambre. 'Obstacles which, when we last parted, appeared to me invincible, prevented my having ever even attempted to make an impression on the heart of the woman I love; and if you knew her, count, as well as I do, you would know that her love could "not unsought be won."' 'Of that I cannot doubt, or she would not be your choice; but when her love is sought, we have every reason to hope,' said the count, smiling, 'that it may, because it ought to be won by tried honour and affection. I only require to be left in hope.' 'Well, I leave you hope,' said Lord Colambre; 'Miss Nugent--Miss Reynolds, I should say, has been in the habit of considering a union with me as impossible; my mother early instilled this idea into her mind. Miss Nugent thought that duty forbad her to think of me; she told me so: I have seen it in all her conduct and manners. The barriers of habit, the ideas of duty, cannot, ought not, to be thrown down or suddenly changed in a well-regulated female mind. And you, I am sure, know enough of the best female hearts, to be aware that time--' 'Well, well, let this dear good charmer take her own time, provided there's none given to affectation, or prudery, or coquetry; and from all these, of course, she must be free; and of course I must be content. ADIEU AU REVOIR.' CHAPTER XVII As Lord Colambre was returning home, he was overtaken by Sir Terence O'Fay. 'Well, my lord,' cried Sir Terence, out of breath, 'you have led me a pretty dance all over the town; here's a letter somewhere down in my safe pocket for you, which has cost me trouble enough. Phoo! where is it now?--it's from Miss Nugent,' said he, holding up the letter. The direction to Grosvenor Square, London, had been scratched out; and it had been re-directed by Sir Terence to the Lord Viscount Colambre, at Sir James Brooke's, Bart., Brookwood, Huntingdonshire, or elsewhere, with speed. 'But the more haste the worse speed; for away it went to Brookwood, Huntingdonshire, where I knew, if anywhere, you was to be found; but, as fate and the post would have it, there the letter went coursing after you, while you were running round, and back and forwards, and everywhere, I understand, to Toddrington and Wrestham, and where not, through all them English places, where there's no cross-post; so I took it for granted that it found its way to the dead-letter office, or was sticking up across a pane in the d--d postmaster's window at Huntingdon, for the whole town to see, and it a love-letter, and some puppy to claim it, under false pretence; and you all the time without it, and it might breed a coolness betwixt you and Miss Nugent.' 'But, my dear Sir Terence, give me the letter now you have me.' 'Oh, my dear lord, if you knew what a race I have had, missing you here by five minutes, and there by five seconds--but I have you at last, and you have it--and I'm paid this minute for all I liquidated of my substance, by the pleasure I have in seeing you crack the seal and read it. But take care you don't tumble over the orange woman--orange barrows are a great nuisance, when one's studying a letter in the streets of London, or the metropolis. But never heed; stick to my arm, and I'll guide you, like a blind man, safe through the thick of them.' Miss Nugent's letter, which Lord Colambre read in spite of the jostling of passengers, and the incessant talking of Sir Terence, was as follows:-- Let me not be the cause of banishing you from your home and your country, where you would do so much good, and make so many happy. Let me not be the cause of your breaking your promise to your mother; of your disappointing my dear aunt, so cruelly, who has complied with all our wishes, and who sacrifices, to oblige us, her favourite tastes. How could she ever be happy in Ireland--how could Clonbrony Castle be a home to her, without her son? if you take away all she had of amusement and PLEASURE, as it is called, are not you bound to give her, in their stead, that domestic happiness, which she can enjoy only with you, and by your means? If, instead of living with her, you go into the army, she will be in daily, nightly anxiety and alarm about you; and her son will, instead of being a comfort, be a source of torment to her. I will hope that you will do now, as you have always hitherto done, on every occasion where I have seen you act, what is right, and just, and kind. Come here on the day you promised my aunt you would; before that time I shall be in Cambridgeshire, with my friend Lady Berryl; she is so good as to come to Buxton for me--I shall remain with her, instead of returning to Ireland. I have explained my reasons to my dear aunt--Could I have any concealment from her, to whom, from my earliest childhood, I owe everything that kindness and affection could give? She is satisfied--she consents to my living henceforward with Lady Berryl. Let me have the pleasure of seeing, by your conduct, that you approve of mine.--Your affectionate cousin and friend, GRACE NUGENT. This letter, as may be imagined by those who, like him, are capable of feeling honourable and generous conduct, gave our hero exquisite pleasure. Poor, good-natured Sir Terence O'Fay enjoyed his lordship's delight; and forgot himself so completely, that he never even inquired whether Lord Colambre had thought of an affair on which he had spoken to him some time before, and which materially concerned Sir Terence's interest. The next morning, when the carriage was at the door, and Sir Terence was just taking leave of his friend Lord Clonbrony, and actually in tears, wishing them all manner of happiness, though he said there was none left now in London, or the wide world, even, for him--Lord Colambre went up to him, and said, 'Sir Terence, you have never inquired whether I have done your business?' 'Oh, my dear, I'm not thinking of that now--time enough by the post--I can write after you; but my thoughts won't turn for me to business now no matter.' 'Your business is done,' replied Lord Colambre. 'Then I wonder how you could think of it, with all you had upon your mind and heart. When anything's upon my heart, good morning to my head, it's not worth a lemon. Good-bye to you, and thank you kindly, and all happiness attend you.' 'Good-bye to you, Sir Terence O'Fay,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'and, since it's so ordered, I must live without you.' 'Oh! you'll live better without me! my lord; I am not a good liver, I know, nor the best of all companions for a nobleman, young or old; and now you'll be rich, and not put to your shifts and your wits, what would I have to do for you?--Sir Terence O'Fay, you know, was only THE POOR NOBLEMAN'S FRIEND, and you'll never want to call upon him again, thanks to your jewel, your Pitt's-di'mond of a son there. So we part here, and depend upon it you're better without me--that's all my comfort, or my heart would break. The carriage is waiting this long time, and this young lover's itching to be off. God bless you both!--that's my last word.' They called in Red Lion Square, punctual to the moment, on old Mr. Reynolds, but his window-shutters were shut; he had been seized in the night with a violent fit of the gout, which, as he said, held him fast by the leg. 'But here,' said he, giving Lord Colambre a letter, 'here's what will do your business without me. Take this written acknowledgment I have penned for you, and give my grand-daughter her father's letter to read--it would touch a heart of stone--touched mine--wish I could drag the mother back out of her grave, to do her justice--all one now. You see at last I'm not a suspicious rascal, however, for I don't suspect you of palming a false grand-daughter upon me.' 'Will you,' said Lord Colambre, 'give your grand-daughter leave to come up to town to you, sir? You would satisfy yourself, at least, as to what resemblance she may bear to her father; Miss Reynolds will come instantly, and she will nurse you.' 'No, no; I won't have her come. If she comes, I won't see her--shan't begin by nursing me--not selfish. As soon as I get rid of this gout, I shall be my own man, and young again, and I'll soon be after you across the sea, that shan't stop me; I'll come to--what's the name of your place in Ireland? and see what likeness I can find to her poor father in this grand-daughter of mine, that you puffed so finely yesterday. And let me see whether she will wheedle me as finely as Mrs. Petito would. Don't get ready your marriage settlements, do you hear, till you have seen my will, which I shall sign at--what's the name of your place? Write it down there; there's pen and ink; and leave me, for the twinge is coming, and I shall roar.' 'Will you permit me, sir, to leave my own servant with you to take care of you? I can answer for his attention and fidelity.' 'Let me see his face, and I'll tell you.' Lord Colambre's servant was summoned. 'Yes, I like his face. God bless you!--Leave me.' Lord Colambre gave his servant a charge to bear with Mr. Reynolds's rough manner and temper, and to pay the poor old gentleman every possible attention. Then our hero proceeded with his father on his journey, and on this journey nothing happened worthy of note. On his first perusal of the letter from Grace, Lord Colambre had feared that she would have left Buxton with Lady Berryl before he could reach it; but, upon recollection, he hoped that the few lines he had written, addressed to his mother AND Miss Nugent, with the assurance that he should be with them on Wednesday, would be sufficient to show her that some great change had happened, and consequently sufficient to prevent her from quitting her aunt, till she could know whether such a separation would be necessary. He argued wisely, more wisely than Grace had reasoned; for, notwithstanding this note, she would have left Buxton before his arrival, but for Lady Berryl's strength of mind, and positive determination not to set out with her till Lord Colambre should arrive to explain. In the interval, poor Grace was, indeed, in an anxious state of suspense; and her uncertainty, whether she was doing right or wrong, by staying to see Lord Colambre, tormented her most. 'My dear, you cannot help yourself; be quiet,' said Lady Berryl; 'I will take the whole upon my conscience; and I hope my conscience may never have anything worse to answer for.' Grace was the first person who, from her window, saw Lord Colambre, the instant the carriage drove to the door. She ran to her friend Lady Berryl's apartment--'He is come!--Now, take me away!' 'Not yet, my sweet friend! Lie down upon this sofa, if you please; and keep yourself tranquil, whilst I go and see what you ought to do; and depend upon me for a true friend, in whose mind, as in your own, duty is the first object.' 'I depend on you entirely,' said Grace, sinking down on the sofa; 'and you see I obey you!' 'Many thanks to you for lying down, when you can't stand.' Lady Berryl went to Lady Clonbrony's apartment; she was met by Sir Arthur. 'Come, my love! come quick!--Lord Colambre is arrived.' 'I know it; and does he go to Ireland? Speak instantly, that I may tell Grace Nugent.' 'You can tell her nothing yet, my love; for we know nothing. Lord Colambre will not say a word till you come; but I know, by his countenance, that he has good and extraordinary news.' They passed rapidly along the passage to Lady Clonbrony's room. 'Oh, my dear, dear Lady Berryl, come! or I shall die with impatience,' cried Lady Clonbrony, in a voice and manner between laughing and crying. 'There, now you have congratulated, are very happy, and very glad, and all that--now, for mercy's sake, sit down, Lord Clonbrony! for Heaven's sake, sit down--beside me here--or anywhere! Now, Colambre, begin; and tell us all at once!' But as nothing is so tedious as a twice-told tale, Lord Colambre's narrative need not here be repeated. He began with Count O'Halloran's visit, immediately after Lady Clonbrony had left London; and went through the history of the discovery that Captain Reynolds was the husband of Miss St. Omar, and the father of Grace; the dying acknowledgment of his marriage; the packet delivered by Count O'Halloran to the careless ambassador--how recovered, by the assistance of his executor, Sir James Brooke; the travels from Wrestham to Toddrington, and thence to Red Lion Square; the interview with old Reynolds, and its final result; all was related as succinctly as the impatient curiosity of Lord Colambre's auditors could desire. 'Oh, wonder upon wonder! and joy upon joy!' cried Lady Clonbrony. 'So my darling Grace is as legitimate as I am, and an heiress after all. Where is she? where is she? In your room, Lady Berryl?--Oh, Colambre! why wouldn't you let her be by?--Lady Berryl, do you know, he would not let me send for her, though she was the person of all others most concerned!' 'For that very reason, ma'am; and that Lord Colambre was quite right, I am sure you must be sensible, when you recollect, that Grace has no idea that she is not the daughter of Mr. Nugent; she has no suspicion that the breath of blame ever lighted upon her mother. This part of the story cannot be announced to her with too much caution; and, indeed, her mind has been so much harassed and agitated, and she is at present so far from strong, that great delicacy--' 'True! very true, Lady Berryl,' interrupted Lady Clonbrony; 'and I'll be as delicate as you please about it afterwards; but, in the first and foremost place, I must tell her the best part of the story--that she's an heiress, madam, never killed anybody!' So, darting through all opposition, Lady Clonbrony made her way into the room where Grace was lying--'Yes, get up! get up! my own Grace, and be surprised--well you may!--you are an heiress, after all.' 'Am I, my dear aunt?' said Grace. 'True, as I'm Lady Clonbrony--and a very great heiress--and no more Colambre's cousin than Lady Berryl here. So now begin and love him as fast as you please--I give my consent--and here he is.' Lady Clonbrony turned to her son, who just appeared at the door. 'Oh, mother! what have you done?' 'What have I done?' cried Lady Clonbrony, following her son's eyes:--'Lord bless me!--Grace fainted dead--lady Berryl? Oh, what have I done? My dear Lady Berryl, what shall we do?' 'There! her colour's coming again,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'come away, my dear Lady Clonbrony, for the present, and so will I--though I long to talk to the darling girl myself; but she is not equal to it yet.' When Grace came to herself, she first saw Lady Berryl leaning over her, and, raising herself a little, she said-- 'What has happened?--I don't know yet--I don't know whether I am happy or not.' Then seeing Lord Colambre, she sat quite upright. 'You received my letter, cousin, I hope?--Do you go to Ireland with my aunt?' 'Yes; and with you, I hope, my beloved friend,' said Colambre; 'you once assured me that I had such a share of your esteem and affection, that the idea of my accompanying you to Ireland was not disagreeable to you; you flattered me that I formed part of your agreeable associations with home.' 'Yes--sit down by me, won't you, my dear Lady Berryl--but then I considered you as my cousin, Lord Colambre, and I thought you felt the same towards me; but now--' 'But now, my charming Grace,' said Lord Colambre, kneeling beside her, and taking her hand, 'no invincible obstacle opposes my passion--no INVINCIBLE obstacle, did I say? let me hope that I may say no obstacle, but what depends on the change in the nature of your sentiments. You heard my mother's consent; you saw her joy.' 'I scarcely knew what I heard or saw,' said Grace, blushing deeply, 'or what I now see and hear; but of this I feel secure, before I comprehend the mystery, before you explain to me the causes of your--change of conduct, that you have never been actuated by caprice, but governed by wise and honourable motives. As to my going to Ireland, or remaining with Lady Berryl, she has heard all the circumstances--she is my friend and yours--a better friend cannot be; to her I appeal--she will decide for me what I OUGHT to do; she promised to take me from hence instantly, if I ought to go.' 'I did; and I would do so without hesitation, if any duty or any prudence required it. But, after having heard all the circumstances, I can only tell you that I willingly resign the pleasure of your company.' 'But tell her, my dear Lady Berryl,' said Lord Colambre, 'excellent friend as you are--explain to her you can, better than any of us, all that is to be known; let her know my whole conduct, and then let her decide for herself, and I shall submit to her decision. It is difficult, my dear Grace, to restrain the expression of love, of passion, such as I feel; but I have some power over myself--you know it--and this I can promise you, that your affections shall be free as air--that: no wishes of friends, no interference, nothing but your own unbiassed choice will I allow, if my life depended upon it, to operate in my favour. Be assured, my dearest Grace,' added he, smiling as he retired, 'you shall have time to know whether you are happy or not.' The moment he had left the room, she threw herself into the arms of her friend, and her heart, oppressed with various feelings, was relieved by tears--a species of relief to which she was not habituated. 'I am happy,' said she; 'but what was the INVINCIBLE OBSTACLE?--what was the meaning of my aunt's words?--and what was the cause of her joy? Explain all this to me, my dear friend; for I am still as if I were in a dream.' With all the delicacy which Lady Clonbrony deemed superfluous Lady Berryl explained. Nothing could surpass the astonishment of Grace, on first learning that Mr. Nugent was not her father. When she was told of the stigma that had been cast on her birth; the suspicions, the disgrace, to which her mother had been subjected for so many years--that mother, whom she had so loved and respected; who had, with such care, instilled into the mind of her daughter the principles of virtue and religion; that mother whom Grace had always seen the example of every virtue she taught; on whom her daughter never suspected that the touch of blame, the breath of scandal, could rest--Grace could express her sensations only by repeating, in tones of astonishment, pathos, indignation--'My mother!--my mother!--my mother!' For some time she was incapable of attending to any other idea, or of feeling any other sensations. When her mind was able to admit the thought, her friend soothed her, by recalling the expressions of Lord Colambre's love--the struggle by which he had been agitated, when he fancied a union with her opposed by an invincible obstacle. Grace sighed, and acknowledged that, in prudence, it ought to have been an INVINCIBLE obstacle--she admired the firmness of his decision, the honour with which he had acted towards her. One moment she exclaimed, 'Then, if I had been the daughter of a mother who had conducted herself ill, he never would have trusted me!' The next moment she recollected, with pleasure, the joy she had just seen in his eyes--the affection, the passion, that spoke in every word and look; then dwelt upon the sober certainty, that all obstacles were removed. 'And no duty opposes my loving him! And my aunt wishes it! my kind aunt! And I may think of him.--You, my best friend, would not assure me of this if you were not certain of the truth.--Oh, how can I thank you for all your kindness, and for that best of all kindness, sympathy. You see, your calmness, your strength of mind supports and tranquillises me. I would rather have heard all I have just learnt from you than from any other person living. I could not have borne it from any one else. No one else knows my mind so perfectly--yet my aunt is very good,--and my dear uncle! should not I go to him?--But he is not my uncle, she is not my aunt. I cannot bring myself to think that they are not my relations, and that I am nothing to them.' 'You may be everything to them, my dear Grace,' said Lady Berryl; 'whenever you please, you may be their daughter.' Grace blushed, and smiled, and sighed, and was consoled. But then she recollected her new relation. Mr. Reynolds, her grandfather, whom she had never seen, who had for years disowned her--treated her mother with injustice. She could scarcely think of him with complaisancy; yet, when his age, his sufferings, his desolate state, were represented, she pitied him; and, faithful to her strong sense of duty, would have gone instantly to offer him every assistance and attention in her power. Lady Berryl assured her that Mr. Reynolds had positively forbidden her going to him; and that he had assured Lord Colambre he would not see her if she went to him. After such rapid and varied emotions, poor Grace desired repose, and her friend took care that it should be secured to her for the remainder of the day. In the meantime, Lord Clonbrony had kindly and judiciously employed his lady in a discussion about certain velvet furniture, which Grace had painted for the drawing-room at Clonbrony Castle. In Lady Clonbrony's mind, as in some bad paintings, there was no KEEPING; all objects, great and small, were upon the same level. The moment her son entered the room, her ladyship exclaimed-- 'Everything pleasant at once! Here's your father tells me, Grace's velvet furniture's all packed; really, Soho's the best man in the world of his kind, and the cleverest--and so, after all, my dear Colambre, as I always hoped and prophesied, at last you will marry an heiress.' 'And Terry,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'will win his wager from Mordicai.' 'Terry!' repeated Lady Clonbrony, 'that odious Terry!--I hope, my lord, that he is not to be one of my comforts in Ireland.' 'No, my dear mother; he is much better provided for than we could have expected. One of my father's first objects was to prevent him from being any encumbrance to you. We consulted him as to the means of making him happy; and the knight acknowledged that he had long been casting a sheep's eye at a little snug place, that will soon be open, in his native country--the chair of assistant barrister at the sessions. "Assistant barrister!" said my father; "but, my dear Terry, you have all your life been evading the laws, and very frequently breaking the peace; do you think this has qualified you peculiarly for being a guardian of the laws?" Sir Terence replied, "Yes, sure; set a thief to catch a thief is no bad maxim. And did not Mr. Colquhoun, the Scotchman, get himself made a great justice, by his making all the world as wise as himself, about thieves of all sorts, by land and by water, and in the air too, where he detected the mud-larks?--And is not Barrington chief-justice of Botany Bay?" 'My father now began to be seriously alarmed, lest Sir Terence should insist upon his using his interest to make him an assistant barrister. He was not aware that five years' practice at the bar was a necessary accomplishment for this office; when, fortunately for all parties, my good friend, Count O'Halloran, helped us out of the difficulty, by starting an idea full of practical justice. A literary friend of the count's had been for some time promised a lucrative situation under Government; but, unfortunately, he was a man of so much merit and ability, that they could not find employment for him at home, and they gave him a commission, I should rather say a contract, abroad, for supplying the army with Hungarian horses. Now the gentleman had not the slightest skill in horseflesh; and, as Sir Terence is a complete jockey, the count observed that he would be the best possible deputy for his literary friend. We warranted him to be a thoroughgoing friend; and I do think the coalition will be well for both parties. The count has settled it all, and I left Sir Terence comfortably provided for, out of your way, my dear mother, and as happy as he could be, when parting from my father.' Lord Colambre was assiduous in engaging his mother's attention upon any subject which could for the present draw her thoughts away from her young friend; but, at every pause in the conversation, her ladyship repeated, 'So Grace is an heiress, after all--so, after all, they know they are not cousins! Well! I prefer Grace, a thousand times over, to any other heiress in England. No obstacle, no objection. They have my consent. I always prophesied Colambre would marry an heiress; but why not marry directly?' Her ardour and impatience to hurry things forward seemed now likely to retard the accomplishment of her own wishes; and Lord Clonbrony, who understood rather more of the passion of love than his lady ever had felt or understood, saw the agony into which she threw her son, and felt for his darling Grace. With a degree of delicacy and address of which few would have supposed Lord Clonbrony capable, his lordship co-operated with his son in endeavours to keep Lady Clonbrony quiet, and to suppress the hourly thanksgivings of Grace's TURNING OUT AN HEIRESS. On one point, however, she vowed she would not be overruled--she would have a splendid wedding at Clonbrony Castle, such as should become an heir and heiress; and the wedding, she hoped, would be immediately on their return to Ireland; she should announce the thing to her friends directly on her arrival at Clonbrony Castle. 'My dear,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'we must wait, in the first place, the pleasure of old Mr. Reynolds's fit of the gout.' 'Why, that's true, because of his will,' said her ladyship; 'but a will's soon made, is not it? That can't be much delay.' 'And then there must be settlements,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'they take time. Lovers, like all the rest of mankind, must submit to the law's delay. In the meantime, my dear, as these Buxton baths agree with you so well, and as Grace does not seem to be over and above strong for travelling a long journey, and as there are many curious and beautiful scenes of nature here in Derbyshire--Matlock, and the wonders of the Peak, and so on--which the young people would be glad to see together, and may not have another opportunity soon--why not rest ourselves a little? For another reason, too,' continued his lordship, bringing together as many arguments as he could--for he had often found, that though Lady Clonbrony was a match for any single argument, her understanding could be easily overpowered by a number, of whatever sort--'besides, my dear, here's Sir Arthur and Lady Berryl come to Buxton on purpose to meet us; and we owe them some compliment, and something more than compliment, I think; so I don't see why we should be in a hurry to leave them, or quit Buxton--a few weeks sooner or later can't signify--and Clonbrony Castle will be getting all the while into better order for us. Burke is gone down there; and if we stay here quietly, there will be time for the velvet furniture to get there before us, and to be unpacked, and up in the drawing-room.' 'That's true, my lord,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'and there is a great deal of reason in all you say--so I second that motion, as Colambre, I see, subscribes to it.' They stayed some time in Derbyshire, and every day Lord Clonbrony proposed some pleasant excursion, and contrived that the young people should be left to themselves, as Mrs. Broadhurst used so strenuously to advise; the recollection of whose authoritative maxims fortunately still operated upon Lady Clonbrony, to the great ease and advantage of the lovers. Happy as a lover, a friend, a son; happy in the consciousness of having restored a father to respectability, and persuaded a mother to quit the feverish joys of fashion for the pleasures of domestic life; happy in the hope of winning the whole heart of the woman he loved, and whose esteem, he knew, he possessed and deserved; happy in developing every day, every hour, fresh charm in his destined bride--we leave our hero, returning to his native country. And we leave him with the reasonable expectation that he will support through life the promise of his early character; that his patriotic views will extend with his power to carry wishes into action; that his attachment to his warm-hearted countrymen will still increase upon further acquaintance; and that he will long diffuse happiness through the wide circle, which is peculiarly subject to the influence and example of a great resident Irish proprietor. LETTER FROM LARRY TO HIS BROTHER, PAT BRADY, AT MR. MORDICAI'S, COACHMAKER, LONDON. MY DEAR BROTHER, Yours of the 26th, inclosing the five pound note for my father, came safe to hand Monday last; and with his thanks and blessing to you, he commends it to you herewith inclosed back again, on account of his being in no immediate necessity, nor likelihood to want in future, as you shall hear forthwith; but wants you over with all speed, and the note will answer for travelling charges; for we can't enjoy the luck it has pleased God to give us without YEES: put the rest in your pocket, and read it when you've time. Old Nick's gone, and St. Dennis along with him, to the place he come from--praise be to God! The ould lord has found him out in his tricks; and I helped him to that, through the young lord that I driv, as I informed you in my last, when he was a Welchman, which was the best turn ever I did, though I did not know it no more than Adam that time. So OULD Nick's turned out of the agency clean and clear; and the day after it was known, there was surprising great joy through the whole country; not surprising either, but just what you might, knowing him, rasonably expect. He (that is, old Nick and St. Dennis) would have been burnt that night--I MANE, in EFFIGY, through the town of Clonbrony, but that the new man, Mr. Burke, come down that day too soon to stop it, and said, 'it was not becoming to trample on the fallen,' or something that way, that put an end to it; and though it was a great disappointment to many, and to me in particular, I could not but like the jantleman the better for it anyhow. They say, he is a very good jantleman, and as unlike old Nick or the saint as can be; and takes no duty fowl, nor glove, nor sealing-money; nor asks duty work nor duty turf. Well, when I was disappointed of the EFFIGY, I comforted myself by making a bonfire of old Nick's big rick of duty turf, which, by great luck, was out in the road, away from all dwelling-house, or thatch, or yards, to take fire; so no danger in life or objection. And such another blaze! I wished you'd seed it--and all the men, women, and children in the town and country, far and near, gathered round it, shouting and dancing like mad!--and it was light as day quite across the bog, as far as Bartley Finnigan's house. And I heard after, they seen it from all parts of the three counties, and they thought it was St. John's Eve in a mistake--or couldn't make out what it was; but all took it in good part, for a good sign, and were in great joy. As for St. Dennis and OULD Nick, an attorney had his foot upon em, with an habere a latitat, and three executions hanging over 'em; and there's the end of rogues! and a great example in the country. And--no more about it; for I can't be wasting more ink upon them that don't desarve it at my hands, when I want it for them that do, you shall see. So some weeks past, and there was great cleaning at Clonbrony Castle, and in the town of Clonbrony; and the new agent's smart and clever; and he had the glaziers, and the painters, and the slaters up and down in the town wherever wanted; and you wouldn't know it again. Thinks I, this is no bad sign! Now, cock up your ears, Pat! for the great news is coming, and the good. The master's come home--long life to him!--and family come home yesterday, all entirely! The OULD lord and the young lord (ay, there's the man, Paddy!), and my lady, and Miss Nugent. And I driv Miss Nugent's maid, that maid that was, and another; so I had the luck to be in it along WID 'em, and see all, from first to last. And first, I must tell you, my young Lord Colambre remembered and noticed me the minute he lit at our inn, and condescended to beckon at me out of the yard to him, and axed me--'Friend Larry,' says he, 'did you keep your promise?'--'My oath again' the whisky, is it?' says I. 'My lord, I surely did,' said I; which was true, as all the country knows I never tasted a drop since. 'And I'm proud to see your honour, my lord, as good as your word too, and back again among us. So then there was a call for the horses; and no more at that time passed betwix' my young lord and me, but that he pointed me out to the OULD one, as I went off. I noticed and thanked him for it in my heart, though I did not know all the good was to come of it. Well, no more of myself, for the present. Ogh, it's I driv 'em well; and we all got to the great gate of the park before sunset, and as fine an evening as ever you see; with the sun shining on the tops of the trees, as the ladies noticed; the leaves changed, but not dropped, though so late in the season. I believe the leaves knew what they were about, and kept on, on purpose to welcome them; and the birds were singing, and I stopped whistling, that they might hear them; but sorrow bit could they hear when they got to the park gate, for there was such a crowd, and such a shout, as you never see--and they had the horses off every carriage entirely, and drew'em home, with, blessings, through the park. And, God bless 'em! when they got out, they didn't go shut themselves up in the great drawing-room, but went straight out to the TIRrass, to satisfy the eyes and hearts that followed them. My lady LANING on my young lord, and Miss Grace Nugent that was, the beautifullest angel that ever you set eyes on, with the finest complexion and sweetest of smiles, LANING upon the ould lord's arm, who had his hat off, bowing to all, and noticing the old tenants as he passed by name. Oh, there was great gladness and tears in the midst; for joy I could scarce keep from myself. After a turn or two upon the TIRrass, my Lord Colambre QUIT his mother's arm for a minute, and he come to the edge of the slope, and looked down and through all the crowd for some one. 'Is it the widow O'Neill, my lord?' says I; 'she's yonder, with the spectacles on her nose, betwixt her son and daughter, as usual.' Then my lord beckoned, and they did not know which of the TREE would stir; and then he gave TREE beckons with his own finger, and they all TREE came fast enough to the bottom of the slope forenent my lord; and he went down and helped the widow up (Oh, he's the true jantleman), and brought 'em all TREE up on the TIRrass, to my lady and Miss Nugent; and I was up close after, that I might hear, which wasn't manners, but I couldn't help it. So what he said I don't well know, for I could not get near enough, after all. But I saw my lady smile very kind, and take the widow O'Neill by the hand, and then my Lord Colambre 'TRODUCED Grace to Miss Nugent, and there was the word NAMESAKE, and something about a check curtains; but, whatever It was, they was all greatly pleased; then my Lord Colambre turned and looked for Brian, who had fell back, and took him with some commendation to my lord his father. And my lord the master said, which I didn't know till after, that they should have their house and farm at the OULD rent; and at the surprise, the widow dropped down dead; and there was a cry as for ten BERRINGS. 'Be qui'te,' says I, 'she's only kilt for joy;' and I went and lift her up, for her son had no more strength that minute than the child new born; and Grace trembled like a leaf, as white as the sheet, but not long, for the mother came to, and was as well as ever when I brought some water, which Miss Nugent handed to her with her own hand. 'That was always pretty and good, said the widow, laying her hand upon Miss Nugent, 'and kind and good to me and mine.' That minute there was music from below. The blind harper, O'Neill, with his harp, that struck up 'Gracey Nugent.' And that finished, and my Lord Colambre smiling, with the tears standing in his eyes too, and the OULD lord quite wiping his, I ran to the TIRrass brink to bid O'Neill play it again; but as I run, I thought I heard a voice call Larry. 'Who calls Larry?' says I. 'My Lord Colambre calls you, Larry,' says all at once; and four takes me by the shoulders and spins me round. 'There's my young lord calling you, Larry--run for your life.' So I run back for my life, and walked respectful, with my hat in my hand, when I got near. 'Put on your hat, my father desires it, says my Lord Colambre. The ould lord made a sign to that purpose, but was too full to speak. 'Where's your father?' continues my young lord.--' He's very ould, my lord,' says I. 'I didn't ask you how ould he was,' says he; 'but where is he?'--'He's behind the crowd below, on account of his infirmities; he couldn't walk so fast as the rest, my lord,' says I; 'but his heart is with you, if not his body. 'I must have his body too, so bring him bodily before us; and this shall be your warrant for so doing,' said my lord, joking; for he knows the NATUR of us, Paddy, and how we love a joke in our hearts, as well as if he had lived all his life in Ireland; and by the same token will, for that rason, do what he pleases with us, and more maybe than a man twice as good, that never would smile on us. But I'm telling you of my father. 'I've a warrant for you, father,' says I; 'and must have you bodily before the justice, and my lord chief-justice.' So he changed colour a bit at first; but he saw me smile. 'And I've done no sin,' said he; 'and, Larry, you may lead me now, as you led me all my life.' And up the slope he went with me as light as fifteen; and, when we got up, my Lord Clonbrony said, 'I am sorry an old tenant, and a good old tenant, as I hear you were, should have been turned out of your farm.' 'Don't fret, it's no great matter, my lord,' said my father. 'I shall be soon out of the way; but if you would be so kind to speak a word for my boy here, and that I could afford, while the life is in me, bring my other boy back out of banishment--' 'Then,' says my Lord Clonbrony, 'I'll give you and your sons three lives, or thirty-one years, from this day, of your former farm. Return to it when you please.' 'And,' added my Lord Colambre, 'the flaggers, I hope, will be soon banished.' Oh, how could I thank him--not a word could I proffer--but I know I clasped my two hands, and prayed for him inwardly. And my father was dropping down on his knees, but the master would not let him; and OBSARVED, that posture should only be for his God. And, sure enough, in that posture, when he was out of sight, we did pray for him that night, and will all our days. But, before we quit his presence, he called me back, and bid me write to my brother, and bring you back, if you've no objections, to your own country. So come, my dear Pat, and make no delay, for joy's not joy complAte till you're in it--my father sends his blessing, and Peggy her love. The family entirely is to settle for good in Ireland, and there was in the castle yard last night a bonfire made by my lord's orders of the ould yellow damask furniture, to plase my lady, my lord says. And the drawing-room, the butler was telling me, is new hung; and the chairs with velvet as white as snow, and shaded over with natural flowers, by Miss Nugent. Oh! how I hope what I guess will come true, and I've rason to believe it will, for I dreamt in my bed last night it did. But keep yourself to yourself--that Miss Nugent (who is no more Miss Nugent, they say, but Miss Reynolds, and has a new-found grandfather, and is a big heiress, which she did not want in my eyes, nor in my young lord's), I've a notion will be sometime, and maybe sooner than is expected, my Lady Viscountess Colambre--so haste to the wedding. And there's another thing: they say the rich ould grandfather's coming over;--and another thing, Pat, you would not be out of the fashion--and you see it's growing the fashion not to be an Absentee.-- Your loving brother, LARRY BRADY. 
18020	----	THE WITS AND BEAUX OF SOCIETY BY GRACE AND PHILIP WHARTON New Edition with a Preface BY JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY, M.P. _And the original illustrations by_ H. K. BROWNE AND JAMES GODWIN TWO VOLS.--VOL. I. New York WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY 1890 [Illustration: WHARTON'S ROGUISH PRESENT.] DEDICATION. DEAR MR. AUGUSTIN DALY, May I write your name on the dedication page of this new edition of an old and pleasant book in token of our common interest in the people and the periods of which it treats, and as a small proof of our friendship? Sincerely yours, JUSTIN HUNTLY M'CARTHY. LONDON, _July, 1890._ CONTENTS. PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION p. xi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION p. xxv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION p. xxix GEORGE VILLIERS, SECOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. Signs of the Restoration.--Samuel Pepys in his Glory.--A Royal Company.--Pepys 'ready to Weep.'--The Playmate of Charles II.--George Villiers's Inheritance.--Two Gallant Young Noblemen.--The Brave Francis Villiers.--After the Battle of Worcester.--Disguising the King.--Villiers in Hiding.--He appears as a Mountebank.--Buckingham's Habits.--A Daring Adventure.--Cromwell's Saintly Daughter.--Villiers and the Rabbi.--The Buckingham Pictures and Estates.--York House.--Villiers returns to England.--Poor Mary Fairfax.--Villiers in the Tower.--Abraham Cowley, the Poet.--The Greatest Ornament of Whitehall.--Buckingham's Wit and Beauty.--Flecknoe's Opinion of Him.--His Duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury.--Villiers as a Poet.--As a Dramatist.--A Fearful Censure!--Villiers's Influence in Parliament.--A Scene in the Lords.--The Duke of Ormond in Danger.--Colonel Blood's Outrages.--Wallingford House and Ham House.--'Madame Ellen.'--The Cabal.--Villiers again in the Tower.--A Change.--The Duke of York's Theatre.--Buckingham and the Princess of Orange.--His last Hours.--His Religion.--Death of Villiers.--The Duchess of Buckingham. p. 1 COUNT DE GRAMMONT, ST. EVREMOND, AND LORD ROCHESTER. De Grammont's Choice.--His Influence with Turenne.--The Church or the Army?--An Adventure at Lyons.--A brilliant Idea.--De Grammont's Generosity.--A Horse 'for the Cards.'--Knight-Cicisbeism.--De Grammont's first Love.--His Witty Attacks on Mazarin.--Anne Lucie de la Mothe Houdancourt.--Beset with Snares.--De Grammont's Visits to England.--Charles II.--The Court of Charles II.--Introduction of Country-dances.--Norman Peculiarities.--St. Evremond, the Handsome Norman.--The most Beautiful Woman in Europe.--Hortense Mancini's Adventures.--Madame Mazarin's House at Chelsea.--Anecdote of Lord Dorset.--Lord Rochester in his Zenith.--His Courage and Wit--Rochester's Pranks in the City.--Credulity, Past and Present--'Dr. Bendo,' and La Belle Jennings.--La Triste Heritière.--Elizabeth, Countess of Rochester.--Retribution and Reformation.--Conversion.--Beaux without Wit.--Little Jermyn.--An Incomparable Beauty.--Anthony Hamilton, De Grammont's Biographer.--The Three Courts.--'La Belle Hamilton.'--Sir Peter Lely's Portrait of her.--The Household Deity of Whitehall.--Who shall have the Calèche?--A Chaplain in Livery.--De Grammont's Last Hours.--What might he not have been? p. 41 BEAU FIELDING. On Wits and Beaux.--Scotland Yard in Charles II.'s day.--Orlando of 'The Tatler.'--Beau Fielding, Justice of the Peace.--Adonis in Search of a Wife.--The Sham Widow.--Ways and Means.--Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine.--Quarrels with the King.--The Beau's Second Marriage.--The Last Days of Fops and Beaux. p. 80 OF CERTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS UNDER ANNE. The Origin of Clubs.--The Establishment of Coffee-houses.--The October Club.--The Beef-steak Club.--Of certain other Clubs.--The Kit-kat Club.--The Romance of the Bowl.--The Toasts of the Kit-kat.--The Members of the Kit-kat.--A good Wit, and a bad Architect.--'Well-natured Garth.'--The Poets of the Kit-kat.--Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax.--Chancellor Somers.--Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset.--Less celebrated Wits. p. 91 WILLIAM CONGREVE. When and where was he born?--The Middle Temple.--Congreve finds his Vocation.--Verses to Queen Mary.--The Tennis-court Theatre.--Congreve abandons the Drama.--Jeremy Collier.--The Immorality of the Stage.--Very improper Things.--Congreve's Writings.--Jeremy's 'Short Views.'--Rival Theatres.--Dryden's Funeral.--A Tub-Preacher.--Horoscopic Predictions.--Dryden's Solicitude for his Son.--Congreve's Ambition.--Anecdote of Voltaire and Congreve.--The Profession of Mæcenas.--Congreve's Private Life.--'Malbrook's' Daughter.--Congreve's Death and Burial. p. 106 BEAU NASH. The King of Bath.--Nash at Oxford.--'My Boy Dick.'--Offers of Knighthood.--Doing Penance at York.--Days of Folly.--A very Romantic Story.--Sickness and Civilization.--Nash descends upon Bath.--Nash's Chef-d'oeuvre.--The Ball.--Improvements in the Pump-room, &c.--A Public Benefactor.--Life at Bath in Nash's time.--A Compact with the Duke of Beaufort.--Gaming at Bath.--Anecdotes of Nash.--'Miss Sylvia.'--A Generous Act.--Nash's Sun setting.--A Panegyric.--Nash's Funeral.--His Characteristics. p. 127 PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON. Wharton's Ancestors.--His Early Years.--Marriage at Sixteen.--Wharton takes leave of his Tutor.--The Young Marquis and the Old Pretender.--Frolics at Paris.--Zeal for the Orange Cause.--A Jacobite Hero.--The Trial of Atterbury.--Wharton's Defence of the Bishop.--Hypocritical Signs of Penitence.--Sir Robert Walpole duped.--Very Trying.--The Duke of Wharton's 'Whens.'--Military Glory at Gibraltar.--'Uncle Horace.'--Wharton to 'Uncle Horace.'--The Duke's Impudence.--High Treason.--Wharton's Ready Wit.--Last Extremities.--Sad Days in Paris.--His Last Journey to Spain.--His Death in a Bernardine Convent. p. 148 LORD HERVEY. George II. arriving from Hanover.--His Meeting with the Queen.--Lady Suffolk.--Queen Caroline.--Sir Robert Walpole.--Lord Hervey.--A Set of Fine Gentlemen.--An Eccentric Race.--Carr, Lord Hervey.--A Fragile Boy.--Description of George II.'s Family.--Anne Brett.--A Bitter Cup.--The Darling of the Family.--Evenings at St. James's.--Frederick, Prince of Wales.--Amelia Sophia Walmoden.--Poor Queen Caroline!--Nocturnal Diversions of Maids of Honour.--Neighbour George's Orange Chest.--Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey.--Rivalry.--Hervey's Intimacy with Lady Mary.--Relaxations of the Royal Household.--Bacon's Opinion of Twickenham.--A Visit to Pope's Villa.--The Little Nightingale.--The Essence of Small Talk.--Hervey's Affectation and Effeminacy.--Pope's Quarrel with Hervey and Lady Mary.--Hervey's Duel with Pulteney.--'The Death of Lord Hervey: a Drama.'--Queen Caroline's last Drawing-room.--Her Illness and Agony.--A Painful Scene.--The Truth discovered.--The Queen's Dying Bequests.--The King's Temper.--Archbishop Potter is sent for.--The Duty of Reconciliation.--The Death of Queen Caroline.--A Change in Hervey's Life.--Lord Hervey's Death.--Want of Christianity.--Memoirs of his Own Time. p. 170 PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, FOURTH EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. The King of Table Wits.--Early Years.--Hervey's Description of his Person.--Resolutions and Pursuits.--Study of Oratory.--The Duties of an Ambassador.--King George II.'s Opinion of his Chroniclers.--Life in the Country.--Melusina, Countess of Walsingham.--George II. and his Father's Will.--Dissolving Views.--Madame du Bouchet.--The Broad-Bottomed Administration.--Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in Time of Peril.--Reformation of the Calendar.--Chesterfield House.--Exclusiveness.--Recommending 'Johnson's Dictionary.'--'Old Samuel,' to Chesterfield.--Defensive Pride.--The Glass of Fashion.--Lord Scarborough's Friendship for Chesterfield.--The Death of Chesterfield's Son.--His Interest in his Grandsons.--'I must go and Rehearse my Funeral.'--Chesterfield's Will.--What is a Friend?--Les Manières Nobles.--Letters to his Son. p. 210 THE ABBE SCARRON. An Eastern Allegory.--Who comes Here?--A Mad Freak and its Consequences.--Making an Abbé of him.--The May-Fair of Paris.--Scarron's Lament to Pellisson.--The Office of the Queen's Patient.--'Give me a Simple Benefice.'--Scarron's Description of Himself.--Improvidence and Servility.--The Society at Scarron's.--The Witty Conversation.--Francoise D'Aubigné's Début.--The Sad Story of La Belle Indienne.--Matrimonial Considerations.--'Scarron's Wife will live for ever.'--Petits Soupers.--Scarron's last Moments.--A Lesson for Gay and Grave. p. 235 FRANCOIS DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT AND THE DUC DE SAINT-SIMON. Rank and Good Breeding.--The Hôtel de Rochefoucault.--Racine and his Plays.--La Rochefoucault's Wit and Sensibility.--Saint-Simon's Youth.--Looking out for a Wife.--Saint-Simon's Court Life.--The History of Louise de la Vallière.--A mean Act of Louis Quatorze.--All has passed away.--Saint-Simon's Memoirs of His Own Time. p. 253 SUBJECTS OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME I. PAGE WHARTON'S ROGUISH PRESENT (_Frontispiece_) VILLIERS IN DISGUISE--THE MEETING WITH HIS SISTER 14 DE GRAMMONT'S MEETING WITH LA BELLE HAMILTON 74 BEAU FIELDING AND THE SHAM WIDOW 85 A SCENE BEFORE KENSINGTON PALACE--GEORGE II. AND QUEEN CAROLINE 172 POPE AT HIS VILLA--DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 194 A ROYAL ROBBER 217 DR. JOHNSON AT LORD CHESTERFIELD'S 226 SCARRON AND THE WITS--FIRST APPEARANCE OF LA BELLE INDIENNE 247 PREFACE. When Grace and Philip Wharton found that they had pleased the world with their "Queens of Society," they very sensibly resolved to follow up their success with a companion work. Their first book had been all about women; the second book should be all about men. Accordingly they set to work selecting certain types that pleased them; they wrote a fresh collection of pleasant essays and presented the reading public with "Wits and Beaux of Society". The one book is as good as the other; there is not a pin to choose between them. There is the same bright easy, gossiping style, the same pleasing rapidity. There is nothing tedious, nothing dull anywhere. They do not profess to have anything to do with the graver processes of history--these entertaining volumes; they seek rather to amuse than to instruct, and they fulfil their purpose excellently. There is instruction in them, but it comes in by the way; one is conscious of being entertained, and it is only after the entertainment is over that one finds that a fair amount of information has been thrown in to boot. The Whartons have but old tales to tell, but they tell them very well, and that is the first part of their business. Looking over these articles is like looking over the list of a good club. Men are companionable creatures; they love to get together and gossip. It is maintained, and with reason, that they are fonder of their own society than women are. Men delight to breakfast together, to take luncheon together, to dine together, to sup together. They rejoice in clubs devoted exclusively to their service, as much taboo to women as a trappist monastery. Women are not quite so clannish. There are not very many women's clubs in the world; it is not certain that those which do exist are very brilliant or very entertaining. Women seldom give supper parties, "all by themselves they" after the fashion of that "grande dame de par le monde" of whom we have spoken elsewhere. A woman's dinner-party may succeed now and then by way of a joke, but it is a joke that is not often repeated. Have we not lately seen how an institution with a graceful English name, started in London for women and women only, has just so far relaxed its rigid rule as to allow men upon its premises between certain hours, and this relaxation we are told has been conceded in consequence of the demand of numerous ladies. Well, well, if men can on the whole get on better without the society of women than women can without the society of men it is no doubt because they are rougher creatures, moulded of a coarser clay, and are more entertained by eating and drinking, smoking and the telling of tales than women are. If all the men whom the Whartons labelled as wits and beaux of society could be gathered together they would make a most excellent club in the sense in which a club was understood in the last century. Johnson thought that he had praised a man highly when he called him a clubbable man, and so he had for those days which dreamed not of vast caravanserai calling themselves clubs and having thousands of members on their roll, the majority of whom do not know more than perhaps ten of their fellow members from Adam. In the sense that Dr. Johnson meant, all these wits and beaux whom our Whartons have gathered together were eminently clubbable. If some such necromancer could come to us as he who in Tourguenieff's story conjures up the shade of Julius Cæsar; and if in an obliging way he could make these wits and beaux greet us: if such a spiritualistic society as that described by Mr. Stockton in one of his diverting stories could materialise them all for our benefit: then one might count with confidence upon some very delightful company and some very delightful talk. For the people whom the Whartons have been good enough to group together are people of the most fascinating variety. They have wit in common and goodfellowship, they were famous entertainers in their time; they add to the gaiety of nations still. The Whartons have given what would in America be called a "Stag Party". If we join it we shall find much entertainment thereat. Do people read Theodore Hook much nowadays? Does the generation which loves to follow the trail with Allan Quatermain, and to ride with a Splendid Spur, does it call at all for the humours of the days of the Regency? Do those who have laughed over "The Wrong Box," ever laugh over Jack Brag? Do the students of Mr. Rudyard Kipling know anything of "Gilbert Gurney?" Somebody started the theory some time ago, that this was not a laughter-loving generation, that it lacked high spirits. It has been maintained that if a writer appeared now, with the rollicking good spirits, and reckless abandon of a Lever, he would scarcely win a warm welcome. We may be permitted to doubt this conclusion; we are as fond of laughter as ever, as ready to laugh if somebody will set us going. Mr. Stevenson prefers of late to be thought grim in his fiction, but he has set the sides shaking, both over that "Wrong Box" which we spoke of, and in earlier days. We are ready to laugh with Stockton from overseas, with our own Anstey, with anybody who has the heart to be merry, and the wit to make his mirth communicable. But, it may be doubted if we read our Lever quite as much as a wise doctor, who happened also to be a wise man of letters, would recommend. And we may well fancy that such a doctor dealing with a patient for whom laughter was salutary--as for whom is it not salutary--would exhibit Theodore Hook in rather large doses. Undoubtedly the fun is a little old fashioned, but it is none the worse for that. Those who share Mr. Hardcastle's tastes for old wine and old books will not like Theodore Hook any the less, because he does not happen to be at all "Fin de Siècle". He is like Berowne in the comedy, the merriest man--perhaps not always within the limits of becoming mirth--to spend an hour's talk withal. There is no better key to the age in which Hook glittered, than Hook's own stories. The London of that day--the London which is as dead and gone as Nineveh or Karnak or Troy--lives with extraordinary freshness in Theodore Hook's pages. And how entertaining those pages are. It is not always the greatest writers who are the most mirth provoking, but how much we owe to them. The man must have no mirth in him if he fail to be tickled by the best of Labiche's comedies, aye and the worst too, if such a term can be applied to any of the enchanting series; if he refuse to unbend over "A Day's Journey and a Life's Romance," if he cannot let himself go and enjoy himself over Gilbert Gurney's river adventure. If the revival of the Whartons' book were to serve no other purpose than to send some laughter loving souls to the heady well-spring of Theodore Hook's merriment, it would have done the mirthful a good turn and deserved well of its country. There is scarcely a queerer, or scarcely a more pathetic figure in the world than that of Beau Brummell. He seems to belong to ancient history, he and his titanic foppishness and his smart clothes and his smart sayings. Yet is it but a little while since the last of his adorers, the most devoted of his disciples passed away from the earth. Over in Paris there lingered till the past year a certain man of letters who was very brilliant and very poor and very eccentric. So long as people study French literature, and care to investigate the amount of high artistic workmanship which goes into even its minor productions, so long the name of Barbey D'Aurevilly will have its niche--not a very large one, it is true--in the temple. The author of that strange and beautiful story "Le Chevalier des Touches," was a great devotee of Brummell's. He was himself the "last of the dandies". All the money he had--and he had very little of it--he spent in dandification. But he never moved with the times. His foppishness was the foppishness of his youth, and to the last he wandered through Paris clad in the splendour of the days when young men were "lions," and when the quarrel between classicism and romanticism was vital. He wrote a book about Beau Brummell and a very curious little book it is, with its odd earnest defence of dandyism, with its courageous championship of the arts which men of letters so largely affect to despise. Poor Beau Brummell. After having played his small part on life's stage, his thin shade still occasionally wanders across the boards of the theatre. Blanchard Jerrold wrote a play upon him, which was acted at the Lyceum Theatre in 1859, when Emery played the title role. Jerrold's play, which has for sub-title "The King of Calais," treats of that period in Brummell's life in which he had retired across the channel to live upon black-mail and to drift into that Consulship at Caen which he so queerly resigned, to end a poor madman, trying to shave his own peruke. Jerrold's is a grim play; either it or a version on the same lines of Brummell's fall is being played across the Atlantic at this very hour by Mr. Mansfield whose study of the final decay and idiotcy of the famous beau is said to rival the impressiveness of his Mr. Hyde. Beau Brummell is never likely to be quite forgotten. Folly often brings with it a kind of immortality. The fool who fired the Temple of Ephesus has secured his place in history with Aristides and Themistocles; the fop who gave a kind of epic dignity to neck-clothes, and who asked the famous "Who's your fat friend?" question, is remembered as a figure of that age which includes the name of Sheridan and the name of Burke. Another and a no less famous Beau steps to salute us from the pages of the Whartons. Beau Nash is an old friend of ours in fiction, an old friend in the drama. Our dear old Harrison Ainsworth wrote a novel about him yesterday; to-day he figures in the pages of one of the most attractive of Mr. Lewis Wingfield's attractive stories. He found his way on to the stage under the care of Douglas Jerrold whose comedy of manners was acted at the Haymarket in the midsummer of 1834. There is a charm about these Beaux, these odd blossoms of last century civilisation, the Brummells and the Nashes and the Fieldings, so "high fantastical" in their bearing, such living examples of the eternal verities contained in the clothes' philosophy of Herr Diogenes Teufelsdröckh of Weissnichtwo. Their wigs were more important than their wit; the pattern of their waistcoats more important than the composition of their hearts; all morals, all philosophy are absorbed for them in the engrossing question of the fit of their breeches. D'Artois is of their kin, French d'Artois who helped to ruin the Old Order and failed to re-create it as Charles the Tenth, d'Artois whom Mercier describes as being poured into his faultlessly fitting breeches by the careful and united efforts of no less than four valets de chambre. But the English dandies were better than the Frenchman, for they did harm only to themselves, while he helped to ruin his cause, his party, and his king. As we turn the pages, we come to one name which immediately if whimsically suggests poetry. The man was, like Touchstone's Audrey, not poetical and yet a great poet has been pleased to address him, very much as Pindar might have addressed the Ancestral Hero of some mighty tyrant. Ah, George Bubb Dodington Lord Melcombe--no, Yours was the wrong way!--always understand, Supposing that permissibly you planned How statesmanship--your trade--in outward show Might figure as inspired by simple zeal For serving country, king, and commonweal, (Though service tire to death the body, teaze The soul from out an o'ertasked patriot-drudge) And yet should prove zeal's outward show agrees In all respects--right reason being judge-- With inward care that while the statesman spends Body and soul thus freely for the sake Of public good, his private welfare take No harm by such devotedness. Thus Robert Browning in Robert Browning's penultimate book, that "Parleyings with certain people of importance in their day" which fell somewhat coldly upon all save Browning fanatics, and which, when it seemed to show that the poet's hand had palsied, served only as the discordant prelude to the swan song of "Asolando," the last and almost the greatest of his glories. Perhaps only Browning would ever have thought of undertaking a poetical parley with Bubb Dodington. Dodington is now largely, and not undeservedly forgotten. His dinners and his dresses, his poems and his pamphlets, his plays and his passions--the wind has carried them all away. If Pope had not nicknamed him Bubo, if Foote had not caricatured him in "The Patron," if Churchill had not lampooned him in "The Rosciad," he would scarcely have earned in his own day the notoriety which the publication of his "Diary" had in a manner preserved to later days. If he was hardly worth a corner in the Whartons' picture-gallery he was certainly scarcely deserving of the attention of Browning. Even his ineptitude was hardly important enough to have twenty pages of Browning's genius wasted upon it, twenty pages ending with the sting about The scoff That greets your very name: folks see but one Fool more, as well as knave, in Dodington. Dodington has been occasionally classed with Lord Hervey but the classification is scarcely fair. With all his faults--and he had them in abundance--Lord Hervey was a better creature than Bubb Dodington. If he was effeminate, he had convictions and could stand by them. If Pope sneered at him as Sporus and called him a curd of asses' milk, he has left behind him some of the most brilliant memoirs ever penned. If he had some faults in common with Dodington he was endowed with virtues of which Dodington never dreamed. The name of Lord Chesterfield is in the air just now. Within the last few months the curiosity of the world has been stimulated and satisfied by the publication of some hitherto unknown letters by Lord Chesterfield. The pleasure which the student of history has taken in this new find is just dimmed at this moment by the death of Lord Carnarvon, whose care and scholarship gave them to the worlds. They are indeed a precious possession. A very eminent French critic, M. Brunetière, has inveighed lately with much justice against the passion for raking together and bringing out all manner of unpublished writings. He complains, and complains with justice, that while the existing classics of literature are left imperfectly edited, if not ignored, the activity of students is devoted to burrowing out all manner of unimportant material, anything, everything, so long as it has not been known beforehand to the world. The French critic protests against the class of scholars who go into ecstacies over a newly discovered washing list of Pascal or a bill from Racine's perruquier. The complaint tells against us as well on our side of the Channel. We hear a great deal about newly discovered fragments by this great writer and that great writer, which are of no value whatever, except that they happen to be new. But no such stricture applies to the letters of Lord Chesterfield which the late Lord Carnarvon so recently gave to the world. They are a valuable addition to our knowledge of the last century, a valuable addition to our knowledge of the man who wrote them. And knowledge about Lord Chesterfield is always welcome. Few of the famous figures of the last century have been more misunderstood than he. The world is too ready to remember Johnson's biting letter; too ready to remember the cruel caricatures of Lord Hervey. Even the famous letters have been taken too much at Johnson's estimate, and Johnson's estimate was one-sided and unfair. A man would not learn the highest life from the Chesterfield letters; they have little in common with the ethics of an A Kempis, a Jean Paul Richter, or a John Stuart Mill. But they have their value in their way, and if they contain some utterances so unutterably foolish as those in which Lord Chesterfield expressed himself upon Greek literature, they contain some very excellent maxims for the management of social life. Nobody could become a penny the worse for the study of Chesterfield; many might become the better. They are not a whit more cynical than, indeed they are not so cynical as, those letters of Thackeray's to young Brown, which with all their cleverness make us understand what Mr. Henley means when in his "Views and Reviews" he describes him as a "writer of genius who was innately and irredeemably a Philistine". The letters of Lord Chesterfield would not do much to make a man a hero, but there is little in literature more unheroic than the letters to Mr. Thomas Brown the younger. It is curious to contrast the comparative enthusiasm with which the Whartons write about Horace Walpole with the invective of Lord Macaulay. To the great historian Walpole was the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most capricious of men, who played innumerable parts and over-acted them all, a creature to whom whatever was little seemed great and whatever was great seemed little. To Macaulay he was a gentleman-usher at heart, a Republican whose Republicanism like the courage of a bully or the love of a fribble was only strong and ardent when there was no occasion for it, a man who blended the faults of Grub Street with the faults of St. James's Street, and who united to the vanity, the jealousy and the irritability of a man of letters, the affected superciliousness and apathy of a man of ton. The Whartons over-praise Walpole where Lord Macaulay under-rates him; the truth lies between the two. He was not in the least an estimable or an admirable figure, but he wrote admirable, indeed incomparable letters to which the world is indebted beyond expression. If we can almost say that we know the London of the last century as well as the London of to-day it is largely to Horace Walpole's letters that our knowledge is due. They can hardly be over-praised, they can hardly be too often read by the lover of last century London. Horace Walpole affected to despise men of letters. It is his punishment that his fame depends upon his letters, those letters which, though their writer was all unaware of it, are genuine literature, and almost of the best. We could linger over almost every page of the Whartons' volumes, for every page is full of pleasant suggestions. The name of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham brings up at once a picture of perhaps the brilliantest and basest period in English history. It brings up too memories of a fiction that is even dearer than history, of that wonderful romance of Dumas the Elder's, which Mr. Louis Stevenson has placed among the half-dozen books that are dearest to his heart, the "Vicomte de Bragelonne". Who that has ever followed, breathless and enraptured, the final fortunes of that gallant quadrilateral of musketeers will forget the part which is played by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in that magnificent prose epic? There is little to be said for the real Villiers; he was a profligate and a scoundrel, and he did not show very heroically in his quarrel with the fiery young Ossory. It was one thing to practically murder Lord Shrewsbury; it was quite another thing to risk the wrath and the determined right hand of the Duke of Ormond's son. But the Villiers of Dumas' fancy is a fairer figure and a finer lover, and it is pleasant after reading the pages in which the authors of these essays trace the career of Dryden's epitome to turn to those volumes of the great Frenchman, to read the account of the duel with de Wardes and invoke a new blessing on the muse of fiction. In some earlier volumes of the same great series we meet with yet another figure who has his image in the Wharton picture gallery. In that "crowded and sunny field of life"--the words are Mr. Stevenson's, and they apply to the whole musketeer epic--that "place busy as a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with memorable faces, and sounding with delightful speech," the Abbé Scarron plays his part. It was here that many of us met Scarron for the first time, and if we have got to know him better since, we still remember with a thrill of pleasure that first encounter when in the society of the matchless Count de la Fere and the marvellous Aramis we made our bow in company with the young Raoul to the crippled wit and his illustrious companions. The Whartons write brightly about Scarron, but their best merit to my mind is that they at once prompt a desire to go to that corner of the bookshelf where the eleven volumes of the adventures of the immortal musketeers repose, and taking down the first volume of "Vingt Ans Après" seek for the twenty-third chapter, where Scarron receives society in his residence in the Rue des Tournelles. There Scudery twirls his moustaches and trails his enormous rapier and the Coadjutor exhibits his silken "Fronde". There the velvet eyes of Mademoiselle d'Aubigné smile and the beauty of Madame de Chevreuse delights, and all the company make fun of Mazarin and recite the verses of Voiture. There are others of these wits and beaux with whom we might like to linger; but our space is running short; it is time to say good-bye. Congreve the dramatist and gentleman, Rochefoucault the wit, Saint-Simon the king of memoir-writers, Rochester and St. Evremond and de Grammont, Selwyn and Sydney Smith and Sheridan each in turn appeals to us to tarry a little longer. But it is time to say good-bye to these shadows of the past with whom we have spent some pleasant hours. It is their duty now to offer some pleasant hours to others. JUSTIN HUNTLY M'CARTHY. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. In revising this Publication, it has scarcely been found necessary to recall a single opinion relative to the subject of the Work. The general impressions of characters adopted by the Authors have received little modification from any remarks elicited by the appearance of 'The Wits and Beaux of Society.' It is scarcely to be expected that even _our_ descendants will know much more of the Wits and Beaux of former days than we now do. The chests at Strawberry Hill are cleared of their contents; Horace Walpole's latest letters are before us; Pepys and Evelyn have thoroughly dramatized the days of Charles II.; Lord Hervey's Memoirs have laid bare the darkest secrets of the Court in which he figures; voluminous memoirs of the less historic characters among the Wits and Beaux have been published; still it is possible that some long-disregarded treasury of old letters, like that in the Gallery at Wotton, may come to light. From that precious deposit a housemaid--blotted for ever be her name from memory's page--was purloining sheets of yellow paper, with antiquated writing on them, to light her fires with, when the late William Upcott came to the rescue, and saved Evelyn's 'Diary' for a grateful world. It is _just_ possible that such a discovery may again be made, and that the doings of George Villiers, or the exile life of Wharton, or the inmost thoughts of other Wits and Beaux may be made to appear in clearer lights than heretofore; but it is much more likely that the popular opinions about these witty, worthless men are substantially true. All that has been collected, therefore, to form this work--and, as in the 'Queens of Society,' every known source has been consulted--assumes a sterling value as being collected; and, should hereafter fresh materials be disinterred from any old library closet in the homes of some one descendant of our heroes, advantage will be gladly taken to improve, correct, and complete the lives. One thing must, in justice, be said: if they have been written freely, fearlessly, they have been written without passion or prejudice. The writers, though not _quite_ of the stamp of persons who would never have 'dared to address' any of the subjects of their biography, 'save with courtesy and obeisance,' have no wish to 'trample on the graves' of such very amusing personages as the 'Wits and Beaux of Society.' They have even been lenient to their memory, hailing every good trait gladly, and pointing out with no unsparing hand redeeming virtues; and it cannot certainly be said, in this instance, that the good has been 'interred with the bones' of the personages herein described, although the evil men do, 'will live after them.' But whilst a biographer is bound to give the fair as well as the dark side of his subject, he has still to remember that biography is a trust, and that it should not be an eulogium. It is his duty to reflect that in many instances it must be regarded even as a warning. The moral conclusions of these lives of 'Wits and Beaux' are, it is admitted, just: vice is censured; folly rebuked; ungentlemanly conduct, even in a beau of the highest polish, exposed; irreligion finds no toleration under gentle names--heartlessness no palliation from its being the way of the world. There is here no separate code allowed for men who live in the world, and for those who live out of it. The task of pourtraying such characters as the 'Wits and Beaux of Society' is a responsible one, and does not involve the mere attempt to amuse, or the mere desire to abuse, but requires truth and discrimination; as embracing just or unjust views of such characters, it may do much harm or much good. Nevertheless, in spite of these obvious considerations there do exist worthy persons, even in the present day, so unreasonable as to take offence at the revival of old stories anent their defunct grandfathers, though those very stories were circulated by accredited writers employed by the families themselves. Some individuals are scandalized when a man who was habitually drunk, is called a drunkard; and ears polite cannot bear the application of plain names to well-known delinquencies. There is something foolish, but respectably foolish, in this wish to shut out light which has been streaming for years over these old tombs and memories. The flowers that are cast on such graves cannot, however, cause us to forget the corruption within and underneath. In consideration, nevertheless, of a pardonable weakness, all expressions that can give pain, or which have been said to give pain, have been, in this Second Edition, omitted; and whenever a mis-statement has crept in, care has been taken to amend the error. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. The success of the 'Queens of Society' will have pioneered the way for the 'Wits and Beaux:' with whom, during the holiday time of their lives, these fair ladies were so greatly associated. The 'Queens,' whether all wits or not, must have been the cause of wit in others; their influence over dandyism is notorious: their power to make or mar a man of fashion, almost historical. So far, a chronicle of the sayings and doings of the 'Wits' is worthy to serve as a _pendant_ to that of the 'Queens:' happy would it be for society if the annals of the former could more closely resemble the biography of the latter. But it may not be so: men are subject to temptations, to failures, to delinquencies, to calamities, of which women can scarcely dream, and which they can only lament and pity. Our 'Wits,' too--to separate them from the 'Beaux'--were men who often took an active part in the stirring events of their day: they assumed to be statesmen, though, too frequently, they were only politicians. They were brave and loyal: indeed, in the time of the Stuarts, all the Wits were Cavaliers, as well as the Beaux. One hears of no repartee among Cromwell's followers; no dash, no merriment, in Fairfax's staff; eloquence, indeed, but no wit in the Parliamentarians; and, in truth, in the second Charles's time, the king might have headed the lists of the Wits himself--such a capital man as his Majesty is known to have been for a wet evening or a dull Sunday; such a famous teller of a story--such a perfect diner-out: no wonder that in his reign we had George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham of that family, 'mankind's epitome,' who had every pretension to every accomplishment combined in himself. No wonder we could attract De Grammont and Saint Evremond to our court; and own, somewhat to our discredit be it allowed, Rochester and Beau Fielding. Every reign has had its wits, but those in Charles's time were so numerous as to distinguish the era by an especial brilliancy. Nor let it be supposed that these annals do not contain a moral application. They show how little the sparkling attributes herein pourtrayed conferred happiness; how far more the rare, though certainly real touches of genuine feeling and strong affection, which appear here and there even in the lives of the most thoughtless 'Wits and Beaux,' elevate the character in youth, or console the spirit in age. They prove how wise has been that change in society which now repudiates the 'Wit' as a distinct class; and requires general intelligences as a compensation for lost repartees, or long obsolete practical jokes. 'Men are not all evil:' so in the life of George Villiers, we find him kind-hearted, and free from hypocrisy. His old servants--and the fact speaks in extenuation of one of our wildest Wits and Beaux--loved him faithfully. De Grammont, we all own, has little to redeem him except his good-nature: Rochester's latest days were almost hallowed by his penitence. Chesterfield is saved by his kindness to the Irish, and his affection for his son. Horace Walpole had human affections, though a most inhuman pen: and Wharton was famous for his good-humour. The periods most abounding in the Wit and the Beau have, of course, been those most exempt from wars, and rumours of wars. The Restoration; the early period of the Augustan age; the commencement of the Hanoverian dynasty,--have all been enlivened by Wits and Beaux, who came to light like mushrooms after a storm of rain, as soon as the political horizon was clear. We have Congreve, who affected to be the Beau as well as the Wit; Lord Hervey, more of the courtier than the Beau--a Wit by inheritance--a peer, assisted into a pre-eminent position by royal preference, and consequent _prestige_; and all these men were the offspring of the particular state of the times in which they figured: at earlier periods, they would have been deemed effeminate; in later ones, absurd. Then the scene shifts: intellect had marched forward gigantically: the world is grown exacting, disputatious, critical, and such men as Horace Walpole and Brinsley Sheridan appear; the characteristics of wit which adorned that age being well diluted by the feebler talents of Selwyn and Hook. Of these, and others, '_table traits_,' and other traits, are here given: brief chronicles of _their_ life's stage, over which a curtain has so long been dropped, are supplied carefully from well established sources: it is with characters, not with literary history, that we deal; and do our best to make the portraitures life-like, and to bring forward old memories, which, without the stamp of antiquity, might be suffered to pass into obscurity. Your Wit and your Beau, be he French or English, is no mediæval personage: the aristocracy of the present day rank among his immediate descendants: he is a creature of a modern and an artificial age; and with his career are mingled many features of civilized life, manners, habits, and traces of family history which are still, it is believed, interesting to the majority of English readers, as they have long been to GRACE and PHILIP WHARTON _October, 1860_. * * * * * THE WITS AND BEAUX OF SOCIETY. * * * * * GEORGE VILLIERS, SECOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. Signs of the Restoration.--Samuel Pepys in his Glory.--A Royal Company.--Pepys 'ready to Weep.'--The Playmate of Charles II.--George Villiers's Inheritance.--Two Gallant Young Noblemen.--The Brave Francis Villiers.--After the Battle of Worcester.--Disguising the King.--Villiers in Hiding.--He appears as a Mountebank.--Buckingham's Habits.--A Daring Adventure.--Cromwell's Saintly Daughter.--Villiers and the Rabbi.--The Buckingham Pictures and Estates.--York House.--Villiers returns to England.--Poor Mary Fairfax.--Villiers in the Tower.--Abraham Cowley, the Poet.--The Greatest Ornament of Whitehall.--Buckingham's Wit and Beauty.--Flecknoe's Opinion of Him.--His Duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury.--Villiers as a Poet.--As a Dramatist.--A Fearful Censure!--Villiers's Influence in Parliament.--A Scene in the Lords.--The Duke of Ormond in Danger.--Colonel Blood's Outrages.--Wallingford House and Ham House.--'Madame Ellen.'--The Cabal.--Villiers again in the Tower.--A Change.--The Duke of York's Theatre.--Buckingham and the Princess of Orange.--His last Hours.--His Religion.--Death of Villiers.--The Duchess of Buckingham. Samuel Pepys, the weather-glass of his time, hails the first glimpse of the Restoration of Charles II. in his usual quaint terms and vulgar sycophancy. 'To Westminster Hall,' says he; 'where I heard how the Parliament had this day dissolved themselves, and did pass very cheerfully through the Hall, and the Speaker without his mace. The whole Hall was joyful thereat, as well as themselves; and now they begin to talk loud of the king.' And the evening was closed, he further tells us, with a large bonfire in the Exchange, and people called out, 'God bless King Charles!' This was in March 1660; and during that spring Pepys was noting down how he did not think it possible that my 'Lord Protector,' Richard Cromwell, should come into power again; how there were great hopes of the king's arrival; how Monk, the Restorer, was feasted at Mercers' Hall (Pepys's own especial); how it was resolved that a treaty be offered to the king, privately; how he resolved to go to sea with 'my lord:' and how, while they lay at Gravesend, the great affair which brought back Charles Stuart was virtually accomplished. Then, with various parentheses, inimitable in their way, Pepys carries on his narrative. He has left his father's 'cutting-room' to take care of itself; and finds his cabin little, though his bed is convenient, but is certain, as he rides at anchor with 'my lord,' in the ship, that the king 'must of necessity come in,' and the vessel sails round and anchors in Lee Roads. 'To the castles about Deal, where _our_ fleet' (_our fleet_, the saucy son of a tailor!) 'lay and anchored; great was the shoot of guns from the castles, and ships, and our answers.' Glorious Samuel! in his element, to be sure. Then the wind grew high: he began to be 'dizzy, and squeamish;' nevertheless employed 'Lord's Day' in looking through the lieutenant's glass at two good merchantmen, and the women in them; 'being pretty handsome;' then in the afternoon he first saw Calais, and was pleased, though it was at a great distance. All eyes were looking across the Channel just then--for the king was at Flushing; and, though the 'Fanatiques' still held their heads up high, and the Cavaliers also talked high on the other side, the cause that Pepys was bound to, still gained ground. Then 'they begin to speak freely of King Charles;' churches in the City, Samuel declares, were setting up his arms; merchant-ships--more important in those days--were hanging out his colours. He hears, too, how the Mercers' Company were making a statue of his gracious Majesty to set up in the Exchange. Ah! Pepys's heart is merry: he has forty shillings (some shabby perquisite) given him by Captain Cowes of the 'Paragon;' and 'my lord' in the evening 'falls to singing' a song upon the Rump to the tune of the 'Blacksmith.' The hopes of the Cavalier party are hourly increasing, and those of Pepys we may be sure also; for Pim, the tailor, spends a morning in his cabin 'putting a great many ribbons to a sail.' And the king is to be brought over suddenly, 'my lord' tells him: and indeed it looks like it, for the sailors are drinking Charles's health in the streets of Deal, on their knees; 'which, methinks,' says Pepys, 'is a little too much;' and 'methinks' so, worthy Master Pepys, also. Then how the news of the Parliamentary vote of the king's declaration was received! Pepys becomes eloquent. 'He that can fancy a fleet (like ours) in her pride, with pendants loose, guns roaring, caps flying, and the loud "_Vive le Roi!_" echoed from one ship's company to another; he, and he only, can apprehend the joy this enclosed vote was received with, or the blessing he thought himself possessed of that bore it.' Next, orders come for 'my lord' to sail forthwith to the king; and the painters and tailors set to work, Pepys superintending, 'cutting out some pieces of yellow cloth in the fashion of a crown and C. R.; and putting it upon a fine sheet'--and that is to supersede the States' arms, and is finished and set up. And the next day, on May 14, the Hague is seen plainly by _us_, 'my lord going up in his night-gown into the cuddy.' And then they land at the Hague; some 'nasty Dutchmen' come on board to offer their boats, and get money, which Pepys does not like; and in time they find themselves in the Hague, 'a most neat place in all respects:' salute the Queen of Bohemia and the Prince of Orange--afterwards William III.--and find at their place of supper nothing but a 'sallet' and two or three bones of mutton provided for ten of us, 'which was very strange. Nevertheless, on they sail, having returned to the fleet, to Schevelling: and, on the 23rd of the month, go to meet the king; who, 'on getting into the boat, did kiss my lord with much affection.' And 'extraordinary press of good company,' and great mirth all day, announced the Restoration. Nevertheless Charles's clothes had not been, till this time, Master Pepys is assured, worth forty shillings--and he, as a connoisseur, was scandalized at the fact. And now, before we proceed, let us ask who worthy Samuel Pepys was, that he should pass such stringent comments on men and manners? His origin was lowly, although his family ancient; his father having followed, until the Restoration, the calling of a tailor. Pepys, vulgar as he was, had nevertheless received an university education; first entering Trinity College, Cambridge, as a sizar. To our wonder we find him marrying furtively and independently; and his wife, at fifteen, was glad with her husband to take up an abode in the house of a relative, Sir Edward Montagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, the 'my lord' under whose shadow Samuel Pepys dwelt in reverence. By this nobleman's influence Pepys for ever left the 'cutting-room;' he acted first as secretary, (always as toad-eater, one would fancy), then became a clerk in the Admiralty; and as such went, after the Restoration, to live in Seething Lane, in the parish of St. Olave, Hart Street--and in St. Olave his mortal part was ultimately deposited. So much for Pepys. See him now, in his full-buttoned wig, and best cambric neckerchief, looking out for the king and his suit, who are coming on board the 'Nazeby.' 'Up, and made myself as fine as I could, with the linning stockings on, and wide canons that I bought the other day at the Hague.' So began he the day. 'All day nothing but lords and persons of honour on board, that we were exceeding full. Dined in great deal of state, the royalle company by themselves in the coache, which was a blessed sight to see.' This royal company consisted of Charles, the Dukes of York and Gloucester, his brothers, the Queen of Bohemia, the Princess Royal, the Prince of Orange, afterwards William III.--all of whose hands Pepys kissed, after dinner. The King and Duke of York changed the names of the ships. The 'Rumpers,' as Pepys calls the Parliamentarians, had given one the name of the 'Nazeby;' and that was now christened the 'Charles:' 'Richard' was changed into 'James.' The 'Speaker' into 'Mary,' the 'Lambert,' was 'Henrietta,' and so on. How merry the king must have been whilst he thus turned the Roundheads, as it were, off the ocean; and how he walked here and there, up and down, (quite contrary to what Samuel Pepys 'expected,') and fell into discourse of his escape from Worcester, and made Samuel 'ready to weep' to hear of his travelling four days and three nights on foot, up to his knees in dirt, with 'nothing but a green coat and a pair of breeches on,' (worse and worse, thought Pepys,) and a pair of country shoes that made his feet sore; and how, at one place he was made to drink by the servants, to show he was not a Roundhead; and how, at another place--and Charles, the best teller of a story in his own dominions, may here have softened his tone--the master of the house, an innkeeper, as the king was standing by the fire, with his hands on the back of a chair, kneeled down and kissed his hand 'privately,' saying he could not ask him who he was, but bid 'God bless him, where he was going!' Then, rallying after this touch of pathos, Charles took his hearers over to Fecamp, in France--thence to Rouen, where, he said, in his easy, irresistible way, 'I looked so poor that the people went into the rooms before I went away, to see if I had not stolen something or other.' With what reverence and sympathy did our Pepys listen; but he was forced to hurry off to get Lord Berkeley a bed; and with 'much ado' (as one may believe) he did get 'him to bed with My Lord Middlesex;' so, after seeing these two peers of the realm in that dignified predicament--two in a bed--'to my cabin again,' where the company were still talking of the king's difficulties, and how his Majesty was fain to eat a piece of bread and cheese out of a poor body's pocket; and, at a Catholic house, how he lay a good while 'in the Priest's Hole, for privacy.' In all these hairbreadth escapes--of which the king spoke with infinite humour and good feeling--one name was perpetually introduced:--George--George Villiers, _Villers_, as the royal narrator called him; for the name was so pronounced formerly. And well he might; for George Villiers had been his playmate, classfellow, nay, bedfellow sometimes, in priests' holes; their names, their haunts, their hearts, were all assimilated; and misfortune had bound them closely to each other. To George Villiers let us now return; he is waiting for his royal master on the other side of the Channel--in England. And a strange character have we to deal with:-- 'A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome: Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.'[1] Such was George Villiers: the Alcibiades of that age. Let us trace one of the most romantic, and brilliant, and unsatisfactory lives that has ever been written. George Villiers was born at Wallingford House, in the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, on the 30th January, 1627. The Admiralty now stands on the site of the mansion in which he first saw the light. His father was George Villiers, the favourite of James I. and of Charles I.; his mother, the Lady Katherine Manners, daughter and heiress of Francis, Earl of Rutland. Scarcely was he a year old, when the assassination of his father, by Felton, threw the affairs of his family into confusion. His mother, after the Duke of Buckingham's death, gave birth to a son, Francis; who was subsequently, savagely killed by the Roundheads, near Kingston. Then the Duchess of Buckingham very shortly married again, and uniting herself to Randolph Macdonald, Earl of Antrim, became a rigid Catholic. She was therefore lost to her children, or rather, they were lost to her; for King Charles I., who had promised to be a 'husband to her, and a father to her children,' removed them from her charge, and educated them with the royal princes. The youthful peer soon gave indications of genius; and all that a careful education could do, was directed to improve his natural capacity under private tutors. He went to Cambridge; and thence, under the care of a preceptor named Aylesbury, travelled into France. He was accompanied by his young, handsome, fine-spirited brother, Francis; and this was the sunshine of his life. His father had indeed left him, as his biographer Brian Fairfax expresses it, 'the greatest name in England; his mother, the greatest estate of any subject.' With this inheritance there had also descended to him the wonderful beauty, the matchless grace, of his ill-fated father. Great abilities, courage, fascination of manners, were also his; but he had not been endowed with firmness of character, and was at once energetic and versatile. Even at this age, the qualities which became his ruin were clearly discoverable. George Villiers was recalled to England by the troubles which drove the king to Oxford, and which converted that academical city into a garrison, its under-graduates into soldiers, its ancient halls into barrack-rooms. Villiers was on this occasion entered at Christ Church: the youth's best feelings were aroused, and his loyalty was engaged to one to whom his father owed so much. He was now a young man of twenty-one years of age--able to act for himself; and he went heart and soul into the cause of his sovereign. Never was there a gayer, a more prepossessing Cavalier. He could charm even a Roundhead. The harsh and Presbyterian-minded Bishop Burnet, has told us that 'he was a man of a noble presence; had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of turning everything into ridicule, with bold figures and natural descriptions.' How invaluable he must have been in the Common-rooms at Oxford, then turned into guard-rooms, his eye upon some unlucky volunteer Don, who had put off his clerkly costume for a buff jacket, and could not manage his drill. Irresistible as his exterior is declared to have been, the original mind of Villiers was even far more influential. De Grammont tells us, 'he was extremely handsome, but still thought himself much more so than he really was; although he had a great deal of discernment, yet his vanities made him mistake some civilities as intended for his person which were only bestowed on his wit and drollery.' But this very vanity, so unpleasant in an old man, is only amusing in a younger wit. Whilst thus a gallant of the court and camp, the young nobleman proved himself to be no less brave than witty. Juvenile as he was, with a brother still younger, they fought on the royalist side at Lichfield, in the storming of the Cathedral Close. For thus allowing their lives to be endangered, their mother blamed Lord Gerard, one of the Duke's guardians; whilst the Parliament seized the pretext of confiscating their estates, which were afterwards returned to them, on account of their being under age at the time of confiscation. The youths were then placed under the care of the Earl of Northumberland, by whose permission they travelled in France and Italy, where they appeared--their estates having been restored--with princely magnificence. Nevertheless, on hearing of the imprisonment of Charles I. in the Isle of Wight, the gallant youths returned to England and joined the army under the Earl of Holland, who was defeated near Nonsuch, in Surrey. A sad episode in the annals of these eventful times is presented in the fate of the handsome, brave Francis Villiers. His murder, for one can call it by no other name, shows how keenly the personal feelings of the Roundheads were engaged in this national quarrel. Under most circumstances, Englishmen would have spared the youth, and respected the gallantry of the free young soldier, who, planting himself against an oak-tree which grew in the road, refused to ask for quarter, but defended himself against several assailants. But the name of Villiers was hateful in Puritan ears. 'Hew them down, root and branch!' was the sentiment that actuated the soldiery. His very loveliness exasperated their vengeance. At last, 'with nine wounds on his beautiful face and body,' says Fairfax, 'he was slain.' 'The oak-tree,' writes the devoted servant, 'is his monument,' and the letters of F. V. were cut in it in his day. His body was conveyed by water to York House, and was entombed with that of his father, in the Chapel of Henry VII. His brother fled towards St. Neot's, where he encountered a strange kind of peril. Tobias Rustat attended him; and was with him in the rising in Kent for King Charles I., wherein the Duke was engaged; and they, being put to the flight, the Duke's helmet, by a brush under a tree, was turned upon his back, and tied so fast with a string under his throat, 'that without the present help of T. R.,' writes Fairfax, 'it had undoubtedly choked him, as I have credibly heard.'[2] Whilst at St. Neot's, the house in which Villiers had taken refuge was surrounded with soldiers. He had a stout heart, and a dexterous hand; he took his resolution; rushed out upon his foes, killed the officer in command, galloped off and joined the Prince in the Downs. The sad story of Charles I. was played out; but Villiers remained stanch, and was permitted to return and to accompany Prince Charles into Scotland. Then came the battle of Worcester in 1651: there Charles II. showed himself a worthy descendant of James IV. of Scotland. He resolved to conquer or die: with desperate gallantry the English Cavaliers and the Scotch Highlanders seconded the monarch's valiant onslaught on Cromwell's horse, and the invincible Life Guards were almost driven back by the shock. But they were not seconded; Charles II. had his horse twice shot under him, but, nothing daunted, he was the last to tear himself away from the field, and then only upon the solicitations of his friends. Charles retired to Kidderminster that evening. The Duke of Buckingham, the gallant Lord Derby, Wilmot, afterwards Earl of Rochester, and some others, rode near him. They were followed by a small body of horse. Disconsolately they rode on northwards, a faithful band of sixty being resolved to escort his Majesty to Scotland. At length they halted on Kinver Heath, near Kidderminster: their guide having lost the way. In this extremity Lord Derby said that he had been received kindly at an old house in a secluded woody country, between Tong Castle and Brewood, on the borders of Staffordshire. It was named 'Boscobel,' he said; and that word has henceforth conjured up to the mind's eye the remembrance of a band of tired heroes, riding through woody glades to an ancient house, where shelter was given to the worn-out horses and scarcely less harassed riders. But not so rapidly did they in reality proceed. A Catholic family, named Giffard, were living at White-Ladies, about twenty six miles from Worcester. This was only about half a mile from Boscobel: it had been a convent of Cistercian nuns, whose long white cloaks of old had once been seen, ghost-like, amid forest glades or on hillock green. The White-Ladies had other memories to grace it besides those of holy vestals, or of unholy Cavaliers. From the time of the Tudors, a respectable family named Somers had owned the White-Ladies, and inhabited it since its white-garbed tenants had been turned out, and the place secularized. 'Somers's House,' as it was called, (though more happily, the old name has been restored,) had received Queen Elizabeth on her progress. The richly cultivated old conventual gardens had supplied the Queen with some famous pears, and, in the fulness of her approval of the fruit, she had added them to the City arms. At that time one of these vaunted pear-trees stood securely in the market-place of Worcester. At the White-Ladies, Charles rested for half an hour; and here he left his garters, waistcoat, and other garments, to avoid discovery, ere he proceeded. They were long kept as relics. The mother of Lord Somers had been placed in this old house for security, for she was on the eve of giving birth to the future statesman, who was born in that sanctuary just at this time. His father at that very moment commanded a troop of horse in Cromwell's army, so that the risk the Cavaliers ran was imminent. The King's horse was led into the hall. Day was dawning; and the Cavaliers, as they entered the old conventual tenement, and saw the sunbeams on its walls, perceived their peril. A family of servants named Penderell held various offices there, and at Boscobel. William took care of Boscobel, George was a servant at White-Ladies; Humphrey was the miller to that house, Richard lived close by, at Hebbal Grange. He and William were called into the royal presence. Lord Derby then said to them, 'This is the King; have a care of him, and preserve him as thou didst me.' Then the attendant courtiers began undressing the King. They took off his buff-coat, and put on him a 'noggon coarse shirt,' and a green suit and another doublet--Richard Penderell's woodman's dress. Lord Wilmot cut his sovereign's hair with a knife, but Richard Penderell took up his shears and finished the work. 'Burn it,' said the king; but Richard kept the sacred locks. Then Charles covered his dark face with soot. Could anything have taken away the expression of his half-sleepy, half-merry eyes? They departed, and half an hour afterwards Colonel Ashenhurst, with a troop of Roundhead horse, rode up to the White-Ladies. The King, meantime, had been conducted by Richard Penderell into a coppice-wood, with a bill-hook in his hands for defence and disguise. But his followers were overtaken near Newport; and here Buckingham, with Lords Talbot and Leviston, escaped; and henceforth, until Charles's wanderings were transferred from England to France, George Villiers was separated from the Prince. Accompanied by the Earls of Derby and Lauderdale, and by Lord Talbot, he proceeded northwards, in hopes of joining General Leslie and the Scotch horse. But their hopes were soon dashed: attacked by a body of Roundheads, Buckingham and Lord Leviston were compelled to leave the high road, to alight from their horses, and to make their way to Bloore Park, near Newport, where Villiers found a shelter. He was soon, however, necessitated to depart: he put on a labourer's dress; he deposited his George, a gift from Henrietta Maria, with a companion, and set off for Billstrop, in Nottinghamshire, one Matthews, a carpenter, acting as his guide; at Billstrop he was welcomed by Mr. Hawley, a Cavalier; and from that place he went to Brookesby, in Leicestershire, the original seat of the Villiers family, and the birthplace of his father. Here he was received by Lady Villiers--the widow, probably, of his father's brother, Sir William Villiers, one of those contented country squires who not only sought no distinction, but scarcely thanked James I. when he made him a baronet. Here might the hunted refugee see, on the open battlements of the church, the shields on which were exhibited united quarterings of his father's family with those of his mother; here, listen to old tales about his grandfather, good Sir George, who married a serving-woman in his deceased wife's kitchen;[3] and that serving-woman became the leader of fashions in the court of James. Here he might ponder on the vicissitudes which marked the destiny of the house of Villiers, and wonder what should come next. That the spirit of adventure was strong within him, is shown by his daring to go up to London, and disguising himself as a mountebank. He had a coat made, called a 'Jack Pudding Coat:' a little hat was stuck on his head, with a fox's tail in it, and cocks' feathers here and there. A wizard's mask one day, a daubing of flour another, completed the disguise it was then so usual to assume: witness the long traffic held at Exeter Change by the Duchess of Tyrconnel, Francis Jennings, in a white mask, selling laces, and French gew-gaws, a trader to all appearance, but really carrying on political intrigues; every one went to chat with the 'White Milliner,' as she was called, during the reign of William and Mary. The Duke next erected a stage at Charing Cross--in the very face of the stern Rumpers, who, with long faces, rode past the sinful man each day as they came ambling up from the Parliament House. A band of puppet-players and violins set up their shows; and music covers a multitude of incongruities. The ballad was then the great vehicle of personal attack, and Villiers's dawning taste for poetry was shown in the ditties which he now composed, and in which he sometimes assisted vocally. Whilst all the other Cavaliers were forced to fly, he thus bearded his enemies in their very homes: sometimes he talked to them face to face, and kept the sanctimonious citizens in talk, till they found themselves sinfully disposed to laugh. But this vagrant life had serious evils: it broke down all the restraints which civilised society naturally, and beneficially, imposes. The Duke of Buckingham, Butler, the author of Hudibras, writes, 'rises, eats, goes to bed by the Julian account, long after all others that go by the new style, and keeps the same hours with owls and the Antipodes. He is a great observer of the Tartar customs, and never eats till the great cham, having dined, makes proclamation that all the world may go to dinner. He does not dwell in his house, but haunts it like an evil spirit, that walks all night, to disturb the family, and never appears by day. He lives perpetually benighted, runs out of his life, and loses his time as men do their ways in the dark: and as blind men are led by their dogs, so he is governed by some mean servant or other that relates to his pleasures. He is as inconstant as the moon which he lives under; and although he does nothing but advise with his pillow all day, he is as great a stranger to himself as he is to the rest of the world. His mind entertains all things that come and go; but like guests and strangers, they are not welcome if they stay long. This lays him open to all cheats, quacks, and impostors, who apply to every particular humour while it lasts, and afterwards vanish. He deforms nature, while he intends to adorn her, like Indians that hang jewels in their lips and noses. His ears are perpetually drilling with a fiddlestick, and endures pleasures with less patience than other men do their pains.' The more effectually to support his character as a mountebank, Villiers sold mithridate and galbanum plasters: thousands of spectators and customers thronged every day to see and hear him. Possibly many guessed that beneath all the fantastic exterior some ulterior project was concealed; yet he remained untouched by the City Guards. Well did Dryden describe him:-- 'Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Beside ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy.' His elder sister, Lady Mary Villiers, had married the Duke of Richmond, one of the loyal adherents of Charles I. The duke was, therefore, in durance at Windsor, whilst the duchess was to be placed under strict surveillance at Whitehall. Villiers resolved to see her. Hearing that she was to pass into Whitehall on a certain day, he set up his stage where she could not fail to perceive him. He had something important to say to her. As she drew near, he cried out to the mob that he would give them a song on the Duchess of Richmond and the Duke of Buckingham: nothing could be more acceptable. 'The mob,' it is related, 'stopped the coach and the duchess ... Nay, so outrageous were the mob, that they forced the duchess, who was then the handsomest woman in England, to sit in the boot of the coach, and to hear him sing all his impertinent songs. Having left off singing, he told them it was no more than reason that he should present the duchess with some of the songs. So he alighted from his stage, covered all over with papers and ridiculous little pictures. Having come to the coach, he took off a black piece of taffeta, which he always wore over one of his eyes, when his sister discovered immediately who he was, yet had so much presence of mind as not to give the least sign of mistrust; nay, she gave him some very opprobrious language, but was very eager at snatching the papers he threw into her coach. Among them was a packet of letters, which she had no sooner got but she went forward, the duke, at the head of the mob, attending and hallooing her a good way out of the town.' [Illustration: VILLIERS IN DISGUISE--THE MEETING WITH HIS SISTER.] A still more daring adventure was contemplated also by this young, irresistible duke. Bridget Cromwell, the eldest daughter of Oliver, was, at that time, a bride of twenty-six years of age; having married, in 1647, the saintly Henry Ireton, Lord Deputy of Ireland. Bridget was the pattern heroine of the '_unco guid_,' the quintessence of all propriety; the impersonation of sanctity; an ultra republican, who scarcely accorded to her father the modest title of Protector. She was esteemed by her party a 'personage of sublime growth:' 'humbled, not exalted,' according to Mrs. Hutchinson, by her elevation: 'nevertheless,' says that excellent lady, 'as my Lady Ireton was walking in the St. James's Park, the Lady Lambert, as proud as her husband, came by where she was, and as the present princess always hath precedency of the relict of the dead, so she put by my Lady Ireton, who, notwithstanding her piety and humility, was a little grieved at the affront.' After this anecdote one cannot give much credence to this lady's humility: Bridget was, however, a woman of powerful intellect, weakened by her extreme, and, to use a now common term, _crochety_ opinions. Like most _esprits forts_, she was easily imposed upon. One day this paragon saw a mountebank dancing on a stage in the most exquisite style. His fine shape, too, caught the attention of one who assumed to be above all folly. It is sometimes fatal to one's peace to look out of a window; no one knows what sights may rivet or displease. Mistress Ireton was sitting at her window unconscious that any one with the hated and malignant name of 'Villiers' was before her. After some unholy admiration, she sent to speak to the mummer. The duke scarcely knew whether to trust himself in the power of the bloodthirsty Ireton's bride or not--yet his courage--his love of sport--prevailed. He visited her that evening: no longer, however, in his jack-pudding coat, but in a rich suit, disguised with a cloak over it. He wore still a plaster over one eye, and was much disposed to take it off, but prudence forbade; and thus he stood in the presence of the prim and saintly Bridget Ireton. The particulars of the interview rest on his statement, and they must not, therefore, be accepted implicitly. Mistress Ireton is said to have made advances to the handsome incognito. What a triumph to a man like Villiers, to have intrigued with my Lord Protector's sanctified daughter! But she inspired him with disgust. He saw in her the presumption and hypocrisy of her father; he hated her as Cromwell's daughter and Ireton's wife. He told her, therefore, that he was a Jew, and could not by his laws become the paramour of a Christian woman. The saintly Bridget stood amazed; she had imprudently let him into some of the most important secrets of her party. A Jew! It was dreadful! But how could a person of that persuasion be so strict, so strait-laced? She probably entertained all the horror of Jews which the Puritanical party cherished as a virtue; forgetting the lessons of toleration and liberality inculcated by Holy Writ. She sent, however, for a certain Jewish Rabbi to converse with the stranger. What was the Duke of Buckingham's surprise, on visiting her one evening, to see the learned doctor armed at all points with the Talmud, and thirsting for dispute, by the side of the saintly Bridget. He could noways meet such a body of controversy; but thought it best forthwith to set off for the Downs. Before he departed he wrote, however, to Mistress Ireton, on the plea that she might wish to know to what tribe of Jews he belonged. So he sent her a note written with all his native wit and point.[4] Buckingham now experienced all the miseries that a man of expensive pleasures with a sequestrated estate is likely to endure. One friend remained to watch over his interests in England. This was John Traylman, a servant of his late father's, who was left to guard the collection of pictures made by the late duke, and deposited in York House. That collection was, in the opinion of competent judges, the third in point of value in England, being only inferior to those of Charles I. and the Earl of Arundel. It had been bought, with immense expense, partly by the duke's agents in Italy, the Mantua Gallery supplying a great portion--partly in France--partly in Flanders; and to Flanders a great portion was destined now to return. Secretly and laboriously did old Traylman pack up and send off these treasures to Antwerp, where now the gay youth whom the aged domestic had known from a child was in want and exile. The pictures were eagerly bought by a foreign collector named Duart. The proceeds gave poor Villiers bread; but the noble works of Titian and Leonardo da Vinci, and others, were lost for ever to England. It must have been very irritating to Villiers to know that whilst he just existed abroad, the great estates enjoyed by his father were being subjected to pillage by Cromwell's soldiers, or sold for pitiful sums by the Commissioners appointed by the Parliament to break up and annihilate many of the old properties in England. Burleigh-on-the-Hill, the stately seat on which the first duke had lavished thousands, had been taken by the Roundheads. It was so large, and presented so long a line of buildings, that the Parliamentarians could not hold it without leaving in it a great garrison and stores of ammunition. It was therefore burnt, and the stables alone occupied; and those even were formed into a house of unusual size. York House was doubtless marked out for the next destructive decree. There was something in the very history of this house which might be supposed to excite the wrath of the Roundheads. Queen Mary (whom we must not, after Miss Strickland's admirable life of her, call Bloody Queen Mary, but who will always be best known by that unpleasant title) had bestowed York House on the See of York, as a compensation for York House, at Whitehall, which Henry VIII. had taken from Wolsey. It had afterwards come into possession of the Keepers of the Great Seal. Lord Bacon was born in York House, his father having lived there; and the 'Greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind,' built here an aviary which cost £300. When the Duke of Lennox wished to buy York House, Bacon thus wrote to him:--'For this you will pardon me: York House is the house where my father died, and where I first breathed; and there will I yield my last breath, if it so please God and the King.' It did not, however, please the King that he should; the house was borrowed only by the first Duke of Buckingham from the Archbishop of York, and then exchanged for another seat, on the plea that the duke would want it for the reception of foreign potentates, and for entertainments given to royalty. The duke pulled it down: and the house, which was erected as a temporary structure, was so superb that even Pepys, twenty years after it had been left to bats and cobwebs, speaks of it in raptures, as of a place in which the great duke's soul was seen in every chamber. On the walls were shields on which the arms of Manners and of Villiers--peacocks and lions--were quartered. York House was never, however, finished; but as the lover of old haunts enters Buckingham Street in the Strand, he will perceive an ancient water-gate, beautifully proportioned, built by Inigo Jones--smoky, isolated, impaired--but still speaking volumes of remembrance of the glories of the assassinated duke, who had purposed to build the whole house in that style. '_Yorschaux_,' as he called it--York House--the French ambassador had written word to his friends at home, 'is the most richly fitted up of any that I saw.' The galleries and state rooms were graced by the display of the Roman marbles, both busts and statues, which the first duke had bought from Rubens; whilst in the gardens the Cain and Abel of John of Bologna, given by Philip IV. of Spain to King Charles, and by him bestowed on the elder George Villiers, made that fair _pleasaunce_ famous. It was doomed--as were what were called the 'superstitious' pictures in the house--to destruction: henceforth all was in decay and neglect. 'I went to see York House and gardens,' Evelyn writes in 1655, 'belonging to the former greate Buckingham, but now much ruined through neglect.' Traylman, doubtless, kept George Villiers the younger in full possession of all that was to happen to that deserted tenement in which the old man mourned for the departed, and thought of the absent. The intelligence which he had soon to communicate was all-important. York House was to be occupied again; and Cromwell and his coadjutors had bestowed it on Fairfax. The blow was perhaps softened by the reflection that Fairfax was a man of generous temper; and that he had an only daughter, Mary Fairfax, young, and an heiress. Though the daughter of a Puritan, a sort of interest was attached, even by Cavaliers, to Mary Fairfax, from her having, at five years of age, followed her father through the civil wars on horseback, seated before a maid-servant; and having, on her journey, frequently fainted, she was so ill as to have been left in a house by the roadside, her father never expecting to see her again. In reference to this young girl, then about eighteen years of age, Buckingham now formed a plan. He resolved to return to England disguised, to offer his hand to Mary Fairfax, and so recover his property through the influence of Fairfax. He was confident of his own attractions; and, indeed, from every account, he appears to have been one of those reckless, handsome, speculative characters that often take the fancy of better men than themselves. 'He had,' says Burnet, 'no sort of literature, only he was drawn into chymistry; and for some years he thought he was very near the finding of the philosopher's stone, which had the effect that attends on all such men as he was, when they are drawn in, to lay out for it. He had no principles of religion, virtue, or friendship; pleasure, frolic, or extravagant diversion, was all he laid to heart. He was true to nothing; for he was not true to himself. He had no steadiness nor conduct; he could keep no secret, nor execute any design without spoiling it; he could never fix his thoughts, nor govern his estate, though then the greatest in England. He was bred about the king, and for many years he had a great ascendant over him; but he spoke of him to all persons with that contempt, that at last he drew a lasting disgrace upon himself. And he at length ruined both body and mind, fortune and reputation, equally.' This was a sad prospect for poor Mary Fairfax, but certainly if in their choice ----'Weak women go astray, Their stars are more in fault than they,' and she was less to blame in her choice than her father, who ought to have advised her against the marriage. Where and how they met is not known. Mary was not attractive in person: she was in her youth little, brown, and thin, but became a 'short fat body,' as De Grammont tells us, in her early married life; in the later period of her existence she was described by the Vicomtesse de Longueville as a 'little round crumpled woman, very fond of finery;' and she adds that, on visiting the duchess one day, she found her, though in mourning, in a kind of loose robe over her, all edged and laced with gold. So much for a Puritan's daughter! To this insipid personage the duke presented himself. She soon liked him, and in spite of his outrageous infidelities, continued to like him after their marriage. He carried his point: Mary Fairfax became his wife on the 6th of September, 1675, and, by the influence of Fairfax, his estate, or, at all events, a portion of the revenues, about £4,000 a year, it is said, were restored to him. Nevertheless, it is mortifying to find that in 1682, he sold York House, in which his father had taken such pride, for £30,000. The house was pulled down; streets were erected on the gardens: George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Buckingham Street, Off Alley recall the name of the ill-starred George, first duke, and of his needy, profligate son; but the only trace of the real greatness of the family importance thus swept away is in the motto inscribed on the point of old Inigo's water-gate, towards the street: '_Fidei coticula crux_.' It is sad for all good royalists to reflect that it was not the rabid Roundhead, but a degenerate Cavalier, who sold and thus destroyed York House. The marriage with Mary Fairfax, though one of interest solely, was not a _mésalliance_: her father was connected by the female side with the Earls of Rutland; he was also a man of a generous spirit, as he had shown, in handing over to the Countess of Derby the rents of the Isle of Man, which had been granted to him by the Parliament. In a similar spirit he was not sorry to restore York House to the Duke of Buckingham. Cromwell, however, was highly exasperated by the nuptials between Mary Fairfax and Villiers, which took place at Nun-Appleton, near York, one of Fairfax's estates. The Protector had, it is said, intended Villiers for one of his own daughters. Upon what plea he acted it is not stated: he committed Villiers to the Tower, where he remained until the death of Oliver, and the accession of Richard Cromwell. In vain did Fairfax solicit his release: Cromwell refused it, and Villiers remained in durance until the abdication of Richard Cromwell, when he was set at liberty, but not without the following conditions, dated February 21st, 1658-9:-- 'The humble petition of George Duke of Buckingham was this day read. Resolved that George Duke of Buckingham, now prisoner at Windsor Castle, upon his engagement upon his honour at the bar of this House, and upon the engagement of Lord Fairfax in £20,000 that the said duke shall peaceably demain himself for the future, and shall not join with, or abet, or have any correspondence with, any of the enemies of the Lord Protector, and of this Commonwealth, in any of the parts beyond the sea, or within this Commonwealth, shall be discharged of his imprisonment and restraint; and that the Governor of Windsor Castle be required to bring the Duke of Buckingham to the bar of this House on Wednesday next, to engage his honour accordingly. Ordered, that the security of £20,000 to be given by the Lord Fairfax, on the behalf of the Duke of Buckingham, be taken in the name of His Highness the Lord Protector.' During his incarceration at Windsor, Buckingham had a companion, of whom many a better man might have been envious: this was Abraham Cowley, an old college friend of the duke's. Cowley was the son of a grocer, and owed his entrance into academic life to having been a King's Scholar at Westminster. One day he happened to take up from his mother's parlour window a copy of Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.' He eagerly perused the delightful volume, though he was then only twelve years old: and this impulse being given to his mind, became at fifteen a reciter of verses. His 'Poetical Blossoms,' published whilst he was still at school, gave, however, no foretaste of his future eminence. He proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his friendship with Villiers was formed; and where, perhaps, from that circumstance, Cowley's predilections for the cause of the Stuarts was ripened into loyalty. No two characters could be more dissimilar than those of Abraham Cowley and George Villiers. Cowley was quiet, modest, sober, of a thoughtful, philosophical turn, and of an affectionate nature; neither boasting of his own merits nor depreciating others. He was the friend of Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland; and yet he loved, though he must have condemned, George Villiers. It is not unlikely that, whilst Cowley imparted his love of poetry to Villiers, Villiers may have inspired the pensive and blameless poet with a love of that display of wit then in vogue, and heightened that sense of humour which speaks forth in some of Cowley's productions. Few authors suggest so many new thoughts, really his own, as Cowley. 'His works,' it has been said, 'are a flower-garden run to weeds, but the flowers are numerous and brilliant, and a search after them will repay the pains of a collector who is not too indolent or fastidious.' As Cowley and his friend passed the weary hours in durance, many an old tale could the poet tell the peer of stirring times; for Cowley had accompanied Charles I. in many a perilous journey, and had protected Queen Henrietta Maria in her escape to France: through Cowley had the correspondence of the royal pair, when separated, been carried on. The poet had before suffered imprisonment for his loyalty; and, to disguise his actual occupation, had obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and assumed the character of a physician, on the strength of knowing the virtues of a few plants. Many a laugh, doubtless, had Buckingham at the expense of _Dr._ Cowley: however, in later days, the duke proved a true friend to the poet, in helping to procure for him the lease of a farm at Chertsey from the queen, and here Cowley, rich upon £300 a year, ended his days. For some time after Buckingham's release, he lived quietly and respectably at Nun-Appleton, with General Fairfax and the vapid Mary. But the Restoration--the first dawnings of which have been referred to in the commencement of this biography--ruined him, body and mind. He was made a Lord of the Bedchamber, a Member of the Privy Council, and afterwards Master of the Horse,[5] and Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire. He lived in great magnificence at Wallingford House; a tenement next to York House, intended to be the habitable and useful appendage to that palace. He was henceforth, until he proved treacherous to his sovereign, the brightest ornament of Whitehall. Beauty of person was hereditary: his father was styled the 'handsomest-bodied man in England,' and George Villiers the younger equalled George Villiers the elder in all personal accomplishments. When he entered the Presence-Chamber all eyes followed him; every movement was graceful and stately. Sir John Reresby pronounced him 'to be the finest gentleman he ever saw.' 'He was born,' Madame Dunois declared, 'for gallantry and magnificence.' His wit was faultless, but his manners engaging; yet his sallies often descended into buffoonery, and he spared no one in his merry moods. One evening a play of Dryden's was represented. An actress had to spout forth this line-- 'My wound is great because it is so small!' She gave it out with pathos, paused, and was theatrically distressed. Buckingham was seated in one of the boxes. He rose, all eyes were fixed upon a face well known in all gay assemblies, in a tone of burlesque he answered-- 'Then 'twould be greater were it none at all.' Instantly the audience laughed at the Duke's tone of ridicule, and the poor woman was hissed off the stage. The king himself did not escape Buckingham's shafts; whilst Lord Chancellor Clarendon fell a victim to his ridicule: nothing could withstand it. There, not in that iniquitous gallery at Whitehall, but in the king's privy chambers, Villiers might be seen, in all the radiance of his matured beauty. His face was long and oval, with sleepy, yet glistening eyes, over which large arched eyebrows seemed to contract a brow on which the curls of a massive wig (which fell almost to his shoulders) hung low. His nose was long, well formed, and flexible; his lips thin and compressed, and defined, as the custom was, by two very short, fine, black patches of hair, looking more like strips of sticking-plaster than a moustache. As he made his reverence, his rich robes fell over a faultless form. He was a beau to the very fold of the cambric band round his throat; with long ends of the richest, closest point that was ever rummaged out from a foreign nunnery to be placed on the person of this sacrilegious sinner. Behold, now, how he changes. Villiers is Villiers no longer. He is Clarendon, walking solemnly to the Court of the Star Chamber: a pair of bellows is hanging before him for the purse; Colonel Titus is walking with a fire shovel on his shoulder, to represent a mace; the king, himself a capital mimic, is splitting his sides with laughter; the courtiers are fairly in a roar. Then how he was wont to divert the king with his descriptions! 'Ipswich, for instance,' he said, 'was a town without inhabitants--a river it had without water--streets without names; and it was a place where asses wore boots:' alluding to the asses, when employed in rolling Lord Hereford's bowling-green, having boots on their feet to prevent their injuring the turf. Flecknoe, the poet, describes the duke at this period, in 'Euterpe Revived'-- The gallant'st person, and the noblest minde, In all the world his prince could ever finde, Or to participate his private cares, Or bear the public weight of his affairs, Like well-built arches, stronger with their weight, And well-built minds, the steadier with their height; Such was the composition and frame O' the noble and the gallant Buckingham.' The praise, however, even in the duke's best days, was overcharged. Villiers was no 'well-built arch,' nor could Charles trust to the fidelity of one so versatile for an hour. Besides, the moral character of Villiers must have prevented him, even in those days, from bearing 'the public weight of affairs.' A scandalous intrigue soon proved the unsoundness of Flecknoe's tribute. Amongst the most licentious beauties of the court was Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, the daughter of Robert Brudenel, Earl of Cardigan, and the wife of Francis, Earl of Shrewsbury: amongst many shameless women she was the most shameless, and her face seems to have well expressed her mind. In the round, fair visage, with its languishing eyes, and full, pouting mouth, there is something voluptuous and bold. The forehead is broad, but low; and the wavy hair, with its tendril curls, comes down almost to the fine arched eyebrows, and then, falling into masses, sets off white shoulders which seem to designate an inelegant amount of _embonpoint_. There is nothing elevated in the whole countenance, as Lely has painted her, and her history is a disgrace to her age and time. She had numerous lovers (not in the refined sense of the word), and, at last, took up with Thomas Killigrew. He had been, like Villiers, a royalist: first a page to Charles I., next a companion of Charles II., in exile. He married the fair Cecilia Croft; yet his morals were so vicious that even in the Court of Venice to which he was accredited, in order to borrow money from the merchants of that city, he was too profligate to remain. He came back with Charles II., and was Master of the Revels, or King's Jester, as the court considered him, though without any regular appointment, during his life: the butt, at once, and the satirist of Whitehall. It was Killigrew's wit and descriptive powers which, when heightened by wine, were inconceivably great, that induced Villiers to select Lady Shrewsbury for the object of his admiration. When Killigrew perceived that he was supplanted by Villiers, he became frantic with rage, and poured out the bitterest invectives against the countess. The result was that, one night, returning from the Duke of York's apartments at St. James's, three passes with a sword were made at him through his chair, and one of them pierced his arm. This, and other occurrences, at last aroused the attention of Lord Shrewsbury, who had hitherto never doubted his wife: he challenged the Duke of Buckingham; and his infamous wife, it is said, held her paramour's horse, disguised as a page. Lord Shrewsbury was killed,[6] and the scandalous intimacy went on as before. No one but the queen, no one but the Duchess of Buckingham, appeared shocked at this tragedy, and no one minded their remarks, or joined in their indignation: all moral sense was suspended, or wholly stifled; and Villiers gloried in his depravity, more witty, more amusing, more fashionable than ever; and yet he seems, by the best-known and most extolled of his poems, to have had some conception of what a real and worthy attachment might be. The following verses are to his 'Mistress':-- 'What a dull fool was I To think so gross a lie, As that I ever was in love before! I have, perhaps, known one or two, With whom I was content to be At that which they call keeping company. But after all that they could do, I still could be with more. Their absence never made me shed a tear; And I can truly swear, That, till my eyes first gazed on you, I ne'er beheld the thing I could adore. 'A world of things must curiously be sought: A world of things must be together brought To make up charms which have the power to make, Through a discerning eye, true love; That is a master-piece above What only looks and shape can do; There must be wit and judgment too, Greatness of thought, and worth, which draw, From the whole world, respect and awe. 'She that would raise a noble love must find Ways to beget a passion for her mind; She must be that which she to be would seem, For all true love is grounded on esteem: Plainness and truth gain more a generous heart Than all the crooked subtleties of art. She must be--what said I?--she must be _you_: None but yourself that miracle can do. At least, I'm sure, thus much I plainly see, None but yourself e'er did it upon me. 'Tis you alone that can my heart subdue, To you alone it always shall be true.' The next lines are also remarkable for the delicacy and happy turn of the expressions-- 'Though Phillis, from prevailing charms, Have forc'd my Delia from my arms, Think not your conquest to maintain By rigour or unjust disdain. In vain, fair nymph, in vain you strive, For Love doth seldom Hope survive. My heart may languish for a time, As all beauties in their prime Have justified such cruelty, By the same fate that conquered me. When age shall come, at whose command Those troops of beauty must disband-- A rival's strength once took away, What slave's so dull as to obey? But if you'll learn a noble way To keep his empire from decay, And there for ever fix your throne, Be kind, but kind to me alone.' Like his father, who ruined himself by building, Villiers had a monomania for bricks and mortar, yet he found time to write 'The Rehearsal,' a play on which Mr. Reed in his 'Dramatic Biography' makes the following observation: 'It is so perfect a masterpiece in its way, and so truly original, that notwithstanding its prodigious success, even the task of imitation, which most kinds of excellence have invited inferior geniuses to undertake, has appeared as too arduous to be attempted with regard to this, which through a whole century stands alone, notwithstanding that the very plays it was written expressly to ridicule are forgotten, and the taste it was meant to expose totally exploded.' The reverses of fortune which brought George Villiers to abject misery were therefore, in a very great measure, due to his own misconduct, his depravity, his waste of life, his perversion of noble mental powers: yet in many respects he was in advance of his age. He advocated, in the House of Lords, toleration to Dissenters. He wrote a 'Short Discourse on the Reasonableness of Men's having a Religion, or Worship of God;' yet, such was his inconsistency, that in spite of these works, and of one styled a 'Demonstration of the Deity,' written a short time before his death, he assisted Lord Rochester in his atheistic poem upon 'Nothing.' Butler, the author of Hudibras, too truly said of Villiers 'that he had studied _the whole body of vice_;' a most fearful censure--a most significant description of a bad man. 'His parts,' he adds, 'are disproportionate to the whole, and like a monster, he has more of some, and less of others, than he should have. He has pulled down all that nature raised in him, and built himself up again after a model of his own. He has dammed up all those lights that nature made into the noblest prospects of the world, and opened other little blind loopholes backward by turning day into night, and night into day.' The satiety and consequent misery produced by this terrible life are ably described by Butler. And it was perhaps partly this wearied, worn-out spirit that caused Villiers to rush madly into politics for excitement. In 1666 he asked for the office of Lord President of the North; it was refused: he became disaffected, raised mutinies, and, at last, excited the indignation of his too-indulgent sovereign. Charles dismissed him from his office, after keeping him for some time in confinement. After this epoch little is heard of Buckingham but what is disgraceful. He was again restored to Whitehall, and, according to Pepys, even closeted with Charles, whilst the Duke of York was excluded. A certain acquaintance of the duke's remonstrated with him upon the course which Charles now took in Parliament. 'How often have you said to me,' this person remarked, 'that the king was a weak man, unable to govern, but to be governed, and that you could command him as you liked? Why do you suffer him to do these things?' 'Why,' answered the duke, 'I do suffer him to do these things, that I may hereafter the better command him.' A reply which betrays the most depraved principle of action, whether towards a sovereign or a friend, that can be expressed. His influence was for some time supreme, yet he became the leader of the opposition, and invited to his table the discontented peers, to whom he satirized the court, and condemned the king's want of attention to business. Whilst the theatre was ringing with laughter at the inimitable character of Bayes in the 'Rehearsal,' the House of Lords was listening with profound attention to the eloquence that entranced their faculties, making wrong seem right, for Buckingham was ever heard with attention. Taking into account his mode of existence, 'which,' says Clarendon, 'was a life by night more than by day, in all the liberties that nature could desire and wit invent,' it was astonishing how extensive an influence he had in both Houses of Parliament. 'His rank and condescension, the pleasantness of his humours and conversation, and the extravagance and keenness of his wit, unrestrained by modesty or religion, caused persons of all opinions and dispositions to be fond of his company, and to imagine that these levities and vanities would wear off with age, and that there would be enough of good left to make him useful to his country, for which he pretended a wonderful affection.' But this brilliant career was soon checked. The varnish over the hollow character of this extraordinary man was eventually rubbed off. We find the first hint of that famous coalition styled the _Cabal_ in Pepys's Diary, and henceforth the duke must be regarded as a ruined man. 'He' (Sir H. Cholmly) 'tells me that the Duke of Buckingham his crimes, as far as he knows, are his being of a cabal with some discontented persons of the late House of Commons, and opposing the desires of the king in all his matters in that House; and endeavouring to become popular, and advising how the Commons' House should proceed, and how he would order the House of Lords. And he hath been endeavouring to have the king's nativity calculated; which was done, and the fellow now in the Tower about it.... This silly lord hath provoked, by his ill carriage, the Duke of York, my Lord Chancellor, and all the great persons, and therefore most likely will die.' One day, in the House of Lords, during a conference between the two Houses, Buckingham leaned rudely over the shoulder of Henry Pierrepont Marquis of Dorchester. Lord Dorchester merely removed his elbow. Then the duke asked him if he was uneasy. 'Yes,' the marquis replied, adding, 'the duke dared not do this if he were anywhere else.' Buckingham retorted, 'Yes, he would: and he was a better man than my lord marquis:' on which Dorchester told him that he lied. On this Buckingham struck off Dorchester's hat, seized him by the periwig, pulled it aside, and held him. The Lord Chamberlain and others interposed and sent them both to the Tower. Nevertheless, not a month afterwards, Pepys speaks of seeing the duke's play of 'The Chances' acted at Whitehall. 'A good play,' he condescends to say, 'I find it, and the actors most good in it; and pretty to hear Knipp sing in the play very properly "All night I weepe," and sung it admirably. The whole play pleases me well: and most of all, the sight of many fine ladies, amongst others, my Lady Castlemaine and Mrs. Middleton.' The whole management of public affairs was, at this period, intrusted to five persons, and hence the famous combination, the united letters of which formed the word 'Cabal:'--Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. Their reprehensible schemes, their desperate characters, rendered them the opprobrium of their age, and the objects of censure to all posterity. Whilst matters were in this state a daring outrage, which spoke fearfully of the lawless state of the times, was ascribed, though wrongly, to Buckingham. The Duke of Ormond, the object of his inveterate hatred, was at that time Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Colonel Blood,--a disaffected disbanded officer of the Commonwealth, who had been attainted for a conspiracy in Ireland, but had escaped punishment,--came to England, and acted as a spy for the 'Cabal,' who did not hesitate to countenance this daring scoundrel. His first exploit was to attack the Duke of Ormond's coach one night in St. James's Street: to secure his person, bind him, put him on horseback after one of his accomplices, and carry him to Tyburn, where he meant to hang his grace. On their way, however, Ormond, by a violent effort, threw himself on the ground; a scuffle ensued: the duke's servants came up, and after receiving the fire of Blood's pistols, the duke escaped. Lord Ossory, the Duke of Ormond's son, on going afterward to court, met Buckingham, and addressed him in these words:-- 'My lord, I know well that you are at the bottom of this late attempt on my father; but I give you warning, if he by any means come to a violent end, I shall not be at a loss to know the author. I shall consider you as an assassin, and shall treat you as such; and wherever I meet you I shall pistol you, though you stood behind the king's chair; and I tell it you in his majesty's presence, that you may be sure I shall not fail of performance.' Blood's next feat was to carry off from the Tower the crown jewels. He was overtaken and arrested: and was then asked to name his accomplices. 'No,' he replied, 'the fear of danger shall never tempt me to deny guilt or to betray a friend.' Charles II., with undignified curiosity, wished to see the culprit. On inquiring of Blood how he dared to make so bold an attempt on the crown, the bravo answered, 'My father lost a good estate fighting for the crown, and I considered it no harm to recover it by the crown.' He then told his majesty how he had resolved to assassinate him: how he had stood among the reeds in Battersea-fields with this design; how then, a sudden awe had come over him: and Charles was weak enough to admire Blood's fearless bearing and to pardon his attempt. Well might the Earl of Rochester write of Charles-- 'Here lies my sovereign lord the king, Whose word no man relies on; Who never said a foolish thing, And never did a wise one.' Notwithstanding Blood's outrages--the slightest penalty for which in our days would have been penal servitude for life--Evelyn met him, not long afterwards, at Lord Clifford's, at dinner, when De Grammont and other French noblemen were entertained. 'The man,' says Evelyn, 'had not only a daring, but a villanous, unmerciful look, a false countenance; but very well-spoken, and dangerously insinuating.' Early in 1662, the Duke of Buckingham had been engaged in practices against the court: he had disguised deep designs by affecting the mere man of pleasure. Never was there such splendour as at Wallingford House--such wit and gallantry; such perfect good breeding; such apparently openhanded hospitality. At those splendid banquets, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 'a man whom the Muses were fond to inspire, but ashamed to avow,' showed his 'beautiful face,' as it was called; and chimed in with that wit for which the age was famous. The frequenters at Wallingford House gloried in their indelicacy. 'One is amazed,' Horace Walpole observes, 'at hearing the age of Charles II. called polite. The Puritans have affected to call everything by a Scripture' name; the new comers affected to call everything by its right name; 'As if preposterously they would confess A forced hypocrisy in wickedness.' Walpole compares the age of Charles II. to that of Aristophanes--'which called its own grossness polite.' How bitterly he decries the stale poems of the time as 'a heap of senseless ribaldry;' how truly he shows that licentiousness weakens as well as depraves the judgment. 'When Satyrs are brought to court,' he observes, 'no wonder the Graces would not trust themselves there.' The Cabal is said, however, to have been concocted, not at Wallingford House, but at Ham House, near Kingston-on-Thames. In this stately old manor-house, the abode of the Tollemache family, the memory of Charles II. and of his court seems to linger still. Ham House was intended for the residence of Henry, Prince of Wales, and was built in 1610. It stands near the river Thames; and is flanked by noble avenues of elm and of chestnut trees, down which one may almost, as it were, hear the king's talk with his courtiers; see Arlington approach with the well-known patch across his nose; or spy out the lovely, childish Miss Stuart and her future husband, the Duke of Richmond, slipping behind into the garden, lest the jealous mortified king should catch a sight of the 'conscious lovers.' This stately structure was given by Charles II., in 1672, to the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale: she, the supposed mistress of Cromwell; he, the cruel, hateful Lauderdale of the Cabal. This detestable couple, however, furnished with massive grandeur the apartments of Ham House. They had the ceilings painted by Verrio; the furniture was rich, and even now the bellows and brushes in some of the rooms are of silver filigree. One room is furnished with yellow damask, still rich, though faded; the very seats on which Charles, looking around him, saw Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley (the infamous Shaftesbury), and Lauderdale--and knew not, good easy man, that he was looking on a band of traitors--are still there. Nay, he even sat to Sir Peter Lely for a portrait for this very place--in which, schemes for the ruin of the kingdom were concocted. All, probably, was smooth and pleasing to the monarch as he ranged down the fine gallery, ninety-two feet long; or sat at dinner amid his foes in that hall, surrounded with an open balustrade; or disported himself on the river's green brink. Nay, one may even fancy Nell Gwynn taking a day's pleasure in this then lone and ever sweet locality. We hear her swearing, as she was wont to do, perchance at the dim looking-glasses, her own house in Pall Mall, given her by the king, having been filled up, for the comedian, entirely, ceiling and all, with looking-glass. How bold and pretty she looked in her undress! Even Pepys--no very sound moralist, though a vast hypocrite--tells us: Nelly, 'all unready' was 'very pretty, prettier far than he thought.' But to see how she was 'painted,' would, he thought, 'make a man mad.' 'Madame Ellen,' as after her _elevation_, as it was termed, she was called, might, since she held long a great sway over Charles's fancy, be suffered to scamper about Ham House--where her merry laugh perhaps scandalised the now Saintly Duchess of Lauderdale,--just to impose on the world; for Nell was regarded as the Protestant champion of the court, in opposition to her French rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth. Let us suppose that she has been at Ham House, and is gone off to Pall Mall again, where she can see her painted face in every turn. The king has departed, and Killigrew, who, at all events, is loyal, and the true-hearted Duke of Richmond, all are away to London. In yon sanctimonious-looking closet, next to the duchess's bed-chamber, with her psalter and her prayer-book on her desk, which is fixed to her great chair, and that very cane which still hangs there serving as her support when she comes forth from that closet, murmur and wrangle the component parts of that which was never mentioned without fear--the Cabal. The conspirators dare not trust themselves in the gallery: there is tapestry there, and we all know what coverts there are for eaves-droppers and spiders in tapestried walls: then the great Cardinal spiders do so click there, are so like the death-watch, that Villiers, who is inveterately superstitious, will not abide there. The hall, with its enclosing galleries, and the buttery near, are manifestly unsafe. So they heard, nay crouch, mutter, and concoct that fearful treachery which, as far as their country is concerned, has been a thing apart in our annals, in 'my Lady's' closet. Englishmen are turbulent, ambitious, unscrupulous; but the craft of Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale--the subtlety of Ashley, seem hardly conceivable either in a Scot or Southron. These meetings had their natural consequence. One leaves Lauderdale, Arlington, Ashley, and Clifford, to their fate. But the career of Villiers inspires more interest. He seemed born for better things. Like many men of genius, he was so credulous that the faith he pinned on one Heydon, an astrologer, at this time, perhaps buoyed him up with false hopes. Be it as it may, his plots now tended to open insurrection. In 1666, a proclamation had been issued for his apprehension--he having then absconded. On this occasion he was saved by the act of one whom he had injured grossly--his wife. She managed to outride the serjeant-at-arms, and to warn him of his danger. She had borne his infidelities, after the fashion of the day, as a matter of course: jealousy was then an impertinence--constancy, a chimera; and her husband, whatever his conduct, had ever treated her with kindness of manner; he had that charm, that attribute of his family, in perfection, and it had fascinated Mary Fairfax. He fled, and played for a year successfully the pranks of his youth. At last, worn out, he talked of giving himself up to justice. 'Mr. Fenn, at the table, says that he hath been taken by the watch two or three times of late, at unseasonable hours, but so disguised they did not know him; and when I come home, by and by, Mr. Lowther tells me that the Duke of Buckingham do dine publickly this day at Wadlow's, at the Sun Tavern; and is mighty merry, and sent word to the Lieutenant of the Tower, that he would come to him as soon as he dined.' So Pepys states. Whilst in the Tower--to which he was again committed--Buckingham's pardon was solicited by Lady Castlemaine; on which account the king was very angry with her; called her a meddling 'jade;' she calling him 'fool,' and saying if he was not a fool he never would suffer his best subjects to be imprisoned--referring to Buckingham. And not only did she ask his liberty, but the restitution of his places. No wonder there was discontent when such things were done, and public affairs were in such a state. We must again quote the graphic, terse language of Pepys:--'It was computed that the Parliament had given the king for this war only, besides all prizes, and besides the £200,000 which he was to spend of his own revenue, to guard the sea, above £5,000,000, and odd £100,000; which is a most prodigious sum. Sir H. Cholmly, as a true English gentleman, do decry the king's expenses of his privy purse, which in King James's time did not rise to above £5,000 a year, and in King Charles's to £10,000, do now cost us above £100,000, besides the great charge of the monarchy, as the Duke of York has £100,000 of it, and other limbs of the royal family.' In consequence of Lady Castlemaine's intervention, Villiers was restored to liberty--a strange instance, as Pepys remarks, of the 'fool's play' of the age. Buckingham was now as presuming as ever: he had a theatre of his own, and he soon showed his usual arrogance by beating Henry Killigrew on the stage, and taking away his coat and sword; all very 'innocently' done, according to Pepys. In July he appeared in his place in the House of Lords, as 'brisk as ever,' and sat in his robes, 'which,' says Pepys, 'is a monstrous thing that a man should be proclaimed against, and put in the Tower, and released without any trial, and yet not restored to his places.' We next find the duke intrusted with a mission to France, in concert with Halifax and Arlington. In the year 1680, he was threatened with an impeachment, in which, with his usual skill, he managed to exculpate himself by blaming Lord Arlington. The House of Commons passed a vote for his removal; and he entered the ranks of the opposition. But this career of public meanness and private profligacy was drawing to a close. Alcibiades no longer--his frame wasted by vice--his spirits broken by pecuniary difficulties--Buckingham's importance visibly sank away. 'He remained, at last,' to borrow the words of Hume, 'as incapable of doing hurt as he had ever been little desirous of doing good to mankind.' His fortune had now dwindled down to £300 a year in land; he sold Wallingford House, and removed into the City. And now the fruits of his adversity, not, we hope, too late, began to appear. Like Lord Rochester, who had ordered all his immoral works to be burnt, Buckingham now wished to retrieve the past. In 1685 he wrote the religious works which form so striking a contrast with his other productions. That he had been up to the very time of his ruin perfectly impervious to remorse, dead also to shame, is amply manifested by his conduct soon after his duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury. Sir George Etherege had brought out a new play at the Duke of York's Theatre. It was called, 'She Would if she Could.' Plays in those days began at what we now consider our luncheon hour. Though Pepys arrived at the theatre on this occasion at two o'clock--his wife having gone before--about a thousand people had then been put back from the pit. At last, seeing his wife in the eighteen-penny-box, Samuel 'made shift' to get there and there saw, 'but lord!' (his own words are inimitable) 'how dull, and how silly the play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few people pleased in it. The king was there; but I sat mightily behind, and could see but little, and hear not at all. The play being done, I went into the pit to look for my wife, it being dark and raining, but could not find her; and so staid, going between the two doors and through the pit an hour and a half, I think, after the play was done; the people staying there till the rain was over, and to talk to one another. And among the rest, here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly in the pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley, and Etheridge the poet, the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour, and had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing, nor could so much as sing a ketch in it; and so was mightily concerned, while all the rest did, through the whole pit, blame the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something very roguish and witty; but the design of the play, and end, mighty insipid.' Buckingham had held out to his Puritan friends the hope of his conversion for some years; and when they attempted to convert him, he had appointed a time for them to finish their work. They kept their promise, and discovered him in the most profligate society. It was indeed impossible to know in what directions his fancies might take him, when we find him believing in the predictions of a poor fellow in a wretched lodging near Tower Hill, who, having cast his nativity, assured the duke he would be king. He had continued for years to live with the Countess of Shrewsbury, and two months after her husband's death, had taken her to his home. Then, at last, the Duchess of Buckingham indignantly observed, that she and the countess could not possibly live together. 'So I thought, madam,' was the reply. 'I have therefore ordered your coach to take you to your father's.' It has been asserted that Dr. Sprat, the duke's chaplain, actually married him to Lady Shrewsbury, and that his legal wife was thenceforth styled 'The Duchess-dowager.' He retreated with his mistress to Claverdon, near Windsor, situated on the summit of a hill which is washed by the Thames. It is a noble building, with a great terrace in front, under which are twenty-six niches, in which Buckingham had intended to place twenty-six statues as large as life; and in the middle is an alcove with stairs. Here he lived with the infamous countess, by whom he had a son, whom he styled Earl of Coventry, (his second title,) and who died an infant. One lingers still over the social career of one whom Louis XIV. called 'the only English gentleman he had ever seen.' A capital retort was made to Buckingham by the Princess of Orange, during an interview, when he stopped at the Hague, between her and the Duke. He was trying diplomatically to convince her of the affection of England for the States. 'We do not,' he said, 'use Holland like a mistress, we love her as a wife.' '_Vraiment je crois que vous nous aimez comme vous aimez la vôtre_,' was the sharp and clever answer. On the death of Charles II., in 1685, Buckingham retired to the small remnant of his Yorkshire estates. His debts were now set down at the sum of £140,000. They were liquidated by the sale of his estates. He took kindly to a country life, to the surprise of his old comrade in pleasure, Etherege. 'I have heard the news,' that wit cried, alluding to this change, 'with no less astonishment than if I had been told that the Pope had begun to wear a periwig and had turned beau in the seventy-fourth year of his age!' Father Petre and Father Fitzgerald were sent by James II. to convert the duke to Popery. The following anecdote is told of their conference with the dying sinner:--'We deny,' said the Jesuit Petre, 'that any one can be saved out of our Church. Your grace allows that our people may be saved.'--'No,' said the duke, 'I make no doubt you will all be damned to a man!' 'Sir,' said the father, 'I cannot argue with a person so void of all charity.'--'I did not expect, my reverend father,' said the duke, 'such a reproach from you, whose whole reasoning was founded on the very same instance of want of charity to yourself.' Buckingham's death took place at Helmsby, in Yorkshire, and the immediate cause was an ague and fever, owing to having sat down on the wet grass after fox-hunting. Pope has given the following forcible, but inaccurate account of his last hours, and the place in which they were passed:-- 'In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, The floors of plaster and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw; The George and Garter dangling from that bed, Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies:--alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure and that soul of whim! Gallant and gay, in Claverdon's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love, Or, just as gay, at council in a ring Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry King. No wit to flatter left of all his store, No fool to laugh at, which he valued more, Then victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.' Far from expiring in the 'worst inn's worst room,' the duke breathed his last in Kirby Moorside, in a house which had once been the best in the place. Brian Fairfax, who loved this brilliant reprobate, has left the only authentic account on record of his last hours. The night previous to the duke's death Fairfax had received a message from him desiring him to prepare a bed for him in his house, Bishop Hill, in York. The next day, however, Fairfax was sent for to his master, whom he found dying. He was speechless, but gave the afflicted servant an earnest look of recognition. The Earl of Arran, son of the Duke of Hamilton, and a gentleman of the neighbourhood, stood by his bedside. He had then received the Holy Communion from a neighbouring clergyman of the Established Church. When the minister came it is said that he inquired of the duke what religion he professed. 'It is,' replied the dying man, 'an insignificant question, for I have been a shame and a disgrace to all religions: if you can do me any good, pray do.' When a Popish priest had been mentioned to him, he answered vehemently, 'No, no!' He was in a very low state when Lord Arran had found him. But though that nobleman saw death in his looks, the duke said he 'felt so well at heart that he knew he could be in no danger.' He appeared to have had inflammation in the bowels, which ended in mortification. He begged of Lord Arran to stay with him. The house seems to have been in a most miserable condition, for in a letter from Lord Arran to Dr. Sprat, he says, 'I confess it made my heart bleed to see the Duke of Buckingham in so pitiful a place, and so bad a condition, and what made it worse, he was not at all sensible of it, for he thought in a day or two he should be well; and when we reminded him of his condition, he said it was not as we apprehended. So I sent for a worthy gentleman, Mr. Gibson, to be assistant to me in this work; so we jointly represented his condition to him, who I saw was at first very uneasy; but I think we should not have discharged the duties of honest men if we had suffered him to go out of this world without desiring him to prepare for death.' The duke joined heartily in the beautiful prayers for the dying, of our Church, and yet there was a sort of selfishness and indifference to others manifest even at the last. 'Mr. Gibson,' writes Lord Arran, 'asked him if he had made a will, or if he would declare who was to be his heir? but to the first, he answered he had made none; and to the last, whoever was named he answered, "No." First, my lady duchess was named, and then I think almost everybody that had any relation to him, but his answer always was, "No." I did fully represent my lady duchess' condition to him, but nothing that was said to him could make him come to any point.' In this 'retired corner,' as Lord Arran terms it, did the former wit and beau, the once brave and fine cavalier, the reckless plotter in after-life, end his existence. His body was removed to Helmsby Castle, there to wait the duchess' pleasure, being meantime embalmed. Not one farthing could his steward produce to defray his burial. His George and blue ribbon were sent to the King James, with an account of his death. In Kirby Moorside the following entry in the register of burials records the event, which is so replete with a singular retributive justice--so constituted to impress and sadden the mind:-- 'Georges Villus Lord dooke of Buckingham.' He left scarcely a friend to mourn his life; for to no man had he been true. He died on the 16th of April according to some accounts; according to others, on the third of that month, 1687, in the sixty-first year of his age. His body, after being embalmed, was deposited in the family vault in Henry VII.'s chapel.[7] He left no children, and his title was therefore extinct. The Duchess of Buckingham, of whom Brian Fairfax remarks, 'that if she had none of the vanities, she had none of the vices of the court,' survived him several years. She died in 1705, at the age of sixty-six, and was buried in the vault of the Villiers' family, in the chapel of Henry VII. Such was the extinction of all the magnificence and intellectual ascendency that at one time centred in the great and gifted family of Villiers. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Dryden.] [Footnote 2: The day after the battle at Kingston, the Duke's estates were confiscated. (8th July, 1648.)--Nichols's History of Leicestershire, iii. 213; who also says that the Duke offered marriage to one of the daughters of Cromwell, but was refused. He went abroad in 1648, but returned with Charles II. to Scotland in 1650, and again escaped to France after the battle of Worcester, 1651. The sale of the pictures would seem to have commenced during his first exile.] [Footnote 3: Sir George Villiers's second wife was Mary, daughter of Antony Beaumont, Esq., of Glenfield, (Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 193,) who was son of Wm. Beaumont, Esq., of Cole Orton. She afterwards was married successively to Sir Wm. Rayner and Sir Thomas Compton, and was created Countess of Buckingham in 1618.] [Footnote 4: This incident is taken from Madame Dunois' Memoirs, part i. p. 86.] [Footnote 5: The duke became Master of the Horse in 1688; he paid £20,000 to the Duke of Albemarle for the post.] [Footnote 6: The duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury took place 17th January, 1667-8.] [Footnote 7: Brian Fairfax states, that at his death (the Duke of Buckingham's) he charged his debts on his estate, leaving much more than enough to cover them. By the register of Westminster Abbey it appears that he was buried in Henry VII.'s Chapel, 7th June, 1687.] COUNT DE GRAMMONT, ST. EVREMOND, AND LORD ROCHESTER. De Grammont's Choice.--His Influence with Turenne.--The Church or the Army?--An Adventure at Lyons.--A brilliant Idea.--De Grammont's Generosity.--A Horse 'for the Cards.'--Knight-Cicisbeism.--De Grammont's first Love.--His Witty Attacks on Mazarin.--Anne Lucie de la Mothe Houdancourt.--Beset with Snares.--De Grammont's Visits to England.--Charles II.--The Court of Charles II.--Introduction of Country-dances.--Norman Peculiarities.--St. Evremond, the Handsome Norman.--The most Beautiful Woman in Europe.--Hortense Mancini's Adventures.--Madame Mazarin's House at Chelsea.--Anecdote of Lord Dorset.--Lord Rochester in his Zenith.--His Courage and Wit.--Rochester's Pranks in the City.--Credulity, Past and Present.--'Dr. Bendo,' and La Belle Jennings.--La Triste Heritière.--Elizabeth, Countess of Rochester.--Retribution and Reformation.--Conversion.--Beaux without Wit.--Little Jermyn.--An Incomparable Beauty.--Anthony Hamilton, De Grammont's Biographer.--The Three Courts.--'La Belle Hamilton.'--Sir Peter Lely's Portrait of her.--The Household Deity of Whitehall.--Who shall have the Calèche?--A Chaplain in Livery.--De Grammont's Last Hours.--What might he not have been? It has been observed by a French critic, that the Mémoires de Grammont afford the truest specimens of French character in our language. To this it may be added, that the subject of that animated narrative was most completely French in principle, in intelligence, in wit that hesitated at nothing, in spirits that were never daunted, and in that incessant activity which is characteristic of his countrymen. Grammont, it was said, 'slept neither night nor day;' his life was one scene of incessant excitement. His father, supposed to have been the natural son of Henry the Great, of France, did not suppress that fact, but desired to publish it: for the morals of his time were so depraved, that it was thought to be more honourable to be the illegitimate son of a king than the lawful child of lowlier parents. Born in the Castle of Semeac, on the banks of the Garonne, the fame of two fair ancestresses, Corisande and Menadame, had entitled the family of De Grammont to expect in each successive member an inheritance of beauty. Wit, courage, good nature, a charming address, and boundless assurance, were the heritage of Philibert de Grammont. Beauty was not in his possession; good nature, a more popular quality, he had in abundance: 'His wit to scandal never stooping, His mirth ne'er to buffoonery drooping.' As Philibert grew up, the two aristocratic professions of France were presented for his choice: the army, or the church. Neither of these vocations constitutes now the ambition of the high-born in France: the church, to a certain extent, retains its _prestige_, but the army, ever since officers have risen from the ranks, does not comprise the same class of men as in England. In the reign of Louis XIII., when De Grammont lived it was otherwise. All political power was vested in the church. Richelieu was, to all purposes, the ruler of France, the dictator of Europe; and, with regard to the church, great men, at the head of military affairs, were daily proving to the world, how much intelligence could effect with a small numerical power. Young men took one course or another: the sway of the cabinet, on the one hand, tempted them to the church; the brilliant exploits of Turenne, and of Condé, on the other, led them to the camp. It was merely the difference of dress between the two that constituted the distinction: the soldier might be as pious as the priest, the priest was sure to be as worldly as the soldier; the soldier might have ecclesiastical preferment; the priest sometimes turned out to fight. Philibert de Grammont chose to be a soldier. He was styled the Chevalier de Grammont, according to custom, his father being still living. He fought under Turenne, at the siege of Trino. The army in which he served was beleaguering that city when the gay youth from the banks of the Garonne joined it, to aid it not so much by his valour as by the fun, the raillery, the off-hand anecdote, the ready, hearty companionship which lightened the soldier's life in the trenches: adieu to impatience, to despair, even to gravity. The very generals could not maintain their seriousness when the light-hearted De Grammont uttered a repartee-- 'Sworn enemy to all long speeches, Lively and brilliant, frank and free, Author of many a repartee: Remember, over all, that he Was not renowned for storming breaches.' Where he came, all was sunshine, yet there breathed not a colder, graver man than the Calvinist Turenne: modest, serious, somewhat hard, he gave the young nobility who served under him no quarter in their shortcomings; but a word, a look, from De Grammont could make him, _malgrê lui_, unbend. The gay chevalier's white charger's prancing, its gallant rider foremost in every peril, were not forgotten in after-times, when De Grammont, in extreme old age, chatted over the achievements and pleasures of his youth. Amongst those who courted his society in Turenne's army was Matta, a soldier of simple manners, hard habits, and handsome person, joined to a candid, honest nature. He soon persuaded De Grammont to share his quarters, and there they gave splendid entertainments, which, Frenchman-like, De Grammont paid for out of the successes of the gaming-tables. But chances were against them; the two officers were at the mercy of their _maitre d'hôtel_, who asked for money. One day, when De Grammont came home sooner than usual, he found Matta fast asleep. Whilst De Grammont stood looking at him, he awoke, and burst into a violent fit of laughter. 'What is the matter?' cried the chevalier. 'Faith, chevalier,' answered Matta, 'I was dreaming that we had sent away our _maitre d'hôtel_, and were resolved to live like our neighbours for the rest of the campaign.' 'Poor fellow!' cried De Grammont. 'So, you are knocked down at once: what would have become of you if you had been reduced to the situation I was in at Lyons, four days before I came here? Come, I will tell you all about it.' 'Begin a little farther back,' cried Matta, 'and tell me about the manner in which you first paid your respects to Cardinal Richelieu. Lay aside your pranks as a child, your genealogy, and all your ancestors together; you cannot know anything about them.' 'Well,' replied De Grammont, 'it was my father's own fault that he was not Henry IV.'s son: see what the Grammonts have lost by this crossed-grained fellow! Faith, we might have walked before the Counts de Vendôme at this very moment.' Then he went on to relate how he had been sent to Pau, to the college, to be brought up to the church, with an old servant to act both as his valet and his guardian. How his head was too full of gaming to learn Latin. How they gave him his rank at college, as the youth of quality, when he did not deserve it; how he travelled up to Paris to his brother to be polished, and went to court in the character of an abbé. 'Ah, Matta, you know the kind of dress then in vogue. No, I would not change my dress, but I consented to draw over it a cassock. I had the finest head of hair in the world, well curled and powdered above my cassock, and below were my white buskins and spurs.' Even Richelieu, that hypocrite, he went on to relate, could not help laughing at the parti-coloured costume, sacerdotal above, soldier-like below; but the cardinal was greatly offended--not with the absence of decorum, but with the dangerous wit, that could laugh in public at the cowl and shaven crown, points which constituted the greatest portion of Richelieu's sanctity. De Grammont's brother, however, thus addressed the Chevalier:--'Well, my little parson,' said he, as they went home, 'you have acted your part to perfection; but now you must choose your career. If you like to stick to the church, you will possess great revenues, and nothing to do; if you choose to go into the army, you will risk your arm or your leg, but in time you may be a major-general with a wooden leg and a glass eye, the spectacle of an indifferent, ungrateful court. Make your choice.' The choice, Philibert went on to relate, was made. For the good of his soul, he renounced the church, but for his own advantage, he kept his abbacy. This was not difficult in days when secular abbés were common; nothing would induce him to change his resolution of being a soldier. Meantime he was perfecting his accomplishments as a fine gentleman, one of the requisites for which was a knowledge of all sorts of games. No matter that his mother was miserable at his decision. Had her son been an abbé, she thought he would have become a saint: nevertheless, when he returned home, with the air of a courtier and a man of the world, boy as he was, and the very impersonation of what might then be termed _la jeune France_, she was so enchanted with him that she consented to his going to the wars, attended again by Brinon, his valet, equerry, and Mentor in one. Next in De Grammont's narrative came his adventure at Lyons, where he spent the 200 louis his mother had given Brinon for him, in play, and very nearly broke the poor old servant's heart; where he had duped a horse-dealer; and he ended by proposing plans, similarly _honourable_, to be adopted for their present emergencies. The first step was to go to head-quarters, to dine with a certain Count de Cameran, a Savoyard, and invite him to supper. Here Matta interposed. 'Are you mad?' he exclaimed. 'Invite him to supper! we have neither money nor credit; we are ruined; and to save us you intend to give a supper!' 'Stupid fellow!' cried De Grammont. 'Cameran plays at quinze: so do I: we want money. He has more than he knows what to do with: we give a supper, he pays for it. However,' he added, 'it is necessary to take certain precautions. You command the Guards: when night comes on, order your _Sergent-de-place_ to have fifteen or twenty men under arms, and let them lay themselves flat on the ground between this and head-quarters. Most likely we shall win this stupid fellow's money. Now the Piedmontese are suspicious, and he commands the Horse. Now, you know, Matta, you cannot hold your tongue, and are very likely to let out some joke that will vex him. Supposing he takes it into his head that he is being cheated? He has always eight or ten horsemen: we must be prepared.' 'Embrace me!' cried Matta, 'embrace me! for thou art unparalleled. I thought you only meant to prepare a pack of cards, and some false dice. But the idea of protecting a man who plays at quinze by a detachment of foot is excellent: thine own, dear Chevalier.' Thus, like some of Dumas' heroes, hating villany as a matter of course, but being by no means ashamed to acknowledge it, the Piedmontese was asked to supper. He came. Nevertheless, in the midst of the affair, when De Cameran was losing as fast as he could, Matta's conscience touched him: he awoke from a deep sleep, heard the dice shaking, saw the poor Savoyard losing, and advised him to play no more. 'Don't you know, Count, you _cannot_ win?' 'Why?' asked the Count. 'Why, faith, because we are cheating you,' was the reply. The Chevalier turned round impatiently, 'Sieur Matta,' he cried, 'do you suppose it can be any amusement to Monsieur le Comte to be plagued with your ill-timed jests? For my part, I am so weary of the game, that I swear by Jupiter I can scarcely play any more.' Nothing is more distasteful to a losing gamester than a hint of leaving off; so the Count entreated the Chevalier to continue, and assured him that 'Monsieur Matta might say what he pleased, for it did not give him the least uneasiness to continue.' The Chevalier allowed the Count to play upon credit, and that act of courtesy was taken very kindly: the dupe lost 1,500 pistoles, which he paid the next morning, when Matta was sharply reprimanded for his interference. 'Faith,' he answered, 'it was a point of conscience with me; besides, it would have given me pleasure to have seen his Horse engaged with my Infantry, if he had taken anything amiss.' The sum thus gained set the spendthrifts up; and De Grammont satisfied his conscience by giving it away, to a certain extent, in charity. It is singular to perceive in the history of this celebrated man that moral taint of character which the French have never lost: this total absence of right reasoning on all points of conduct, is coupled in our Gallic neighbours with the greatest natural benevolence, with a generosity only kept back by poverty, with impulsive, impressionable dispositions, that require the guidance of a sound Protestant faith to elevate and correct them. The Chevalier hastened, it is related, to find out distressed comrades, officers who had lost their baggage, or who had been ruined by gaming; or soldiers who had been disabled in the trenches; and his manner of relieving them was as graceful and as delicate as the bounty he distributed was welcome. He was the darling of the army. The poor soldier knew him personally, and adored him; the general was sure to meet him in the scenes of action, and to seek his company in those of security. And, having thus retrieved his finances, the gay-hearted Chevalier used, henceforth, to make De Cameran go halves with him in all games in which the odds were in his own favour. Even the staid Calvinist, Turenne, who had not then renounced, as he did in after-life, the Protestant faith, delighted in the off-hand merriment of the Chevalier. It was towards the end of the siege of Trino, that De Grammont went to visit that general in some new quarters, where Turenne received him, surrounded by fifteen or twenty officers. According to the custom of the day, cards were introduced, and the general asked the Chevalier to play. 'Sir,' returned the young soldier, 'my tutor taught me that when a man goes to see his friends it is neither prudent to leave his own money behind him nor civil to take theirs.' 'Well,' answered Turenne, 'I can tell you you will find neither much money nor deep play among us; but that it cannot be said that we allowed you to go off without playing, suppose we each of us stake a horse.' De Grammont agreed, and, lucky as ever, won from the officers some fifteen or sixteen horses, by way of a joke; but seeing several faces pale, he said, 'Gentlemen, I should be sorry to see you go away from your general's quarters on foot; it will do very well if you all send me to-morrow your horses, except one, which I give for the cards.' The _valet-de-chambre_ thought he was jesting. 'I am serious,' cried the Chevalier. '_Parole d'honneur_ I give a horse for the cards; and what's more, take which you please, only don't take mine.' 'Faith,' said Turenne, pleased with the novelty of the affair, 'I don't believe a horse was ever before given for the cards.' Young people, and indeed old people, can perhaps hardly remember the time when, even in England, money used to be put under the candlesticks 'for the cards,' as it was said, but in fact for the servants, who waited. Winner or loser, the tax was to be paid, and this custom of vails was also prevalent in France. Trino at last surrendered, and the two friends rushed from their campaigning life to enjoy the gaieties of Turin, at that time the centre of pleasure; and resolved to perfect their characters as military heroes--by falling in love, if respectably, well; if disreputably, well too, perhaps all the more agreeable, and venturesome, as they thought. The court of Turin was then presided over by the Duchess of Savoy, _Madame Royale_, as she was called in France, the daughter of Henry IV. of France, the sister of Henrietta Maria of England. She was a woman of talent and spirit, worthy of her descent, and had certain other qualities which constituted a point of resemblance between her and her father; she was, like him, more fascinating than respectable. The customs of Turin were rather Italian than French. At that time every lady had her professed lover, who wore the liveries of his mistress, bore her arms, and sometimes assumed her very name. The office of the lover was, never to quit his lady in public, and never to approach her in private: to be on all occasions her esquire. In the tournament her chosen knight-cicisbeo came forth with his coat, his housings, his very lance distinguished with the cyphers and colours of her who had condescended to invest him with her preference. It was the remnant of chivalry that authorized this custom; but of chivalry demoralized--chivalry denuded of her purity, her respect, the chivalry of corrupted Italy, not of that which, perhaps, fallaciously, we assign to the earlier ages. Grammont and Matta enlisted themselves at once in the service of two beauties. Grammont chose for the queen of beauty, who was to 'rain influence' upon him, Mademoiselle de St. Germain, who was in the very bloom of youth. She was French, and, probably, an ancestress of that all-accomplished Comte de St. Germain, whose exploits so dazzled successive European courts, and the fullest account of whom, in all its brilliant colours, yet tinged with mystery, is given in the Memoirs of Maria Antoinette, by the Marquise d'Adhémar, her lady of the bed-chamber. The lovely object of De Grammont's 'first love' was a radiant brunette belle, who took no pains to set off by art the charms of nature. She had some defects: her black and sparkling eyes were small; her forehead, by no means 'as pure as moonlight sleeping upon snow,' was not fair, neither were her hands; neither had she small feet--but her form generally was perfect; her elbows had a peculiar elegance in them; and in old times to hold the elbow out well, and yet not to stick it out, was a point of early discipline. Then her glossy black hair set off a superb neck and shoulders; and, moreover, she was gay, full of mirth, life, complaisance, perfect in all the acts of politeness, and invariable in her gracious and graceful bearing. Matta admired her; but De Grammont ordered him to attach himself to the Marquise de Senantes, a married beauty of the court; and Matta, in full faith that all Grammont said and did was sure to succeed, obeyed his friend. The Chevalier had fallen in love with Mademoiselle de St. Germain at first sight, and instantly arrayed himself in her colour, which was green, whilst Matta wore blue, in compliment to the marquise; and they entered the next day upon duty, at La Venerie, where the Duchess of Savoy gave a grand entertainment. De Grammont, with his native tact and unscrupulous mendacity, played his part to perfection; but his comrade, Matta, committed a hundred solecisms. The very second time he honoured the marquise with his attentions, he treated her as if she were his humble servant: when he pressed her hand, it was a pressure that almost made her scream. When he ought to have ridden by the side of her coach, he set off, on seeing a hare start from her form; then he talked to her of partridges when he should have been laying himself at her feet. Both these affairs ended as might have been expected. Mademoiselle de St. Germain was diverted by Grammont, yet he could not touch her heart. Her aim was to marry; his was merely to attach himself to a reigning beauty. They parted without regret; and he left the then remote court of Turin for the gayer scenes of Paris and Versailles. Here he became as celebrated for his alertness in play as for his readiness in repartee; as noted for his intrigues, as he afterwards was for his bravery. Those were stirring days in France. Anne of Austria, then in her maturity, was governed by Mazarin, the most artful of ministers, an Italian to the very heart's core, with a love of amassing wealth engrafted in his supple nature that amounted to a monomania. The whole aim of his life was gain. Though gaming was at its height, Mazarin never played for amusement; he played to enrich himself; and when he played, he cheated. The Chevalier de Grammont was now rich, and Mazarin worshipped the rich. He was witty; and his wit soon procured him admission into the clique whom the wily Mazarin collected around him in Paris. Whatever were De Grammont's faults, he soon perceived those of Mazarin; he detected, and he detested, the wily, grasping, serpent-like attributes of the Italian; he attacked him on every occasion on which a 'wit combat' was possible: he gracefully showed Mazarin off in his true colours. With ease he annihilated him, metaphorically, at his own table. Yet De Grammont had something to atone for: he had been the adherent and companion in arms of Condé; he had followed that hero to Sens, to Nordlingen, to Fribourg, and had returned to his allegiance to the young king, Louis XIV., only because he wished to visit the court at Paris. Mazarin's policy, however, was that of pardon and peace--of duplicity and treachery--and the Chevalier seemed to be forgiven on his return to Paris, even by Anne of Austria. Nevertheless, De Grammont never lost his independence; and he could boast in after-life that he owed the two great cardinals who had governed France nothing that they could have refused. It was true that Richelieu had left him his abbacy; but he could not refuse it to one of De Grammont's rank. From Mazarin he had gained nothing except what he had won at play. After Mazarin's death the Chevalier intended to secure the favour of the king, Louis XIV., to whom, as he rejoiced to find, court alone was now to be paid. He had now somewhat rectified his distinctions between right and wrong, and was resolved to have no regard for favour unless supported by merit; he determined to make himself beloved by the courtiers of Louis, and feared by the ministers; to dare to undertake anything to do good, and to engage in nothing at the expense of innocence. He still continued to be eminently successful in play, of which he did not perceive the evil, nor allow the wickedness; but he was unfortunate in love, in which he was equally unscrupulous and more rash than at the gaming-table. Among the maids of honour of Anne of Austria was a young lady named Anne Lucie de la Mothe Houdancourt. Louis, though not long married, showed some symptoms of admiration for this _débutante_ in the wicked ways of the court. Gay, radiant in the bloom of youth and innocence, the story of this young girl presents an instance of the unhappiness which, without guilt, the sins of others bring upon even the virtuous. The queen-dowager, Anne of Austria, was living at St. Germains when Mademoiselle de la Mothe Houdancourt was received into her household. The Duchess de Noailles, at that time _Grande Maitresse_, exercised a vigilant and kindly rule over the maids of honour; nevertheless, she could not prevent their being liable to the attentions of Louis: she forbade him however to loiter, or indeed even to be seen in the room appropriated to the young damsels under her charge; and when attracted by the beauty of Annie Lucie de la Mothe, Louis was obliged to speak to her through a hole behind a clock which stood in a corridor. Annie Lucie, notwithstanding this apparent encouragement of the king's addresses, was perfectly indifferent to his admiration. She was secretly attached to the Marquis de Richelieu, who had, or pretended to have, honourable intentions towards her. Everything was tried, but tried in vain, to induce the poor girl to give up all her predilections for the sake of a guilty distinction--that of being the king's mistress: even her _mother_ reproached her with her coldness. A family council was held, in hopes of convincing her of her wilfulness, and Annie Lucie was bitterly reproached by her female relatives; but her heart still clung to the faithless Marquis de Richelieu, who, however, when he saw that a royal lover was his rival, meanly withdrew. Her fall seemed inevitable; but the firmness of Anne of Austria saved her from her ruin. That queen insisted on her being sent away; and she resisted even the entreaties of the queen, her daughter-in-law, and the wife of Louis XIV.; who, for some reasons not explained, entreated that the young lady might remain at the court. Anne was sent away in a sort of disgrace to the convent of Chaïllot, which was then considered to be quite out of Paris, and sufficiently secluded to protect her from visitors. According to another account, a letter full of reproaches, which she wrote to the Marquis de Richelieu upbraiding him for his desertion, had been intercepted. It was to this young lady that De Grammont, who was then, in the very centre of the court, 'the type of fashion and the mould of form,' attached himself to her as an admirer who could condescend to honour with his attentions those whom the king pursued. The once gay girl was thus beset with snares: on one side was the king, whose disgusting preference was shown when in her presence by sighs and sentiment; on the other, De Grammont, whose attentions to her were importunate, but failed to convince her that he was in love; on the other was the time-serving, heartless De Richelieu, whom her reason condemned, but whom her heart cherished. She soon showed her distrust and dislike of De Grammont: she treated him with contempt; she threatened him with exposure, yet he would not desist: then she complained of him to the king. It was then that he perceived that though love could equalize conditions, it could not act in the same way between rivals. He was commanded to leave the court. Paris, therefore, Versailles, Fontainbleau, and St. Germains were closed against this gay Chevalier; and how could he live elsewhere? Whither could he go? Strange to say, he had a vast fancy to behold the man who, stained with the crime of regicide, and sprung from the people, was receiving magnificent embassies from continental nations, whilst Charles II. was seeking security in his exile from the power of Spain in the Low Countries. He was eager to see the Protector, Cromwell. But Cromwell, though in the height of his fame when beheld by De Grammont--though feared at home and abroad--was little calculated to win suffrages from a mere man of pleasure like De Grammont. The court, the city, the country, were in his days gloomy, discontented, joyless: a proscribed nobility was the sure cause of the thin though few festivities of the now lugubrious gallery of Whitehall. Puritanism drove the old jovial churchmen into retreat, and dispelled every lingering vestige of ancient hospitality: long graces and long sermons, sanctimonious manners, and grim, sad faces, and sad-coloured dresses were not much to De Grammont's taste; he returned to France, and declared that he had gained no advantage from his travels. Nevertheless, either from choice or necessity, he made another trial of the damps and fogs of England.[8] When he again visited our country, Charles II. had been two years seated on the throne of his father. Everything was changed, and the British court was in its fullest splendour; whilst the rejoicings of the people of England at the Restoration were still resounding through the land. If one could include royal personages in the rather gay than worthy category of the 'wits and beaux of society,' Charles II. should figure at their head. He was the most agreeable companion, and the worst king imaginable. In the first place he was, as it were, a citizen of the world: tossed about by fortune from his early boyhood; a witness at the tender age of twelve of the battle of Edge Hill, where the celebrated Harvey had charge of him and of his brother. That inauspicious commencement of a wandering life had perhaps been amongst the least of his early trials. The fiercest was his long residence as a sort of royal prisoner in Scotland. A travelled, humbled man, he came back to England with a full knowledge of men and manners, in the prime of his life, with spirits unbroken by adversity, with a heart unsoured by that 'stern nurse,' with a gaiety that was always kindly, never uncourteous, ever more French than English; far more natural did he appear as the son of Henrietta Maria than as the offspring of the thoughtful Charles. In person, too, the king was then agreeable, though rather what the French would call _distingué_ than dignified; he was, however, tall, and somewhat elegant, with a long French face, which in his boyhood was plump and full about the lower part of the cheeks, but now began to sink into that well-known, lean, dark, flexible countenance, in which we do not, however, recognize the gaiety of the man whose very name brings with it associations of gaiety, politeness, good company, and all the attributes of a first-rate wit, except the almost inevitable ill-nature. There is in the physiognomy of Charles II. that melancholy which is often observable in the faces of those who are mere men of pleasure. De Grammont found himself completely in his own sphere at Whitehall, where the habits were far more French than English. Along that stately Mall, overshadowed with umbrageous trees, which retains--and it is to be hoped ever will retain--the old name of the 'Birdcage Walk,' one can picture to oneself the king walking so fast that no one can keep up with him; yet stopping from time to time to chat with some acquaintances. He is walking to Duck Island, which is full of his favourite water-fowl, and of which he has given St. Evremond the government. How pleasant is his talk to those who attend him as he walks along; how well the quality of good-nature is shown in his love of dumb animals: how completely he is a boy still, even in that brown wig of many curls, and with the George and Garter on his breast! Boy, indeed, for he is followed by a litter of young spaniels: a little brindled greyhound frisks beside him; it is for that he is ridiculed by the '_psalm_' sung at the Calves' Head Club: these favourites were cherished to his death. 'His dogs would sit in council boards Like judges in their seats: We question much which had most sense, The master or the curs.' Then what capital stories Charles would tell, as he unbent at night amid the faithful, though profligate, companions of his exile! He told his anecdotes, it is true, over and over again, yet they were always embellished with some fresh touch--like the repetition of a song which has been encored on the stage. Whether from his inimitable art, or from his royalty, we leave others to guess, but his stories bore repetition again and again: they were amusing, and even novel to the very last. To this seducing court did De Grammont now come. It was a delightful exchange from the endless ceremonies and punctilios of the region over which Louis XIV. presided. Wherever Charles was, his palace appeared to resemble a large hospitable house--sometimes town, sometimes country--in which every one did as he liked; and where distinctions of rank were kept up as a matter of convenience, but were only valued on that score. In other respects, Charles had modelled his court very much on the plan of that of Louis XIV., which he had admired for its gaiety and spirit. Corneille, Racine, Molière, Boileau, were encouraged by _le Grand Monarque_. Wycherley and Dryden were attracted by Charles to celebrate the festivities, and to amuse the great and the gay. In various points De Grammont found a resemblance. The queen-consort, Catherine of Braganza, was as complacent to her husband's vices as the queen of Louis. These royal ladies were merely first sultanas, and had no right, it was thought, to feel jealousy, or to resent neglect. Each returning sabbath saw Whitehall lighted up, and heard the tabors sound for a _branle_, (Anglicised 'brawl'). This was a dance which mixed up everybody, and called a brawl, from the foot being shaken to a quick time. Gaily did his Majesty perform it, leading to the hot exercise Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, stout and homely, and leaving Lady Castlemaine to his son, the Duke of Monmouth. Then Charles, with ready grace, would begin the coranto, taking a single lady in this dance along the gallery. Lords and ladies one after another followed, and 'very noble,' writes Pepys, 'and great pleasure it was to see.' Next came the country dances, introduced by Mary, Countess of Buckingham, the grandmother of the graceful duke who is moving along the gallery;--and she invented those once popular dances in order to introduce, with less chance of failure, her rustic country cousins, who could not easily be taught to carry themselves well in the brawl, or to step out gracefully in the coranto, both of which dances required practice and time. In all these dances the king shines the most, and dances much better than his brother the Duke of York. In these gay scenes De Grammont met with the most fashionable belles of the court: fortunately for him they all spoke French tolerably; and he quickly made himself welcome amongst even the few--and few indeed there were--who plumed themselves upon untainted reputations. Hitherto those French noblemen who had presented themselves in England had been poor and absurd. The court had been thronged with a troop of impertinent Parisian coxcombs, who had pretended to despise everything English, and who treated the natives as if they were foreigners in their own country. De Grammont, on the contrary, was familiar with every one: he ate, he drank, he lived, in short, according to the custom of the country that hospitably received him, and accorded him the more respect, because they had been insulted by others. He now introduced the _petits soupers_, which have never been understood anywhere so well as in France, and which are even there dying out to make way for the less social and more expensive dinner; but, perhaps, he would even here have been unsuccessful, had it not been for the society and advice of the famous St. Evremond, who at this time was exiled in France, and took refuge in England. This celebrated and accomplished man had some points of resemblance with De Grammont. Like him, he had been originally intended for the church; like him he had turned to the military profession; he was an ensign before he was full sixteen; and had a company of foot given him after serving two or three campaigns. Like De Grammont, he owed the facilities of his early career to his being the descendant of an ancient and honourable family. St. Evremond was the Seigneur of St Denis le Guast, in Normandy, where he was born. Both these sparkling wits of society had at one time, and, in fact, at the same period, served under the great Condé; both were pre-eminent, not only in literature, but in games of chance. St. Evremond was famous at the University of Caen, in which he studied, for his fencing; and 'St. Evremond's pass' was well known to swordsmen of his time;--both were gay and satirical; neither of them pretended to rigid morals; but both were accounted men of honour among their fellow-men of pleasure. They were graceful, kind, generous. In person St. Evremond had the advantage, being a Norman--a race which combines the handsomest traits of an English countenance with its blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Neither does the slight tinge of the Gallic race detract from the attractions of a true, well-born Norman, bred up in that province which is called the Court-end of France, and polished in the capital. Your Norman is hardy, and fond of field-sports: like the Englishman, he is usually fearless; generous, but, unlike the English, somewhat crafty. You may know him by the fresh colour, the peculiar blue eye, long and large; by his joyousness and look of health, gathered up in his own marshy country, for the Norman is well fed, and lives on the produce of rich pasture-land, with cheapness and plenty around him. And St. Evremond was one of the handsomest specimens of this fine locality (so mixed up as it is with _us_); and his blue eyes sparkled with humour; his beautifully-turned mouth was all sweetness; and his noble forehead, the whiteness of which was set off by thick dark eyebrows, was expressive of his great intelligence, until a wen grew between his eyebrows, and so changed all the expression of his face that the Duchess of Mazarin used to call him the 'Old Satyr.' St. Evremond was also Norman in other respects: he called himself a thorough Roman Catholic, yet he despised the superstitions of his church, and prepared himself for death without them. When asked by an ecclesiastic sent expressly from the court of Florence to attend his death-bed, if he 'would be reconciled,' he answered, 'With all my heart; I would fain be reconciled to my stomach, which no longer performs its usual functions.' And his talk, we are told, during the fortnight that preceded his death, was not regret for a life we should, in seriousness, call misspent, but because partridges and pheasants no longer suited his condition, and he was obliged to be reduced to boiled meats. No one, however, could tell what might also be passing in his heart. We cannot always judge of a life, any more than of a drama, by its last scene; but this is certain, that in an age of blasphemy St. Evremond could not endure to hear religion insulted by ridicule. 'Common decency,' said this man of the world, 'and a due regard to our fellow-creatures, would not permit it.' He did not, it seems, refer his displeasure to a higher source--to the presence of the Omniscient,--who claims from us all not alone the tribute of our poor frail hearts in serious moments, but the deep reverence of every thought in the hours of careless pleasure. It was now St. Evremond who taught De Grammont to collect around him the wits of that court, so rich in attractions, so poor in honour and morality. The object of St. Evremond's devotion, though he had, at the æra of the Restoration, passed his fiftieth year, was Hortense Mancini, once the richest heiress, and still the most beautiful woman in Europe, and a niece, on her mother's side, of Cardinal Mazarin. Hortense had been educated, after the age of six, in France. She was Italian in her accomplishments, in her reckless, wild disposition, opposed to that of the French, who are generally calculating and wary, even in their vices: she was Italian in the style of her surpassing beauty, and French to the core in her principles. Hortense, at the age of thirteen, had been married to Armand Duc de Meilleraye and Mayenne, who had fallen so desperately in love with this beautiful child, that he declared 'if he did not marry her he should die in three months.' Cardinal Mazarin, although he had destined his niece Mary to this alliance, gave his consent on condition that the duke should take the name of Mazarin. The cardinal died a year after this marriage, leaving his niece Hortense the enormous fortune of £1,625,000; yet she died in the greatest difficulties, and her corpse was seized by her creditors. The Duc de Mayenne proved to be a fanatic, who used to waken his wife in the dead of the night to hear his visions; who forbade his child to be nursed on fast-days; and who believed himself to be inspired. After six years of wretchedness poor Hortense petitioned for a separation and a division of property. She quitted her husband's home and took refuge first in a nunnery, where she showed her unbelief, or her irreverence, by mixing ink with holy-water, that the poor nuns might black their faces when they crossed themselves; or, in concert with Madame de Courcelles, another handsome married woman, she used to walk through the dormitories in the dead of night, with a number of little dogs barking at their heels; then she filled two great chests that were over the dormitories with water, which ran over, and, penetrating through the chinks of the floor, wet the holy sisters in their beds. At length all this sorry gaiety was stopped by a decree that Hortense was to return to the Palais Mazarin; and to remain there until the suit for a separation should be decided. That the result should be favourable was doubtful: therefore, one fine night in June, 1667, Hortense escaped. She dressed herself in male attire, and, attended by a female servant, managed to get through the gate at Paris, and to enter a carriage. Then she fled to Switzerland; and, had not her flight been shared by the Chevalier de Rohan, one of the handsomest men in France, one could hardly have blamed an escape from a half-lunatic husband. She was only twenty-eight when, after various adventures, she came in all her unimpaired beauty to England. Charles was captivated by her charms, and, touched by her misfortunes, he settled on her a pension of £4,000 a year, and gave her rooms in St. James's. Waller sang her praise:-- 'When through the world fair Mazarine had run, Bright as her fellow-traveller, the sun: Hither at length the Roman eagle flies, As the last triumph of her conquering eyes.' If Hortense failed to carry off from the Duchess of Portsmouth--then the star of Whitehall--the heart of Charles, she found, at all events, in St. Evremond, one of those French, platonic, life-long friends, who, as Chateaubriand worshipped Madame Récamier, adored to the last the exiled niece of Mazarin. Every day, when in her old age and his, the warmth of love had subsided into the serener affection of pitying, and yet admiring friendship, St. Evremond was seen, a little old man in a black coif, carried along Pall Mall in a sedan chair, to the apartment of Madame Mazarin, in St. James's. He always took with him a pound of butter, made in his own little dairy, for her breakfast. When De Grammont was installed at the court of Charles, Hortense was, however, in her prime. Her house at Chelsea, then a country village, was famed for its society and its varied pleasures. St. Evremond has so well described its attractions that his words should be literally given. 'Freedom and discretion are equally to be found there. Every one is made more at home than in his own house, and treated with more respect than at court. It is true that there are frequent disputes there, but they are those of knowledge and not of anger. There is play there, but it is inconsiderable, and only practised for its amusement. You discover in no countenance the fear of losing, nor concern for what is lost. Some are so disinterested that they are reproached for expressing joy when they lose, and regret when they win. Play is followed by the most excellent repasts in the world. There you will find whatever delicacy is brought from France, and whatever is curious from the Indies. Even the commonest meats have the rarest relish imparted to them. There is neither a plenty which gives a notion of extravagance, nor a frugality that discovers penury or meanness.' What an assemblage it must have been! Here lolls Charles, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Lord Dorset, the laziest, in matters of business or court advancement--the boldest, in point of frolic and pleasure, of all the wits and beaux of his time. His youth had been full of adventure and of dissipation. 'I know not how it is,' said Wilmot, Lord Rochester, 'but my Lord Dorset can do anything, and is never to blame.' He had, in truth, a heart; he could bear to hear others praised; he despised the arts of courtiers; he befriended the unhappy; he was the most engaging of men in manners, the most loveable and accomplished of human beings; at once poet, philanthropist, and wit; he was also possessed of chivalric notions, and of daring courage. Like his royal master, Lord Dorset had travelled; and when made a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II., he was not unlike his sovereign in other traits; so full of gaiety, so high-bred, so lax, so courteous, so convivial, that no supper was complete without him: no circle 'the right thing,' unless Buckhurst, as he was long called, was there to pass the bottle round, and to keep every one in good-humour. Yet, he had misspent a youth in reckless immorality, and had even been in Newgate on a charge, a doubtful charge it is true, of highway robbery and murder, but had been found guilty of manslaughter only. He was again mixed up in a disgraceful affair with Sir Charles Sedley. When brought before Sir Robert Hyde, then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, his name having been mentioned, the judge inquired whether that was the Buckhurst lately tried for robbery? and when told it was, he asked him whether he had so soon forgotten his deliverance at that time: and whether it would not better become him to have been at his prayers begging God's forgiveness than to come into such courses again? The reproof took effect, and Buckhurst became what was then esteemed a steady man; he volunteered and fought gallantly in the fleet under James Duke of York: and he completed his reform, to all outward show, by marrying Lady Falmouth.[9] Buckhurst, in society, the most good-tempered of men, was thus referred to by Prior, in his poetical epistle to Fleetwood Sheppard:-- 'When crowding folks, with strange ill faces, Were making legs, and begging places: And some with patents, some with merit, Tired out my good Lord Dorset's spirit.' Yet his pen was full of malice, whilst his heart was tender to all. Wilmot, Lord Rochester, cleverly said of him:-- 'For pointed satire I would Buckhurst chuse, The best good man with the worst-natured muse.' Still more celebrated as a beau and wit of his time, was John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. He was the son of Lord Wilmot, the cavalier who so loyally attended Charles II. after the Battle of Worcester; and, as, the offspring of that royalist, was greeted by Lord Clarendon, then Chancellor of the University of Oxford, when he took his degree as Master of Arts, with a kiss.[10] The young nobleman then travelled, according to custom; and then most unhappily for himself and for others, whom he corrupted by his example, he presented himself at the court of Charles II. He was at this time a youth of eighteen, and one of the handsomest persons of his age. The face of Buckhurst was hard and plain; that of De Grammont had little to redeem it but its varying intelligence; but the countenance of the young Earl of Rochester was perfectly symmetrical: it was of a long oval, with large, thoughtful, sleepy eyes; the eyebrows arched and high above them; the brow, though concealed by the curls of the now modest wig, was high and smooth; the nose, delicately shaped, somewhat aquiline; the mouth full, but perfectly beautiful, was set off by a round and well-formed chin. Such was Lord Rochester in his zenith; and as he came forward on state occasions, his false light curls hanging down on his shoulders--a cambric kerchief loosely tied, so as to let the ends, worked in point, fall gracefully down: his scarlet gown in folds over a suit of light steel armour--for men had become carpet knights then, and the coat of mail worn by the brave cavaliers was now less warlike, and was mixed up with robes, ruffles, and rich hose--and when in this guise he appeared at Whitehall, all admired; and Charles was enchanted with the simplicity, the intelligence, and modesty of one who was then an ingenuous youth, with good aspirations, and a staid and decorous demeanour. Woe to Lady Rochester--woe to the mother who trusted her son's innocence in that vitiated court! Lord Rochester forms one of the many instances we daily behold, that it is those most tenderly cared for, who often fall most deeply, as well as most early, into temptation. He soon lost every trace of virtue--of principle, even of deference to received notions of propriety. For a while there seemed hopes that he would not wholly fall: courage was his inheritance, and he distinguished himself in 1665, when as a volunteer, he went in quest of the Dutch East India fleet, and served with heroic gallantry under Lord Sandwich. And when he returned to court, there was a partial improvement in his conduct. He even looked back upon his former indiscretions with horror: he had now shared in the realities of life: he had grasped a high and honourable ambition; but he soon fell away--soon became almost a castaway. 'For five years,' he told Bishop Burnet, when on his death-bed, 'I was never sober.' His reputation as a wit must rest, in the present day, chiefly upon productions which have long since been condemned as unreadable. Strange to say, when not under the influence of wine, he was a constant student of classical authors, perhaps the worst reading for a man of his tendency: all that was satirical and impure attracting him most. Boileau, among French writers, and Cowley among the English, were his favourite authors. He also read many books of physic; for long before thirty his constitution was so broken by his life, that he turned his attention to remedies, and to medical treatment; and it is remarkable how many men of dissolute lives take up the same sort of reading, in the vain hope of repairing a course of dissolute living. As a writer, his style was at once forcible and lively; as a companion, he was wildly vivacious: madly, perilously, did he outrage decency, insult virtue, profane religion. Charles II. liked him on first acquaintance, for Rochester was a man of the most finished and fascinating manners; but at length there came a coolness, and the witty courtier was banished from Whitehall. Unhappily for himself, he was recalled, and commanded to wait in London until his majesty should choose to readmit him into his presence. Disguises and practical jokes were the fashion of the day. The use of the mask, which was put down by proclamation soon after the accession of Queen Anne, favoured a series of pranks with which Lord Rochester, during the period of his living concealed in London, diverted himself. The success of his scheme was perfect. He established himself, since he could not go to Whitehall, in the City. 'His first design,' De Grammont relates, 'was only to be initiated into the mysteries of those fortunate and happy inhabitants; that is to say, by changing his name and dress, to gain admittance to their feasts and entertainments.... As he was able to adapt himself to all capacities and humours, he soon deeply insinuated himself into the esteem of the substantial wealthy aldermen, and into the affections of their more delicate, magnificent, and tender ladies; he made one in all their feasts and at all their assemblies; and whilst in the company of the husbands, he declaimed against the faults and mistakes of government; he joined their wives in railing against the profligacy of the court ladies, and in inveighing against the king's mistresses: he agreed with them, that the industrious poor were to pay for these cursed extravagances; that the City beauties were not inferior to those at the other end of the town,... after which, to outdo their murmurings, he said, that he wondered Whitehall was not yet consumed by fire from heaven, since such rakes as Rochester, Killigrew, and Sidney were suffered there.' This conduct endeared him so much to the City, and made him so welcome at their clubs, that at last he grew sick of their cramming, and endless invitations. He now tried a new sphere of action; and instead of returning, as he might have done, to the court, retreated into the most obscure corners of the metropolis; and again changing his name and dress, gave himself out as a German doctor named Bendo, who professed to find out inscrutable secrets, and to apply infallible remedies; to know, by astrology, all the past, and to foretell the future. If the reign of Charles was justly deemed an age of high civilization, it was also one of extreme credulity. Unbelief in religion went hand in hand with blind faith in astrology and witchcraft; in omens, divinations, and prophecies: neither let us too strongly despise, in these their foibles, our ancestors. They had many excuses for their superstitions; and for their fears, false as their hopes, and equally groundless. The circulation of knowledge was limited: the public journals, that part of the press to which we now owe inexpressible gratitude for its general accuracy, its enlarged views, its purity, its information, was then a meagre statement of dry facts: an announcement, not a commentary. 'The Flying Post,' the 'Daily Courant,' the names of which may be supposed to imply speed, never reached lone country places till weeks after they had been printed on their one duodecimo sheet of thin coarse paper. Religion, too, just emerging into glorious light from the darkness of popery, had still her superstitions; and the mantle that priestcraft had contrived to throw over her exquisite, radiant, and simple form, was not then wholly and finally withdrawn. Romanism still hovered in the form of credulity. But now, with shame be it spoken, in the full noonday genial splendour of our Reformed Church, with newspapers, the leading articles of which rise to a level with our greatest didactic writers, and are competent even to form the mind as well as to amuse the leisure hours of the young readers: with every species of direct communication, we yet hold to fallacies from which the credulous in Charles's time would have shrunk in dismay and disgust. Table-turning, spirit-rapping, _clairvoyance_, Swedenborgianism, and all that family of follies, would have been far too strong for the faith of those who counted upon dreams as their guide, or looked up to the heavenly planets with a belief, partly superstitious, partly reverential, for their guidance; and in a dim and flickering faith trusted to their _stars_. 'Dr. Bendo,' therefore, as Rochester was called--handsome, witty, unscrupulous, and perfectly acquainted with the then small circle of the court--was soon noted for his wonderful revelations. Chamber-women, waiting-maids, and shop-girls were his first customers: but, very soon, gay spinsters from the court came in their hoods and masks to ascertain with anxious faces, their fortunes; whilst the cunning, sarcastic 'Dr. Bendo,' noted in his diary all the intrigues which were confided to him by these lovely clients. La Belle Jennings, the sister of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, was among his disciples; she took with her the beautiful Miss Price, and, disguising themselves as orange girls, these young ladies set off in a hackney-coach to visit Dr. Bendo; but when within half a street of the supposed fortune-teller's, were prevented by the interruption of a dissolute courtier named Brounker. 'Everything by turns and nothing long.' When Lord Rochester was tired of being an astrologer, he used to roam about the streets as a beggar; then he kept a footman who knew the Court well, and used to dress him up in a red coat, supply him with a musket, like a sentinel, and send him to watch at the doors of all the fine ladies, to find out their goings on: afterwards, Lord Rochester would retire to the country, and write libels on these fair victims, and, one day, offered to present the king with one of his lampoons; but being tipsy, gave Charles, instead, one written upon himself. At this juncture we read with sorrow Bishop Burnet's forcible description of his career:-- 'He seems to have freed himself from all impressions of virtue or religion, of honour or good nature.... He had but one maxim, to which he adhered firmly, that he has to do everything, and deny himself in nothing that might maintain his greatness. He was unhappily made for drunkenness, for he had drunk all his friends dead, and was able to subdue two or three sets of drunkards one after another; so it scarce ever appeared that he was disordered after the greatest drinking: an hour or two of sleep carried all off so entirely, that no sign of them remained.... This had a terrible conclusion.' Like many other men, Rochester might have been saved by being kept far from the scene of temptation. Whilst he remained in the country he was tolerably sober, perhaps steady. When he approached Brentford on his route to London, his old propensities came upon him. When scarcely out of his boyhood he carried off a young heiress, Elizabeth Mallett, whom De Grammont calls _La triste heritière_: and triste, indeed, she naturally was. Possessed of a fortune of £2500 a year, this young lady was marked out by Charles II. as a victim for the profligate Rochester. But the reckless young wit chose to take his own way of managing the matter. One night, after supping at Whitehall with Miss Stuart, the young Elizabeth was returning home with her grandfather, Lord Haly, when their coach was suddenly stopped near Charing Cross by a number of bravos, both on horseback and on foot--the 'Roaring Boys and Mohawks,' who were not extinct even in Addison's time. They lifted the affrighted girl out of the carriage, and placed her in one which had six horses; they then set off for Uxbridge, and were overtaken; but the outrage ended in marriage, and Elizabeth became the unhappy, neglected Countess of Rochester. Yet she loved him--perhaps in ignorance of all that was going on whilst _she_ stayed with her four children at home. 'If,' she writes to him, 'I could have been troubled at anything, when I had the happiness of receiving a letter from you, I should be so, because you did not name a time when I might hope to see you, the uncertainty of which very much afflicts me.... Lay your commands upon me what I am to do, and though it be to forget my children, and the long hope I have lived in of seeing you, yet will I endeavour to obey you; or in the memory only torment myself, without giving you the trouble of putting you in mind that there lives a creature as 'Your faithful, humble servant.' And he, in reply: 'I went away (to Rochester) like a rascal, without taking leave, dear wife. It is an unpolished way of proceeding, which a modest man ought to be ashamed of. I have left you a prey to your own imaginations amongst my relations, the worst of damnations. But there will come an hour of deliverance, till when, may my mother be merciful unto you! So I commit you to what I shall ensue, woman to woman, wife to mother, in hopes of a future appearance in glory.... 'Pray write as often as you have leisure, to your 'ROCHESTER.' To his son, he writes: 'You are now grown big enough to be a man, if you can be wise enough; and the way to be truly wise is to serve God, learn your book, and observe the instructions of your parents first, and next your tutor, to whom I have entirely resigned you for this seven years; and according as you employ that time, you are to be happy or unhappy for ever. I have so good an opinion of you, that I am glad to think you will never deceive me. Dear child, learn your book and be obedient, and you will see what a father I shall be to you. You shall want no pleasure while you are good, and that you may be good are my constant prayers.' Lord Rochester had not attained the age of thirty, when he was mercifully awakened to a sense of his guilt here, his peril hereafter. It seemed to many that his very nature was so warped that penitence in its true sense could never come to him; but the mercy of God is unfathomable; He judges not as man judges; He forgives, as man knows not how to forgive. 'God, our kind Master, merciful as just, Knowing our frame, remembers man is dust: He marks the dawn of every virtuous aim, And fans the smoking flax into a flame; He hears the language of a silent tear, And sighs are incense from a heart sincere.' And the reformation of Rochester is a confirmation of the doctrine of a special Providence, as well as of that of a retribution, even in this life. The retribution came in the form of an early but certain decay; of a suffering so stern, so composed of mental and bodily anguish, that never was man called to repentance by a voice so distinct as Rochester. The reformation was sent through the instrumentality of one who had been a sinner like himself, who had sinned _with_ him; an unfortunate lady, who, in her last hours, had been visited, reclaimed, consoled by Bishop Burnet. Of this, Lord Rochester had heard. He was then, to all appearance, recovering from his last sickness. He sent for Burnet, who devoted to him one evening every week of that solemn winter when the soul of the penitent sought reconciliation and peace. The conversion was not instantaneous; it was gradual, penetrating, effective, sincere. Those who wish to gratify curiosity concerning the death-bed of one who had so notoriously sinned, will read Burnet's account of Rochester's illness and death with deep interest; and nothing is so interesting as a death-bed. Those who delight in works of nervous thought, and elevated sentiments, will read it too, and arise from the perusal gratified. Those, however, who are true, contrite Christians will go still farther; they will own that few works so intensely touch the holiest and highest feelings; few so absorb the heart; few so greatly show the vanity of life; the unspeakable value of purifying faith. 'It is a book which the critic,' says Doctor Johnson, 'may read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, the saint for its piety.' Whilst deeply lamenting his own sins, Lord Rochester became anxious to redeem his former associates from theirs. 'When Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,'[11] writes William Thomas, in a manuscript preserved in the British Museum, 'lay on his death-bed, Mr. Fanshawe came to visit him, with an intention to stay about a week with him. Mr. Fanshawe, sitting by the bedside, perceived his lordship praying to God, through Jesus Christ, and acquainted Dr. Radcliffe, who attended my Lord Rochester in this illness and was then in the house, with what he had heard, and told him that my lord was certainly delirious, for to his knowledge, he said, he believed neither in God nor in Jesus Christ. The doctor, who had often heard him pray in the same manner, proposed to Mr. Fanshawe to go up to his lordship to be further satisfied touching this affair. When they came to his room the doctor told my lord what Mr. Fanshawe said, upon which his lordship addressed himself to Mr. Fanshawe to this effect: "Sir, it is true, you and I have been very bad and profane together, and then I was of the opinion you mention. But now I am quite of another mind, and happy am I that I am so. I am very sensible how miserable I was whilst of another opinion. Sir, you may assure yourself that there is a Judge and a future state;" and so entered into a very handsome discourse concerning the last judgment, future state &c., and concluded with a serious and pathetic exhortation to Mr. Fanshawe to enter into another course of life; adding that he (Mr. F.) knew him to be his friend; that he never was more so than at this time; and "sir," said he, "to use a Scripture expression, I am not mad, but speak the words of truth and soberness." Upon this Mr. Fanshawe trembled, and went immediately a-foot to Woodstock, and there hired a horse to Oxford, and thence took coach to London.' There were other butterflies in that gay court; beaux without wit; remorseless rakes, incapable of one noble thought or high pursuit; and amongst the most foolish and fashionable of these was Henry Jermyn, Lord Dover. As the nephew of Henry Jermyn, Lord St. Albans, this young simpleton was ushered into a court life with the most favourable auspices. Jermyn Street (built in 1667) recalls to us the residence of Lord St. Albans, the supposed husband of Henrietta Maria. It was also the centre of fashion when Henry Jermyn the younger was launched into its unholy sphere. Near Eagle Passage lived at that time La Belle Stuart, Duchess of Richmond; next door to her Henry Savile, Rochester's friend. The locality has since been purified by worthier associations: Sir Isaac Newton lived for a time in Jermyn Street, and Gray lodged there. It was, however, in De Grammont's time, the scene of all the various gallantries which were going on. Henry Jermyn was supported by the wealth of his uncle, that uncle who, whilst Charles II. was starving at Brussels, had kept a lavish table in Paris: little Jermyn, as the younger Jermyn was called, owed much indeed to his fortune, which had procured him great _éclat_ at the Dutch court. His head was large; his features small; his legs short; his physiognomy was not positively disagreeable, but he was affected and trifling, and his wit consisted in expressions learnt by rote, which supplied him either with raillery or with compliments. This petty, inferior being had attracted the regard of the Princess Royal--afterwards Princess of Orange--the daughter of Charles I. Then the Countess of Castlemaine--afterwards Duchess of Cleveland--became infatuated with him; he captivated also the lovely Mrs. Hyde, a languishing beauty, whom Sir Peter Lely has depicted in all her sleepy attractions, with her ringlets falling lightly over her snowy forehead and down to her shoulders. This lady was, at the time when Jermyn came to England, recently married to the son of the great Clarendon. She fell desperately in love with this unworthy being: but, happily for her peace, he preferred the honour (or dishonour) of being the favourite of Lady Castlemaine, and Mrs. Hyde escaped the disgrace she, perhaps, merited. De Grammont appears absolutely to have hated Jermyn; not because he was immoral, impertinent, and contemptible, but because it was Jermyn's boast that no woman, good or bad, could resist him. Yet, in respect to their unprincipled life, Jermyn and De Grammont had much in common. The Chevalier was at this time an admirer of the foolish beauty, Jane Middleton; one of the loveliest women of a court where it was impossible to turn without seeing loveliness. Mrs. Middleton was the daughter of Sir Roger Needham, and she has been described, even by the grave Evelyn, as a 'famous, and, indeed, incomparable beauty.' A coquette, she was, however, the friend of intellectual men; and it was probably at the house of St. Evremond that the Count first saw her. Her figure was good, she was fair and delicate; and she had so great a desire, Count Hamilton relates, to 'appear magnificently, that she was ambitious to vie with those of the greatest fortunes, though unable to support the expense.' Letters and presents now flew about. Perfumed gloves, pocket looking-glasses, elegant boxes, apricot paste, essences, and other small wares arrived weekly from Paris; English jewellery still had the preference, and was liberally bestowed; yet Mrs. Middleton, affected and somewhat precise, accepted the gifts but did not seem to encourage the giver. The Count de Grammont, piqued, was beginning to turn his attention to Miss Warmestre, one of the queen's maids of honour, a lively brunette, and a contrast to the languid Mrs. Middleton; when, happily for him, a beauty appeared on the scene, and attracted him, by higher qualities than mere looks, to a real, fervent, and honourable attachment. Amongst the few respected families of that period was that of Sir George Hamilton, the fourth son of James, Earl of Abercorn, and of Mary, grand-daughter of Walter, eleventh Earl of Ormond. Sir George had distinguished himself during the Civil Wars: on the death of Charles I. he had retired to France, but returned, after the Restoration, to London, with a large family, all intelligent and beautiful. From their relationship to the Ormond family, the Hamiltons were soon installed in the first circles of fashion. The Duke of Ormond's sons had been in exile with the king; they now added to the lustre of the court after his return. The Earl of Arran, the second, was a beau of the true Cavalier order; clever at games, more especially at tennis, the king's favourite diversion; he touched the guitar well; and made love _ad libitum_. Lord Ossory, his elder brother, had less vivacity but more intellect, and possessed a liberal, honest nature, and an heroic character. All the good qualities of these two young noblemen seem to have been united in Anthony Hamilton, of whom De Grammont gives the following character:--'The elder of the Hamiltons, their cousin, was the man who, of all the court, dressed best; he was well made in his person, and possessed those happy talents which lead to fortune, and procure success in love: he was a most assiduous courtier, had the most lively wit, the most polished manners, and the most punctual attention to his master imaginable; no person danced better, nor was any one a more general lover--a merit of some account in a court entirely devoted to love and gallantry. It is not at all surprising that, with these qualities, he succeeded my Lord Falmouth in the king's favour.' The fascinating person thus described was born in Ireland: he had already experienced some vicissitudes, which were renewed at the Revolution of 1688, when he fled to France--the country in which he had spent his youth--and died at St. Germains, in 1720, aged seventy-four. His poetry and his fairy tales are forgotten; but his 'Memoirs of the Count de Grammont' is a work which combines the vivacity of a French writer with the truth of an English historian. Ormond Yard, St. James's Square, was the London residence of the Duke of Ormond: the garden wall of Ormond House took up the greater part of York Street: the Hamilton family had a commodious house in the same courtly neighbourhood; and the cousins mingled continually. Here persons of the greatest distinction constantly met; and here the 'Chevalier de Grammont,' as he was still called, was received in a manner suitable to his rank and style; and soon regretted that he had passed so much time in other places; for, after he once knew the charming Hamiltons, he wished for no other friends. There were three courts at that time in the capital; that at Whitehall, in the king's apartments; that in the queen's, in the same palace; and that of Henrietta Maria, the Queen-Mother, as she was styled, at Somerset House. Charles's was pre-eminent in immorality, and in the daily outrage of all decency; that of the unworthy widow of Charles I. was just bordering on impropriety; that of Katherine of Braganza was still decorous, though not irreproachable. Pepys, in his Diary, has this passage:--'Visited Mrs. Ferrers, and stayed talking with her a good while, there being a little, proud, ugly, talking lady there, that was much crying up the queene-mother's court at Somerset House, above our queen's; there being before her no allowance of laughing and mirth that is at the other's; and, indeed, it is observed that the greatest court now-a-days is there. Thence to Whitehall, where I carried my wife to see the queene in her presence-chamber; and the maydes of honour and the young Duke of Monmouth, playing at cards.' Queen Katherine, notwithstanding that the first words she was ever known to say in English were '_You lie!_' was one of the gentlest of beings. Pepys describes her as having a modest, innocent look, among all the demireps with whom she was forced to associate. Again we turn to Pepys, an anecdote of whose is characteristic of poor Katherine's submissive, uncomplaining nature:-- 'With Creed, to the King's Head ordinary;... and a pretty gentleman in our company, who confirms my Lady Castlemaine's being gone from court, but knows not the reason; he told us of one wipe the queene, a little while ago, did give her, when she came in and found the queene under the dresser's hands, and had been so long. "I wonder your Majesty," says she, "can have the patience to sit so long a-dressing?"--"I have so much reason to use patience," says the queene, "that I can very well bear with it."' It was in the court of this injured queen that De Grammont went one evening to Mrs. Middleton's house: there was a ball that night, and amongst the dancers was the loveliest creature that De Grammont had ever seen. His eyes were riveted on this fair form; he had heard, but never till then seen her, whom all the world consented to call 'La Belle Hamilton,' and his heart instantly echoed the expression. From this time he forgot Mrs. Middleton, and despised Miss Warmestre: 'he found,' he said, that he 'had seen nothing at court till this instant.' 'Miss Hamilton,' he himself tells us, 'was at the happy age when the charms of the fair sex begin to bloom; she had the finest shape, the loveliest neck, and most beautiful arms in the world; she was majestic and graceful in all her movements; and she was the original after which all the ladies copied in their taste and air of dress. Her forehead was open, white, and smooth; her hair was well set, and fell with ease into that natural order which it is so difficult to imitate. Her complexion was possessed of a certain freshness, not to be equalled by borrowed colours; her eyes were not large, but they were lively, and capable of expressing whatever she pleased.'[12] So far for her person; but De Grammont was, it seems, weary of external charms: it was the intellectual superiority that riveted his feelings, whilst his connoisseurship in beauty was satisfied that he had never yet seen any one so perfect. [Illustration: DE GRAMMONT'S MEETING WITH LA BELLE HAMILTON.] 'Her mind,' he says, 'was a proper companion for such a form: she did not endeavour to shine in conversation by those sprightly sallies which only puzzle, and with still greater care she avoided that affected solemnity in her discourses which produces stupidity; but without any eagerness to talk, she just said what she ought, and no more. She had an admirable discernment in distinguishing between solid and false wit; and far from making an ostentatious display of her abilities, she was reserved, though very just in her decisions. Her sentiments were always noble, and even lofty to the highest extent, when there was occasion; nevertheless, she was less prepossessed with her own merit than is usually the case with those who have so much. Formed as we have described, she could not fail of commanding love; but so far was she from courting it, that she was scrupulously nice with respect to those whose merit might entitle them to form any pretensions to her.' Born in 1641, Elizabeth--for such was the Christian name of this lovely and admirable woman--was scarcely in her twentieth year when she first appeared at Whitehall. Sir Peter Lely was at that time painting the Beauties of the Court, and had done full justice to the intellectual and yet innocent face that riveted De Grammont. He had depicted her with her rich dark hair, of which a tendril or two fell on her ivory forehead, adorned at the back with large pearls, under which a gauze-like texture was gathered up, falling over the fair shoulders like a veil: a full corsage, bound by a light band either of ribbon or of gold lace, confining, with a large jewel or button, the sleeve on the shoulder, disguised somewhat the exquisite shape. A frill of fine cambric set off, whilst in whiteness it scarce rivalled, the shoulder and neck. The features of this exquisite face are accurately described by De Grammont, as Sir Peter has painted them. 'The mouth does not smile, but seems ready to break out into a smile. Nothing is sleepy, but everything is soft, sweet, and innocent in that face so beautiful and so beloved.' Whilst the colours were fresh on Lely's palettes, James Duke of York, that profligate who aped the saint, saw it, and henceforth paid his court to the original, but was repelled with fearless _hauteur_. The dissolute nobles of the court followed his example, even to the 'lady-killer' Jermyn, but in vain. Unhappily for La Belle Hamilton, she became sensible to the attractions of De Grammont, whom she eventually married. Miss Hamilton, intelligent as she was, lent herself to the fashion of the day, and delighted in practical jokes and tricks. At the splendid masquerade given by the queen she continued to plague her cousin, Lady Muskerry; to confuse and expose a stupid court beauty, a Miss Blaque; and at the same time to produce on the Count de Grammont a still more powerful effect than even her charms had done. Her success in hoaxing--which we should now think both perilous and indelicate--seems to have only riveted the chain, which was drawn around him more strongly. His friend, or rather his foe, St. Evremond, tried in vain to discourage the Chevalier from his new passion. The former tutor was, it appeared, jealous of its influence, and hurt that De Grammont was now seldom at his house. De Grammont's answer to his remonstrances was very characteristic. 'My poor philosopher,' he cried, 'you understand Latin well--you can make good verses--you are acquainted with the nature of the stars in the firmament--but you are wholly ignorant of the luminaries in the terrestrial globe.' He then announced his intention to persevere, notwithstanding all the obstacles which attached to the suit of a man without either fortune or character, who had been exiled from his own country, and whose chief mode of livelihood was dependent on the gaming-table. One can scarcely read of the infatuation of La Belle Hamilton without a sigh. During a period of six years their marriage was in contemplation only; and De Grammont seems to have trifled inexcusably with the feelings of this once gay and ever lovely girl. It was not for want of means that De Grammont thus delayed the fulfilment of his engagement. Charles II., inexcusably lavish, gave him a pension of 1500 Jacobuses: it was to be paid to him until he should be restored to the favour of his own king. The fact was that De Grammont contributed to the pleasures of the court, and pleasure was the household deity of Whitehall. Sometimes, in those days of careless gaiety, there were promenades in Spring Gardens, or the Mall; sometimes the court beauties sallied forth on horseback; at other times there were shows on the river, which then washed the very foundations of Whitehall. There in the summer evenings, when it was too hot and dusty to walk, old Thames might be seen covered with little boats, filled with court and city beauties, attending the royal barges; collations, music, and fireworks completed the scene, and De Grammont always contrived some surprise--some gallant show: once a concert of vocal and instrumental music, which he had privately brought from Paris, struck up unexpectedly: another time a collation brought from the gay capital surpassed that supplied by the king. Then the Chevalier, finding that coaches with glass windows, lately introduced, displeased the ladies, because their charms were only partially seen in them, sent for the most elegant and superb _calèche_ ever seen: it came after a month's journey, and was presented by De Grammont to the king. It was a royal present in price, for it had cost two thousand livres. The famous dispute between Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stuart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, arose about this _calèche_. The Queen and the Duchess of York appeared first in it in Hyde Park, which had then recently been fenced in with brick. Lady Castlemaine thought that the _calèche_ showed off a fine figure better than the coach; Miss Stuart was of the same opinion. Both these grown-up babies wished to have the coach on the same day, but Miss Stuart prevailed. The Queen condescended to laugh at the quarrels of these two foolish women, and complimented the Chevalier de Grammont on his present. 'But how is it,' she asked, 'that you do not even keep a footman, and that one of the common runners in the street lights you home with a link?' 'Madame,' he answered, 'the Chevalier de Grammont hates pomp: my link-boy is faithful and brave.' Then he told the Queen that he saw she was unacquainted with the nation of link-boys, and related how that he had, at one time, had one hundred and sixty around his chair at night, and people had asked 'whose funeral it was? As for the parade of coaches and footmen,' he added, 'I despise it. I have sometimes had five or six _valets-de-chambre_, without a single footman in livery except my chaplain.' 'How!' cried the Queen, laughing, 'a chaplain in livery? surely he was not a priest.' '_Pardon_, Madame, a priest, and the best dancer in the world of the Biscayan gig.' 'Chevalier,' said the king, 'tell us the history of your chaplain Poussatin.' Then De Grammont related how, when he was with the great Condé, after the campaign of Catalonia, he had seen among a company of Catalans, a priest in a little black jacket, skipping and frisking: how Condé was charmed, and how they recognized in him a Frenchman, and how he offered himself to De Grammont for his chaplain. De Grammont had not much need, he said, for a chaplain in his house, but he took the priest, who had afterwards the honour of dancing before Anne of Austria, in Paris. Suitor after suitor interfered with De Grammont's at last honourable address to La Belle Hamilton. At length an incident occurred which had very nearly separated them for ever. Philibert de Grammont was recalled to Paris by Louis XIV. He forgot, Frenchman-like, all his engagements to Miss Hamilton, and hurried off. He had reached Dover, when her two brothers rode up after him. 'Chevalier de Grammont,' they said, 'have you forgotten nothing in London?' 'I beg your pardon,' he answered, 'I forgot to marry your sister.' It is said that this story suggested to Molière the idea of _Le Mariage forcé_. They were, however, married. In 1669 La Belle Hamilton, after giving birth to a child, went to reside in France. Charles II., who thought she would pass for a handsome woman in France, recommended her to his sister, Henrietta Duchess of Orleans, and begged her to be kind to her. Henceforth the Chevalier De Grammont and his wife figured at Versailles, where the Countess de Grammont was appointed _Dame du Palais_. Her career was less brilliant than in England. The French ladies deemed her haughty and old, and even termed her _une Anglaise insupportable_. She had certainly too much virtue, and perhaps too much beauty still, for the Parisian ladies of fashion at that period to admire her. She endeavoured in vain, to reclaim her libertine husband, and to call him to a sense of his situation when he was on his death-bed. Louis XIV. sent the Marquis de Dangeau to convert him, and to talk to him on a subject little thought of by De Grammont--the world to come. After the Marquis had been talking for some time, De Grammont turned to his wife and said, 'Countess, if you don't look to it, Dangeau will juggle you out of my conversion.' St. Evremond said he would gladly die to go off with so successful a bon-mot. He became however, in time, serious, if not devout or penitent. Ninon de l'Enclos having written to St. Evremond that the Count de Grammont had not only recovered but had become devout, St. Evremond answered her in these words:-- 'I have learned with a great deal of pleasure that the Count de Grammont has recovered his former health, and acquired a new devotion. Hitherto I have been contented with being a plain honest man; but I must do something more: and I only wait for your example to become a devotee. You live in a country where people have wonderful advantages of saving their souls: there, vice is almost as opposite to the mode as virtue; sinning passes for ill-breeding, and shocks decency and good-manners, as much as religion. Formerly it was enough to be wicked, now one must be a scoundrel withal to be damned in France.' A report having been circulated that De Grammont was dead, St. Evremond expressed deep regret. The report was contradicted by Ninon de l'Enclos. The Chevalier was then eighty-six years of age; 'nevertheless he was,' Ninon says, 'so young, that I think him as lively as when he hated sick people, and loved them after they had recovered their health;' a trait very descriptive of a man whose good-nature was always on the surface, but whose selfishness was deep as that of most wits and beaux, who are spoiled by the world, and who, in return, distrust and deceive the spoilers. With this long life of eighty-six years, endowed as De Grammont was with elasticity of spirits, good fortune, considerable talent, an excellent position, a wit that never ceased to flow in a clear current; with all these advantages, what might he not have been to society, had his energy been well applied, his wit innocent, his talents employed worthily, and his heart as sure to stand muster as his manners? FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 8: M. de Grammont visited England during the Protectorate. His second visit, after being forbidden the court by Louis XIV., was in 1662.] [Footnote 9: The Earl of Dorset married Elizabeth, widow of Charles Berkeley, Earl of Falmouth, and daughter of Hervey Bagot, Esq., of Pipe Hall, Warwickshire, who died without issue. He married, 7th March, 1684-5, Lady Mary Compton, daughter of James Earl of Northampton.] [Footnote 10: Lord Rochester succeeded to the Earldom in 1659. It was created by Charles II. in 1652, at Paris.] [Footnote 11: Mr. William Thomas, the writer of this statement, heard it from Dr. Radcliffe at the table of Speaker Harley, (afterwards Earl of Oxford,) 16th June, 1702.] [Footnote 12: See De Grammont's Memoirs.] BEAU FIELDING. On Wits and Beaux.--Scotland Yard in Charles II.'s day.--Orlando of 'The Tatler.'--Beau Fielding, Justice of the Peace.--Adonis in Search of a Wife.--The Sham Widow.--Ways and Means.--Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine.--Quarrels with the King.--The Beau's Second Marriage.--The Last Days of Fops and Beaux. Let us be wise, boys, here's a fool coming, said a sensible man, when he saw Beau Nash's splendid carriage draw up to the door. Is a beau a fool? Is a sharper a fool? Was Bonaparte a fool? If you reply 'no' to the last two questions, you must give the same answer to the first. A beau is a fox, but not a fool--a very clever fellow, who, knowing the weakness of his brothers and sisters in the world, takes advantage of it to make himself a fame and a fortune. Nash, the son of a glass-merchant--Brummell, the hopeful of a small shopkeeper--became the intimates of princes, dukes, and fashionables; were petty kings of Vanity Fair, and were honoured by their subjects. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king; in the realm of folly, the sharper is a monarch. The only proviso is, that the cheat come not within the jurisdiction of the law. Such a cheat is the beau or dandy, or fine gentleman, who imposes on his public by his clothes and appearance. _Bonâ-fide_ monarchs have done as much: Louis XIV. won himself the title of Le Grand Monarque by his manners, his dress, and his vanity. Fielding, Nash, and Brummell did nothing more. It is not a question whether such roads to eminence be contemptible or not, but whether their adoption in one station of life be more so than in another. Was Brummell a whit more contemptible than 'Wales?' Or is John Thomas, the pride and glory of the 'Domestics' Free-and-Easy,' whose whiskers, figure, face, and manner are all superb, one atom more ridiculous than your recognized beau? I trow not. What right, then, has your beau to a place among wits? I fancy Chesterfield would be much disgusted at seeing his name side by side with that of Nash in this volume; yet Chesterfield had no objection, when at Bath, to do homage to the king of that city, and may have prided himself on exchanging pinches from diamond-set snuff-boxes with that superb gold-laced dignitary in the Pump-room. Certainly, people who thought little of Philip Dormer Stanhope, thought a great deal of the glass-merchant's reprobate son when he was in power, and submitted without a murmur to his impertinences. The fact is, that the beaux and the wits are more intimately connected than the latter would care to own: the wits have all been, or aspired to be, beaux, and beaux have had their fair share of wit; both lived for the same purpose--to shine in society: both used the same means--coats and bon-mots. The only distinction is, that the garments of the beaux were better, and their sayings not so good as those of the wits; while the conversation of the wits was better, and their apparel not so striking as those of the beaux. So, my Lord Chesterfield, who prided yourself quite as much on being a fine gentleman as on being a fine wit, you cannot complain at your proximity to Mr. Nash and others who _were_ fine gentlemen, and would have been fine wits if they could. Robert Fielding was, perhaps, the least of the beaux; but then, to make up for this, he belonged to a noble family: he married a duchess, and, what is more, he beat her. Surely in the kingdom of fools such a man is not to be despised. You may be sure he did not think he was, for was he not made the subject of two papers in 'The Tatler,' and what more could such a man desire? His father was a Suffolk squire, claiming relationship with the Earls of Denbigh, and therefore, with the Hapsburgs, from whom the Beau and the Emperors of Austria had the common honour of being descended. Perhaps neither of them had sufficient sense to be proud of the greatest intellectual ornament of their race, the author of 'Tom Jones;' but as our hero was dead before the humourist was born, it is not fair to conjecture what he might have thought on the subject. It does not appear that very much is known of this great gem of the race of Hapsburg. He had the misfortune to be very handsome, and the folly to think that his face would be his fortune: it certainly stood him in good stead at times, but it also brought him into a lamentable dilemma. His father was not rich, and sent his son to the Temple to study laws which he was only fitted to break. The young Adonis had sense enough to see that destiny did not beckon him to fame in the gloom of a musty law court, and removed a little further up to the Thames, and the more fashionable region of Scotland Yard. Here, where now Z 300 repairs to report his investigations to a Commissioner, the young dandies of Charles II.'s day strutted in gay doublets, swore hasty oaths of choice invention, smoked the true Tobago from huge pipe-bowls, and ogled the fair but not too bashful dames who passed to and fro in their chariots. The court took its name from the royalties of Scotland, who, when they visited the South, were there lodged, as being conveniently near to Whitehall Palace. It is odd enough that the three architects, Inigo Jones, Vanbrugh, and Wren, all lived in this yard. It was not to be supposed that a man who could so well appreciate a handsome face and well-cut doublet as Charles II. should long overlook his neighbour, Mr. Robert Fielding, and in due course the Beau, who had no other diploma, found himself in the honourable position of a justice of the peace. The emoluments of this office enabled Orlando, as 'The Tatler' calls him, to shine forth in all his glory. With an enviable indifference to the future, he launched out into an expenditure which alone would have made him popular in a country where the heaviest purse makes the greatest gentleman. His lacqueys were arrayed in the brightest yellow coats with black sashes--the Hapsburg colours. He had a carriage, of course, but, like Sheridan's, it was hired, though drawn by his own horses. This carriage was described as being shaped like a sea-shell; and 'the Tatler' calls it 'an open tumbril of less size than ordinary, to show the largeness of his limbs and the grandeur of his personage to the best advantage.' The said limbs were Fielding's especial pride: he gloried in the strength of his leg and arm; and when he walked down the street, he was followed by an admiring crowd, whom he treated with as much haughtiness as if he had been the emperor himself, instead of his cousin five hundred times removed. He used his strength to good or bad purpose, and was a redoubted fighter and bully, though good-natured withal. In the Mall, as he strutted, he was the cynosure of all female eyes. His dress had all the elegance of which the graceful costume of that period was capable, though Fielding did not, like Brummell, understand the delicacy of a quiet, but studied style. Those were simpler, somewhat more honest days. It was not necessary for a man to cloak his vices, nor be ashamed of his cloak. The beau then-a-day openly and arrogantly gloried in the grandeur of his attire; and bragging was a part of his character. Fielding was made by his tailor; Brummell made his tailor: the only point in common to both was that neither of them paid the tailor's bill. The fine gentleman, under the Stuarts, was fine only in his lace and his velvet doublet; his language was coarse, his manners coarser, his vices the coarsest of all. No wonder when the king himself could get so drunk with Sedley and Buckhurst as to be unable to give an audience appointed for; and when the chief fun of his two companions was to divest themselves of all the habiliments which civilization has had the ill taste to make necessary, and in that state run about the streets. 'Orlando' wore the finest ruffles and the heaviest sword; his wig was combed to perfection; and in his pocket he carried a little comb with which to arrange it from time to time, even as the dandy of to-day pulls out his whiskers or curls his moustache. Such a man could not be passed over; and accordingly he numbered half the officers and gallants of the town among his intimates. He drank, swore, and swaggered, and the snobs of the day proclaimed him a 'complete gentleman.' His impudence, however, was not always tolerated. In the playhouses of the day, it was the fashion for some of the spectators to stand upon the stage, and the places in that position were chiefly occupied by young gallants. The ladies came most in masques: but this did not prevent Master Fielding from making his remarks very freely, and in no very refined strain to them. The modest damsels, whom Pope has described, 'The fair sat pouting at the courtier's play, And not a mask went unimproved away: The modest fan was lifted up no more, And virgins smiled at what they blushed before,' were not too coy to be pleased with the fops' attentions, and replied in like strain. The players were unheeded; the audience laughed at the improvised and natural wit, when carefully prepared dialogues failed to fix their attention. The actors were disgusted, and, in spite of Master Fielding's herculean strength, kicked him off the stage, with a warning not to come again. The _rôle_ of a beau is expensive to keep up; and our justice of the peace could not, like Nash, double his income by gaming. He soon got deeply into debt, as every celebrated dresser has done. The old story, not new even in those days, was enacted and the brilliant Adonis had to keep watch and ward against tailors and bailiffs. On one occasion they had nearly caught him; but his legs being lengthy, he gave them fair sport as far as St. James's Palace, where the officers on guard rushed out to save their pet, and drove off the myrmidons of the law at the point of the sword. But debts do not pay themselves, nor die, and Orlando with all his strength and prowess could not long keep off the constable. Evil days gloomed at no very great distance before him, and the fear of a sponging-house and debtors' prison compelled him to turn his handsome person to account. Had he not broken a hundred hearts already? had he not charmed a thousand pairs of beaming eyes? was there not one owner of one pair who was also possessed of a pretty fortune? Who should have the honour of being the wife of such an Adonis? who, indeed, but she who could pay highest for it; and who could pay with a handsome income but a well-dowered widow? A widow it must be--a widow it should be. Noble indeed was the sentiment which inspired this great man to sacrifice himself on the altar of Hymen for the good of his creditors. Ye young men in the Guards, who do this kind of thing every day--that is, every day that you can meet with a widow with the proper qualifications--take warning by the lamentable history of Mr. Robert Fielding, and never trust to 'third parties.' [Illustration: BEAU FIELDING AND THE SHAM WIDOW.] A widow was found, fat, fair, and forty--and oh!--charm greater far than all the rest--with a fortune of sixty thousand pounds; this was a Mrs. Deleau, who lived at Whaddon in Surrey, and at Copthall-court in London. Nothing could be more charming; and the only obstacle was the absence of all acquaintance between the parties--for, of course, it was impossible for any widow, whatever her attractions, to be insensible to those of Robert Fielding. Under these circumstances, the Beau looked about for an agent, and found one in the person of a Mrs. Villars, hairdresser to the widow. He offered this person a handsome douceur in case of success, and she was to undertake that the lady should meet the gentleman in the most unpremeditated manner. Various schemes were resorted to: with the _alias_, for he was not above an _alias_, of Major-General Villars, the Beau called at the widow's country house, and was permitted to see the gardens. At a window he espied a lady, whom he took to be the object of his pursuit--bowed to her majestically, and went away, persuaded he must have made an impression. But, whether the widow was wiser than wearers of weeds have the reputation of being, or whether the agent had really no power in the matter, the meeting never came on. The hairdresser naturally grew anxious, the douceur was too good to be lost, and as the widow could not be had, some one must be supplied in her place. One day while the Beau was sitting in his splendid 'night-gown,' as the morning-dress of gentlemen was then called, two ladies were ushered into his august presence. He had been warned of this visit, and was prepared to receive the yielding widow. The one, of course, was the hairdresser, the other a young, pretty, and _apparently_ modest creature, who blushed much--though with some difficulty--at the trying position in which she found herself. The Beau, delighted, did his best to reassure her. He flung himself at her feet, swore, with oaths more fashionable than delicate, that she was the only woman he ever loved, and prevailed on the widow so far as to induce her to 'call again to-morrow.' Of course she came, and Adonis was in heaven. He wrote little poems to her--for, as a gallant, he could of course make verses--serenaded her through an Italian donna, invited her to suppers, at which the delicacies of the season were served without regard to the purveyor's account, and to which, coy as she was, she consented to come, and clenched the engagement with a ring, on which was the motto, 'Tibi Soli.' Nay, the Beau had been educated, and had some knowledge of 'the tongues,' so that he added to these attentions the further one of a song or two translated from the Greek. The widow ought to have been pleased, and was. One thing only she stipulated, namely, that the marriage should be private, lest her relations should forbid the banns. Having brought her so far, it was not likely that the fortune-hunter would stick at such a mere trifle, and accordingly an entertainment was got up at the Beau's own rooms, a supper suitable to the rank and wealth of the widow, provided by some obligingly credulous tradesman; a priest found--for, be it premised, our hero had changed so much of his religion as he had to change in the reign of James II., when Romanism was not only fashionable, but a sure road to fortune--and the mutually satisfied couple swore to love, honour, and obey one another till death them should part. The next morning, however, the widow left the gentleman's lodgings, on the pretext that it was injudicious for her friends to know of their union at present, and continued to visit her sposo and sup somewhat amply at his chambers from time to time. We can imagine the anxiety Orlando now felt for a cheque book at the heiress's bankers, and the many insinuations he may have delicately made, touching ways and means. We can fancy the artful excuses with which these hints were put aside by his attached wife. But the dupe was still in happy ignorance of the trick played on him, and for a time such ignorance was bliss. It must have been trying to him to be called on by Mrs. Villars for the promised douceur, but he consoled himself with the pleasures of hope. Unfortunately, however, he had formed the acquaintance of a woman of a very different reputation to the real Mrs. Deleau, and the intimacy which ensued was fatal to him. When Charles II. was wandering abroad, he was joined, among others, by a Mr. and Mrs. Palmer. The husband was a stanch old Romanist, with the qualities which usually accompanied that faith in those days--little respect for morality, and a good deal of bigotry. In later days he was one of the victims suspected of the Titus Oates plot, but escaped, and eventually died in Wales, in 1705, after having been James II.'s ambassador to Rome. This, in a few words, is the history of that Roger Palmer, afterwards Lord Castlemaine, who by some is said to have sold his wife--not at Smithfield, but at Whitehall--to his Majesty King Charles II., for the sum of one peerage--an Irish one, taken on consideration: by others, is alleged to have been so indignant with the king as to have remained for some time far from court; and so disgusted with his elevation to the peerage as scarcely to assume his title; and this last is the most authenticated version of the matter. Mrs. Palmer belonged to one of the oldest families in England, and traced her descent to Pagan de Villiers, in the days of William Rufus, and a good deal farther among the nobles of Normandy. She was the daughter of William, second Viscount Grandison, and rejoiced in the appropriate name of Barbara, for she _could_ be savage occasionally. She was very beautiful, and very wicked, and soon became Charles's mistress. On the Restoration she joined the king in England, and when the poor neglected queen came over was foisted upon her as a bedchamber-woman, in spite of all the objections of that ill used wife. It was necessary to this end that she should be the wife of a peer; and her husband accepted the title of Earl of Castlemaine, well knowing to what he owed it. Pepys, who admired Lady Castlemaine more than any woman in England, describes the husband and wife meeting at Whitehall with a cold ceremonial bow: yet the husband _was_ there. A quarrel between the two, strangely enough on the score of religion, her ladyship insisting that her child should be christened by a Protestant clergyman, while his lordship insisted on the ceremony being performed by a Romish priest, brought about a separation, and from that time Lady Castlemaine, lodged in Whitehall, began her empire over the king of England. That man, 'who never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one,' was the slave of this imperious and most impudent of women. She forced him to settle on her an immense fortune, much of which she squandered at the basset-table, often staking a thousand pounds at a time, and sometimes losing fifteen thousand pounds a-night. Nor did her wickedness end here. We have some pity for one, who, like La Vallière, could be attracted by the attentions of a handsome, fascinating prince: we pity though we blame. But Lady Castlemaine was vicious to the very marrow: not content with a king's favour, she courted herself the young gallant of the town. Quarrels ensued between Charles and his mistress, in which the latter invariably came off victorious, owing to her indomitable temper; and the scenes recorded by De Grammont--when she threatened to burn down Whitehall, and tear her children in pieces--are too disgraceful for insertion. She forced the reprobate monarch to consent to all her extortionate demands: rifled the nation's pockets as well as his own; and at every fresh difference, forced Charles to give her some new pension. An intrigue with Jermyn, discovered and objected to by the King, brought on a fresh and more serious difference, which was only patched up by a patent of the Duchy of Cleveland. The Duchess of Cleveland was even worse than the Countess of Castlemaine. Abandoned in time by Charles, and detested by all people of any decent feeling, she consoled herself for the loss of a real king by taking up with a stage one. Hart and Goodman, the actors, were successively her cavalieri; the former had been a captain in the army; the latter a student at Cambridge. Both were men of the coarsest minds and most depraved lives. Goodman, in after-years was so reduced that, finding, as Sheridan advised his son to do, a pair of pistols handy, a horse saddled, and Hounslow Heath not a hundred miles distance, he took to the pleasant and profitable pastime of which Dick Turpin is the patron saint. He was all but hanged for his daring robberies, but unfortunately not quite so. He lived to suffer such indigence, that he and another rascal had but one under-garment between them, and entered into a compact that one should lie in bed while the other wore the article in question. Naturally enough the two fell out in time, and the end of Goodman--sad misnomer--was worse than his beginning: such was the gallant whom the imperious Duchess of Cleveland vouchsafed to honour. The life of the once beautiful Barbara Villiers grew daily more and more depraved: at the age of thirty she retired to Paris, shunned and disgraced. After numerous intrigues abroad and at home, she put the crowning point to her follies by falling in love with the handsome Fielding, when she herself numbered sixty-five summers. Whether the Beau still thought of fortune, or whether having once tried matrimony, he was so enchanted with it as to make it his cacoëthes, does not appear: the legend explains not for what reason he married the antiquated beauty only three weeks after he had been united to the supposed widow. For a time he wavered between the two, but that time was short: the widow discovered his second marriage, claimed him, and in so doing revealed the well-kept secret that she was not a widow; indeed, not even the relict of John Deleau, Esq., of Whaddon, but a wretched adventurer of the name of Mary Wadsworth, who had shared with Mrs. Villars the plunder of the trick. The Beau tried to preserve his dignity, and throw over his duper, but in vain. The first wife reported the state of affairs to the second: and the duchess, who had been shamefully treated by Master Fielding, was only too glad of an opportunity to get rid of him. She offered Mary Wadsworth a pension of £100 a year, and a sum of £200 in ready money, to prove the previous marriage. The case came on, and Beau Fielding had the honour of playing a part in a famous state trial. With his usual impudence he undertook to defend himself at the Old Bailey, and hatched up some old story to prove that the first wife was married at the time of their union to one Brady; but the plea fell to the ground, and the fine gentleman was sentenced to be burned in the hand. His interest in certain quarters saved him this ignominious punishment which would, doubtless, have spoiled a limb of which he was particularly proud. He was pardoned: the real widow married a far more honourable gentleman, in spite of the unenviable notoriety she had acquired; the sham one was somehow quieted, and the duchess died some four years later, the more peacefully for being rid of her tyrannical mate. Thus ended a petty scandal of the day, in which all the parties were so disreputable that no one could feel any sympathy for a single one of them. How the dupe himself ended is not known. The last days of fops and beaux are never glorious. Brummell died in slovenly penury; Nash in contempt. Fielding lapsed into the dimmest obscurity; and as far as evidence goes, there is as little certainty about his death as of that of the Wandering Jew. Let us hope that he is not still alive: though his friends seemed to have cared little whether he were so or not, to judge from a couple of verses written by one of them:-- 'If Fielding is dead, And rests under this stone, Then he is not alive You may bet two to one. 'But if he's alive, And does not lie there-- Let him live till he's hanged, For which no man will care.' OF CERTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS UNDER ANNE. The Origin of Clubs.--The Establishment of Coffee-houses.--The October Club.--The Beef-steak Club.--Of certain other Clubs.--The Kit-kat Club.--The Romance of the Bowl.--The Toasts of the Kit-kat.--The Members of the Kit-kat.--A good Wit, and a bad Architect.--'Well-natured Garth.'--The Poets of the Kit-kat.--Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax.--Chancellor Somers.--Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset.--Less celebrated Wits. I suppose that, long before the building of Babel, man discovered that he was an associative animal, with the universal motto, '_L'union c'est la force_;' and that association, to be of any use, requires talk. A history of celebrated associations, from the building society just mentioned down to the thousands which are represented by an office, a secretary, and a brass-plate, in the present day, would give a curious scheme of the natural tendencies of man; while the story of their failures--and how many have not failed, sooner or later!--would be a pretty moral lesson to your anthropolaters who Babelize now-a-days, and believe there is nothing which a company with capital cannot achieve. I wonder what object there is, that two men can possibly agree in desiring, and which it takes more than one to attain, for which an association of some kind has not been formed at some time or other, since first the swarthy savage learned that it was necessary to unite to kill the lion which infested the neighbourhood! Alack for human nature! I fear by far the larger proportion of the objects of associations would be found rather evil than good, and, certes, nearly all of them might be ranged under two heads, according as the passions of hate or desire found a common object in several hearts. Gain on the one hand--destruction on the other--have been the chief motives of clubbing in all time. A delightful exception is to be found, though--to wit, in associations for the purpose of talking. I do not refer to parliaments and philosophical academies, but to those companies which have been formed for the sole purpose of mutual entertainment by interchange of thought. Now, will any kind reader oblige me with a derivation of the word 'Club?' I doubt if it is easy to discover. But one thing is certain, whatever its origin, it is, in its present sense, purely English in idea and in existence. Dean Trench points this out, and, noting the fact that no other nation (he might have excepted the Chinese) has any word to express this kind of association, he has, with very pardonable natural pride, but unpardonably bad logic, inferred that the English are the most sociable people in the world. The contrary is true; nay, _was_ true, even in the days of Addison, Swift, Steele--even in the days of Johnson, Walpole, Selwyn; ay, at all time since we have been a nation. The fact is, we are not the most sociable, but the most associative race; and the establishment of clubs is a proof of it. We cannot, and never could, talk freely, comfortably, and generally, without a company for talking. Conversation has always been with us as much a business as railroad-making, or what not. It has always demanded certain accessories, certain condiments, certain stimulants to work it up to the proper pitch. 'We all know' we are the cleverest and wittiest people under the sun; but then our wit has been stereotyped. France has no 'Joe Miller;' for a bon-mot there, however good, is only appreciated historically. Our wit is printed, not spoken; our best wits behind an inkhorn have sometimes been the veriest logs in society. On the Continent clubs were not called for, because society itself was the arena of conversation. In this country, on the other hand, a man could only chat when at his ease; could only be at his ease among those who agreed with him on the main points of religion and politics, and even then wanted the aid of a bottle to make him comfortable. Our want of sociability was the cause of our clubbing, and therefore the word 'club' is purely English. This was never so much the case as after the Restoration. Religion and politics never ran higher than when a monarch, who is said to have died a papist because he had no religion at all during his life, was brought back to supplant a furious puritanical Protectorate. Then, indeed, it was difficult for men of opposite parties to meet without bickering; and society demanded separate meeting-places for those who differed. The origin of clubs in this country is to be traced to two causes--the vehemence of religious and political partisanship, and the establishment of coffee-houses. These certainly gave the first idea of clubbery. The taverns which preceded them had given the English a zest for public life in a small way. 'The Mermaid' was, virtually, a club of wits long before the first real club was opened, and, like the clubs of the eighteenth century, it had its presiding geniuses in Shakespeare and Rare Ben. The coffee-houses introduced somewhat more refinement and less exclusiveness. The oldest of these was the 'Grecian.' 'One Constantine, a Grecian,' advertised in 'The Intelligencer' of January 23rd, 1664-5, that 'the right coffee bery or chocolate,' might be had of him 'as cheap and as good as is anywhere to be had for money,' and soon after began to sell the said 'coffee bery' in small cups at his own establishment in Devereux Court, Strand. Some two years later we have news of 'Will's,' the most famous, perhaps, of the coffee-houses. Here Dryden held forth with pedantic vanity: and here was laid the first germ of that critical acumen which has since become a distinguishing feature in English literature. Then, in the City, one Garraway, of Exchange Alley, first sold 'tea in leaf and drink, made according to the directions of the most knowing, and travellers into those eastern countries;' and thus established the well-known 'Garraway's,' whither, in Defoe's day, 'foreign banquiers' and even ministers resorted, to drink the said beverage. 'Robin's,' 'Jonathan's,' and many another, were all opened about this time, and the rage for coffee-house life became general throughout the country. In these places the company was of course of all classes and colours; but, as the conversation was general, there was naturally at first a good deal of squabbling, till, for the sake of peace and comfort, a man chose his place of resort according to his political principles; and a little later there were regular Whig and Tory coffee-houses. Thus, in Anne's day, 'The Cocoa-nut,' in St. James's Street, was reserved for Jacobites, while none but Whigs frequented 'The St James's.' Still there was not sufficient exclusiveness; and as early as in Charles II.'s reign men of peculiar opinions began to appropriate certain coffee-houses at certain hours, and to exclude from them all but approved members. Hence the origin of clubs. The October Club was one of the earliest, being composed of some hundred and fifty rank Tories, chiefly country members of Parliament. They met at the 'Bell,' in King Street, Westminster, that street in which Spenser starved, and Dryden's brother kept a grocer's shop. A portrait of Queen Anne, by Dahl, hung in the club-room. This and the Kit-kat, the great Whig club, were chiefly reserved for politics; but the fashion of clubbing having once come in, it was soon followed by people of all fancies. No reader of the 'Spectator' can fail to remember the ridicule to which this was turned by descriptions of imaginary clubs for which the qualifications were absurd, and of which the business, on meeting, was preposterous nonsense of some kind. The idea of such fraternities, as the Club of Fat Men, the Ugly Club, the Sheromp Club, the Everlasting Club, the Sighing Club, the Amorous Club, and others, could only have been suggested by real clubs almost as ridiculous. The names, too, were almost as fantastical as those of the taverns in the previous century, which counted 'The Devil,' and 'The Heaven and Hell,' among their numbers. Many derived their titles from the standing dishes preferred at supper, the Beef-steak and the Kit-kat (a sort of mutton-pie), for instance. The Beef-steak Club, still in existence, was one of the most famous established in Anne's reign. It had at that time less of a political than a jovial character. Nothing but that excellent British fare, from which it took its name, was, at first, served at the supper-table. It was an assemblage of wits of every station, and very jovial were they supposed to be when the juicy dish had been discussed. Early in the century, Estcourt, the actor, was made provider to this club, and wore a golden gridiron as a badge of office, and is thus alluded to in Dr. King's 'Art of Cookery' (1709):-- 'He that of honour, wit, and mirth partakes, May be a fit companion o'er beef-stakes; His name may be to future times enrolled In Estcourt's book, whose gridiron's framed of gold.' Estcourt was one of the best mimics of the day, and a keen satirist to boot; in fact he seems to have owed much of his success on the stage to his power of imitation, for while his own manner was inferior, he could at pleasure copy exactly that of any celebrated actor. He _would_ be a player. At fifteen he ran away from home, and joining a strolling company, acted Roxana in woman's clothes: his friends pursued him, and, changing his dress for that of a girl of the time, he tried to escape them, but in vain. The histrionic youth was captured, and bound apprentice in London town; the 'seven long years' of which did not cure him of the itch for acting. But he was too good a wit for the stage, and amused himself, though not always his audience, by interspersing his part with his own remarks. The great took him by the hand, and old Marlborough especially patronized him: he wrote a burlesque of the Italian operas then beginning to be in vogue; and died in 1712-13. Estcourt was not the only actor belonging to the Beef-steak, nor even the only one who had concealed his sex under emergency; Peg Woffington, who had made as good a boy as he had done a girl, was afterwards a member of this club. In later years the beef-steak was cooked in a room at the top of Covent Garden Theatre, and counted many a celebrated wit among those who sat around its cheery dish. Wilkes the blasphemer, Churchill, and Lord Sandwich, were all members of it at the same time. Of the last, Walpole gives us information in 1763 at the time of Wilkes's duel with Martin in Hyde Park. He tells us that at the Beef-steak Club Lord Sandwich talked so profusely, 'that he drove harlequins out of the company.' To the honour of the club be it added, that his lordship was driven out after the harlequins, and finally expelled: it is sincerely to be hoped that Wilkes was sent after his lordship. This club is now represented by one held behind the Lyceum, with the thoroughly British motto, 'Beef and Liberty:' the name was happily chosen and therefore imitated. In the reign of George II. we meet with a 'Rump-steak, or Liberty Club;' and somehow steaks and liberty seem to be the two ideas most intimately associated in the Britannic mind. Can any one explain it? Other clubs there were under Anne,--political, critical, and hilarious--but the palm is undoubtedly carried off by the glorious Kit-kat. It is not every eating-house that is immortalized by a Pope, though Tennyson has sung 'The Cock' with its 'plump head-waiter,' who, by the way, was mightily offended by the Laureate's verses--or pretended to be so--and thought it 'a great liberty of Mr. ----, Mr. ----, what is his name? to put respectable private characters into his books.' Pope, or some say Arbuthnot, explained the etymology of this club's extraordinary title:-- 'Whence deathless Kit-kat took its name, Few critics can unriddle: Some say from pastrycook it came, And some from Cat and Fiddle. 'From no trim beaux its name it boasts, Grey statesmen or green wits; But from the pell-mell pack of toasts Of old cats and young kits.' Probably enough the title was hit on a hap-hazard, and retained because it was singular, but as it has given a poet a theme, and a painter a name for pictures of a peculiar size, its etymology has become important. Some say that the pastry cook in Shire Lane, at whose house it was held, was named Christopher Katt. Some one or other was certainly celebrated for the manufacture of that forgotten delicacy, a mutton-pie, which acquired the name of a Kit-kat. 'A Kit-kat is a supper for a lord,' says a comedy of 1700, and certes it afforded at this club evening nourishment for many a celebrated noble profligate of the day. The supposed sign of the Cat and Fiddle (Kitt), gave another solution, but after all, Pope's may be satisfactorily received. The Kit-kat was, _par excellence_, the Whig Club of Queen Anne's time: it was established at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and was then composed of thirty-nine members, among whom were the Dukes of Marlborough, Devonshire, Grafton, Richmond, and Somerset. In later days it numbered the greatest wits of the age, of whom anon. This club was celebrated more than any for its _toasts_. Now, if men must drink--and sure the vine was given us for use, I do not say for abuse--they had better make it an occasion of friendly intercourse; nothing can be more degraded than the solitary sanctimonious toping in which certain of our northern brethren are known to indulge. They had better give to the quaffing of that rich gift, sent to be a medicine for the mind, to raise us above the perpetual contemplation of worldly ills, as much of romance and elegance as possible. It is the opener of the heart, the awakener of nobler feelings of generosity and love, the banisher of all that is narrow, and sordid, and selfish; the herald of all that is exalted in man. No wonder that the Greeks made a god of Bacchus, that the Hindu worshipped the mellow Soma, and that there has been scarce a poet who has not sung its praise. There was some beauty in the feasts of the Greeks, when the goblet was really wreathed with flowers; and even the German student, dirty and drunken as he may be, removes half the stain from his orgies with the rich harmony of his songs, and the hearty good-fellowship of his toasts. We drink still, perhaps we shall always drink till the end of time, but all the romance of the bowl is gone; the last trace of its beauty went with the frigid abandonment of the toast. There was some excuse for wine when it brought out that now forgotten expression of good-will. Many a feud was reconciled in the clinking of glasses; just as many another was begun when the cup was drained too deeply. The first quarter of the last century saw the end of all the social glories of the wassail in this country, and though men drank as much fifty years later, all its poetry and romance had then disappeared. It was still, however, the custom at that period to call on the name of some fair maiden, and sing her praises over the cup as it passed. It was a point of honour for all the company to join the health. Some beauties became celebrated for the number of their toasts; some even standing toasts among certain sets. In the Kit-kat Club the custom was carried out by rule, and every member was compelled to name a beauty, whose claims to the honour were then discussed, and if her name was approved, a separate bowl was consecrated to her, and verses to her honour engraved on it. Some of the most celebrated toasts had even their portraits hung in the club-room, and it was no slight distinction to be the favourite of the Kit-kat. When only eight years old, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu enjoyed this privilege. Her father, the Lord Dorchester, afterwards Evelyn, Duke of Kingston, in a fit of caprice, proposed 'the pretty little child' as his toast. The other members, who had never seen her, objected; the Peer sent for her, and there could no longer be any question. The forward little girl was handed from knee to knee, petted, probably, by Addison, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Garth, and many another famous wit. Another celebrated toast of the Kit-kat, mentioned by Walpole, was Lady Molyneux, who, he says, died smoking a pipe. This club was no less celebrated for its portraits than for the ladies it honoured. They, the portraits, were all painted by Kneller, and all of one size, which thence got the name of Kit-kat; they were hung round the club-room. Jacob Tonson, the publisher, was secretary to the club. Defoe tells us the Kit-kat held the first rank among the clubs of the early part of the last century, and certainly the names of its members comprise as many wits as we could expect to find collected in one society. Addison must have been past forty when he became a member of the Kit-kat. His 'Cato' had won him the general applause of the Whig party, who could not allow so fine a writer to slip from among them. He had long, too, played the courtier, and was 'quite a gentleman.' A place among the exclusives of the Kit-kat was only the just reward of such attainments, and he had it. I shall not be asked to give a notice of a man so universally known, and one who ranks rather with the humorists than the wits. It will suffice to say, that it was not till _after_ the publication of the 'Spectator,' and some time after, that he joined our society. Congreve I have chosen out of this set for a separate life, for this man happens to present a very average sample of all their peculiarities. Congreve was a literary man, a poet, a wit, a beau, and--what unhappily is quite as much to the purpose--a profligate. The only point he, therefore, wanted in common with most of the members, was a title; but few of the titled members combined as many good and bad qualities of the Kit-kat kind as did William Congreve. Another dramatist, whose name seems to be inseparable from Congreve's, was that mixture of bad and good taste--Vanbrugh. The author of 'The Relapse,' the most licentious play ever acted;--the builder of Blenheim, the ugliest house ever erected, was a man of good family, and Walpole counts him among those who 'wrote genteel comedy, because they lived in the best company.' We doubt the logic of this; but if it hold, how is it that Van wrote plays which the best company, even at that age, condemned, and neither good nor bad company can read in the present day without being shocked? If the conversation of the Kit-kat was anything like that in this member's comedies, it must have been highly edifying. However, I have no doubt Vanbrugh passed for a gentleman, whatever his conversation, and he was certainly a wit, and apparently somewhat less licentious in his morals than the rest. Yet what Pope said of his literature may be said, too, of some acts of his life:-- 'How Van wants grace, who never wanted wit.' And his quarrel with 'Queen Sarah' of Marlborough, though the duchess was by no means the most agreeable woman in the world to deal with, is not much to Van's honour. When the nation voted half a million to build that hideous mass of stone, the irregular and unsightly piling of which caused Walpole to say that the architect 'had emptied quarries, rather than built houses,' and Dr. Evans to write this epitaph for the builder-- 'Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he Laid many a heavy load on thee,' Sarah haggled over 'seven-pence halfpenny a bushel;' Van retorted by calling her 'stupid and troublesome,' and 'that wicked woman of Marlborough,' and after the Duke's death, wrote that the Duke had left her 'twelve thousand pounds a-year to keep herself clean and go to law.' Whether she employed any portion of it on the former object we do not pretend to say, but she certainly spent as much as a miser could on litigation, Van himself being one of the unfortunates she attacked in this way. The events of Vanbrugh's life were varied. He began life in the army, but in 1697 gave the stage 'The Relapse.' It was sufficiently successful to induce him to follow it up with the 'Provoked Wife,' one of the wittiest pieces produced in those days. Charles, Earl of Carlisle, Deputy Earl Marshal, for whom he built Castle Howard, made him Clarencieux King-at-arms in 1704, and he was knighted by George I., 9th of September, 1714. In 1705 he joined Congreve in the management of the Haymarket, which he himself built. George I. made him Comptroller-general of the royal works. He had even an experience of the Bastille, where he was confined for sketching fortifications in France. He died in 1726, with the reputation of a good wit, and a bad architect. His conversation was, certainly, as light as his buildings were heavy. Another member, almost as well known in his day, was Sir Samuel Garth, the physician, 'well-natured Garth,' as Pope called him. He won his fame by his satire on the apothecaries in the shape of a poem called 'The Dispensary.' When delivering the funeral oration over Dryden's body, which had been so long unburied that its odour began to be disagreeable, he mounted a tub, the top of which fell through and left the doctor in rather an awkward position. He gained admission to the Kit-kat in consequence of a vehement eulogy on King William which he had introduced into his Harveian oration in 1697.[13] It was Garth, too, who extemporized most of the verses which were inscribed on the toasting-glasses of their club, so that he may, _par excellence_, be considered the Kit-kat poet. He was the physician and friend of Marlborough, with whose sword he was knighted by George I., who made him his physician in ordinary. Garth was a very jovial man, and, some say, not a very religious one. Pope said he was as good a Christian as ever lived, 'without knowing it.' He certainly had no affectation of piety, and if charitable and good-natured acts could take a man to heaven, he deserved to go there. He had his doubts about faith, and is said to have died a Romanist. This he did in 1719, and the poor and the Kit-kat must both have felt his loss. He was perhaps more of a wit than a poet, although he has been classed at times with Gray and Prior; he can scarcely take the same rank as other verse-making doctors, such as Akenside, Darwin, and Armstrong. He seems to have been an active, healthy man--perhaps too much so for a poet--for it is on record that he ran a match in the Mall with the Duke of Grafton, and beat him. He was fond, too, of a hard frost, and had a regular speech to introduce on that subject: 'Yes, sir, 'fore Gad, very fine weather, sir--very wholesome weather, sir--kills trees, sir--very good for man, sir.' Old Marlborough had another intimate friend at the club, who was probably one of its earliest members. This was Arthur Maynwaring, a poet, too, in a way, but more celebrated at this time for his _liaison_ with Mrs. Oldfield, the famous but disreputable actress, with whom he fell in love when he was forty years old, and whom he instructed in the niceties of elocution, making her rehearse her parts to him in private. Maynwaring was born in 1668, educated at Oxford, and destined for the bar, for which he studied. He began life as a vehement Jacobite, and even supported that party in sundry pieces; but like some others, he was easily converted, when, on coming to town, he found it more fashionable to be a Whig. He held two or three posts under the Government, whose cause he now espoused: had the honour of the dedication of 'The Tatler' to him by Steele, and died suddenly in 1712. He divided his fortune between his sister and his mistress, Mrs. Oldfield, and his son by the latter. Mrs. Oldfield must have grown rich in her sinful career, for she could afford, when ill, to refuse to take her salary from the theatre, though entitled to it. She acted best in Vanbrugh's 'Provoked Husband,' so well, in fact, that the manager gave her an extra fifty pounds by way of acknowledgment. Poetising seems to have been as much a polite accomplishment of that age as letter-writing was of a later, and a smattering of science is of the present day. Gentlemen tried to be poets, and poets gentlemen. The consequence was, that both made fools of themselves. Among the poetasters who belonged to the Kit-kat, we must mention Walsh, a country gentleman, member of Parliament, and very tolerable scholar. He dabbled in odes, elegies, epitaphs, and all that small fry of the muse which was then so plentiful. He wrote critical essays on Virgil, in which he tried to make out that the shepherds in the days of the Roman poet were very well-bred gentlemen of good education! He was a devoted admirer and friend of Dryden, and he encouraged Pope in his earlier career so kindly that the little viper actually praised him! Walsh died somewhere about 1709 in middle life. We have not nearly done with the poets of the Kit-kat. A still smaller one than Walsh was Stepney, who, like Garth, had begun life as a violent Tory and turned coat when he found his interest lay the other way. He was well repaid, for from 1692 to 1706 he was sent on no less than eight diplomatic missions, chiefly to German courts. He owed this preferment to the good luck of having been a schoolfellow of Charles Montagu, afterwards Earl of Halifax. He died about 1707, and had as grand a monument and epitaph in Westminster Abbey as if he had been a Milton or Dryden. When you meet a dog trotting along the road, you naturally expect that his master is not far off. In the same way, where you find a poet, still more a poetaster, there you may feel certain you will light upon a patron. The Kit-kat was made up of Mæcenases and their humble servants; and in the same club with Addison, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and the minor poets, we are not at all surprised to find Sir Robert Walpole, the Duke of Somerset, Halifax, and Somers. Halifax was, _par excellence_, the Mæcenas of his day, and Pope described him admirably in the character of Bufo:-- 'Proud as Apollo, on his forked hill, Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by every quill; _Fed with soft dedication_ all day long, Horace and he went hand in hand in song.' The dedications poured in thickly. Steele, Tickell, Philips, Smith, and a crowd of lesser lights, raised my lord each one on a higher pinnacle; and in return the powerful minister was not forgetful of the douceur which well-tuned verses were accustomed to receive. He himself had tried to be a poet, and in 1703 wrote verses for the toasting-cups of the Kit-kat. His lines to a Dowager Countess of ----, are good enough to make us surprised that he never wrote any better. Take a specimen:-- 'Fair Queen of Fop-land in her royal style; Fop-land the greatest part of this great isle! Nature did ne'er so equally divide A female heart 'twixt piety and pride: Her waiting-maids prevent the peep of day, And all in order at her toilet lay Prayer-books, patch-boxes, sermon-notes, and paint, At once t'improve the sinner and the saint.' A Mæcenas who paid for his dedications was sure to be well spoken of, and Halifax has been made out a wit and a poet, as well as a clever statesman. Halifax got his earldom and the garter from George I., and died, after enjoying them less than a year, in 1715. Chancellor Somers, with whom Halifax was associated in the impeachment case in 1701, was a far better man in every respect. His was probably the purest character among those of all the members of the Kit-kat. He was the son of a Worcester attorney, and born in 1652. He was educated at Trinity, Oxford, and rose purely by merit, distinguishing himself at the bar and on the bench, unwearied in his application to business, and an exact and upright judge. At school he was a terribly good boy, keeping to his book in play-hours. Throughout life his habits were simple and regular, and his character unblemished. He slept but little, and in later years had a reader to attend him at waking. With such habits he can scarcely have been a constant attender at the club; and as he died a bachelor, it would be curious to learn what ladies he selected for his toasts. In his latter years his mind was weakened, and he died in 1716 of apoplexy. Walpole calls him 'one of those divine men who, like a chapel in a palace, remained unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly.' A huge stout figure rolls in now to join the toasters in Shire Lane. In the puffy, once handsome face, there are signs of age, for its owner is past sixty; yet he is dressed in superb fashion; and in an hour or so, when the bottle has been diligently circulated, his wit will be brighter and keener than that of any young man present. I do not say it will be repeatable, for the talker belongs to a past age, even coarser than that of the Kit-kat. He is Charles Sackville,[14] famous as a companion of the merriest and most disreputable of the Stuarts, famous--or, rather, infamous--for his mistress, Nell Gwynn, famous for his verses, for his patronage of poets, and for his wild frolics in early life, when Lord Buckhurst. Rochester called him 'The best good man with the worst-natured muse;' and Pope says he was 'The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great, Of fops in learning and of knaves in state.' Our sailors still sing the ballad which he is said to have written on the eve of the naval engagement between the Duke of York and Admiral Opdam, which begins-- 'To all you ladies now on land We men at sea indite.' With a fine classical taste and a courageous spirit, he had in early days been guilty of as much iniquity as any of Charles's profligate court. He was one of a band of young libertines who robbed and murdered a poor tanner on the high-road, and were acquitted, less on account of the poor excuse they dished up for this act than of their rank and fashion. Such fine gentlemen could not be hanged for the sake of a mere workman in those days--no! no! Yet he does not seem to have repented of this transaction, for soon after he was engaged with Sedley and Ogle in a series of most indecent acts at the Cock Tavern in Bow-street, where Sedley, in 'birthday attire,' made a blasphemous oration from the balcony of the house. In later years he was the pride of the poets: Dryden and Prior, Wycherley, Hudibras, and Rymer, were all encouraged by him, and repaid him with praises. Pope and Dr. King were no less bountiful in their eulogies of this Mæcenas. His conversation was so much appreciated that gloomy William III. chose him as his companion, as merry Charles had done before. The famous Irish ballad, which my Uncle Toby was always humming, 'Lillibullero bullen-a-lah,' but which Percy attributes to the Marquis of Wharton, another member of the Kit-kat, was said to have been written by Buckhurst. He retained his wit to the last; and Congreve, who visited him when he was dying, said, 'Faith, he stutters more wit than other people have in their best health.' He died at Bath in 1706. Buckhurst does not complete the list of conspicuous members of this club, but the remainder were less celebrated for their wit. There was the Duke of Kingston, the father of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; Granville, who imitated Waller, and attempted to make his 'Myra' as celebrated as the court-poet's Saccharissa, who, by the way, was the mother of the Earl of Sunderland; the Duke of Devonshire, whom Walpole calls 'a patriot among the men, a gallant among the ladies,' and who founded Chatsworth; and other noblemen, chiefly belonging to the latter part of the seventeenth century, and all devoted to William III., though they had been bred at the courts of Charles and James. With such an array of wits, poets, statesmen, and gallants, it can easily be believed that to be the toast of the Kit-kat was no slight honour; to be a member of it a still greater one; and to be one of its most distinguished, as Congreve was, the greatest. Let us now see what title this conceited beau and poet had to that position. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 13: The Kit-kat club was not founded till 1703.] [Footnote 14: For some notice of Lord Dorset, see p. 61.] WILLIAM CONGREVE. When and where was he born?--The Middle Temple.--Congreve finds his Vocation.--Verses to Queen Mary.--The Tennis-court Theatre.--Congreve abandons the Drama.--Jeremy Collier.--The Immorality of the Stage.--Very improper Things.--Congreve's Writings.--Jeremy's 'Short Views.'--Rival Theatres.--Dryden's Funeral.--A Tub-Preacher.--Horoscopic Predictions.--Dryden's Solicitude for his Son.--Congreve's Ambition.--Anecdote of Voltaire and Congreve.--The Profession of Mæcenas.--Congreve's Private Life.--'Malbrook's' Daughter.--Congreve's Death and Burial. When 'Queen Sarah' of Marlborough read the silly epitaph which Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, had written and had engraved on the monument she set up to Congreve, she said, with one of the true Blenheim sneers, 'I know not what _happiness_ she might have in his company, but I am sure it was no _honour_,' alluding to her daughter's eulogistic phrases. Queen Sarah was right, as she often was when condemnation was called for: and however amusing a companion the dramatist may have been, he was not a man to respect, for he had not only the common vices of his age, but added to them a foppish vanity, toadyism, and fine gentlemanism (to coin a most necessary word), which we scarcely expect to meet with in a man who sets up for a satirist. It is the fate of greatness to have falsehoods told of it, and of nothing in connection with it more so than of its origin. If the converse be true, Congreve ought to have been a great man, for the place and time of his birth are both subjects of dispute. Oh! happy Gifford! or happy Croker! why did you not--perhaps you did--go to work to set the world right on this matter--you, to whom a date discovered is the highest palm (no pun intended, I assure you) of glory, and who would rather Shakespere had never written 'Hamlet,' or Homer the 'Iliad,' than that some miserable little forgotten scrap which decided a year or a place should have been consigned to flames before it fell into your hands? Why did you not bring the thunder of your abuse and the pop-gunnery of your satire to bear upon the question, 'How, when, and where was William Congreve born?' It was Lady Morgan, I think, who first 'saw the light' (that is, if she was born in the day-time) in the Irish Channel. If it had been only some one more celebrated, we should have had by this time a series of philosophical, geographical, and ethnological pamphlets to prove that she was English or Irish, according to the fancies or prejudices of the writers. It was certainly a very Irish thing to do, which is one argument for the Milesians, and again it was done in the Irish Channel, which is another and a stronger one; and altogether we are not inclined to go into forty-five pages of recondite facts and fine-drawn arguments, mingled with the most vehement abuse of anybody who ever before wrote on the subject, to prove that this country had the honour of producing her ladyship--the Wild Irish Girl. We freely give her up to the sister island. But not so William Congreve, though we are equally indifferent to the honour in his case. The one party, then, assert that he was born in this country, the other that he breathed his first air in the Emerald Isle. Whichever be the true state of the case, we, as Englishmen, prefer to agree in the commonly received opinion that he came into this wicked world at the village of Bardsea, or Bardsey, not far from Leeds in the county of York. Let the Bardseyans immediately erect a statue to his honour, if they have been remiss enough to neglect him heretofore. But our difficulties are not ended, for there is a similar doubt about the year of his birth. His earliest biographer assures us he was born in 1672, and others that he was baptized three years before, in 1669. Such a proceeding might well be taken as a proof of his Hibernian extraction, and accordingly we find Malone supporting the earlier date, producing, of course, a certificate of baptism to support himself; and as we have a very great respect for his authority, we beg also to support Mr. Malone. This being settled, we have to examine who were his parents: and this is satisfactorily answered by his earliest biographer, who informs us that he was of a very ancient family, being 'the only surviving son of William Congreve, Esq. (who was second son to Richard Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in that county),' to wit, Yorkshire. Congreve _père_ held a military command, which took him to Ireland soon after the dramatist's birth, and thus young William had the incomparable advantage of being educated at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Trinity, Dublin, the 'silent sister,' as it is commonly called at our universities. At the age of nineteen, this youth sought the classic shades of the Middle Temple, of which he was entered a student, but by the honourable society of which he was never called to the bar; but whether this was from a disinclination to study 'Coke upon Lyttleton,' or from an incapacity to digest the requisite number of dinners, the devouring of which qualify a young gentleman to address an enlightened British jury, we have no authority for deciding. He was certainly not the first, nor the last, young Templar who has quitted special pleading on a crusade to the heights of Parnassus, and he began early to try the nib of his pen and the colour of his ink in a novel. Eheu! how many a novel has issued from the dull, dirty chambers of that same Temple! The waters of the Thames just there seem to have been augmented by a mingled flow of sewage and Helicon, though the former is undoubtedly in the greater proportion. This novel, called 'Incognita; or, Love and Duty Reconciled,' seems to have been--for I confess that I have not read more than a chapter of it, and hope I never may be forced to do so--great rubbish, with good store of villains and ruffians, love-sick maidens who tune their lutes--always conveniently at hand--and love-sick gallants who run their foes through the body with the greatest imaginable ease. It was, in fact, such a novel as James might have written, had he lived a century and a half ago. It brought its author but little fame, and accordingly he turned his attention to another branch of literature, and in 1693 produced 'The Old Bachelor,' a play of which Dryden, his friend, had so high an opinion that he called it the 'best first-play he had ever read.' However, before being put on the stage it was submitted to Dryden, and by him and others prepared for representation, so that it was well fathered. It was successful enough, and Congreve thus found his vocation. In his dedication--a regular piece of flummery of those days, for which authors were often well paid, either in cash or interest--he acknowledges a debt of gratitude to Lord Halifax, who appears to have taken the young man by the hand. The young Templar could do nothing better now than write another play. Play-making was as fashionable an amusement in those days of Old Drury, the only patented theatre then, as novel-writing is in 1860; and when the young ensign, Vanbrugh, could write comedies and take the direction of a theatre, it was no derogation to the dignity of the Staffordshire squire's grandson to do as much. Accordingly, in the following year he brought out a better comedy, 'The Double Dealer,' with a prologue which was spoken by the famous Anne Bracegirdle. She must have been eighty years old when Horace Walpole wrote of her to that other Horace--Mann: 'Tell Mr. Chute that his friend Bracegirdle breakfasted with me this morning. As she went out and wanted her clogs, she turned to me and said: "I remember at the playhouse they used to call, Mrs. Oldfield's chair! Mrs. Barry's clogs! and Mrs. Bracegirdle's pattens!"' These three ladies were all buried in Westminster Abbey, and, except Mrs. Cibber, the most beautiful and most sinful of them all--though they were none of them spotless--are the only actresses whose ashes and memories are hallowed by the place, for we can scarcely say that they do _it_ much honour. The success of 'The Double Dealer,' was at first moderate, although that highly respectable woman, Queen Mary, honoured it with her august presence, which forthwith called up verses of the old adulatory style, though with less point and neatness than those addressed to the Virgin Queen: 'Wit is again the care of majesty,' said the poet, and 'Thus flourished wit in our forefathers' age, And thus the Roman and Athenian stage. Whose wit is best, we'll not presume to tell, But this we know, our audience will excell; For never was in Rome, nor Athens seen So fair a circle, and so bright a queen.' But this was not enough, for when Her Majesty departed for another realm in the same year, Congreve put her into a highly eulogistic pastoral, under the name of Pastora, and made some compliments on her, which were considered the finest strokes of poetry and flattery combined, that an age of addresses and eulogies could produce. 'As lofty pines o'ertop the lowly steed, So did her graceful height all nymphs exceed, To which excelling height she bore a mind Humble as osiers, bending to the wind. * * * * * I mourn Pastora dead; let Albion mourn, And sable clouds her chalkie cliffs adorn.' This play was dedicated to Lord Halifax, of whom we have spoken, and who continued to be Congreve's patron. The fame of the young man was now made; but in the following year it was destined to shine out more brilliantly still. Old Betterton--one of the best Hamlets that ever trod the stage, and of whom Booth declared that when he was playing the Ghost to his Hamlet, his look of surprise and horror was so natural, that Booth could not for some minutes recover himself--was now a veteran in his sixtieth year. For forty years he had walked the boards, and made a fortune for the patentees of Drury. It was very shabby of them, therefore, to give some of his best parts to younger actors. Betterton was disgusted, and determined to set up for himself, to which end he managed to procure another patent, turned the Queen's Court in Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn, into a theatre, and opened it on the 30th of April, 1695. The building had been before used as a theatre in the days of the Merry Monarch, and Tom Killegrew had acted here some twenty years before; but it had again become a 'tennis-quatre of the lesser sort,' says Cibber, and the new theatre was not very grand in fabric. But Betterton drew to it all the best actors and actresses of his former company; and Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracegirdle remained true to the old man. Congreve, to his honour, espoused the same cause, and the theatre opened with his play of 'Love for Love,' which was more successful than either of the former. The veteran himself spoke the prologue, and fair Bracegirdle the epilogue, in which the poet thus alluded to their change of stage: 'And thus our audience, which did once resort To shining theatres to see our sport, Now find us tost into a tennis-court. Thus from the past, we hope for future grace: I beg it---- And some here know I have a _begging face_.' The king himself completed the success of the opening by attending it, and the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields might have ruined the older house, if it had not been for the rapidity with which Vanbrugh and Cibber, who wrote for Old Drury, managed to concoct their pieces; while Congreve was a slower, though perhaps better, writer. 'Love for Love' was hereafter a favourite of Betterton's, and when in 1709, a year before his death, the company gave the old man--then in ill health, poor circumstances, and bad spirits--a benefit, he chose this play, and himself, though more than seventy, acted the part of Valentine, supported by Mrs. Bracegirdle as Angelina, and Mrs. Barry as Frail. The young dramatist with all his success, was not satisfied with his fame, and resolved to show the world that he had as much poetry as wit in him. This he failed to do; and, like better writers, injured his own fame, by not being contented with what he had. Congreve--the wit, the dandy, the man about town--took it into his head to write a tragedy. In 1697 'The Mourning Bride' was acted at the Tennis Court Theatre. The author was wise enough to return to his former muse, and some time after produced his best piece, so some think, 'The Way of the World,' which was also performed by Betterton's company; but, alas! for overwriting--that cacoëthes of imprudent men--it was almost hissed off the stage. Whether this was owing to a weariness of Congreve's style, or whether at the time of its first appearance Collier's attacks, of which anon, had already disgusted the public with the obscenity and immorality of this writer, I do not know: but, whatever the cause, the consequence was that Mr. William Congreve, in a fit of pique, made up his mind never to write another piece for the stage--a wise resolution, perhaps--and to turn fine gentleman instead. With the exception of composing a masque called the 'Judgment of Paris,' and an opera 'Gemele,' which was never performed, he kept this resolution very honestly; and so Mr. William Congreve's career as a playwright ends at the early age of thirty. But though he abandoned the drama, he was not allowed to retire in peace. There was a certain worthy, but peppery little man, who, though a Jacobite and a clergyman, was stanch and true, and as superior in character--even, indeed, in vigour of writing--to Congreve, as Somers was to every man of his age. This very Jeremy Collier, to whom we owe it that there is any English drama fit to be acted before our sisters and wives in the present day. Jeremy, the peppery, purged the stage in a succession of Jeremiads. Born in 1650, educated at Cambridge as a poor scholar, ordained at the age of twenty-six, presented three years later with the living of Ampton, near Bury St. Edmunds, Jeremy had two qualities to recommend him to Englishmen--respectability and pluck. In an age when the clergy were as bad as the blackest sheep in their flocks, Jeremy was distinguished by purity of life; in an age when the only safety lay in adopting the principles of the Vicar of Bray, Jeremy was a Nonjuror, and of this nothing could cure him. The Revolution of 1688 was scarcely effected, when the fiery little partizan published a pamphlet, which was rewarded by a residence of some months in Newgate, _not_ in capacity of chaplain. But he was scarcely let out, when again went his furious pen, and for four years he continued to assail the new government, till his hands were shackled and his mouth closed in the prison of 'The Gate-house.' Now, see the character of the man. He was liberated upon giving bail, but had no sooner reflected on this liberation than he came to the conclusion that it was wrong, by offering security, to recognize the authority of magistrates appointed by a usurper, as he held William to be, and voluntarily surrendered himself to his judges. Of course he was again committed, but this time to the King's Bench, and would doubtless in a few years have made the tour of the London prisons, if his enemies had not been tired of trying him. Once more at liberty, he passed the next three years in retirement. After 1693, Jeremy Collier's name was not brought before the public till 1696, when he publicly absolved Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins, at their execution, for being concerned in a plot to assassinate King William. His 'Essays on Moral Subjects' were published in 1697; 2nd vol., 1705; 3rd vol., 1709. But the only way to put out a firebrand like this is to let it alone, and Jeremy, being, no longer persecuted, began, at last, to think the game was grown stupid, and gave it up. He was a well-meaning man, however, and as long as he had the luxury of a grievance, would injure no one. He found one now in the immorality of his age, and if he had left politics to themselves from the first, he might have done much more good than he did. Against the vices of a court and courtly circles it was useless to start a crusade single-handed; but his quaint clever pen might yet dress out a powerful Jeremiad against those who encouraged the licentiousness of the people. Jeremy was no Puritan, for he was a Nonjuror and a Jacobite, and we may, therefore, believe that the cause was a good one, when we find him adopting precisely the same line as the Puritans had done before him. In 1698 he published, to the disgust of all Drury and Lincoln's Inn, his 'Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, together with the Sense of Antiquity upon this Argument.' While the King of Naples is supplying his ancient Venuses with gowns, and putting his Mars and Hercules into pantaloons, there are--such are the varieties of opinion--respectable men in this country who call Paul de Kock the greatest moral writer of his age, and who would yet like to see 'The Relapse,' 'Love for Love,' and the choice specimens of Wycherley, Farquhar, and even of Beaumont and Fletcher, acted at the Princess's and the Haymarket in the year of grace 1860. I am not writing 'A Short View' of this or any other moral subject; but this I must say--the effect of a sight or sound on a human being's silly little passions must of necessity be relative. Staid people read 'Don Juan,' Lewis's 'Monk,' the plays of Congreve, and any or all of the publications of Holywell Street, without more than disgust at their obscenity and admiration for their beauties. But could we be pardoned for putting these works into the hands of 'sweet seventeen,' or making Christmas presents of them to our boys? Ignorance of evil is, to a certain extent, virtue: let boys be boys in purity of mind as long as they can: let the unrefined 'great unwashed' be treated also much in the same way as young people. I maintain that to a coarse mind all improper ideas, however beautifully clothed, suggest only sensual thoughts--nay, the very modesty of the garments makes them the more insidious--the more dangerous. I would rather give my boy Jonson, Massinger, or Beaumont and Fletcher, whose very improper things 'are called by their proper names,' than let him dive in the prurient innuendo of these later writers. But there is no need to argue the question--the public has decided it long since, and, except in indelicate ballets, and occasional rather _French_ passages in farce, our modern stage is free from immorality. Even in Garrick's days, when men were not much more refined than in those of Queen Anne, it was found impossible to put the old drama on the stage without considerable weeding. Indeed I doubt if even the liberal upholder of Paul de Kock would call Congreve a moral writer; but I confess I am not a competent judge, for _risum teneatis_, my critics, I have not read his works since I was a boy, and what is more, I have no intention of reading them. I well remember getting into my hands a large thick volume, adorned with miserable woodcuts, and bearing on its back the title 'Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar.' I devoured it at first with the same avidity with which one might welcome a bottle-imp, who at the hour of one's dulness turned up out of the carpet and offered you delights new and old for nothing but a tether on your soul: and with a like horror, boy though I was, I recoiled from it when any better moment came. It seemed to me, when I read this book, as if life were too rotten for any belief, a nest of sharpers, adulterers, cut-throats, and prostitutes. There was none--as far as I remember--of that amiable weakness, of that better sentiment, which in Ben Jonson or Massinger reconcile us to human nature. If truth be a test of genius, it must be a proof of true poetry, that man is not made uglier than he is. Nay, his very ugliness loses its intensity and palls upon our diseased tastes, for want of some goodness, some purity and honesty to relieve it. I will not say that there is none of this in Congreve. I only know, that my recollection of his plays is like that of a vile nightmare, which I would not for anything have return to me. I have read, since, books as bad, perhaps worse in some respects, but I have found the redemption here and there. I would no more place Shandy in any boy's hands than Congreve and Farquhar; and yet I can read Tristram again and again with delight; for amid all that is bad there stand out Trim and Toby, pure specimens of the best side of human nature, coming home to us and telling us that the world is not all bad. There may be such touches in 'Love for Love,' or 'The Way of the World'--I know not and care not. To my remembrance Congreve is but a horrible nightmare, and may the fates forbid I should be forced to go through his plays again. Perhaps, then, Jeremy was not far wrong, when he attacked these specimens of the drama with an unrelenting Nemesis; but he was before his age. It was less the obvious coarseness of these productions with which he found fault than their demoralizing tendency in a direction which we should now, perhaps, consider innocuous. Certainly the Jeremiad overdid it, and like a swift, but not straight bowler at cricket, he sent balls which no wicket-keeper could stop, and which, therefore, were harmless to the batter. He did not want boldness. He attacked Dryden, now close upon his grave: Congreve, a young man; Vanbrugh, Cibber, Farquhar, and the rest, all alive, all in the zenith of their fame, and all as popular as writers could be. It was as much as if a man should stand up to-day and denounce Dickens and Thackeray, with the exception that well-meaning people went along with Jeremy, whereas very few would do more than smile at the zeal of any one who tilted against our modern pets. Jeremy, no doubt, was bold, but he wanted tact, and so gave his enemy occasion to blaspheme. He made out cases where there were none, and let alone what we moderns should denounce. So Congreve took up the cudgels against him with much wit and much coarseness, and the two fought out the battle in many a pamphlet and many a letter. But Jeremy was not to be beaten. His 'Short View' was followed by 'A Defence of the Short View,' a 'Second Defence of the Short View,' 'A Farther Short View,' and, in short, a number of 'Short Views,' which had been better merged into one 'Long Sight.' Jeremy grew coarse and bitter; Congreve coarser and bitterer; and the whole controversy made a pretty chapter for the 'Quarrels of Authors.' But the Jeremiad triumphed in the long run, because, if its method was bad, its cause was good, and a succeeding generation voted Congreve immoral. Enough of Jeremy. We owe him a tribute for his pluck, and though no one reads him in the present day, we may be thankful to him for having led the way to a better state of things.[15] Congreve defended himself in eight letters addressed to Mr. Moyle, and we can only say of them, that, if anything, they are yet coarser than the plays he would excuse. The works of the young Templar, and his connection with Betterton, introduced him to all the writers and wits of his day. He and Vanbrugh, though rivals, were fellow-workers, and our glorious Haymarket Theatre, which has gone on at times when Drury and Covent Garden have been in despair, owes its origin to their confederacy. But Vanbrugh's theatre was on the site of the present Opera House, and _the_ Haymarket was set up as a rival concern. Vanbrugh's was built in 1705, and met the usual fate of theatres, being burnt down some eighty-four years after. It is curious enough that this house, destined for the 'legitimate drama'--often a very illegitimate performance--was opened by an opera set to _Italian_ music, so that 'Her Majesty's' has not much departed from the original cast of the place. Perhaps Congreve's best friend was Dryden. This man's life and death are pretty well known, and even his funeral has been described time and again. But Corinna--as she was styled--gave of the latter an account which has been called romantic, and much discredited. There is a deal of characteristic humour in her story of the funeral, and as it has long been lost sight of, it may not be unpalatable here: Dryden died on May-day, 1701, and Lord Halifax[16] undertook to give his body a _private_ funeral in Westminster Abbey. 'On the Saturday following,' writes Corinna, 'the Company came. The Corps was put into a Velvet Hearse, and eighteen Mourning Coaches filled with Company attending. When, just before they began to move, Lord Jeffreys, with some of his rakish Companions, coming by, in Wine, ask'd whose Funeral? And being told; "What!" cries he, "shall Dryden, the greatest Honour and Ornament of the Nation, be buried after this private Manner? No, Gentlemen! let all that lov'd Mr. Dryden, and honour his Memory, alight, and join with me in gaining my Lady's Consent, to let me have the Honour of his Interment, which shall be after another manner than this, and I will bestow £1000 on a Monument in the Abbey for him." The Gentlemen in the Coaches, not knowing of the Bishop of Rochester's Favour, nor of Lord Halifax's generous Design (these two noble Spirits having, out of Respect to the Family, enjoin'd Lady Elsabeth and her Son to keep their Favour concealed to the World, and let it pass for her own Expense), readily came out of the Coaches, and attended Lord Jeffreys up to the Lady's Bedside, who was then sick. He repeated the purport of what he had before said, but she absolutely refusing, he fell on his knees, vowing never to rise till his request was granted. The rest of the Company, by his Desire, kneeled also; she being naturally of a timorous Disposition, and then under a sudden surprise, fainted away. As soon as she recover'd her Speech, she cry'd, "No, no!" "Enough gentlemen," reply'd he (rising briskly), "My Lady is very good, she says, Go, go!" She repeated her former Words with all her Strength, but alas in vain! her feeble voice was lost in their Acclamations of Joy! and Lord Jeffreys order'd the Hearseman to carry the Corps to Russell's, an undertaker in Cheapside, and leave it there, till he sent orders for the Embalment, which, he added, should be after the Royal Manner. His Directions were obey'd, the Company dispersed, and Lady Elsabeth and Mr. Charles remained Inconsolable. Next Morning Mr. Charles waited on Lord Halifax, &c., to excuse his Mother and self, by relating the real Truth. But neither his Lordship nor the Bishop would admit of any Plea; especially the latter, who had the Abbey lighted, the ground open'd, the Choir attending, an Anthem ready set, and himself waiting for some Hours, without any Corps to bury. Russell, after three days' Expectance of Orders for Embalment, without receiving any, waits on Lord Jeffreys, who, pretending Ignorance of the Matter, turn'd it off with an ill-natured Jest, saying, "Those who observed the orders of a drunken Frolick, deserved no better; that he remembered nothing at all of it, and he might do what he pleased with the Corps." On this Mr. Russell waits on Lady Elsabeth and Mr. Dryden; but alas, it was not in their power to answer. The season was very hot, the Deceas'd had liv'd high and fast; and being corpulent, and abounding with gross Humours, grew very offensive. The Undertaker, in short, threaten'd to bring home the Corps, and set it before the Door. It cannot be easily imagin'd what grief, shame, and confusion seized this unhappy Family. They begged a Day's Respite, which was granted. Mr. Charles wrote a very handsome Letter to Lord Jeffreys, who returned it with this cool Answer, "He knew nothing of the Matter, and would be troubled no more about it." He then addressed the Lord Halifax and Bishop of Rochester, who were both too justly tho' unhappily incensed, to do anything in it. In this extream Distress, Dr. Garth, a man who entirely lov'd Mr. Dryden, and was withal a Man of Generosity and great Humanity, sends for the Corps to the College of Physicians in Warwick Lane, and proposed a Funeral by Subscription, to which himself set a most noble example. Mr. Wycherley, and several others, among whom must not be forgotten Henry Cromwell, Esq., Captain Gibbons, and Mr. Christopher Metcalfe, Mr. Dryden's Apothecary and intimate Friend (since a Collegiate Physician), who with many others contributed most largely to the Subscription; and at last a Day, about three weeks after his Decease, was appointed for the Interment at the Abbey. Dr. Garth pronounced a fine Latin Oration over the Corps at the College; but the Audience being numerous, and the Room large, it was requisite the Orator should be elevated, that he might be heard. But as it unluckily happen'd there was nothing at hand but an old Beer-Barrel, which the Doctor with much good-nature mounted; and in the midst of his Oration, beating Time to the Accent with his Foot, the Head broke in, and his Feet sunk to the Bottom, which occasioned the malicious Report of his Enemies, "That he was turned a Tub-Preacher." However, he finished the Oration with a superior grace and genius, to the loud Acclamations of Mirth, which inspir'd the mix'd or rather Mob-Auditors. The Procession began to move, a numerous Train of Coaches attended the Hearse: But, good God! in what Disorder can only be express'd by a Sixpenny Pamphlet, soon after published, entitled "Dryden's Funeral." At last the Corps arrived at the Abbey, which was all unlighted. No Organ played, no Anthem sung; only two of the Singing boys preceded the Corps, who sung an Ode of Horace, with each a small candle in their Hand. The Butchers and other Mob broke in like a Deluge, so that only about eight or ten Gentlemen could gain Admission, and those forced to cut the Way with their drawn Swords. The Coffin in this Disorder was let down into Chaucer's Grave, with as much confusion, and as little Ceremony, as was possible; every one glad to save themselves from the Gentlemen's Swords, or the Clubs of the Mob. When the Funeral was over, Mr. Charles sent a Challenge to Lord Jeffreys, who refusing to answer it, he sent several others, and went often himself, but could neither get a Letter deliver'd, nor Admittance to speak to him, that he resolved, since his Lordship refused to answer him like a Gentleman, he would watch an Opportunity to meet him, and fight off hand, tho' with all the Rules of Honour; which his Lordship hearing, left the Town, and Mr. Charles could never have the satisfaction to meet him, tho' he sought it till his death with the utmost Application.' Dryden was, perhaps, the last man of learning that believed in astrology; though an eminent English author, now living, and celebrated for the variety of his acquirements, has been known to procure the casting of horoscopes, and to consult a noted 'astrologer,' who gives opinions for a small sum. The coincidences of prophecy are not more remarkable than those of star-telling; and Dryden and the author I have referred to were probably both captivated into belief by some fatuitous realization of their horoscopic predictions. Nor can we altogether blame their credulity, when we see biology, table-turning, rapping, and all the family of imposture, taken up seriously in our own time. On the birth of his son Charles, Dryden immediately cast his horoscope. The following account of Dryden's paternal solicitude for his son, and its result, may be taken as embellished, if not apocryphal. Evil hour, indeed--Jupiter, Venus, and the Sun were all 'under the earth;' Mars and Saturn were in square: eight, or a multiple of it, would be fatal to the child--the square foretold it. In his eighth, his twenty-fourth, or his thirty-second year, he was certain to die, though he might possibly linger on to the age of thirty-four. The stars did all they could to keep up their reputation. When the boy was eight years old he nearly lost his life by being buried under a heap of stones out of an old wall, knocked down by a stag and hounds in a hunt. But the stars were not to be beaten, and though the child recovered, went in for the game a second time in his twenty-third year, when he fell, in a fit of giddiness, from a tower, and, to use Lady Elsabeth's words, was 'mash'd to a mummy.' Still the battle was not over, and the mummy returned in due course to its human form, though considerably disfigured. Mars and Saturn were naturally disgusted at his recovery, and resolved to finish the disobedient youth. As we have seen, he in vain sought his fate at the hand of Jeffreys; but we must conclude that the offended constellations took Neptune in partnership, for in due course the youth met with a watery grave. After abandoning the drama, Congreve appears to have come out in the light of an independent gentleman. He was already sufficiently introduced into literary society; Pope, Steele, Swift, and Addison were not only his friends but his admirers, and we can well believe that their admiration was considerable, when we find the one dedicating his 'Miscellany,' the other his translation of the 'Iliad,' to a man who was qualified neither by rank nor fortune to play Mæcenas. At what time he was admitted to the Kit-kat I am not in a position to state, but it must have been after 1715, and by that time he was a middle-aged man, his fame was long since achieved; and whatever might be thought of his works and his controversy with Collier, he was recognised as one of the literary stars at a period when the great courted the clever, and wit was a passport to any society. Congreve had plenty of that, and probably at the Kit-kat was the life of the party when Vanbrugh was away or Addison in a graver mood. Untroubled by conscience, he could launch out on any subject whatever; and his early life, spent in that species of so-called gaiety which was then the routine of every young man of the world, gave him ample experience to draw upon. But Congreve's ambition was greater than his talents. No man so little knew his real value, or so grossly asserted one which he had not. Gay, handsome, and in good circumstances, he aspired to be, not Congreve the poet, not Congreve the wit, not Congreve the man of mind, but simply Congreve the fine gentleman. Such humility would be charming if it were not absurd. It is a vice of scribes to seek a character for which they have little claim. Moore loved to be thought a diner-out rather than a poet; even Byron affected the fast man when he might have been content with the name of 'genius;' but Congreve went farther, and was ashamed of being poet, dramatist, genius, or what you will. An anecdote of him, told by Voltaire, who may have been an 'awfu' liar,' but had no temptation to invent in such a case as this, is so consistent with what we gather of the man's character, that one cannot but think it is true. The philosopher of Ferney was anxious to see and converse with a brother dramatist of such celebrity as the author of 'The Way of the World.' He expected to find a man of a keen satirical mind, who would join him in a laugh against humanity. He visited Congreve, and naturally began to talk of his works. The fine gentleman spoke of them as trifles utterly beneath his notice, and told him, with an affectation which perhaps was sincere, that he wished to be visited as a gentleman, not as an author. One can imagine the disgust of his brother dramatist. Voltaire replied, that had Mr. Congreve been nothing more than a gentleman, he should not have taken the trouble to call on him, and therewith retired with an expression of merited contempt. It is only in the present day that authorship is looked upon as a profession, though it has long been one. It is amusing to listen to the sneers of men who never wrote a book, or who, having written, have gained thereby some more valuable advantage than the publisher's cheque. The men who talk with horror of writing for money, are glad enough if their works introduce them to the notice of the influential, and aid them in procuring a place. In the same way, Congreve was not at all ashamed of fulsome dedications, which brought him the favour of the great. Yet we may ask, if, the labourer being worthy of his hire, and the labour of the brain being the highest, finest, and most exhausting that can be, the man who straight-forwardly and without affectation takes guineas from his publisher, is not honester than he who counts upon an indirect reward for his toil? Fortunately, the question is almost settled by the example of the first writers of the present day; but there are still people who think that one should sit down to a year's--ay, ten years'--hard mental work, and expect no return but fame. Whether such objectors have always private means to return to, or whether they have never known what it is to write a book, we do not care to examine, but they are to be found in large numbers among the educated; and indeed, to this present day, it is held by some among the upper classes to be utterly derogatory to write for money. Whether this was the feeling in Congreve's day or not is not now the question. Those were glorious days for an author, who did not mind playing the sycophant a little. Instead of having to trudge from door to door in Paternoster Row, humbly requesting an interview, which is not always granted--instead of sending that heavy parcel of MS., which costs you a fortune for postage, to publisher after publisher, till it is so often 'returned with thanks' that you hate the very sight of it, the young author of those days had a much easier and more comfortable part to play. An introduction to an influential man in town, who again would introduce you to a patron, was all that was necessary. The profession of Mæcenas was then as recognized and established as that of doctor or lawyer. A man of money could always buy brains; and most noblemen considered an author to be as necessary a part of his establishment as the footmen who ushered them into my lord's presence. A fulsome dedication in the largest type was all that he asked: and if a writer were sufficiently profuse in his adulation, he might dine at Mæcenas's table, drink his sack and canary without stint, and apply to him for cash whenever he found his pockets empty. Nor was this all: if a writer were sufficiently successful in his works to reflect honour on his patron, he was eagerly courted by others of the noble profession. He was offered, if not hard cash, as good an equivalent, in the shape of a comfortable government sinecure; and if this was not to be had, he was sometimes even lodged and boarded by his obliged dedicatee. In this way he was introduced into the highest society; and if he had wit enough to support the character, he soon found himself _facile princeps_ in a circle of the highest nobility in the land. Thus it is that in the clubs of the day we find title and wealth mingling with wit and genius; and the writer who had begun life by a cringing dedication, was now rewarded by the devotion and assiduity of the men he had once flattered. When Steele, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their sets, it was time for authors to look and talk big. Eheu! those happy days are gone! Our dramatist, therefore, soon discovered that a good play was the key to a good place, and the Whigs took care that he should have it. Oddly enough, when the Tories came in they did not turn him out. Perhaps they wanted to gain him over to themselves; perhaps, like the Vicar of Bray, he did not mind turning his coat once or twice in a life-time. However this may be, he managed to keep his appointment without offending his own party; and when the latter returned to power, he even induced them to give him a comfortable little sinecure, which went by the name of Secretary to the Island of Jamaica, and raised the income from his appointments to £1200 a year. From this period he was little before the public. He could afford now to indulge his natural indolence and selfishness. His private life was perhaps not worse than that of the majority of his contemporaries. He had his intrigues, his mistresses, the same love of wine, and the same addiction to gluttony. He had the reputation of a wit, and with wits he passed his time, sufficiently easy in his circumstances to feel no damping to his spirits in the cares of this life. The Island of Jamaica probably gave him no further trouble than that of signing a few papers from time to time, and giving a receipt for his salary. His life, therefore, presents no very remarkable feature, and he is henceforth known more on account of his friends than for aught he may himself have done. The best of these friends was Walter Moyle, the scholar, who translated parts of Lucian and Xenophon, and was pretty well known as a classic. He was a Cornish man of independent means, and it was to him that Congreve addressed the letters in which he attempted to defend himself from the attacks of Collier. It was not to be expected that a wit and a poet should go through life without a platonic, and accordingly we find our man not only attached, but devoted to a lady of great distinction. This was no other than Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, the daughter of 'Malbrook' himself, and of the famous 'Queen Sarah.' Henrietta was the eldest daughter, and there was no son to inherit the prowess of Churchill and the parsimony of his wife. The nation--to which, by the way, the Marlboroughs were never grateful--would not allow the title of their pet warrior to become extinct, and a special Act of Parliament gave to the eldest daughter the honours of the duchy.[17] The two Duchesses of Marlborough hated each other cordially. Sarah's temper was probably the main cause of their bickering; but there is never a feud between parent and child in which both are not more or less blameable. The Duchess Henrietta conceived a violent fancy for the wit and poet, and whatever her husband, Lord Godolphin, may have thought of it, the connection ripened into a most intimate friendship, so much so that Congreve made the duchess not only his executrix, but the sole residuary legatee of all his property.[18] His will gives us some insight into the toadying character of the man. Only four near relations are mentioned as legatees, and only £540 is divided among them; whereas, after leaving £200 to Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress; £100, 'and all my apparel and linnen of all sorts' to a Mrs. Rooke, he divides the rest between his friends of the nobility, Lords Cobham and Shannon, the Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Mary Godolphin, Colonel Churchill (who receives 'twenty pounds, together with my gold-headed cane'), and, lastly, 'to the poor of the parish,' the magnificent sum of _ten pounds_. 'Blessed are those who give to the rich;' these words must surely have expressed the sentiment of the worldly Congreve. However, Congreve got something in return from the Duchess Henrietta, which he might not have received from 'the poor of the parish,' to wit, a monument, and an inscription on it written by her own hand. I have already said what 'Queen Sarah' thought of the latter, and, for the rest, those who care to read the nonsense on the walls of Westminster Abbey can decide for themselves as to the honour the poet received from his titled friend. The latter days of William Congreve were passed in wit and gout: the wine, which warmed the one, probably brought on the latter. After a course of ass's milk, which does not seem to have done him much good, the ex-dramatist retired to Bath, a very fashionable place for departing life in, under easy and elegant circumstances. But he not only drank of the springs beloved of King Bladud, of apocryphal memory, but even went so far as to imbibe the snail-water, which was then the last species of quack cure in vogue. This, probably, despatched him. But it is only just to that disagreeable little reptile that infests our gardens, and whose slime was supposed to possess peculiarly strengthening properties, to state that his death was materially hastened by being overturned when driving in his chariot. He was close upon sixty, had long been blind from cataracts in his eyes, and as he was no longer either useful or ornamental to the world in general, he could perhaps be spared. He died soon after this accident in January, 1729. He had the sense to die at a time when Westminster Abbey, being regarded as a mausoleum, was open to receive the corpse of any one who had a little distinguished himself, and even of some who had no distinction whatever. He was buried there with great pomp, and his dear duchess set up his monument. So much for his body. What became of the soul of a dissolute, vain, witty, and unprincipled man, is no concern of ours. _Requiescat in pace_, if there is any peace for those who are buried in Westminster Abbey. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 15: Dryden, in the Preface to his Fables, acknowledged that Collier 'had, in many points, taxed him justly.'] [Footnote 16: Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax. Lord Halifax was born in 1661, and died in 1715. He was called 'Mouse Montagu.'] [Footnote 17: See Burke's 'Peerage.'] [Footnote 18: The Duchess of Marlborough received £10,000 by Mr. Congreve's will.] BEAU NASH. The King of Bath.--Nash at Oxford.--'My Boy Dick.'--Offers of Knighthood.--Doing Penance at York.--Days of Folly.--A very Romantic Story.--Sickness and Civilization.--Nash descends upon Bath.--Nash's Chef-d'oeuvre.--The Ball.--Improvements in the Pump-room, &c.--A Public Benefactor.--Life at Bath in Nash's time.--A Compact with the Duke of Beaufort.--Gaming at Bath.--Anecdotes of Nash.--'Miss Sylvia.'--A Generous Act.--Nash's Sun setting.--A Panegyric.--Nash's Funeral.--His Characteristics. There is nothing new under the sun, said Walpole, by way of a very original remark. 'No,' whispered George Selwyn, 'nor under the grandson, either.' Mankind, as a body, has proved its silliness in a thousand ways, but in none, perhaps, so ludicrously as in its respect for a man's coat. He is not always a fool that knows the value of dress; and some of the wisest and greatest of men have been dandies of the first water. King Solomon was one, and Alexander the Great was another; but there never was a more despotic monarch, nor one more humbly obeyed by his subjects, than the King of Bath, and he won his dominions by the cut of his coat. But as Hercules was killed by a dress-shirt, so the beaux of the modern world have generally ruined themselves by their wardrobes, and brought remorse to their hearts, or contempt from the very people who once worshipped them. The husband of Mrs. Damer, who appeared in a new suit twice a-day, and whose wardrobe sold for £15,000, blew his brains out at a coffee-house. Beau Fielding, Beau Nash, and Beau Brummell all expiated their contemptible vanity in obscure old age of want and misery. As the world is full of folly, the history of a fool is as good a mirror to hold up to it as another; but in the case of Beau Nash the only question is, whether he or his subjects were the greater fools. So now for a picture of as much folly as could well be crammed into that hot basin in the Somersetshire hills, of which more anon. It is a hard thing for a man not to have had a father--harder still, like poor Savage, to have one whom he cannot get hold of; but perhaps it is hardest of all, when you have a father, and that parent a very respectable man, to be told that you never had one. This was Nash's case, and his father was so little known, and so seldom mentioned, that the splendid Beau was thought almost to have dropped from the clouds, ready dressed and powdered. He dropped in reality from anything but a heavenly place--the shipping town of Swansea: so that Wales can claim the honour of having produced the finest beau of his age. Old Nash was, perhaps, a better gentleman than his son; but with far less pretension. He was a partner in a glass-manufactory. The Beau, in after-years, often got rallied on the inferiority of his origin, and the least obnoxious answer he ever made was to Sarah of Marlborough, as rude a creature as himself, who told him he was ashamed of his parentage. 'No, madam,' replied the King of Bath, 'I seldom mention my father, in company, not because I have any reason to be ashamed of him, but because he has some reason to be ashamed of me.' Nash, though a fop and a fool, was not a bad-hearted man, as we shall see. And if there were no other redeeming point in his character, it is a great deal to say for him, that in an age of toadyism, he treated rank in the same manner as he did the want of it, and did his best to remove the odious distinctions which pride would have kept up in his dominions. In fact, King Nash may be thanked for having, by his energy in this respect, introduced into society the first elements of that middle class which is found alone in England. Old Nash--whose wife, by the way, was niece to that Colonel Poyer who defended Pembroke Castle in the days of the first Revolution--was one of those silly men who want to make gentlemen of their sons, rather than good men. He had his wish. His son Richard was a very fine gentleman, no doubt; but, unfortunately, the same circumstances that raised him to that much coveted position, also made him a gambler and a profligate. Oh! foolish papas, when will you learn that a Christian snob is worth ten thousand irreligious gentlemen? When will you be content to bring up your boys for heaven rather than for the brilliant world? Nash, senior, sent his son first to school and then to Oxford, to be made a gentleman of. Richard was entered at Jesus College, the haunt of the Welsh. In my day, this quiet little place was celebrated for little more than the humble poverty of its members, one-third of whom rejoiced in the cognomen of Jones. They were not renowned for cleanliness, and it was a standing joke with us silly boys, to ask at the door for 'that Mr. Jones who had a tooth-brush.' If the college had the same character then, Nash must have astonished its dons, and we are not surprised that in his first year they thought it better to get rid of him. His father could ill afford to keep him at Oxford, and fondly hoped he would distinguish himself. 'My boy Dick' did so at the very outset, by an offer of marriage to one of those charming sylphs of that academical city, who are always on the look-out for credulous undergraduates. The affair was discovered, and Master Richard, who was not seventeen, was removed from the University.[19] Whether he ever, in after-life, made another offer, I know not, but there is no doubt that he _ought_ to have been married, and that the connections he formed in later years were far more disreputable than his first love affairs. The worthy glass manufacturer, having failed to make his son a gentleman in one way, took the best step to make him a blackguard, and, in spite of the wild inclinations he had already evinced, bought him a commission in the army. In this new position the incipient Beau did everything but his duty; dressed superbly, but would not be in time for parade, spent more money than he had, but did not obey orders; and finally, though not expelled from the army, he found it convenient to sell his commission, and return home, after spending the proceeds. Papa was now disgusted, and sent the young Hopeless to shift for himself. What could a well-disposed, handsome youth do to keep body and, not soul, but clothes together? He had but one talent, and that was for dress. Alas, for our degenerate days! When we are pitched upon our own bottoms, we must work; and that is a highly ungentlemanly thing to do. But in the beginning of the last century, such a degrading resource was quite unnecessary. There were always at hand plenty of establishments where a youth could obtain the necessary funds to pay his tailor, if fortune favoured him; and if not, he could follow the fashion of the day, and take to what the Japanese call 'the happy Despatch.' Nash probably suspected that he had no brains to blow out, and he determined the more resolutely to make fortune his mistress. He went to the gaming-table, and turned his one guinea into ten, and his ten into a hundred, and was soon blazing about in gold lace, and a new sword, the very delight of dandies. He had entered his name, by way of excuse, at the Temple, and we can quite believe that he ate all the requisite dinners, though it is not so certain that he paid for them. He soon found that a fine coat is not so very far beneath a good brain in worldly estimation, and when, on the accession of William the Third, the Templars, according to the old custom, gave his Majesty a banquet, Nash, as a promising Beau, was selected to manage the establishment. It was his first experience of the duties of an M.C., and he conducted himself so ably on this occasion that the king even offered to make a knight of him. Probably Master Richard thought of his empty purse, for he replied with some of that assurance which afterwards stood him in such good stead, 'Please your majesty, if you intend to make me a knight, I wish I may be one of your poor knights of Windsor, and then I shall have a fortune, at least able to support my title.' William did not see the force of this argument, and Mr. Nash remained Mr. Nash till the day of his death. He had another chance of the title, however, in days when he could have better maintained it, but again he refused. Queen Anne once asked him why he declined knighthood. He replied: 'There is Sir William Read, the mountebank, who has just been knighted, and I should have to call him "brother."' The honour was, in fact, rather a cheap one in those days, and who knows whether a man who had done such signal service to his country did not look forward to a peerage? Worse men than even Beau Nash have had it. Well, Nash could afford to defy royalty, for he was to be himself a monarch of all he surveyed, and a good deal more; but before we follow him to Bath, let us give the devil his due--which, by the way, he generally gets--and tell a pair of tales in the Beau's favour. Imprimis, his accounts at the Temple were £10 deficient. Now I don't mean that Nash was not as great a liar as most of his craft, but the truth of this tale rests on the authority of the 'Spectator,' though Nash took delight in repeating it. 'Come hither, young man,' said the Benchers, coolly: 'Whereunto this deficit?' 'Pri'thee, good masters,' quoth Nash, 'that £10 was spent on making a man happy.' 'A man happy, young sir, pri'thee explain.' 'Odds donners,' quoth Nash, 'the fellow said in my hearing that his wife and bairns were starving, and £10 would make him the happiest man _sub sole_, and on such an occasion as His Majesty's accession, could I refuse it him?' Nash was, proverbially more generous than just. He would not pay a debt if he could help it, but would give the very amount to the first friend that begged it. There was much ostentation in this, but then my friend Nash _was_ ostentatious. One friend bothered him day and night for £20 that was owing to him, and he could not get it. Knowing his debtor's character, he hit, at last, on a happy expedient, and sent a friend to _borrow_ the money, 'to relieve his urgent necessities.' Out came the bank note, before the story of distress was finished. The friend carried it to the creditor, and when the latter again met Nash, he ought to have made him a pretty compliment on his honesty. Perhaps the King of Bath would not have tolerated in any one else the juvenile frolics he delighted in after-years to relate of his own early days. When at a loss for cash, he would do anything, but work, for a fifty pound note, and having, in one of his trips, lost all his money at York, the Beau undertook to 'do penance' at the minster door for that sum. He accordingly arrayed himself--not in sackcloth and ashes--but in an able-bodied blanket, and nothing else, and took his stand at the porch, just at the hour when the dean would be going in to read service. 'He, ho,' cried that dignitary, who knew him, 'Mr. Nash in masquerade?'--'Only a Yorkshire penance, Mr. Dean,' quoth the reprobate; 'for keeping bad company, too,' pointing therewith to the friends who had come to see the sport. This might be tolerated, but when in the eighteenth century a young man emulates the hardiness of Godiva, without her merciful heart, we may not think quite so well of him. Mr. Richard Nash, Beau Extraordinary to the Kingdom of Bath, once rode through a village in that costume of which even our first parent was rather ashamed, and that, too, on the back of a cow! The wager was, I believe, considerable. A young Englishman did something more respectable, yet quite as extraordinary, at Paris, not a hundred years ago, for a small bet. He was one of the stoutest, thickest-built men possible, yet being but eighteen, had neither whisker nor moustache to masculate his clear English complexion. At the Maison Dorée one night he offered to ride in the Champs Elysées in a lady's habit, and not be mistaken for a man. A friend undertook to dress him, and went all over Paris to hire a habit that would fit his round figure. It was hopeless for a time, but at last a good-sized body was found, and added thereto, an ample skirt. Félix dressed his hair with _mainte_ plats and a _net_. He looked perfect, but in coming out of the hairdresser's to get into his fly, unconsciously pulled up his skirt and displayed a sturdy pair of well-trousered legs. A crowd--there is always a ready crowd in Paris--was waiting, and the laugh was general. This hero reached the horse-dealer's--'mounted,' and rode down the Champs. 'A very fine woman that,' said a Frenchman in the promenade, 'but what a back she has!' It was in the return bet to this that a now well-known diplomat drove a goat-chaise and six down the same fashionable resort, with a monkey, dressed as a footman, in the back seat. The days of folly did not, apparently end with Beau Nash. There is a long lacuna in the history of this worthy's life, which may have been filled up by a residence in a spunging-house, or by a temporary appointment as billiard-marker; but the heroic Beau accounted for his disappearance at this time in a much more romantic manner. He used to relate that he was once asked to dinner on board of a man-of-war under orders for the Mediterranean, and that such was the affection the officers entertained for him, that, having made him drunk--no difficult matter--they weighed anchor, set sail, and carried the successor of King Bladud away to the wars. Having gone so far, Nash was not the man to neglect an opportunity for imaginary valour. He therefore continued to relate, that, in the apocryphal vessel, he was once engaged in a yet more apocryphal encounter, and wounded in the leg. This was a little too much for the good Bathonians to believe, but Nash silenced their doubts. On one occasion, a lady who was present when he was telling this story, expressed her incredulity. 'I protest, madam,' cried the Beau, lifting his leg up, 'it is true, and if I cannot be believed, your ladyship may, if you please, receive further information and feel the ball in my leg.' Wherever Nash may have passed the intervening years, may be an interesting speculation for a German professor, but is of little moment to us. We find him again, at the age of thirty, taking first steps towards the complete subjugation of the kingdom he afterwards ruled. There is, among the hills of Somersetshire, a huge basin formed by the river Avon, and conveniently supplied with a natural gush of hot water, which can be turned on at any time for the cleansing of diseased bodies. This hollow presents many curious anomalies; though sought for centuries for the sake of health, it is one of the most unhealthily-situated places in the kingdom; here the body and the pocket are alike cleaned out, but the spot itself has been noted for its dirtiness since the days of King Bladud's wise pigs; here, again, the diseased flesh used to be healed, but the healthy soul within it speedily besickened: you came to cure gout and rheumatism, and caught in exchange dice-fever. The mention of those pigs reminds me that it would be a shameful omission to speak of this city without giving the story of that apocryphal British monarch, King Bladud. But let me be the one exception; let me respect the good sense of the reader, and not insult him by supposing him capable of believing a mythic jumble of kings and pigs and dirty marshes, which he will, if he cares to, find at full length in any 'Bath Guide'--price sixpence. But whatever be the case with respect to the Celtic sovereign, there is, I presume, no doubt, that the Romans were here, and probably the centurians and tribunes cast the _alea_ in some pristine assembly-room, or wagged their plumes in some well-built Pump-room, with as much spirit of fashion as the full-bottomed-wig exquisites in the reign of King Nash. At any rate Bath has been in almost every age a common centre for health-seekers and gamesters--two antipodal races who always flock together--and if it has from time to time declined, it has only been for a period. Saxon churls and Norman lords were too sturdy to catch much rheumatic gout; crusaders had better things to think of than their imaginary ailments; good-health was in fashion under Plantagenets and Tudors; doctors were not believed in; even empirics had to praise their wares with much wit, and Morrison himself must have mounted a bank and dressed in Astleyian costume in order to find a customer; sack and small-beer were harmless, when homes were not comfortable enough to keep earl or churl by the fireside, and 'out-of-doors' was the proper drawing-room for a man: in short, sickness came in with civilization, indisposition with immoral habits, fevers with fine gentlemanliness, gout with greediness, and valetudinarianism--there _is_ no Anglo-Saxon word for that--with what we falsely call refinement. So, whatever Bath may have been to pampered Romans, who over-ate themselves, it had little importance to the stout, healthy middle ages, and it was not till the reign of Charles II. that it began to look up. Doctors and touters--the two were often one in those days--thronged there, and fools were found in plenty to follow them. At last the blessed countenance of portly Anne smiled on the pig styes of King Bladud. In 1703 she went to Bath, and from that time 'people of distinction' flocked there. The assemblage was not perhaps very brilliant or very refined. The visitors danced on the green, and played privately at hazard. A few sharpers found their way down from London; and at last the Duke of Beaufort instituted an M.C. in the person of Captain Webster--Nash's predecessor--whose main act of glory was in setting up gambling as a public amusement. It remained for Nash to make the place what it afterwards was, when Chesterfield could lounge in the Pump-room and take snuff with the Beau; when Sarah of Marlborough, Lord and Lady Hervey, the Duke of Wharton, Congreve, and all the little-great of the day thronged thither rather to kill time with less ceremony than in London, than to cure complaints more or less imaginary. The doctors were only less numerous than the sharpers; the place was still uncivilized; the company smoked and lounged without etiquette, and played without honour: the place itself lacked all comfort, all elegance, and all cleanliness. Upon this delightful place, the avatár of the God of Etiquette, personified in Mr. Richard Nash, descended somewhere about the year 1705, for the purpose of regenerating the barbarians. He alighted just at the moment that one of the doctors we have alluded to, in a fit of disgust at some slight on the part of the town, was threatening to destroy its reputation, or, as he politely expressed it, 'to throw a toad into the spring.' The Bathonians were alarmed and in consternation, when young Nash, who must have already distinguished himself as a macaroni, stepped forward and offered to render the angry physician impotent. 'We'll charm his toad out again with music,' quoth he. He evidently thought very little of the watering-place, after his town experiences, and prepared to treat it accordingly. He got up a band in the Pump-room, brought thither in this manner the healthy as well as the sick, and soon raised the renown of Bath as a resort for gaiety as well as for mineral waters. In a word, he displayed a surprising talent for setting everything and everybody to rights, and was, therefore, soon elected, by tacit voting, the King of Bath. He rapidly proved his qualifications for the position. First he secured his Orphean harmony by collecting a band-subscription, which gave two guineas a-piece to six performers; then he engaged an official pumper for the Pump-room; and lastly, finding that the bathers still gathered under a booth to drink their tea and talk their scandal, he induced one Harrison to build assembly-rooms, guaranteeing him three guineas a week to be raised by subscription. All this demanded a vast amount of impudence on Mr. Nash's part, and this he possessed to a liberal extent. The subscriptions flowed in regularly, and Nash felt his power increase with his responsibility. So, then, our minor monarch resolved to be despotic, and in a short time laid down laws for the guests, which they obeyed most obsequiously. Nash had not much wit, though a great deal of assurance, but these laws were his _chef-d'oeuvre_. Witness some of them:-- 1. 'That a visit of ceremony at first coming and another at going away, are all that are expected or desired by ladies of quality and fashion--except impertinents. 4. 'That no person takes it ill that any one goes to another's play or breakfast, and not theirs--except captious nature. 5. 'That no gentleman give his ticket for the balls to any but gentlewomen. N.B.--Unless he has none of his acquaintance. 6. 'That gentlemen crowding before the ladies at the ball, show ill manners; and that none do so for the future--except such as respect nobody but themselves. 9. 'That the younger ladies take notice how many eyes observe them. N.B.--This does not extend to the _Have-at-alls_. 10. 'That all whisperers of lies and scandal be taken for their authors.' Really this law of Nash's must have been repealed some time or other at Bath. Still more that which follows:-- 11. 'That repeaters of such lies and scandal be shunned by all company, except such as have been guilty of the same crime.' There is a certain amount of satire in these Lycurgus statutes that shows Nash in the light of an observer of society; but, query, whether any frequenter of Bath would not have devised as good? The dances of those days must have been somewhat tedious. They began with a series of minuets, in which, of course, only one couple danced at a time, the most distinguished opening the ball. These solemn performances lasted about two hours, and we can easily imagine that the rest of the company were delighted when the country dances, which included everybody, began. The ball opened at six; the country dances began at eight: at nine there was a lull for the gentlemen to offer their partners tea; in due course the dances were resumed, and at eleven Nash held up his hand to the musicians, and under no circumstances was the ball allowed to continue after that hour. Nash well knew the value of early hours to invalids, and he would not destroy the healing reputation of Bath for the sake of a little more pleasure. On one occasion the Princess Amelia implored him to allow one dance more. The despot replied, that his laws were those of Lycurgus, and could not be abrogated for any one. By this we see that the M.C. was already an autocrat in his kingdom. Nor is it to be supposed that his majesty's laws were confined to such merely professional arrangements. Not a bit of it; in a very short time his impudence gave him undenied right of interference with the coats and gowns, the habits and manners, even the daily actions of his subjects, for so the visitors at Bath were compelled to become. _Si parvis componere magna recibit_, we may admit that the rise of Nash and that of Napoleon were owing to similar causes. The French emperor found France in a state of disorder, with which sensible people were growing more and more disgusted; he offered to restore order and propriety; the French hailed him, and gladly submitted to his early decrees; then, when he had got them into the habit of obedience, he could make what laws he liked, and use his power without fear of opposition. The Bath emperor followed the same course, and it may be asked whether it does not demand as great an amount of courage, assurance, perseverance, and administrative power to subdue several hundreds of English ladies and gentlemen as to rise supreme above some millions of French republicans. Yet Nash experienced less opposition than Napoleon; Nash reigned longer, and had no infernal machine prepared to blow him up. Everybody was delighted with the improvements in the Pump-room, the balls, the promenades, the chairmen--the _Rouge_ ruffians of the mimic kingdom--whom he reduced to submission, and therefore nobody complained when Emperor Nash went further, and made war upon the white aprons of the ladies and the boots of the gentlemen. The society was in fact in a very barbarous condition at the time, and people who came for pleasure liked to be at ease. Thus ladies lounged into the balls in their riding-hoods or morning dresses, gentlemen in boots, with their pipes in their mouths. Such atrocities were intolerable to the late frequenter of London society, and in his imperious arrogance, the new monarch used actually to pull off the white aprons of ladies who entered the assembly-rooms with that _dégagé_ article, and throw them upon the back seats. Like the French emperor, again, he treated high and low in the same manner, and when the Duchess of Queensberry appeared in an apron, coolly pulled it off, and told her it was only fit for a maid-servant. Her grace made no resistance. The men were not so submissive; but the M.C. turned them into ridicule, and whenever a gentleman appeared at the assembly-rooms in boots, would walk up to him, and in a loud voice remark, 'Sir, I think you have forgot your horse.' To complete his triumph, he put the offenders into a song called 'Trentinella's Invitation to the Assembly.' 'Come, one and all, To Hoyden Hall, For there's the assembly this night: None but proud fools, Mind manners and rules; We Hoydens do decency slight. 'Come trollops and slatterns, Cockt hats and white aprons; This best our modesty suits: For why should not we In a dress be as free As Hogs-Norton squires in boots?' and as this was not enough, got up a puppet-show of a sufficient coarseness to suit the taste of the time, in which the practice of wearing boots was satirized. His next onslaught was upon that of carrying swords; and in this respect Nash became a public benefactor, for in those days, though Chesterfield was the writer on etiquette, people were not well-bred enough to keep their tempers, and rivals for a lady's hand at a minuet, or gamblers who disputed over their cards, invariably settled the matter by an option between suicide or murder under the polite name of duel. The M.C. wisely saw that these affairs would bring Bath in bad repute, and determined to supplant the rapier by the less dangerous cane. In this he was for a long time opposed, until a notorious torchlight duel between two gamblers, of whom one was run through the body, and the other, to show his contrition, turned Quaker, brought his opponents to a sense of the danger of a weapon always at hand; and henceforth the sword was abolished. These points gained, the autocrat laid down rules for the employment of the visitors' time, and these, from setting the fashion to some, soon became a law to all. The first thing to be done was, sensibly enough, the _ostensible_ object of their residence in Bath, the use of the baths. At an early hour four lusty chairmen waited on every lady to carry her, wrapped in flannels, in 'A little black box, just the size of a coffin,' to one of the five baths. Here, on entering, an attendant placed beside her a floating tray, on which were set her handkerchief, bouquet, and _snuff-box_, for our great-great-grandmothers _did_ take snuff; and here she found her friends in the same bath of naturally hot water. It was, of course, a réunion for society on the plea of health; but the early hours and exercise secured the latter, whatever the baths may have done. A walk in the Pump-room, to the music of a tolerable band, was the next measure; and there, of course, the gentlemen mingled with the ladies. A coffee-house was ready to receive those of either sex; for that was a time when madame and miss lived a great deal in public, and English people were not ashamed of eating their breakfast in public company. These breakfasts were often enlivened by concerts paid for by the rich and enjoyed by all. Supposing the peacocks now to be dressed out and to have their tails spread to the best advantage, we next find some in the public promenades, others in the reading-rooms, the ladies having their clubs as well as the men; others riding; others, perchance, already gambling. Mankind and womankind then dined at a reasonable hour, and the evening's amusements began early. Nash insisted on this, knowing the value of health to those, and they were many at that time, who sought Bath on its account. The balls began at six, and took place every Tuesday and Friday, private balls filling up the vacant nights. About the commencement of his reign, a theatre was built, and whatever it may have been, it afterwards became celebrated as the nursery of the London stage, and now, _O tempo passato!_ is almost abandoned. It is needless to add that the gaming-tables were thronged in the evenings. It was at them that Nash made the money which sufficed to keep up his state, which was vulgarly regal. He drove about in a chariot, flaming with heraldry, and drawn by six grays, with outriders, running footmen, and all the appendages which made an impression on the vulgar minds of the visitors of his kingdom. His dress was magnificent; his gold lace unlimited, his coats ever new; his hat alone was always of the same colour--_white_; and as the emperor Alexander was distinguished by his purple tunic and Brummell by his bow, Emperor Nash was known all England over by his white hat. It is due to the King of Bath to say that, however much he gained, he always played fair. He even patronized young players, and after fleecing them, kindly advised them to play no more. When he found a man fixed upon ruining himself, he did his best to keep him from that suicidal act. This was the case with a young Oxonian, to whom he had lost money, and whom he invited to supper, in order to give him his parental advice. The fool would not take the Beau's counsel and 'came to grief.' Even noblemen sought his protection. The Duke of Beaufort entered on a compact with him to save his purse, if not his soul. He agreed to pay Nash ten thousand guineas, whenever he lost the same amount at a sitting. It was a comfortable treaty for our Beau, who accordingly watched his grace. Yet it must be said, to Nash's honour, that he once saved him from losing eleven thousand, when he had already lost eight, by reminding him of his compact. Such was play in those days! It is said that the duke had afterwards to pay the fine, from losing the stipulated sum at Newmarket. He displayed as much honesty with the young Lord Townshend, who lost him his whole fortune, his estate, and even his carriage and horses--what madmen are gamblers!--and actually cancelled the whole debt, on condition my lord should pay him £5000 whenever he chose to claim it. To Nash's honour it must be said that he never came down upon the nobleman during his life. He claimed the sum from his executors, who paid it.--'Honourable to both parties.' But an end was put to the gaming at Bath and everywhere else--_except in a royal palace_, and Nash swore that, as he was a king, Bath came under the head of the exceptions--by an Act of Parliament. Of course Nash and the sharpers who frequented Bath--and their name was Legion--found means to evade this law for a time, by the invention of new games. But this could not last, and the Beau's fortune went with the death of the dice. Still, however, the very prohibition increased the zest for play for a time, and Nash soon discovered that a private table was more comfortable than a public one. He entered into an arrangement with an old woman at Bath, in virtue of which he was to receive a fourth share of the profits. This was probably not the only 'hell'-keeping transaction of his life, and he had once before quashed an action against a cheat in consideration of a handsome bonus; and, in fact, there is no saying what amount of dirty work Nash would not have done for a hundred or so, especially when the game of the table was shut up to him. The man was immensely fond of money; he liked to show his gold-laced coat and superb new waistcoat in the Grove, the Abbey Ground, and Bond Street, and to be known as Le Grand Nash. But, on the other hand, he did not love money for itself, and never hoarded it. It is, indeed, something to Nash's honour, that he died poor. He delighted, in the poverty of his mind, to display his great thick-set person to the most advantage; he was as vain as any fop, without the affectation of that character, for he was always blunt and free-spoken, but, as long as he had enough to satisfy his vanity, he cared nothing for mere wealth. He had generosity, though he neglected the precept about the right hand and the left, and showed some ostentation in his charities. When a poor ruined fellow at his elbow saw him win at a throw £200, and murmured 'How happy that would make me!' Nash tossed the money to him, and said, 'Go and be happy then.' Probably the witless beau did not see the delicate satire implied in his speech. It was only the triumph of a gamester. On other occasions he collected subscriptions for poor curates, and so forth, in the same spirit, and did his best towards founding an hospital, which has since proved of great value to those afflicted with rheumatic gout. In the same spirit, though himself a gamester, he often attempted to win young and inexperienced boys, who came to toss away their money at the rooms, from seeking their own ruin; and, on the whole, there was some goodness of heart in this gold-laced bear. That he was a bear there are anecdotes enough to show, and whether true or not, they sufficiently prove what the reputation of the man must have been. Thus, when a lady, afflicted with a curvature of the spine, told him that 'She had come _straight_ from London that day,' Nash replied with utter heartlessness, 'Then, ma'am, you've been damnably warpt on the road.' The lady had her revenge, however, for meeting the beau one day in the Grove, as she toddled along with her dog, and being impudently asked by him if she knew the name of Tobit's dog, she answered quickly, 'Yes, sir, his name was Nash, and a most impudent dog he was too.' It is due to Nash to state that he made many attempts to put an end to the perpetual system of scandal, which from some hidden cause seems always to be connected with mineral springs; but as he did not banish the old maids, of course he failed. Of the young ladies and their reputation he took a kind of paternal care, and in that day they seem to have needed it, for even at nineteen, those who had any money to lose, staked it at the tables with as much gusto as the wrinkled, puckered, greedy-eyed 'single woman,' of a certain or uncertain age. Nash protected and cautioned them, and even gave them the advantage of his own unlimited experience. Witness, for instance, the care he took of 'Miss Sylvia,' a lovely heiress who brought her face and her fortune to enslave some and enrich others of the loungers of Bath. She had a terrible love of hazard, and very little prudence, so that Nash's good offices were much needed in the case. The young lady soon became the standing toast at all the clubs and suppers, and lovers of her, or her ducats, crowded round her; but though at that time she might have made a brilliant match, she chose, as young women will do, to fix her affections upon one of the worst men in Bath, who, naturally enough, did not return them. When this individual, as a climax to his misadventures, was clapt into prison, the devoted young creature gave the greater part of her fortune in order to pay off his debts, and falling into disrepute from this act of generosity, which was, of course, interpreted after a worldly fashion, she seems to have lost her honour with her fame, and the fair Sylvia took a position which could not be creditable to her. At last the poor girl, weary of slights, and overcome with shame, took her silk sash and hanged herself. The terrible event made a nine hours'--_not_ nine days'--sensation in Bath, which was too busy with mains and aces to care about the fate of one who had long sunk out of its circles. When Nash reached the zenith of his power, the adulation he received was somewhat of a parody on the flattery of courtiers. True, he had his bards from Grub Street who sang his praises, and he had letters to show from Sarah of Marlborough and others of that calibre, but his chief worshippers were cooks, musicians, and even imprisoned highwaymen--one of whom disclosed the secrets of the craft to him--who wrote him dedications, letters, poems, and what not. The good city of Bath set up his statue, and did Newton and Pope[20] the great honour of playing 'supporters' to him, which elicited from Chesterfield some well-known lines:-- 'This statue placed the busts between Adds to the satire strength; Wisdom and Wit are little seen, But Folly at full length.' Meanwhile his private character was none of the best. He had in early life had one attachment, besides that unfortunate affair for which his friends had removed him from Oxford, and in that had behaved with great magnanimity. The young lady had honestly told him that he had a rival; the Beau sent for him, settled on her a fortune equal to that her father intended for her, and himself presented her to the favoured suitor. Now, however, he seems to have given up all thoughts of matrimony, and gave himself up to mistresses, who cared more for his gold than for himself. It was an awkward conclusion to Nash's generous act in that one case, that before a year had passed, the bride ran away with her husband's footman; yet, though it disgusted him with ladies, it does not seem to have cured him of his attachment to the sex in general. In the height of his glory Nash was never ashamed of receiving adulation. He was as fond of flattery as Le Grand Monarque--and he paid for it too--whether it came from a prince or a chair-man. Every day brought him some fresh meed of praise in prose or verse, and Nash was always delighted. But his sun was to set in time. His fortune went when gaming was put down, for he had no other means of subsistence. Yet he lived on: he had not the good sense to die; and he reached the patriarchal age of eighty-seven. In his old age he was not only garrulous, but bragging: he told stories of his exploits, in which he, Mr. Richard Nash, came out as the first swordsman, swimmer, leaper, and what not. But by this time people began to doubt Mr. Richard Nash's long-bow, and the yarns he spun were listened to with impatience. He grew rude and testy in his old age; suspected Quin, the actor, who was living at Bath, of an intention to supplant him; made coarse, impertinent repartees to the visitors at that city, and in general raised up a dislike to himself. Yet, as other monarchs have had their eulogists in sober mind, Nash had his in one of the most depraved; and Anstey, the low-minded author of 'The New Bath Guide,' panegyrized him a short time after his death in the following verses:-- 'Yet here no confusion--no tumult is known; Fair order and beauty establish their throne; For order, and beauty, and just regulation, Support all the works of this ample creation. For this, in compassion to mortals below, The gods, their peculiar favour to show, Sent Hermes to Bath in the shape of a beau: That grandson of Atlas came down from above To bless all the regions of pleasure and love; To lead the fair nymph thro' the various maze, Bright beauty to marshal, his glory and praise; To govern, improve, and adorn the gay scene, By the Graces instructed, and Cyprian queen: As when in a garden delightful and gay, Where Flora is wont all her charms to display, The sweet hyacinthus with pleasure we view, Contend with narcissus in delicate hue; The gard'ner, industrious, trims out his border, Puts each odoriferous plant in its order; The myrtle he ranges, the rose and the lily, With iris, and crocus, and daffa-down-dilly; Sweet peas and sweet oranges all he disposes, At once to regale both your eyes and your noses. Long reign'd the great Nash, this omnipotent lord, Respected by youth, and by parents ador'd; For him not enough at a ball to preside, The unwary and beautiful nymph would he guide; Oft tell her a tale, how the credulous maid By man, by perfidious man, is betrayed: Taught Charity's hand to relieve the distrest, While tears have his tender compassion exprest; But alas! he is gone, and the city can tell How in years and in glory lamented he fell. Him mourn'd all the Dryads on Claverton's mount; Him Avon deplor'd, him the nymph of the fount, The crystalline streams. Then perish his picture--his statue decay-- A tribute more lasting the Muses shall pay. If true, what philosophers all will assure us, Who dissent from the doctrine of great Epicurus, That the spirit's immortal (as poets allow): In reward of his labours, his virtue and pains, He is footing it now in the Elysian plains, Indulged, as a token of Proserpine's favour, To preside at her balls in a cream-colour'd beaver. Then peace to his ashes--our grief be supprest, Since we find such a phoenix has sprung from his nest; Kind heaven has sent us another professor, Who follows the steps of his great predecessor.' The end of the Bath Beau was somewhat less tragical than that of his London successor--Brummell. Nash, in his old age and poverty, hung about the clubs and supper-tables, button-holed youngsters, who thought him a bore, spun his long yarns, and tried to insist on obsolete fashions, when near the end of his life's century. The clergy took more care of him than the youngsters. They heard that Nash was an octogenarian, and likely to die in his sins, and resolved to do their best to shrive him. Worthy and well-meaning men accordingly wrote him long letters, in which there was a deal of warning, and there was nothing which Nash dreaded so much. As long as there was immediate fear of death, he was pious and humble; the moment the fear had passed, he was jovial and indifferent again. His especial delight, to the last, seems to have been swearing against the doctors, whom he treated like the individual in Anstey's 'Bath Guide,' shying their medicines out of window upon their own heads. But the wary old Beckoner called him in, in due time, with his broken, empty-chested voice; and Nash was forced to obey. Death claimed him--and much good it got of him--in 1761, at the age of eighty-seven: there are few beaux who lived so long. Thus ended a life, of which the moral lay, so to speak, out of it. The worthies of Bath were true to the worship of Folly, whom Anstey so well, though indelicately, describes as there conceiving Fashion; and though Nash, old, slovenly, disrespected, had long ceased to be either beau or monarch, treated his huge unlovely corpse with the honour due to the great--or little. His funeral was as glorious as that of any hero, and far more showy, though much less solemn, than the burial of Sir John Moore. Perhaps for a bit of prose flummery, by way of contrast to Wolfe's lines on the latter event, there is little to equal the account in a contemporary paper:--'Sorrow sate upon every face, and even children lisped that their sovereign was no more. The awfulness of the solemnity made the deepest impression on the minds of the distressed inhabitants. The peasant discontinued his toil, the ox rested from the plough, all nature seemed to sympathise with their loss, and the muffled bells rung a peal of bob-major.' The Beau left little behind him, and that little not worth much, even including his renown. Most of the presents which fools or flatterers had made him, had long since been sent _chèz ma tante_; a few trinkets and pictures, and a few books, which probably he had never read, constituted his little store.[21] Bath and Tunbridge--for he had annexed that lesser kingdom to his own--had reason to mourn him, for he had almost made them what they were; but the country has not much cause to thank the upholder of gaming, the institutor of silly fashion, and the high-priest of folly. Yet Nash was free from many vices we should expect to find in such a man. He did not drink, for instance; one glass of wine, and a moderate quantity of small beer, being his allowance for dinner. He was early in his hours, and made others sensible in theirs. He was generous and charitable when he had the money; and when he had not he took care to make his subjects subscribe it. In a word, there have been worse men and greater fools; and we may again ask whether those who obeyed and flattered him were not more contemptible than Beau Nash himself. So much for the powers of impudence and a fine coat! FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 19: Warner ('History of Bath,' p. 366), says, 'Nash was removed from Oxford by his friends.'] [Footnote 20: A full-length statue of Nash was placed between busts of Newton and Pope.] [Footnote 21: In the 'Annual Register,' (vol. v. p. 37), it is stated that a pension of ten guineas a month was paid to Nash during the latter years of his life by the Corporation of Bath.] PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON. Wharton's Ancestors.--His Early Years.--Marriage at Sixteen.--Wharton takes leave of his Tutor.--The Young Marquis and the Old Pretender.--Frolics at Paris.--Zeal for the Orange Cause.--A Jacobite Hero.--The Trial of Atterbury.--Wharton's Defence of the Bishop.--Hypocritical Signs of Penitence.--Sir Robert Walpole duped.--Very Trying.--The Duke of Wharton's 'Whens.'--Military Glory at Gibraltar.--'Uncle Horace.'--Wharton to 'Uncle Horace.'--The Duke's Impudence.--High Treason.--Wharton's Ready Wit.--Last Extremities.--Sad Days in Paris.--His Last Journey to Spain.--His Death in a Bernardine Convent. If an illustration were wanted of that character unstable as water which shall not excel, this duke would at once supply it: if we had to warn genius against self-indulgence--some clever boy against extravagance--some poet against the bottle--this is the 'shocking example' we should select: if we wished to show how the most splendid talents, the greatest wealth, the most careful education, the most unusual advantages, may all prove useless to a man who is too vain or too frivolous to use them properly, it is enough to cite that nobleman, whose acts gained for him the name of the _infamous_ Duke of Wharton. Never was character more mercurial, or life more unsettled than his; never, perhaps, were more changes crowded into a fewer number of years, more fame and infamy gathered into so short a space. Suffice it to say that when Pope wanted a man to hold up to the scorn of the world, as a sample of wasted abilities, it was Wharton that he chose, and his lines rise in grandeur in proportion to the vileness of the theme: 'Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, Whose ruling passion was a love of praise. Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, Women and fools must like him or he dies; Though raptured senates hung on all he spoke, The club must hail him master of the joke. Shall parts so various aim at nothing new? He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too. * * * * * Thus with each gift of nature and of art, And wanting nothing but an honest heart; Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt, And most contemptible, to shun contempt; His passion still, to covet general praise, His life to forfeit it a thousand ways; A constant bounty which no friend has made; An angel tongue which no man can persuade; A fool with more of wit than all mankind; Too rash for thought, for action too refined.' And then those memorable lines-- 'A tyrant to the wife his heart approved, A rebel to the very king he loved; He dies, sad outcast of each church and state; And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.' Though it may be doubted if the 'lust of praise' was the cause of his eccentricities, so much as an utter restlessness and instability of character, Pope's description is sufficiently correct, and will prepare us for one of the most disappointing lives we could well have to read. Philip, Duke of Wharton, was one of those men of whom an Irishman would say, that they were fortunate before they were born. His ancestors bequeathed him a name that stood high in England for bravery and excellence. The first of the house, Sir Thomas Wharton, had won his peerage from Henry VIII. for routing some 15,000 Scots with 500 men, and other gallant deeds. From his father the marquis he inherited much of his talents; but for the heroism of the former, he seems to have received it only in the extravagant form of foolhardiness. Walpole remembered, but could not tell where, a ballad he wrote on being arrested by the guard in St. James's Park, for singing the Jacobite song, 'The King shall have his own again,' and quotes two lines to show that he was not ashamed of his own cowardice on the occasion:-- 'The duke he drew out half his sword, ---- the guard drew out the rest.' At the siege of Gibraltar, where he took up arms against his own king and country, he is said to have gone alone one night to the very walls of the town, and challenged the outpost. They asked him who he was, and when he replied, openly enough, 'The Duke of Wharton,' they actually allowed him to return without either firing on or capturing him. The story seems somewhat apocryphal, but it is quite possible that the English soldiers may have refrained from violence to a well-known mad-cap nobleman of their own nation. Philip, son of the Marquis of Wharton, at that time only a baron, was born in the last year but one of the seventeenth century, and came into the world endowed with every quality which might have made a great man, if he had only added wisdom to them. His father wished to make him a brilliant statesman, and, to have a better chance of doing so, kept him at home, and had him educated under his own eye. He seems to have easily and rapidly acquired a knowledge of classical languages; and his memory was so good that when a boy of thirteen he could repeat the greater part of the 'Æneid' and of Horace by heart. His father's keen perception did not allow him to stop at classics; and he wisely prepared him for the career to which he was destined by the study of history, ancient and modern, and of English literature, and by teaching him, even at that early age, the art of thinking and writing on any given subject, by proposing themes for essays. There is certainly no surer mode of developing the reflective and reasoning powers of the mind; and the boy progressed with a rapidity which was almost alarming. Oratory, too, was of course cultivated, and to this end the young nobleman was made to recite before a small audience passages from Shakspeare, and even speeches which had been delivered in the House of Lords, and we may be certain he showed no bashfulness in this display. He was precocious beyond measure, and at sixteen was a man. His first act of folly--or, perhaps, _he_ thought, of manhood--came off at this early age. He fell in love with the daughter of a Major-General Holmes; and though there is nothing extraordinary in that, for nine-tenths of us have been love-mad at as early an age, he did what fortunately very few do in a first love affair, he married the adored one. Early marriages are often extolled, and justly enough, as safeguards against profligate habits, but this one seems to have had the contrary effect on young Philip. His wife was in every sense too good for him: he was madly in love with her at first, but soon shamefully and openly faithless. Pope's line-- 'A tyrant to the wife his heart approved,' requires explanation here. It is said that she did not present her boy-husband with a son for three years after their marriage, and on this child he set great value and great hopes. About that time he left his wife in the country, intending to amuse himself in town, and ordered her to remain behind with the child. The poor deserted woman well knew what was the real object of this journey, and could not endure the separation. In the hope of keeping her young husband out of harm, and none the less because she loved him very tenderly, she followed him soon after, taking the little Marquis of Malmsbury, as the young live branch was called, with her. The duke was, of course, disgusted, but his anger was turned into hatred, when the child, which he had hoped to make his heir and successor, caught in town the small-pox, and died in infancy. He was furious with his wife, refused to see her for a long time, and treated her with unrelenting coldness. The early marriage was much to the distaste of Philip's father, who had been lately made a marquis, and who hoped to arrange a very grand 'alliance' for his petted son. He was, in fact, so much grieved by it, that he was fool enough to die of it in 1715, and the marchioness survived him only about a year, being no less disgusted with the licentiousness which she already discovered in her Young Hopeful. She did what she could to set him right, and the young married man was shipped off with a tutor, a French Huguenot, who was to take him to Geneva to be educated as a Protestant and a Whig. The young scamp declined to be either. He was taken, by way of seeing the world, to the petty courts of Germany, and of course to that of Hanover, which had kindly sent us the worst family that ever disgraced the English throne, and by the various princes and grand-dukes received with all the honours due to a young British nobleman. The tutor and his charge settled at last at Geneva, and my young lord amused himself with tormenting his strict guardian. Walpole tells us that he once roused him out of bed only to borrow a pin. There is no doubt that he led the worthy man a sad life of it; and to put a climax to his conduct, ran away from him at last, leaving with him, by way of hostage, a young bear-cub--probably quite as tame as himself--which he had picked up somewhere, and grown very fond of--birds of a feather, seemingly--with a message, which showed more wit than good-nature, to this effect:--'Being no longer able to bear with your ill-usage, I think proper to be gone from you; however, that you may not want company, I have left you the bear, as the most suitable companion in the world that could be picked out for you.' The tutor had to console himself with a _tu quoque_, for the young scapegrace had found his way to Lyons in October, 1716, and then did the very thing his father's son should not have done. The Chevalier de St. George, the Old Pretender, James III., or by whatever other _alias_ you prefer to call him, having failed in his attempt 'to have his own again' in the preceding year, was then holding high court in high dudgeon at Avignon. Any adherent would, of course, be welcomed with open arms; and when the young marquis wrote to him to offer his allegiance, sending with his letter a fine entire horse as a peace offering, he was warmly responded to. A person of rank was at once despatched to bring the youth to the ex-regal court; he was welcomed with much enthusiasm, and the empty title of Duke of Northumberland at once, most kindly, conferred on him. However, the young marquis does not seem to have _goûté_ the exile's court, for he stayed there one day only, and returning to Lyons, set off to enjoy himself at Paris. With much wit, no prudence, and a plentiful supply of money, which he threw about with the recklessness of a boy just escaped from his tutor, he could not fail to succeed in that capital; and, accordingly, the English received him with open arms. Even the ambassador, Lord Stair, though he had heard rumours of his wild doings, invited him repeatedly to dinner, and did his best, by advice and warning, to keep him out of harm's way. Young Philip had a horror of preceptors, paid or gratuitous, and treated the plenipotentiary with the same coolness as he had served the Huguenot tutor. When the former, praising the late marquis, expressed--by way of a slight hint--a hope 'that he would follow so illustrious an example of fidelity to his prince, and affection to his country, by treading in the same steps,' the young scamp replied, cleverly enough, 'That he thanked his excellency for his good advice, and as his excellency had also a worthy and deserving father, he hoped he would likewise copy so bright an example, and tread in all his steps;' the pertness of which was pertinent enough, for old Lord Stair had taken a disgraceful part against his sovereign in the massacre of Glencoe. His frolics at Paris were of the most reckless character for a young nobleman. At the ambassador's own table he would occasionally send a servant to some one of the guests, to ask him to join in the Old Chevalier's health, though it was almost treason at that time to mention his name even. And again, when the windows at the embassy had been broken by a young English Jacobite, who was forthwith committed to Fort l'Evêque, the hare-brained marquis proposed, out of revenge, to break them a second time, and only abandoned the project because he could get no one to join him in it. Lord Stair, however, had too much sense to be offended at the follies of a boy of seventeen, even though that boy was the representative of a great English family; he, probably, thought it would be better to recall him to his allegiance by kindness and advice, than, by resenting his behaviour, to drive him irrevocably to the opposite party; but he was doubtless considerably relieved when, after leading a wild life in the capital of France, spending his money lavishly, and doing precisely everything which a young English nobleman ought not to do, my lord marquis took his departure in December, 1716. The political education he had received now made the unstable youth ready and anxious to shine in the State; but being yet under age, he could not, of course, take his seat in the House of Lords. Perhaps he was conscious of his own wonderful abilities; perhaps, as Pope declares, he was thirsting for praise, and wished to display them; certainly he was itching to become an orator, and as he could not sit in an English Parliament, he remembered that he had a peerage in Ireland, as Earl of Rathfernhame and Marquis of Catherlogh, and off he set to see if the Milesians would stand upon somewhat less ceremony. He was not disappointed there. 'His brilliant parts,' we are told by contemporary writers, but rather, we should think, his reputation for wit and eccentricity, 'found favour in the eyes of Hibernian quicksilvers, and in spite of his years, he was admitted to the Irish House of Lords.' When a friend had reproached him, before he left France, with infidelity to the principles so long espoused by his family, he is reported to have replied, characteristically enough, that 'he had pawned his principles to Gordon, the Chevalier's banker, for a considerable sum, and, till he could repay him, he must be a Jacobite; but when that was done, he would again return to the Whigs.' It is as likely as not that he borrowed from Gordon on the strength of the Chevalier's favour, for though a marquis in his own right, he was even at this period always in want of cash; and on the other hand, the speech, exhibiting the grossest want of any sense of honour, is in thorough keeping with his after-life. But whether he paid Gordon on his return to England--which is highly improbable--or whether he had not honour enough to keep his compact--which is extremely likely--there is no doubt that my lord marquis began, at this period, to qualify himself for the post of parish-weathercock to St. Stephens. His early defection to a man who, whether rightful heir or not, had that of romance in his history which is even now sufficient to make our young ladies 'thorough Jacobites' at heart, was easily to be excused, on the plea of youth and high spirit. The same excuse does not explain his rapid return to Whiggery--in which there is no romance at all--the moment he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords. There is only one way to explain the zeal with which he now advocated the Orange cause: he must have been either a very designing knave, or a very unprincipled fool. As he gained nothing by the change but a dukedom for which he did not care, and as he cared for little else that the government could give him, we may acquit him of any very deep motives. On the other hand, his life and some of his letters show that, with a vast amount of bravado, he was sufficiently a coward. When supplicated, he was always obstinate; when neglected, always supplicant. Now it required some courage in those days to be a Jacobite. Perhaps he cared for nothing but to astonish and disgust everybody with the facility with which he could turn his coat, as a hippodromist does with the ease with which he changes his costume. He was a boy and a peer, and he would make pretty play of his position. He had considerable talents, and now, as he sat in the Irish House, devoted them entirely to the support of the government. For the next four years he was employed, on the one hand in political, on the other in profligate, life. He shone in both; and was no less admired, by the wits of those days, for his speeches, his arguments, and his zeal, than for the utter disregard of public decency he displayed in his vices. Such a promising youth, adhering to the government, merited some mark of its esteem, and accordingly, before attaining the age of twenty-one, he was raised to a dukedom. Being of age, he took his seat in the English House of Lords, and had not been long there before he again turned coat, and came out in the light of a Jacobite hero. It was now that he gathered most of his laurels. The Hanoverian monarch had been on the English throne some six years. Had the Chevalier's attempt occurred at this period, it may be doubted if it would not have been successful. The 'Old Pretender' came too soon, the 'Young Pretender' too late. At the period of the first attempt, the public had had no time to contrast Stuarts and Guelphs: at that of the second, they had forgotten the one and grown accustomed to the other; but at the moment when our young duke appeared on the boards of the senate, the vices of the Hanoverians were beginning to draw down on them the contempt of the educated and the ridicule of the vulgar; and perhaps no moment could have been more favourable for advocating a restoration of the Stuarts. If Wharton had had as much energy and consistency as he had talent and impudence, he might have done much towards that desirable, or undesirable end. The grand question at this time before the House was the trial of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, demanded by Sir Robert Walpole. The man had a spirit almost as restless as his defender. The son of a man who might have been the original of the Vicar of Bray, he was very little of a poet, less of a priest, but a great deal of a politician. He was born in 1662, so that at this time he must have been nearly sixty years old. He had had by no means a hard life of it, for family interest, together with eminent talents, procured him one appointment after another, till he reached the bench at the age of fifty-one, in the reign of Anne. He had already distinguished himself in several ways, most, perhaps, by controversies with Hoadly, and by sundry high-church motions. But after his elevation, he displayed his principles more boldly, refused to sign the Declaration of the Bishops, which was somewhat servilely made to assure George the First of the fidelity of the Established Church, suspended the curate of Gravesend for three years because he allowed the Dutch to have a service performed in his church, and even, it is said, on the death of Anne, offered to proclaim King James III., and head a procession himself in his lawn sleeves. The end of this and other vagaries was, that in 1722, the Government sent him to the Tower, on suspicion of being connected with a plot in favour of the Old Chevalier. The case excited no little attention, for it was long since a bishop had been charged with high treason; it was added that his gaolers used him rudely; and, in short, public sympathy rather went along with him for a time. In March, 1723, a bill was presented to the Commons, for 'inflicting certain pains and penalties' on Francis, Lord Bishop of Rochester, and it passed that House in April; but when carried up to the Lords, a defence was resolved on. The bill was read a third time on May 15th, and on that occasion the Duke of Wharton, then only twenty-four years old, rose and delivered a speech in favour of the bishop. This oration far more resembled that of a lawyer summing up the evidence than of a parliamentary orator enlarging on the general issue. It was remarkable for the clearness of its argument, the wonderful memory of facts it displayed, and the ease and rapidity with which it annihilated the testimony of various witnesses examined before the House. It was mild and moderate, able and sufficient, but seems to have lacked all the enthusiasm we might expect from one who was afterwards so active a partisan of the Chevalier's cause. In short, striking as it was, it cannot be said to give the duke any claim to the title of a great orator; it would rather prove that he might have made a first-rate lawyer. It shows, however, that had he chosen to apply himself diligently to politics, he might have turned out a great leader of the Opposition. Neither this speech nor the bishop's able defence saved him; and in the following month he was banished the kingdom, and passed the rest of his days in Paris. Wharton, however, was not content with the House as an arena of political agitation. He was now old enough to have matured his principles thoroughly, and he completely espoused the cause of the exiled family. He amused himself with agitating throughout the country, influencing elections, and seeking popularity by becoming a member of the Wax-chandlers' Company. It is a proof of his great abilities, so shamefully thrown away, that he now, during the course of eight months, issued a paper, called 'The True Briton,' every Monday and Friday, written by himself, and containing varied and sensible arguments in support of his opinions, if not displaying any vast amount of original genius. This paper, on the model of 'The Tatler,' 'The Spectator,' &c., had a considerable sale, and attained no little celebrity, so that the Duke of Wharton acquired the reputation of a literary man as well as of a political leader. But, whatever he might have been in either capacity, his disgraceful life soon destroyed all hope of success in them. He was now an acknowledged wit about town, and what was then almost a recognized concomitant of that character, an acknowledged profligate. He scattered his large fortune in the most reckless and foolish manner: though married, his moral conduct was as bad as that of any bachelor of the day: and such was his extravagance and open licentiousness, that, having wasted a princely revenue, he was soon caught in the meshes of Chancery, which very sensibly vested his fortune in the hands of trustees, and compelled him to be satisfied with an income of twelve hundred pounds a year. The young rascal now showed hypocritical signs of penitence--he was always an adept in that line--and protested he would go abroad and live quietly, till his losses should be retrieved. There is little doubt that, under this laudable design, he concealed one of attaching himself closer to the Chevalier party, and even espousing the faith of that unfortunate prince, or pretender, whichever he may have been. He set off for Vienna, leaving his wife behind to die, in April, 1726. He had long since quarrelled with her, and treated her with cruel neglect, and at her death he was not likely to be much afflicted. It is said, that, after that event, a ducal family offered him a daughter and large fortune in marriage, and that the Duke of Wharton declined the offer, because the latter was to be tied up, and he could not conveniently tie up the former. However this may be, he remained a widower for a short time: we may be sure, not long. The hypocrisy of going abroad to retrench was not long undiscovered. The fascinating scapegrace seems to have delighted in playing on the credulity of others; and Walpole relates that, on the eve of the day on which he delivered his famous speech for Atterbury, he sought an interview with the minister, Sir Robert Walpole, expressed great contrition at having espoused the bishop's cause hitherto, and a determination to speak against him the following day. The minister was taken in, and at the duke's request, supplied him with all the main arguments, pro and con. The deceiver, having got these well into his brain--one of the most retentive--repaired to his London haunts, passed the night in drinking, and the next day produced all the arguments he had digested, _in the bishop's favour_. At Vienna he was well received, and carried out his private mission successfully, but was too restless to stay in one place, and soon set off for Madrid. Tired now of politics, he took a turn at love. He was a poet after a fashion, for the pieces he has left are not very good: he was a fine gentleman, always spending more money than he had, and is said to have been handsome. His portraits do not give us this impression: the features are not very regular; and though not coarse, are certainly _not_ refined. The mouth, somewhat sensual, is still much firmer than his character would lead us to expect; the nose sharp at the point, but cogitative at the nostrils; the eyes long but not large; while the raised brow has all that openness which he displayed in the indecency of his vices, but not in any honesty in his political career. In a word, the face is not attractive. Yet he is described as having had a brilliant complexion, a lively, varying expression, and a charm of person and manner that was quite irresistible. Whether on this account, or for his talents and wit, which were really shining, his new Juliet fell as deeply in love with him as he with her. She was maid of honour--and a highly honourable maid--to the Queen of Spain. The Irish regiments long employed in the Spanish service had become more or less naturalized in that country, which accounts for the great number of thoroughly Milesian names still to be found there, some of them, as O'Donnell, owned by men of high distinction. Among other officers who had settled with their families in the Peninsula was a Colonel O'Byrne, who, like most of his countrymen there, died penniless, leaving his widow with a pension and his daughter without a sixpence. It can well be imagined that an offer from an English duke was not to be sneezed at by either Mrs. or Miss O'Byrne; but there were some grave obstacles to the match. The duke was a Protestant. But what of that?--he had never been encumbered with religion, nor even with a decent observance of its institutions, for it is said that, when in England, at his country seat, he had, to show how little he cared for respectability, made a point of having the hounds out on a Sunday morning. He was not going to lose a pretty girl for the sake of a faith with which he had got disgusted ever since his Huguenot tutor tried to make him a sober Christian. He had turned coat in politics, and would now try his weathercock capabilities at religion. Nothing like variety, so Romanist he became. But this was not all: his friends on the one hand objected to his marrying a penniless girl, and hers, on the other, warned her of his disreputable character. But when two people have made up their minds to be one, such trifles as these are of no consequence. A far more trying obstacle was the absolute refusal of her Most Catholic Majesty to allow her maid of honour to marry the duke. It is a marvel that after the life of dissipation he had led, this man should have retained the power of loving at all. But everything about him was extravagant, and now that he entertained a virtuous attachment, he was as wild in it as he had been reckless in less respectable connections. He must have been sincere at the time, for the queen's refusal was followed by a fit of depression that brought on a low fever. The queen heard of it, and, touched by the force of his devotion, sent him a cheering message. The moment was not to be lost, and, in spite of his weak state, he hurried to court, threw himself at her Majesty's feet, and swore he must have his lady-love or die. Thus pressed, the queen was forced to consent, but warned him that he would repent of it. The marriage took place, and the couple set off to Rome. Here the Chevalier again received him with open arms, and took the opportunity of displaying his imaginary sovereignty by bestowing on him the Order of the Garter--a politeness the duke returned by wearing while there the no less unrecognised title of Duke of Northumberland, which 'His Majesty' had formerly conferred on him. But James III., though no saint, had more respect for decent conduct than his father and uncle; the duke ran off into every species of excess, got into debt as usual-- 'When Wharton's just, and learns to pay his debts, And reputation dwells at Mother Brett's, * * * * * Then, Celia, shall my constant passion cease, And my poor suff'ring heart shall be at peace,' says a satirical poem of the day, called 'The Duke of Wharton's _Whens_'--was faithless to the wife he had lately been dying for; and in short, such a thorough blackguard, that not even the Jacobites could tolerate him, and they turned him out of the Holy City till he should learn not to bring dishonour on the court of their fictitious sovereign. The duke was not the man to be much ashamed of himself, though his poor wife may now have begun to think her late mistress in the right, and he was probably glad of an excuse for another change. At this time, 1727, the Spaniards were determined to wrest Gibraltar from its English defenders, and were sending thither a powerful army under the command of Los Torres. The Duke had tried many trades with more or less success, and now thought that a little military glory would tack on well to his highly honourable biography. At any rate there was novelty in the din of war, and for novelty he would go anywhere. It mattered little that he should fight against his own king and own countrymen: he was not half blackguard enough yet, he may have thought; he had played traitor for some time, he would now play rebel outright--the game _was_ worth the candle. So what does my lord duke do but write a letter (like the Chinese behind their mud-walls, he was always bold enough when well secured under the protection of the post, and was more absurd in ink even than in action) to the King of Spain, offering him his services as a volunteer against 'Gib.' Whether his Most Catholic Majesty thought him a traitor, a madman, or a devoted partisan of his own, does not appear, for without waiting for an answer--waiting was always too dull work for Wharton--he and his wife set off for the camp before Gibraltar, introduced themselves to the Conde in Command, were received with all the honour--let us say honours--due to a duke--and established themselves comfortably in the ranks of the enemy of England. But all the duke's hopes of prowess were blighted. He had good opportunities. The Conde de los Torres made him his aide-de-camp, and sent him daily into the trenches to see how matters went on. When a defence of a certain Spanish outwork was resolved upon, the duke, from his rank, was chosen for the command. Yet in the trenches he got no worse wound than a slight one on the foot from a splinter of a shell, and this he afterwards made an excuse for not fighting a duel with swords; and as to the outwork, the English abandoned the attack, so that there was no glory to be found in the defence. He soon grew weary of such inglorious and rather dirty work as visiting trenches before a stronghold; and well he might; for if there be one thing duller than another and less satisfactory, it must be digging a hole out of which to kill your brother mortals; and thinking he should amuse himself better at the court, he set off for Madrid. Here the king, by way of reward for his brilliant services in doing nothing, made him _colonel-aggregate_--whatever that may be--of an Irish regiment; a very poor aggregate, we should think. But my lord duke wanted something livelier than the command of a band of Hispaniolized Milesians; and having found the military career somewhat uninteresting, wished to return to that of politics. He remembered with gusto the frolic life of the Holy City, and the political excitement in the Chevalier's court, and sent off a letter to 'His Majesty James III.,' expressing, like a rusticated Oxonian, his penitence for having been so naughty the last time, and offering to come and be very good again. It is to the praise of the Chevalier de St. George that he had worldly wisdom enough not to trust the gay penitent. He was tired, as everybody else was, of a man who could stick to nothing, and did not seem to care about seeing him again. Accordingly, he replied in true kingly style, blaming him for having taken up arms against their common country, and telling him in polite language--as a policeman does a riotous drunkard--that he had better go home. The duke thought so too, was not at all offended at the letter, and set off, by way of returning towards his Penates, for Paris, where he arrived in May, 1728. Horace Walpole--not _the_ Horace--but 'Uncle Horace,' or 'old Horace,' as he was called, was then ambassador to the court of the Tuileries. Mr. Walpole was one of the Houghton 'lot,' a brother of the famous minister Sir Robert, and though less celebrated, almost as able in his line. He had distinguished himself in various diplomatic appointments, in Spain, at Hanover and the Hague, and having successfully tackled Cardinal Fleury, the successor of the Richelieus and Mazarins at Paris, he was now in high favour at home. In after years he was celebrated for his duel with Chetwynd, who, when 'Uncle Horace' had in the House expressed a hope that the question might be carried, had exclaimed, 'I hope to see you hanged first!' 'You hope to see me hanged first, do you?' cried Horace, with all the ferocity of the Walpoles; and thereupon, seizing him by the most prominent feature of his face, shook him violently. This was matter enough for a brace of swords and coffee for four, and Mr. Chetwynd had to repent of his remark after being severely wounded. In those days our honourable House of Commons was as much an arena of wild beasts as the American senate of to-day. To this minister our noble duke wrote a hypocritical letter, which, as it shows how the man _could_ write penitently, is worth transcribing. 'Lions, June 28, 1728. 'Sir,--Your excellency will be surpris'd to receive a letter from me; but the clemency with which the government of England has treated me, which is in a great measure owing to your brother's regard to my father's memory, makes me hope that you will give me leave to express my gratitude for it. 'Since his present majesty's accession to the throne I have absolutely refused to be concerned with the Pretender or any of his affairs; and during my stay in Italy have behaved myself in a manner that Dr. Peters, Mr. Godolphin, and Mr. Mills can declare to be consistent with my duty to the present king. I was forc'd to go to Italy to get out of Spain, where, if my true design had been known, I should have been treated a little severely. 'I am coming to Paris to put myself entirely under your excellency's protection; and hope that Sir Robert Walpole's good-nature will prompt him to save a family which his generosity induced him to spare. If your excellency would permit me to wait upon you for an hour, I am certain you would be convinc'd of the sincerity of my repentance for my former madness, would become an advocate with his majesty to grant me his most gracious pardon, which it is my comfort I shall never be required to purchase by any step unworthy of a man of honour. I do not intend, in case of the king's allowing me to pass the evening of my days under the shadow of his royal protection, to see England for some years, but shall remain in France or Germany, as my friends shall advise, and enjoy country sports till all former stories are buried in oblivion. I beg of your excellency to let me receive your orders at Paris, which I will send to your hostel to receive. The Dutchess of Wharton, who is with me, desires leave to wait on Mrs. Walpole, if you think proper. 'I am, &c.' After this, the ambassador could do no less than receive him; but he was somewhat disgusted when on leaving him the duke frankly told him--forgetting all about his penitent letter, probably, or too reckless to care for it--that he was going to dine with the Bishop of Rochester--Atterbury himself, then living in Paris--whose society was interdicted to any subject of King George. The duke, with his usual folly, touched on other subjects equally dangerous, his visit to Rome, and his conversion to Romanism; and, in short, disgusted the cautious Mr. Walpole. There is something delightfully impudent about all these acts of Wharton's; and had he only been a clown at Drury Lane instead of an English nobleman, he must have been successful. As it is, when one reads of the petty hatred and humbug of those days, when liberty of speech was as unknown as any other liberty, one cannot but admire the impudence of his Grace of Wharton, and wish that most dukes, without being as profligate, would be as free-spoken. With six hundred pounds in his pocket, our young Lothario now set up house at Rouen, with an establishment 'equal,' say the old-school writers, 'to his position, but not to his means.' In other words, he undertook to live in a style for which he could not pay. Twelve hundred a year may be enough for a duke, as for any other man, but not for one who considers a legion of servants a necessary appendage to his position. My lord duke, who was a good French scholar, soon found an ample number of friends and acquaintances, and not being particular about either, managed to get through his half-year's income in a few weeks. Evil consequence: he was assailed by duns. French duns know nothing about forgiving debtors; 'your money first, and then my pardon,' is their motto. My lord duke soon found this out. Still he had an income, and could pay them all off in time. So he drank and was merry, till one fine day came a disagreeable piece of news, which startled him considerably. The government at home had heard of his doings, and determined to arraign him for high treason. He could expect little else, for had he not actually taken up arms against his sovereign? Now Sir Robert Walpole was, no doubt, a vulgarian. He was not a man to love or sympathise with; but he _was_ good-natured at bottom. Our 'frolic grace' had reason to acknowledge this. He could not complain of harshness in any measures taken against him, and he had certainly no claim to consideration from the government he had treated so ill. Yet Sir Robert was willing to give him every chance; and so far did he go, that he sent over a couple of friends to him to induce him only to ask pardon of the king, with a promise that it would be granted. For sure the Duke of Wharton's character was anomalous. The same man who had more than once humiliated himself when unasked, who had written to Walpole's brother the letter we have read, would not now, when entreated to do so, write a few lines to that minister to ask mercy. Nay, when the gentleman in question offered to be content even with a letter from the duke's valet, he refused to allow the man to write. Some people may admire what they will believe to be firmness, but when we review the duke's character and subsequent acts, we cannot attribute this refusal to anything but obstinate pride. The consequence of this folly was a stoppage of supplies, for as he was accused of high treason, his estate was of course sequestrated. He revenged himself by writing a paper which was published in 'Mist's Journal,' and which, under the cover of a Persian tale, contained a species of libel on the government. His position was now far from enviable; and, assailed by duns, he had no resource but to humble himself, not before those he had offended, but before the Chevalier, to whom he wrote in his distress, and who sent him £2,000, which he soon frittered away in follies. This gone, the duke begged and borrowed, for there are some people such fools that they would rather lose a thousand pounds to a peer than give sixpence to a pauper, and many a tale was told of the artful manner in which his grace managed to cozen his friends out of a louis or two. His ready wit generally saved him. Thus on one occasion an Irish toady invited him to dinner: the duke talked of his wardrobe, then sadly defective; what suit should he wear? The Hibernian suggested black velvet. 'Could you recommend a tailor?' 'Certainly.' Snip came, an expensive suit was ordered, put on, and the dinner taken. In due course the tailor called for his money. The duke was not a bit at a loss, though he had but a few francs to his name. 'Honest man,' quoth he, 'you mistake the matter entirely. Carry the bill to Sir Peter; for know that whenever I consent to wear another man's livery, my master pays for the clothes,' and inasmuch as the dinner-giver was an Irishman, he did actually discharge the account. At other times he would give a sumptuous entertainment, and in one way or another induce his guests to pay for it. He was only less adroit in coining excuses than Theodore Hook, and had he lived a century later, we might have a volume full of anecdotes to give of his ways and no means. Meanwhile his unfortunate duchess was living on the charity of friends, while her lord and master, when he could get anyone to pay for a band, was serenading young ladies. Yet he was jealous enough of his wife at times, and once sent a challenge to a Scotch nobleman, simply because some silly friend asked him if he had forbidden his wife to dance with the lord. He went all the way to Flanders to meet his opponent; but, perhaps fortunately for the duke, Marshal Berwick arrested the Scotchman, and the duel never came off. Whether he felt his end approaching, or whether he was sick of vile pleasures which he had recklessly pursued from the age of fifteen, he now, though only thirty years of age, retired for a time to a convent, and was looked on as a penitent and devotee. Penury, doubtless, cured him in a measure, and poverty, the porter of the gates of heaven, warned him to look forward beyond a life he had so shamefully misused. But it was only a temporary repentance; and when he left the religious house, he again rushed furiously into every kind of dissipation. At length, utterly reduced to the last extremities, he bethought himself of his colonelcy in Spain, and determined to set out to join his regiment. The following letter from a friend who accompanied him will best show what circumstances he was in:-- 'Paris, June 1, 1729. 'Dear Sir,--I am just returned from the Gates of Death, to return you Thanks for your last kind Letter of Accusations, which I am persuaded was intended as a seasonable Help to my Recollection, at a Time that it was necessary for me to send an Inquisitor General into my Conscience, to examine and settle all the Abuses that ever were committed in that little Court of Equity; but I assure you, your long Letter did not lay so much my Faults as my Misfortunes before me, which believe me, dear ----, have fallen as heavy and as thick upon me as the Shower of Hail upon us two in E---- Forest, and has left me much at a Loss which way to turn myself. The Pilot of the Ship I embarked in, who industriously ran upon every Rock, has at last split the Vessel, and so much of a sudden, that the whole Crew, I mean his Domesticks, are all left to swim for their Lives, without one friendly Plank to assist them to Shore. In short, he left me sick, in Debt, and without a Penny; but as I begin to recover, and have a little time to Think, I can't help considering myself, as one whisk'd up behind a Witch upon a Broomstick, and hurried over Mountains and Dales through confus'd Woods and thorny Thickets, and when the Charm is ended, and the poor Wretch dropp'd in a Desart, he can give no other Account of his enchanted Travels, but that he is much fatigued in Body and Mind, his Cloaths torn, and worse in all other Circumstances, without being of the least Service to himself or any body else. But I will follow your Advice with an active Resolution, to retrieve my bad Fortune, and almost a Year miserably misspent. 'But notwithstanding what I have suffered, and what my Brother Mad-man has done to undo himself, and every body who was so unlucky to have the least Concern with him, I could not but be movingly touch'd at so extraordinary a Vicissitude of Fortune, to see a great Man fallen from that shining Light, in which I beheld him in the House of Lords, to such a Degree of Obscurity, that I have observ'd the meanest Commoner here decline, and the Few he would sometimes fasten on, to be tired of his Company; for you know he is but a bad Orator in his Cups, and of late he has been but seldom sober. 'A week before he left Paris, he was so reduced, that he had not one single Crown at Command, and was forc'd to thrust in with any Acquaintance for a Lodging; Walsh and I have had him by Turns, all to avoid a Crowd of Duns, which he had of all Sizes, from Fourteen hundred Livres to Four, who hunted him so close, that he was forced to retire to some of the neighbouring Villages for Safety. I, sick as I was, hurried about Paris to raise Money, and to St. Germain's to get him Linen; I bought him one Shirt and a Cravat, which with 500 Livres, his whole Stock, he and his Duchess, attended by one Servant, set out for Spain. All the News I have heard of them since is that a Day or two after, he sent for Captain Brierly, and two or three of his Domesticks, to follow him; but none but the Captain obey'd the Summons. Where they are now, I can't tell, but fear they must be in great Distress by this Time, if he has no other Supplies; and so ends my Melancholy Story. 'I am, &c.' Still his good-humour did not desert him; he joked about their poverty on the road, and wrote an amusing account of their journey to a friend, winding up with the well-known lines:-- 'Be kind to my remains, and oh! defend, Against your judgment, your departed friend.' His mind was as vigorous as ever, in spite of the waste of many debauches; and when recommended to make a new translation of 'Telemachus;' he actually devoted one whole day to the work; the next he forgot all about it. In the same manner he began a play on the story of Mary Queen of Scots, and Lady M. W. Montagu wrote an epilogue for it, but the piece never got beyond a few scenes. His genius, perhaps, was not for either poetry or the drama. His mind was a keen, clear one, better suited to argument and to grapple tough polemic subjects. Had he but been a sober man, he might have been a fair, if not a great writer. The 'True Briton,' with many faults of license, shows what his capabilities were. His absence of moral sense may be guessed from his poem on the preaching of Atterbury, in which is a parallel almost blasphemous. At length he reached Bilboa and his regiment, and had to live on the meagre pay of eighteen pistoles a month. The Duke of Ormond, then an exile, took pity on his wife, and supported her for a time: she afterwards rejoined her mother at Madrid. Meanwhile, the year 1730 brought about a salutary change in the duke's morals. His health was fast giving way from the effects of divers excesses; and there is nothing like bad health for purging a bad soul. The end of a misspent life was fast drawing near, and he could only keep it up by broth with eggs beaten up in it. He lost the use of his limbs, but not of his gaiety. In the mountains of Catalonia he met with a mineral spring which did him some good; so much, in fact, that he was able to rejoin his regiment for a time. A fresh attack sent him back to the waters; but on his way he was so violently attacked that he was forced to stop at a little village. Here he found himself without the means of going farther, and in the worst state of health. The monks of a Bernardine convent took pity on him and received him into their house. He grew worse and worse; and in a week died on the 31st of May, without a friend to pity or attend him, among strangers, and at the early age of thirty-two. Thus ended the life of one of the cleverest fools that ever disgraced our peerage. LORD HERVEY. George II. arriving from Hanover.--His Meeting with the Queen.--Lady Suffolk.--Queen Caroline.--Sir Robert Walpole.--Lord Hervey.--A set of Fine Gentlemen.--An Eccentric Race.--Carr, Lord Hervey.--A Fragile Boy.--Description of George II.'s Family.--Anne Brett.--A Bitter Cup.--The Darling of the Family.--Evenings at St. James's.--Frederick, Prince of Wales.--Amelia Sophia Walmoden.--Poor Queen Caroline!--Nocturnal Diversions of Maids of Honour.--Neighbour George's Orange Chest.--Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey.--Rivalry.--Hervey's Intimacy with Lady Mary.--Relaxations of the Royal Household.--Bacon's Opinion of Twickenham.--A Visit to Pope's Villa.--The Little Nightingale.--The Essence of Small Talk.--Hervey's Affectation and Effeminacy.--Pope's Quarrel with Hervey and Lady Mary.--Hervey's Duel with Pulteney.--'The Death of Lord Hervey: a Drama.'--Queen Caroline's last Drawing-room.--Her Illness and Agony.--A Painful Scene.--The Truth discovered.--The Queen's Dying Bequests.--The King's Temper.--Archbishop Potter is sent for.--The Duty of Reconciliation.--The Death of Queen Caroline.--A Change in Hervey's Life.--Lord Hervey's Death.--Want of Christianity.--Memoirs of his Own Time. The village of Kensington was disturbed in its sweet repose one day, more than a century ago, by the rumbling of a ponderous coach and six, with four outriders and two equerries kicking up the dust; whilst a small body of heavy dragoons rode solemnly after the huge vehicle. It waded, with inglorious struggles, through a deep mire of mud, between the Palace and Hyde Park, until the cortège entered Kensington Park, as the gardens were then called, and began to track the old road that led to the red-brick structure to which William III. had added a higher story, built by Wren. There are two roads by which coaches could approach the house: 'one,' as the famous John, Lord Hervey, wrote to his mother, 'so convex, the other so concave, that, by this extreme of faults, they agree in the common one of being, like the high road, impassable.' The rumbling coach, with its plethoric steeds, toils slowly on, and reaches the dismal pile, of which no association is so precious as that of its having been the birthplace of our loved Victoria Regina. All around, as the emblazoned carriage impressively veers round into the grand entrance, savours of William and Mary, of Anne, of Bishop Burnet and Harley, Atterbury and Bolingbroke. But those were pleasant days compared to those of the second George, whose return from Hanover in this mountain of a coach is now described. The panting steeds are gracefully curbed by the state coachman in his scarlet livery, with his cocked-hat and gray wig underneath it: now the horses are foaming and reeking as if they had come from the world's end to Kensington, and yet they have only been to meet King George on his entrance into London, which he has reached from Helvoetsluys, on his way from Hanover, in time, as he expects, to spend his birthday among his English subjects. It is Sunday, and repose renders the retirement of Kensington and its avenues and shades more sombre than ever. Suburban retirement is usually so. It is noon; and the inmates of Kensington Palace are just coming forth from the chapel in the palace. The coach is now stopping, and the equerries are at hand to offer their respectful assistance to the diminutive figure that, in full Field-marshal regimentals, a cocked-hat stuck crosswise on his head, a sword dangling even down to his heels, ungraciously heeds them not, but stepping down, as the great iron gates are thrown open to receive him, looks neither like a king or a gentleman. A thin, worn face, in which weakness and passion are at once pictured; a form buttoned and padded up to the chin; high Hessian boots without a wrinkle; a sword and a swagger, no more constituting him the military character than the 'your majesty' from every lip can make a poor thing of clay a king. Such was George II.: brutal, even to his submissive wife. Stunted by nature, he was insignificant in form, as he was petty in character; not a trace of royalty could be found in that silly, tempestuous physiognomy, with its hereditary small head: not an atom of it in his made-up, paltry little presence; still less in his bearing, language, or qualities. The queen and her court have come from chapel, to meet the royal absentee at the great gate: the consort, who was to his gracious majesty like an elder sister rather than a wife, bends down, not to his knees, but yet she bends, to kiss the hand of her royal husband. She is a fair, fat woman, no longer young, scarcely comely; but with a charm of manners, a composure, and a _savoir faire_ that causes one to regard her as mated, not matched to the little creature in that cocked-hat, which he does not take off even when she stands before him. The pair, nevertheless, embrace: it is a triennial ceremony performed when the king goes or returns from Hanover, but suffered to lapse at other times; but the condescension is too great: and Caroline ends, where she began: 'gluing her lips to the ungracious hand held out to her in evident ill-humour. They turn, and walk through the court, then up the grand staircase, into the queen's apartment. The king has been swearing all the way at England and the English, because he has been obliged to return from Hanover, where the German mode of life and new mistresses were more agreeable to him than the English customs and an old wife. He displays, therefore, even on this supposed happy occasion, one of the worst outbreaks of his insufferable temper, of which the queen is the first victim. All the company in the palace, both ladies and gentlemen, are ordered to enter: he talks to them all, but to the queen he says not a word. She is attended by Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sundon, whose lively manners and great good temper and good will--lent out like leasehold to all, till she saw what their friendship might bring,--are always useful at these _tristes rencontres_. Mrs. Clayton is the amalgamating substance between chemical agents which have, of themselves, no cohesion; she covers with address what is awkward; she smooths down with something pleasant what is rude; she turns off--and her office in that respect is no sinecure at that court--what is indecent, so as to keep the small majority of the company who have respectable notions in good humour. To the right of Queen Caroline stands another of her majesty's household, to whom the most deferential attention is paid by all present; nevertheless, she is queen of the court, but not the queen of the royal master of that court. It is Lady Suffolk, the mistress of King George II., and long mistress of the robes to Queen Caroline. She is now past the bloom of youth, but her attractions are not in their wane; but endured until she had attained her seventy-ninth year. Of a middle height, well made, extremely fair, with very fine light hair, she attracts regard from her sweet, fresh face, which had in it a comeliness independent of regularity of feature. According to her invariable custom, she is dressed with simplicity; her silky tresses are drawn somewhat back from her snowy forehead, and fall in long tresses on her shoulders, not less transparently white. She wears a gown of rich silk, opening in front to display a chemisette of the most delicate cambric, which is scarcely less delicate than her skin. Her slender arms are without bracelets, and her taper fingers without rings. As she stands behind the queen, holding her majesty's fan and gloves, she is obliged, from her deafness, to lean her fair face with its sunny hair first to the right side, then to the left, with the helpless air of one exceedingly deaf--for she had been afflicted with that infirmity for some years: yet one cannot say whether her appealing looks, which seem to say, 'Enlighten me if you please,'--and the sort of softened manner in which she accepts civilities which she scarcely comprehends do not enhance the wonderful charm which drew every one who knew her towards this frail, but passionless woman. [Illustration: SCENE BEFORE KENSINGTON PALACE--GEORGE II. AND QUEEN CAROLINE.] The queen forms the centre of the group. Caroline, daughter of the Marquis of Brandenburgh-Anspach, notwithstanding her residence in England of many years, notwithstanding her having been, at the era at which this biography begins, ten years its queen--is still German in every attribute. She retains, in her fair and comely face, traces of having been handsome; but her skin is deeply scarred by the cruel small-pox. She is now at that time of life when Sir Robert Walpole even thought it expedient to reconcile her to no longer being an object of attraction to her royal consort. As a woman, she has ceased to be attractive to a man of the character of George II.; but, as a queen, she is still, as far as manners are concerned, incomparable. As she turns to address various members of the assembly, her style is full of sweetness as well as of courtesy, yet on other occasions she is majesty itself. The tones of her voice, with its still foreign accent, are most captivating; her eyes penetrate into every countenance on which they rest. Her figure, plump and matronly, has lost much of its contour; but is well suited for her part. Majesty in women should be _embonpoint_. Her hands are beautifully white, and faultless in shape. The king always admired her bust; and it is, therefore, by royal command, tolerably exposed. Her fair hair is upraised in full short curls over her brow: her dress is rich, and distinguished in that respect from that of the Countess of Suffolk.--'Her good Howard'--as she was wont to call her, when, before her elevation to the peerage, she was lady of the bedchamber to Caroline, had, when in that capacity, been often subjected to servile offices, which the queen, though apologizing in the sweetest manner, delighted to make her perform. 'My good Howard' having one day placed a handkerchief on the back of her royal mistress, the king, who half worshipped his intellectual wife, pulled it off in a passion, saying, 'Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you hide the queen's!' All, however, that evening was smooth as ice, and perhaps as cold also. The company are quickly dismissed, and the king, who has scarcely spoken to the queen, retires to his closet, where he is attended by the subservient Caroline, and by two other persons. Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister, has accompanied the king in his carriage, from the very entrance of London, where the famous statesman met him. He is now the privileged companion of their majesties, in their seclusion for the rest of the evening. His cheerful face, in its full evening disguise of wig and tie, his invariable good humour, his frank manners, his wonderful sense, his views, more practical than elevated, sufficiently account for the influence which this celebrated minister obtained over Queen Caroline, and the readiness of King George to submit to the tie. But Sir Robert's great source of ascendancy was his temper. Never was there in the annals of our country a minister so free of access: so obliging in giving, so unoffending when he refused; so indulgent and kind to those dependent on him; so generous, so faithful to his friends, so forgiving to his foes. This was his character under one phase: even his adherents sometimes blamed his easiness of temper; the impossibility in his nature to cherish the remembrance of a wrong, or even to be roused by an insult. But, whilst such were the amiable traits of his character, history has its lists of accusations against him for corruption of the most shameless description. The end of this veteran statesman's career is well known. The fraudulent contracts which he gave, the peculation and profusion of the secret service money, his undue influence at elections, brought around his later life a storm, from which he retreated into the Upper House, when created Earl of Orford. It was before this timely retirement from office that he burst forth in these words: 'I oppose nothing; give in to everything; am said to do everything; and to answer for everything; and yet, God knows, I dare not do what I think is right.' With his public capacity, however, we have not here to do: it is in his character of a courtier that we view him following the queen and king. His round, complacent face, with his small glistening eyes, arched eyebrows, and with a mouth ready to break out aloud into a laugh, are all subdued into a respectful gravity as he listens to King George grumbling at the necessity for his return home. No English cook could dress a dinner; no English cook could select a dessert; no English coachman could drive; nor English jockey ride; no Englishman--such were his habitual taunts--knew how to come into a room; no Englishwoman understood how to dress herself. The men, he said, talked of nothing but their dull politics, and the women of nothing but their ugly clothes. Whereas, in Hanover, all these things were at perfection: men were patterns of politeness and gallantry; women, of beauty, wit, and entertainment. His troops there were the bravest in the world; his manufacturers the most ingenious; his people the happiest: in Hanover, in short, plenty reigned, riches flowed, arts flourished, magnificence abounded, everything was in abundance that could make a prince great, or a people blessed. There was one standing behind the queen who listened to these outbreaks of the king's bilious temper, as he called it, with an apparently respectful solicitude, but with the deepest disgust in his heart. A slender, elegant figure, in a court suit, faultlessly and carefully perfect in that costume, stands behind the queen's chair. It is Lord Hervey. His lofty forehead, his features, which have a refinement of character, his well-turned mouth, and full and dimpled chin, form his claims to that beauty which won the heart of the lovely Mary Lepel; whilst the somewhat thoughtful and pensive expression of his physiognomy, when in repose, indicated the sympathising, yet, at the same time, satirical character of one who won the affections, perhaps unconsciously, of the amiable Princess Caroline, the favourite daughter of George II. A general air of languor, ill concealed by the most studied artifice of countenance, and even of posture, characterizes Lord Hervey. He would have abhorred robustness; for he belonged to the clique then called Maccaronis; a set of fine gentlemen, of whom the present world would not be worthy, tricked out for show, fitted only to drive out fading majesty in a stage coach; exquisite in every personal appendage, too fine for the common usages of society; _point-device_, not only in every curl and ruffle, but in every attitude and step; men with full satin roses on their shining shoes; diamond tablet rings on their forefingers; with snuff-boxes, the worth of which might almost purchase a farm; lace worked by the delicate fingers of some religious recluse of an ancestress, and taken from an altar-cloth; old point-lace, dark as coffee-water could make it; with embroidered waistcoats, wreathed in exquisite tambour-work round each capricious lappet and pocket; with cut steel buttons that glistened beneath the courtly wax-lights: with these and fifty other small but costly characteristics that established the reputation of an aspirant Maccaroni. Lord Hervey was, in truth, an effeminate creature: too dainty to walk; too precious to commit his frame to horseback; and prone to imitate the somewhat recluse habits which German rulers introduced within the court: he was disposed to candle-light pleasures and cockney diversions; to Marybone and the Mall, and shrinking from the athletic and social recreations which, like so much that was manly and English, were confined almost to the English squire _pur et simple_ after the Hanoverian accession; when so much degeneracy for a while obscured the English character, debased its tone, enervated its best races, vilified its literature, corrupted its morals, changed its costume, and degraded its architecture. Beneath the effeminacy of the Maccaroni, Lord Hervey was one of the few who united to intense _finery_ in every minute detail, an acute and cultivated intellect. To perfect a Maccaroni it was in truth advisable, if not essential, to unite some smattering of learning, a pretension to wit, to his super-dandyism; to be the author of some personal squib, or the translator of some classic. Queen Caroline was too cultivated herself to suffer fools about her, and Lord Hervey was a man after her own taste; as a courtier he was essentially a fine gentleman; and, more than that, he could be the most delightful companion, the most sensible adviser, and the most winning friend in the court. His ill-health, which he carefully concealed, his fastidiousness, his ultra-delicacy of habits, formed an agreeable contrast to the coarse robustness of 'Sir Robert,' and constituted a relief after the society of the vulgar, strong-minded minister, who was born for the hustings and the House of Commons rather than for the courtly drawing-room. John Lord Hervey, long vice-chamberlain to Queen Caroline, was, like Sir Robert Walpole, descended from a commoner's family, one of those good old squires who lived, as Sir Henry Wotton says, 'without lustre and without obscurity.' The Duchess of Marlborough had procured the elevation of the Herveys of Ickworth to the peerage. She happened to be intimate with Sir Thomas Felton, the father of Mrs. Hervey, afterwards Lady Bristol, whose husband, at first created Lord Hervey, and afterwards Earl of Bristol, expressed his obligations by retaining as his motto, when raised to the peerage, the words 'Je n'oublieray jàmais,' in allusion to the service done him by the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. The Herveys had always been an eccentric race; and the classification of 'men, women, and Herveys,' by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, was not more witty than true. There was in the whole race an eccentricity which bordered on the ridiculous, but did not imply want of sense or of talent. Indeed this third species, 'the Herveys,' were more gifted than the generality of 'men and women.' The father of Lord Hervey had been a country gentleman of good fortune, living at Ickworth, near Bury in Suffolk, and representing the town in parliament, as his father had before him, until raised to the peerage. Before that elevation he had lived on in his own county, uniting the character of the English squire, in that fox-hunting county, with that of a perfect gentleman, a scholar, and a most admirable member of society. He was a poet, also, affecting the style of Cowley, who wrote an elegy upon his uncle, William Hervey, an elegy compared to Milton's 'Lycidas' in imagery, music, and tenderness of thought. The shade of Cowley, whom Charles II. pronounced, at his death, to be 'the best man in England,' haunted this peer, the first Earl of Bristol. He aspired especially to the poet's _wit_; and the ambition to be a wit flew like wildfire among his family, especially infecting his two sons, Carr, the elder brother of the subject of this memoir, and Lord Hervey. It would have been well could the Earl of Bristol have transmitted to his sons his other qualities. He was pious, moral, affectionate, sincere; a consistent Whig of the old school, and, as such, disapproving of Sir Robert Walpole, of the standing army, the corruptions, and that doctrine of expediency so unblushingly avowed by the ministers. Created Earl of Bristol in 1714, the heir-apparent to his titles and estates was the elder brother, by a former marriage, of John, Lord Hervey; the dissolute, clever, whimsical Carr, Lord Hervey. Pope, in one of his satirical appeals to the _second_ Lord Hervey, speaks of his friendship with Carr, 'whose early death deprived the family' (of Hervey) 'of as much wit and honour as he left behind him in any part of it.' The _wit_ was a family attribute, but the _honour_ was dubious: Carr was as deistical as any Maccaroni of the day, and, perhaps, more dissolute than most: in one respect he has left behind him a celebrity which may be as questionable as his wit, or his honour; he is reputed to be the father of Horace Walpole, and if we accept presumptive evidence of the fact, the statement is clearly borne out, for in his wit, his indifference to religion, to say the least, his satirical turn, his love of the world, and his contempt of all that was great and good, he strongly resembles his reputed son; whilst the levity of Lady Walpole's character, and Sir Robert's laxity and dissoluteness, do not furnish any reasonable doubt to the statement made by Lady Louisa Stuart, in the introduction to Lord Wharncliffe's 'Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.' Carr, Lord Hervey, died early, and his half-brother succeeded him in his title and expectations. John, Lord Hervey, was educated first at Westminster School, under Dr. Freind, the friend of Mrs. Montagu; thence he was removed to Clare Hall, Cambridge: he graduated as a nobleman, and became M.A. in 1715. At Cambridge Lord Hervey might have acquired some manly prowess; but he had a mother who was as strange as the family into which she had married, and who was passionately devoted to her son: she evinced her affection by never letting him have a chance of being like other English boys. When his father was at Newmarket, Jack Hervey, as he was called, was to ride a race, to please his father; but his mother could not risk her dear boy's safety, and the race was won by a jockey. He was as precious and as fragile as porcelain: the elder brother's death made the heir of the Herveys more valuable, more effeminate, and more controlled than ever by his eccentric mother. A court was to be his hemisphere, and to that all his views, early in life, tended. He went to Hanover to pay his court to George I.: Carr had done the same, and had come back enchanted with George, the heir-presumptive, who made him one of the lords of the bedchamber. Jack Hervey also returned full of enthusiasm for the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., and the Princess; and that visit influenced his destiny. He now proposed making the grand tour, which comprised Paris, Germany, and Italy. But his mother again interfered: she wept, she exhorted, she prevailed. Means were refused, and the stripling was recalled to hang about the court, or to loiter at Ickworth, scribbling verses, and causing his father uneasiness lest he should be too much of a poet, and too little of a public man. Such was his youth: disappointed by not obtaining a commission in the Guards, he led a desultory butterfly-like life; one day at Richmond with Queen Caroline, then Princess of Wales; another, at Pope's villa, at Twickenham; sometimes in the House of Commons, in which he succeeded his elder brother as member for Bury; and, at the period when he has been described as forming one of the quartett in Queen Caroline's closet at St. James's, as vice-chamberlain to his partial and royal patroness. His early marriage with Mary Lepel, the beautiful maid of honour to Queen Caroline, insured his felicity, though it did not curb his predilections for other ladies. Henceforth Lord Hervey lived all the year round in what were then called lodgings, that is, apartments appropriated to the royal household, or even to others, in St. James's, or at Richmond, or at Windsor. In order fully to comprehend all the intimate relations which he had with the court, it is necessary to present the reader with some account of the family of George II. Five daughters had been the female issue of his majesty's marriage with Queen Caroline. Three of these princesses, the three elder ones, had lived, during the life of George I., at St. James's with their grandfather; who, irritated by the differences between him and his son, then Prince of Wales, adopted that measure rather as showing his authority than from any affection to the young princesses. It was, in truth, difficult to say which of these royal ladies was the most unfortunate. Anne, the eldest, had shown her spirit early in life whilst residing with George I.; she had a proud, imperious nature, and her temper was, it must be owned, put to a severe test. The only time that George I. did the English the _honour_ of choosing one of the beauties of the nation for his mistress, was during the last year of his reign. The object of his choice was Anne Brett, the eldest daughter of the infamous Countess of Macclesfield by her second husband. The neglect of Savage, the poet, her son, was merely one passage in the iniquitous life of Lady Macclesfield. Endowed with singular taste and judgment, consulted by Colley Cibber on every new play he produced, the mother of Savage was not only wholly destitute of all virtue, but of all shame. One day, looking out of the window, she perceived a very handsome man assaulted by some bailiffs who were going to arrest him: she paid his debt, released, and married him. The hero of this story was Colonel Brett, the father of Anne Brett. The child of such a mother was not likely to be even decently-respectable; and Anne was proud of her disgraceful preeminence and of her disgusting and royal lover. She was dark, and her flashing black eyes resembled those of a Spanish beauty. Ten years after the death of George I., she found a husband in Sir William Leman, of Northall, and was announced, on that occasion, as the half-sister of Richard Savage. To the society of this woman, when at St. James's, as 'Mistress Brett,' the three princesses were subjected: at the same time the Duchess of Kendal, the king's German mistress, occupied other lodgings at St. James's. Miss Brett was to be rewarded with the coronet of a countess for her degradation, the king being absent on the occasion at Hanover; elated by her expectations, she took the liberty, during his majesty's absence, of ordering a door to be broken out of her apartment into the royal garden, where the princesses walked. The Princess Anne, not deigning to associate with her, commanded that it should be forthwith closed. Miss Brett imperiously reversed that order. In the midst of the affair, the king died suddenly, and Anne Brett's reign was over, and her influence soon as much forgotten as if she had never existed. The Princess Anne was pining in the dulness of her royal home, when a marriage with the Prince of Orange, was proposed for the consideration of his parents. It was a miserable match as well as a miserable prospect, for the prince's revenue amounted to no more than £12,000 a year; and the state and pomp to which the Princess Royal had been accustomed could not be contemplated on so small a fortune. It was still worse in point of that poor consideration, happiness. The Prince of Orange was both deformed and disgusting in his person, though his face was sensible in expression; and if he inspired one idea more strongly than another when he appeared in his uniform and cocked hat, and spoke bad French, or worse English, it was that of seeing before one a dressed-up baboon. It was a bitter cup for the princess to drink, but she drank it: she reflected that it might be the only way of quitting a court where, in case of her father's death, she would be dependent on her brother Frederick, or on that weak prince's strong-minded wife. So she consented, and took the dwarf; and that consent was regarded by a grateful people, and by all good courtiers, as a sacrifice for the sake of Protestant principles, the House of Orange being, _par excellence_, at the head of the orthodox dynasties in Europe. A dowry of £80,000 was forthwith granted by an admiring Commons--just double what had ever been given before. That sum was happily lying in the exchequer, being the purchase-money of some lands in St. Christopher's which had lately been sold; and King George was thankful to get rid of a daughter whose haughtiness gave him trouble. In person, too, the princess royal was not very ornamental to the Court. She was ill-made, with a propensity to grow fat; her complexion, otherwise very fine, was marked with the small-pox; she had, however, a lively, clean look--one of her chief beauties--and a certain royalty of manner. The Princess Amelia died, as the world thought, single, but consoled herself with various love flirtations. The Duke of Newcastle made love to her, but her affections were centred on the Duke of Grafton, to whom she was privately married, as is confidently asserted. The Princess Caroline was the darling of her family. Even the king relied on her truth. When there was any dispute, he used to say, 'Send for Caroline; she will tell us the right story.' Her fate had its clouds. Amiable, gentle, of unbounded charity, with strong affections, which were not suffered to flow in a legitimate channel, she became devotedly attached to Lord Hervey: her heart was bound up in him; his death drove her into a permanent retreat from the world. No debasing connection existed between them; but it is misery, it is sin enough to love another woman's husband--and that sin, that misery, was the lot of the royal and otherwise virtuous Caroline. The Princess Mary, another victim to conventionalities, was united to Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse Cassel; a barbarian, from whom she escaped, whenever she could, to come, with a bleeding heart, to her English home. She was, even Horace Walpole allows, 'of the softest, mildest temper in the world,' and fondly beloved by her sister Caroline, and by the 'Butcher of Culloden,' William, Duke of Cumberland. Louisa became Queen of Denmark in 1746, after some years' marriage to the Crown Prince. 'We are lucky,' Horace Walpole writes on that occasion, 'in the death of kings.' The two princesses who were still under the paternal roof were contrasts. Caroline was a constant invalid, gentle, sincere, unambitious, devoted to her mother, whose death nearly killed her. Amelia affected popularity, and assumed the _esprit fort_--was fond of meddling in politics, and after the death of her mother, joined the Bedford faction, in opposition to her father. But both these princesses were outwardly submissive when Lord Hervey became the Queen's chamberlain. The evenings at St. James's were spent in the same way as those at Kensington. Quadrille formed her majesty's pastime, and, whilst Lord Hervey played pools of cribbage with the Princess Caroline and the maids of honour, the Duke of Cumberland amused himself and the Princess Amelia at 'buffet.' On Mondays and Fridays there were drawing-rooms held; and these receptions took place, very wisely, in the evening. Beneath all the show of gaiety and the freezing ceremony of those stately occasions, there was in that court as much misery as family dissensions, or, to speak accurately, family hatreds can engender. Endless jealousies, which seem to us as frivolous as they were rabid; and contentions, of which even the origin is still unexplained, had long severed the queen from her eldest son. George II. had always loved his mother: his affection for the unhappy Sophia Dorothea was one of the very few traits of goodness in a character utterly vulgar, sensual, and entirely selfish. His son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, on the other hand, hated his mother. He loved neither of his parents: but the queen had the preeminence in his aversion. The king, during the year 1736, was at Hanover. His return was announced, but under circumstances of danger. A tremendous storm arose just as he was prepared to embark at Helvoetsluys. All London was on the look out, weather-cocks were watched; tides, winds, and moons formed the only subjects of conversation; but no one of his majesty's subjects was so demonstrative as the Prince of Wales, and his cheerfulness, and his triumph even, on the occasion, were of course resentfully heard of by the queen. During the storm, when anxiety had almost amounted to fever, Lord Hervey dined with Sir Robert Walpole. Their conversation naturally turned on the state of affairs, prospectively. Sir Robert called the prince a 'poor, weak, irresolute, false, lying, contemptible wretch.' Lord Hervey did not defend him, but suggested that Frederick, in case of his father's death, might be more influenced by the queen than he had hitherto been. 'Zounds, my lord!' interrupted Sir Robert, 'he would tear the flesh off her bones with red-hot irons sooner! The distinctions she shows to you, too, I believe, would not be forgotten. Then the notion he has of his great riches, and the desire he has of fingering them, would make him pinch her, and pinch her again, in order to make her buy her ease, till she had not a groat left.' What a picture of a heartless and selfish character! The next day the queen sent for Lord Hervey, to ask him if he knew the particulars of a great dinner which the prince had given to the lord mayor the previous day, whilst the whole country, and the court in particular, was trembling for the safety of the king, his father. Lord Hervey told her that the prince's speech at the dinner was the most ingratiating piece of popularity ever heard; the healths, of course, as usual. 'Heavens!' cried the queen: 'popularity always makes me sick, but _Fritz's_ popularity makes me vomit! I hear that yesterday, on the prince's side of the House, they talked of the king's being cast away with the same _sang froid_ as you would talk of an overturn; and that my good son strutted about as if he had been already king. Did you mark the airs with which he came into my drawing-room in the morning? though he does not think fit to honour me with his presence, or _ennui_ me with his wife's, of an evening? I felt something here in my throat that swelled and half-choked me.' Poor Queen Caroline! with such a son, and such a husband, she must have been possessed of a more than usual share of German imperturbability to sustain her cheerfulness, writhing, as she often was, under the pangs of a long-concealed disorder, of which eventually she died. Even on the occasion of the king's return in time to spend his birthday in England, the queen's temper had been sorely tried. Nothing had ever vexed her more than the king's admiration for Amelia Sophia Walmoden, who, after the death of Caroline, was created Countess of Yarmouth. Madame Walmoden had been a reigning belle among the married women at Hanover, when George II. visited that country in 1735. Not that her majesty's affections were wounded; it was her pride that was hurt by the idea that people would think that this Hanoverian lady had more influence than she had. In other respects the king's absence was a relief: she had the _éclat_ of the regency; she had the comfort of having the hours which her royal torment decreed were to be passed in amusing his dulness, to herself; she was free from his 'quotidian sallies of temper, which,' as Lord Hervey relates, 'let it be charged by what hand it would, used always to discharge its hottest fire, on some pretence or other, upon her.' It is quite true that from the first dawn of his preference for Madame Walmoden, the king wrote circumstantial letters of fifty or sixty pages to the queen, informing her of every stage of the affair; the queen, in reply, saying that she was only _one_ woman, and an old woman, and adding, 'that he might love _more and younger women_.' In return, the king wrote, 'You must love the Walmoden, for she loves _you_;' a civil insult, which he accompanied with so minute a description of his new favourite, that the queen, had she been a painter, might have drawn her portrait at a hundred miles' distance. The queen, subservient as she seemed, felt the humiliation. Such was the debased nature of George II. that he not only wrote letters unworthy of a man to write, and unfit for a woman to read, to his wife, but he desired her to show them to Sir Robert Walpole. He used to 'tag several paragraphs,' as Lord Hervey expresses it, with these words, '_Montrez ceci, et consultez la-dessus de gros homme_,' meaning Sir Robert. But this was only a portion of the disgusting disclosures made by the vulgar licentious monarch to his too degraded consort. In the bitterness of her mortification the queen consulted Lord Hervey and Sir Robert as to the possibility of her losing her influence, should she resent the king's delay in returning. They agreed, that her taking the '_fière_ turn' would ruin her with her royal consort; Sir Robert adding, that if he had a mind to flatter her into her ruin, he might talk to her as if she were twenty-five, and try to make her imagine that she could bring the king back by the apprehension of losing her affection. He said it was now too late in her life to try new methods; she must persist in the soothing, coaxing, submissive arts which had been practised with success, and even press his majesty to bring this woman to England! 'He taught her,' says Lord Hervey, 'this hard lesson till she _wept_.' Nevertheless, the queen expressed her gratitude to the minister for his advice. 'My lord,' said Walpole to Hervey, 'she laid her thanks on me so thick that I found I had gone too far, for I am never so much afraid of her rebukes as of her commendations.' Such was the state of affairs between this singular couple. Nevertheless, the queen, not from attachment to the king, but from the horror she had of her son's reigning, felt such fears of the prince's succeeding to the throne as she could hardly express. He would, she was convinced, do all he could to ruin and injure her in case of his accession to the throne. The consolation of such a friend as Lord Hervey can easily be conceived, when he told her majesty that he had resolved, in case the king had been lost at sea, to have retired from her service, in order to prevent any jealousy or irritation that might arise from his supposed influence with her majesty. The queen stopped him short, and said, 'No, my lord, I should never have suffered that; you are one of the greatest pleasures of my life. But did I love you less than I do, or less like to have you about me, I should look upon the suffering you to be taken from me as such a meanness and baseness that you should not have stirred an inch from me. You,' she added, 'should have gone with me to Somerset House;' (which was hers in case of the king's death). She then told him she should have begged Sir Robert Walpole on her knees not to have sent in his resignation. The animosity of the Prince of Wales to Lord Hervey augmented, there can be no doubt, his unnatural aversion to the queen, an aversion which he evinced early in life. There was a beautiful, giddy maid of honour, who attracted not only the attention of Frederick, but the rival attentions of other suitors, and among them, the most favoured was said to be Lord Hervey, notwithstanding that he had then been for some years the husband of one of the loveliest ornaments of the court, the sensible and virtuous Mary Lepel. Miss Vane became eventually the avowed favourite of the prince, and after giving birth to a son, who was christened Fitz-Frederick Vane, and who died in 1736, his unhappy mother died a few months afterwards. It is melancholy to read a letter from Lady Hervey to Mrs. Howard, portraying the frolic and levity of this once joyous creature, among the other maids of honour; and her strictures show at once the unrefined nature of the pranks in which they indulged, and her once sobriety of demeanour. She speaks, on one occasion, in which, however, Miss Vane did not share the nocturnal diversion, of some of the maids of honour being out in the winter all night in the gardens at Kensington--opening and rattling the windows, and trying to frighten people out of their wits; and she gives Mrs. Howard a hint that the queen ought to be informed of the way in which her young attendants amused themselves. After levities such as these, it is not surprising to find poor Miss Vane writing to Mrs. Howard, with complaints that she was unjustly aspersed, and referring to her relatives, Lady Betty Nightingale and Lady Hewet, in testimony of the falsehood of reports which, unhappily, the event verified. The prince, however, never forgave Lord Hervey for being his rival with Miss Vane, nor his mother for her favours to Lord Hervey. In vain did the queen endeavour to reconcile Fritz, as she called him, to his father;--nothing could be done in a case where the one was all dogged selfishness; and where the other, the idol of the opposition party, as the prince had ever been, so _legère de tête_ as to swallow all the adulation offered to him, and to believe himself a demigod. 'The queen's dread of a rival,' Horace Walpole remarks, 'was a feminine weakness: the behaviour of her eldest son was a real thorn.' Some time before his marriage to a princess who was supposed to augment his hatred of his mother, Frederick of Wales had contemplated an act of disobedience. Soon after his arrival in England, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, hearing that he was in want of money, had sent to offer him her granddaughter, Lady Diana Spencer, with a fortune of £100,000. The prince accepted the young lady, and a day was fixed for his marriage in the duchess's lodge at the Great Park, Windsor. But Sir Robert Walpole, getting intelligence of the plot, the nuptials were stopped. The duchess never forgave either Walpole or the royal family, and took an early opportunity of insulting the latter. When the Prince of Orange came over to marry the Princess Royal, a sort of boarded gallery was erected from the windows of the great drawing-room of the palace, and was constructed so as to cross the garden to the Lutheran chapel in the Friary, where the duchess lived. The Prince of Orange being ill, went to Bath, and the marriage was delayed for some weeks. Meantime the widows of Marlborough House were darkened by the gallery. 'I wonder,' cried the old duchess, 'when my neighbour George will take away his orange-chest!' The structure, with its pent-house roof, really resembling an orange-chest. Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey, whose attractions, great as they were, proved insufficient to rivet the exclusive admiration of the accomplished Hervey, had become his wife in 1720, some time before her husband had been completely enthralled with the gilded prison doors of a court. She was endowed with that intellectual beauty calculated to attract a man of talent: she was highly educated, of great talent; possessed of _savoir faire_, infinite good temper, and a strict sense of duty. She also derived from her father, Brigadier Lepel, who was of an ancient family in Sark, a considerable fortune. Good and correct as she was, Lady Hervey viewed with a fashionable composure the various intimacies formed during the course of their married life by his lordship. The fact is, that the aim of both was not so much to insure their domestic felicity as to gratify their ambition. Probably they were disappointed in both these aims--certainly in one of them; talented, indefatigable, popular, lively, and courteous, Lord Hervey, in the House of Commons, advocated in vain, in brilliant orations, the measures of Walpole. Twelve years, fourteen years elapsed, and he was left in the somewhat subordinate position of vice-chamberlain, in spite of that high order of talents which he possessed, and which would have been displayed to advantage in a graver scene. The fact has been explained: the queen could not do without him; she confided in him; her daughter loved him; and his influence in that court was too powerful for Walpole to dispense with an aid so valuable to his own plans. Some episodes in a life thus frittered away, until, too late, promotion came, alleviated his existence, and gave his wife only a passing uneasiness, if even indeed they imparted a pang. One of these was his dangerous passion for Miss Vane; another, his platonic attachment to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Whilst he lived on the terms with his wife which is described even by the French as being a '_Ménage de Paris_,' Lord Hervey, found in another quarter the sympathies which, as a husband, he was too well-bred to require. It is probable that he always admired his wife more than any other person, for she had qualities that were quite congenial to the tastes of a wit and a beau in those times. Lady Hervey was not only singularly captivating, young, gay, and handsome; but a complete model also of the polished, courteous, high-bred woman of fashion. Her manners are said by Lady Louisa Stuart to have 'had a foreign tinge, which some called affected; but they were gentle, easy, and altogether exquisitely pleasing.' She was in secret a Jacobite--and resembled in that respect most of the fine ladies in Great Britain. Whiggery and Walpolism were vulgar: it was _haut ton_ to take offence when James II. was anathematized, and quite good taste to hint that some people wished well to the Chevalier's attempts: and this way of speaking owed its fashion probably to Frederick of Wales, whose interest in Flora Macdonald, and whose concern for the exiled family, were among the few amiable traits of his disposition. Perhaps they arose from a wish to plague his parents, rather than from a greatness of character foreign to this prince. Lady Hervey was in the bloom of youth, Lady Mary in the zenith of her age, when they became rivals: Lady Mary had once excited the jealousy of Queen Caroline when Princess of Wales. 'How becomingly Lady Mary is dressed to-night,' whispered George II. to his wife, whom he had called up from the card-table to impart to her that important conviction. 'Lady Mary always dresses well,' was the cold and curt reply. Lord Hervey had been married about seven years when Lady Mary Wortley Montagu re-appeared at the court of Queen Caroline, after her long residence in Turkey. Lord Hervey was thirty-three years of age; Lady Mary was verging on forty. She was still a pretty woman, with a piquant, neat-featured face; which does not seem to have done any justice to a mind at once masculine and sensitive, nor to a heart capable of benevolence--capable of strong attachments, and of bitter hatred. Like Lady Hervey, she lived with her husband on well-bred terms: there existed no quarrel between them; no avowed ground of coldness; it was the icy boundary of frozen feeling that severed them; the sure and lasting though polite destroyer of all bonds, indifference. Lady Mary was full of repartee, of poetry, of anecdote, and was not averse to admiration; but she was essentially a woman of common sense, of views enlarged by travel, and of ostensibly good principles. A woman of delicacy was not to be found in those days, any more than other productions of the nineteenth century: a telegraphic message would have been almost as startling to a courtly ear as the refusal of a fine lady to suffer a _double entendre_. Lady Mary was above all scruples, and Lord Hervey, who had lived too long with George II. and his queen to have the moral sense in her perfection, liked her all the better for her courage--her merry, indelicate jokes, and her putting things down by their right names, on which Lady Mary plumed herself: she was what they term in the north of England, 'Emancipated.' They formed an old acquaintance with a confidential, if not a tender friendship; and that their intimacy was unpleasant to Lady Hervey was proved by her refusal--when, after the grave had closed over Lord Hervey, late in life, Lady Mary ill, and broken down by age, returned to die in England--to resume an acquaintance which had been a painful one to her. Lord Hervey was a martyr to illness of an epileptic character; and Lady Mary gave him her sympathy. She was somewhat of a doctor--and being older than her friend, may have had the art of soothing sufferings, which were the worse because they were concealed. Whilst he writhed in pain, he was obliged to give vent to his agony by alleging that an attack of cramp bent him double: yet he lived by rule--a rule harder to adhere to than that of the most conscientious homoeopath in the present day. In the midst of court gaieties and the duties of office, he thus wrote to Dr. Cheyne:-- ... 'To let you know that I continue one of your most pious votaries, and to tell you the method I am in. In the first place, I never take wine nor malt drink, nor any liquid but water and milk-tea; in the next, I eat no meat but the whitest, youngest, and tenderest, nine times in ten nothing but chicken, and never more than the quantity of a small one at a meal. I seldom eat any supper, but if any, nothing absolutely but bread and water; two days in the week I eat no flesh; my breakfast is dry biscuit, not sweet, and green tea; I have left off butter as bilious; I eat no salt, nor any sauce but bread-sauce.' Among the most cherished relaxations of the royal household were visits to Twickenham, whilst the court was at Richmond. The River Thames, which has borne on its waves so much misery in olden times--which was the highway from the Star-chamber to the tower--which has been belaboured in our days with so much wealth, and sullied with so much impurity; that river, whose current is one hour rich as the stream of a gold river, the next hour, foul as the pestilent churchyard,--was then, especially between Richmond and Teddington, a glassy, placid stream, reflecting on its margin the chestnut-trees of stately Ham, and the reeds and wild flowers which grew undisturbed in the fertile meadows of Petersham. Lord Hervey, with the ladies of the court, Mrs. Howard as their chaperon, delighted in being wafted to that village, so rich in names which give to Twickenham undying associations with the departed great. Sometimes the effeminate valetudinarian, Hervey, was content to attend the Princess Caroline to Marble Hill only, a villa residence built by George II. for Mrs. Howard, and often referred to in the correspondence of that period. Sometimes the royal barge, with its rowers in scarlet jackets, was seen conveying the gay party; ladies in slouched hats, pointed over fair brows in front, with a fold of sarsenet round them, terminated in a long bow and ends behind--with deep falling mantles over dresses never cognizant of crinoline: gentlemen, with cocked-hats, their bag-wigs and ties appearing behind; and beneath their puce-coloured coats, delicate silk tights and gossamer stockings were visible, as they trod the mossy lawn of the Palace Gardens at Richmond, or, followed by a tiny greyhound, prepared for the lazy pleasures of the day. Sometimes the visit was private; the sickly Princess Caroline had a fancy to make one of the group who are bound to Pope's villa. Twickenham, where that great little man had, since 1715, established himself, was pronounced by Lord Bacon to be the finest place in the world for study. 'Let Twitnam Park,' he wrote to his steward, Thomas Bushell, 'which I sold in my younger days, be purchased, if possible, for a residence for such deserving persons to study in, (since I experimentally found the situation of that place much convenient for the trial of my philosophical conclusions)--expressed in a paper sealed, to the trust--which I myself had put in practice and settled the same by act of parliament, if the vicissitudes of fortune had not intervened and prevented me.' Twickenham continued, long after Bacon had penned this injunction, to be the retreat of the poet, the statesman, the scholar; the haven where the retired actress, and broken novelist found peace; the abode of Henry Fielding, who lived in one of the back-streets; the temporary refuge, from the world of London, of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the life-long home of Pope. Let us picture to ourselves a visit from the princess to Pope's villa:--As the barge, following the gentle bendings of the river, nears Twickenham, a richer green, a summer brightness, indicates it is approaching that spot of which even Bishop Warburton says that 'the beauty of the owner's poetic genius appeared to as much advantage in the disposition of these romantic materials as in any of his best-contrived poems.' And the loved toil which formed the quincunx, which perforated and extended the grotto until it extended across the road to a garden on the opposite side--the toil which showed the gentler parts of Pope's better nature--has been respected, and its effects preserved. The enamelled lawn, green as no other grass save that by the Thames side is green, was swept until late years by the light boughs of the famed willow. Every memorial of the bard was treasured by the gracious hands into which, after 1744, the classic spot fell--those of Sir William Stanhope. In the subterranean passage this verse appears; adulatory it must be confessed:-- 'The humble roof, the garden's scanty line, Ill suit the genius of the bard divine; But fancy now assumes a fairer scope, And Stanhope's plans unfold the soul of Pope.' It should have been Stanhope's 'gold,'--a metal which was not so abundant, nor indeed so much wanted in Pope's time as in our own. Let us picture to ourselves the poet as a host. As the barge is moored close to the low steps which lead up from the river to the villa, a diminutive figure, then in its prime, (if prime it _ever_ had), is seen moving impatiently forward. By that young-old face, with its large lucid speaking eyes that light it up, as does a rushlight in a cavern--by that twisted figure with its emaciated legs--by the large, sensible mouth, the pointed, marked, well-defined nose--by the wig, or hair pushed off in masses from the broad forehead and falling behind in tresses--by the dress, that loose, single-breasted black coat--by the cambric band and plaited shirt, without a frill, but fine and white, for the poor poet has taken infinite pains that day in self-adornment--by the delicate ruffle on that large thin hand, and still more by the clear, most musical voice which is heard welcoming his royal and noble guests, as he stands bowing low to the Princess Caroline, and bending to kiss hands--by that voice which gained him more especially the name of the little nightingale--is Pope at once recognized, and Pope in the perfection of his days, in the very zenith of his fame. One would gladly have been a sprite to listen from some twig of that then stripling willow which the poet had planted with his own hand, to talk of those who chatted for a while under its shade, before they went in-doors to an elegant dinner at the usual hour of twelve. How delightful to hear, unseen, the repartees of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who comes down, it is natural to conclude, from her villa near to that of Pope. How fine a study might one not draw of the fine gentleman and the wit in Lord Hervey, as he is commanded by the gentle Princess Caroline to sit on her right hand; but his heart is across the table, with Lady Mary! How amusing to observe the dainty but not sumptuous repast contrived with Pope's exquisite taste, but regulated by his habitual economy--for his late father, a worthy Jacobite hatter, erst in the Strand, disdained to invest the fortune he had amassed, from the extensive sale of cocked-hats, in the Funds, over which an Hanoverian stranger ruled; but had lived on his capital of £20,000 (as spendthrifts do, without either moral, religious, or political reasons), as long as it lasted him; yet _he_ was no spendthrift. Let us look, therefore, with a liberal eye, noting, as we stand, how that fortune, in league with nature, who made the poet crooked, had maimed two of his fingers, such time as, passing a bridge, the poor little poet was overturned into the river, and he would have been drowned, had not the postilion broken the coach window and dragged the tiny body through the aperture. We mark, however, that he generally contrives to hide this defect, as he would fain have hidden every other, from the lynx eyes of Lady Mary, who knows him, however, thoroughly, and reads every line of that poor little heart of his, enamoured of her as it was. [Illustration: POPE AT HIS VILLA--DISTINGUISHED VISITORS.] Then the conversation! How gladly would we catch here some drops of what must have been the very essence of small-talk, and small-talk is the only thing fit for early dinners! Our host is noted for his easy address, his engaging manners, his delicacy, politeness, and a certain tact he had of showing every guest that he was welcome in the choicest expressions and most elegant terms. Then Lady Mary! how brilliant is her slightest turn! how she banters Pope--how she gives _double entendre_ for _double entendre_ to Hervey! How sensible, yet how gay is all she says; how bright, how cutting, yet how polished is the _équivoque_ of the witty, high-bred Hervey! He is happy that day--away from the coarse, passionate king, whom he hated with a hatred that burns itself out in his lordship's 'Memoirs;' away from the somewhat exacting and pitiable queen; away from the hated Pelham, and the rival Grafton. And conversation never flags when all, more or less, are congenial; when all are well-informed, well-bred and resolved to please. Yet there is a canker in that whole assembly; that canker is a want of confidence; no one trusts the other; Lady Mary's encouragement of Hervey surprises and shocks the Princess Caroline, who loves him secretly; Hervey's attentions to the queen of letters scandalizes Pope, who soon afterwards makes a declaration to Lady Mary. Pope writhes under a lash just held over him by Lady Mary's hand. Hervey feels that the poet, though all suavity, is ready to demolish him at any moment, if he can; and the only really happy and complacent person of the whole party is, perhaps, Pope's old mother, who sits in the room next to that occupied for dinner, industriously spinning. This happy state of things came, however, as is often the case, in close intimacies, to a painful conclusion. There was too little reality, too little earnestness of feeling, for the friendship between Pope and Lady Mary, including Lord Hervey, to last long. His lordship had his affectations, and his effeminate nicety was proverbial. One day being asked at dinner if he would take some beef, he is reported to have answered, 'Beef? oh no! faugh! don't you know I never eat beef, nor _horse_, nor curry, nor any of those things?' Poor man! it was probably a pleasant way of turning off what he may have deemed an assault on a digestion that could hardly conquer any solid food. This affectation offended Lady Mary, whose _mot_, that there were three species, 'Men, women, and Herveys'--implies a perfect perception of the eccentricities even of her gifted friend, Lord Hervey, whose mother's friend she had been, and the object of whose admiration she undoubtedly was. Pope, who was the most irritable of men, never forgot or forgave even the most trifling offence. Lady Bolingbroke truly said of him that he played the politician about cabbages and salads, and everybody agrees that he could hardly tolerate the wit that was more successful than his own. It was about the year 1725, that he began to hate Lord Hervey with such a hatred as only he could feel; it was unmitigated by a single touch of generosity or of compassion. Pope afterwards owned that his acquaintance with Lady Mary and with Hervey was discontinued, merely because they had too much wit for him. Towards the latter end of 1732, 'The Imitation of the Second Satire of the First Book of Horace,' appeared, and in it Pope attacked Lady Mary with the grossest and most indecent couplet ever printed: she was called Sappho, and Hervey, Lord Fanny; and all the world knew the characters at once. In retaliation for this satire, appeared 'Verses to the Imitator of Horace;' said to have been the joint production of Lord Hervey and Lady Mary. This was followed by a piece entitled 'Letter from a Nobleman at Hampton Court to a Doctor of Divinity.' To this composition Lord Hervey, its sole author, added these lines, by way, as it seems, of extenuation. Pope's first reply was in a prose letter, on which Dr. Johnson has passed a condemnation. 'It exhibits,' he says, 'nothing but tedious malignity.' But he was partial to the Herveys, Thomas and Henry Hervey, Lord Hervey's brothers, having been kind to him--'If you call a dog _Hervey_,' he said to Boswell, 'I shall love him.' Next came the epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, in which every infirmity and peculiarity of Hervey are handed down in calm, cruel irony, and polished verses, to posterity. The verses are almost too disgusting to be revived in an age which disclaims scurrility. After the most personal rancorous invective, he thus writes of Lord Hervey's conversation:-- His wit all see-saw between this and _that_-- Now high, now low--now _master_ up, now _miss_-- And he himself one vile antithesis. * * * * * Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter, thus the rabbins have expressed-- A cherub's face--a reptile all the rest. Beauty that shocks you, facts that none can trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that bites the dust.' 'It is impossible,' Mr. Croker thinks, 'not to admire, however we may condemn, the art by which acknowledged wit, beauty, and gentle manners--the queen's favour--and even a valetudinary diet, are travestied into the most odious offences.' Pope, in two lines, pointed to the intimacy between Lady Mary and Lord Hervey:-- 'Once, and but once, this heedless youth was hit, And liked that dangerous thing, a female wit.' Nevertheless, he _afterwards_ pretended that the name _Sappho_ was not applied to Lady Mary, but to women in general; and acted with a degree of mean prevarication which greatly added to the amount of his offence. The quarrel with Pope was not the only attack which Lord Hervey had to encounter. Among the most zealous of his foes was Pulteney, afterwards Lord Bath, the rival of Sir Robert Walpole, and the confederate with Bolingbroke in opposing that minister. The 'Craftsman,' contained an attack on Pulteney, written, with great ability, by Hervey. It provoked a _Reply_ from Pulteney. In this composition he spoke of Hervey as 'a thing below contempt,' and ridiculed his personal appearance in the grossest terms. A duel was the result, the parties meeting behind Arlington House, in Piccadilly, where Mr. Pulteney had the satisfaction of almost running Lord Hervey through with his sword. Luckily the poor man slipped down, so the blow was evaded, and the seconds interfered: Mr. Pulteney then embraced Lord Hervey, and expressing his regret for their quarrel, declared that he would never again, either in speech or writing, attack his lordship. Lord Hervey only bowed, in silence; and thus they parted. The queen having observed what an alteration in the palace Lord Hervey's death would cause, he said he could guess how it would be, and he produced 'The Death of Lord Hervey; or, a Morning at Court; a Drama:' the idea being taken it is thought, from Swift's verses on his own death, of which Hervey might have seen a surreptitious copy. The following scene will give some idea of the plot and structure of this amusing little piece. The part allotted to the Princess Caroline is in unison with the idea prevalent of her attachment to Lord Hervey:-- ACT I. SCENE: _The Queen's Gallery. The time, nine in the morning._ _Enter the_ QUEEN, PRINCESS EMILY, PRINCESS CAROLINE, _followed by_ LORD LIFFORD, _and_ MRS. PURCEL. _Queen._ Mon Dieu, quelle chaleur! en vérité on étouffe. Pray open a little those windows. _Lord Lifford._ Hasa your Majesty heara de news? _Queen._ What news, my dear Lord? _Lord Lifford._ Dat my Lord Hervey, as he was coming last night to _tone_, was rob and murdered by highwaymen and tron in a ditch. _Princess Caroline._ Eh! grand Dieu! _Queen_ [_striking her hand upon her knee._] Comment est-il véritablement mort? Purcel, my angel, shall I not have a little breakfast? _Mrs. Purcel._ What would your Majesty please to have? _Queen._ A little chocolate, my soul, if you give me leave, and a little sour cream, and some fruit. [_Exit_ MRS. PURCEL. _Queen_ [_to Lord Lifford._] Eh bien! my Lord Lifford, dites-nous un peu comment cela est arrivé. I cannot imagine what he had to do to be putting his nose there. Seulement pour un sot voyage avec ce petit mousse, eh bien? _Lord Lifford._ Madame, on scait quelque chose de celui de Mon. Maran, qui d'abord qu'il a vu les voleurs s'est enfin venu à grand galoppe à Londres, and after dat a waggoner take up the body and put it in his cart. _Queen._ [_to_ PRINCESS EMILY.] Are you not ashamed, Amalie, to laugh? _Princess Emily._ I only laughed at the cart, mamma. _Queen._ Oh! that is a very fade plaisanterie. _Princess Emily._ But if I may say it, mamma, I am not very sorry. _Queen._ Oh! fie donc! Eh bien! my Lord Lifford! My God! where is this chocolate, Purcel? As Mr. Croker remarks, Queen Caroline's breakfast-table, and her parentheses, reminds one of the card-table conversation of Swift:-- 'The Dean's dead: (pray what are trumps?) Then Lord have mercy on his soul! (Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.) Six Deans, they say, must bear the pall; (I wish I knew what king to call.)' Fragile as was Lord Hervey's constitution, it was his lot to witness the death-bed of the queen, for whose amusement he had penned the jeu d'esprit just quoted, in which there was, perhaps, as much truth as wit. The wretched Queen Caroline had, during fourteen years, concealed from every one, except Lady Sundon, an incurable disorder, that of hernia. In November (1737) she was attacked with what we should now call English cholera. Dr. Tessier, her house-physician, was called in, and gave her Daffey's elixir, which was not likely to afford any relief to the deep-seated cause of her sufferings. She held a drawing-room that night for the last time, and played at cards, even cheerfully. At length she whispered to Lord Hervey, 'I am not able to entertain people.' 'For heaven's sake, madam,' was the reply, 'go to your room: would to heaven the king would leave off talking of the Dragon of Wantley, and release you!' The Dragon of Wantley was a burlesque on the Italian opera, by Henry Carey, and was the theme of the fashionable world. The next day the queen was in fearful agony, very hot, and willing to take anything proposed. Still she did not, even to Lord Hervey, avow the real cause of her illness. None of the most learned court physicians, neither Mead nor Wilmot, were called in. Lord Hervey sat by the queen's bed-side, and tried to soothe her, whilst the Princess Caroline joined in begging him to give her mother something to relieve her agony. At length, in utter ignorance of the case, it was proposed to give her some snakeroot, a stimulant, and, at the same time, Sir Walter Raleigh's cordial; so singular was it thus to find that great mind still influencing a court. It was that very medicine which was administered by Queen Anne of Denmark, however, to Prince Henry; that medicine which Raleigh said, 'would cure him, or any other, of a disease, except in case of poison.' However, Ranby, house-surgeon to the king, and a favourite of Lord Hervey's, assuring him that a cordial with this name or that name was mere quackery, some usquebaugh was given instead, but was rejected by the queen soon afterwards. At last Raleigh's cordial was administered, but also rejected about an hour afterwards. Her fever, after taking Raleigh's cordial, was so much increased, that she was ordered instantly to be bled. Then, even, the queen never disclosed the fact that could alone dictate the course to be pursued. George II., with more feeling than judgment, slept on the outside of the queen's bed all that night; so that the unhappy invalid could get no rest, nor change her position, not daring to irritate the king's temper. The next day the queen said touchingly to her gentle, affectionate daughter, herself in declining health, 'Poor Caroline! you are very ill, too: we shall soon meet again in another place.' Meantime, though the queen declared to every one that she was sure nothing could save her, it was resolved to hold a _levée_. The foreign ministers were to come to court, and the king, in the midst of his real grief, did not forget to send word to his pages to be sure to have his last new ruffles sewed on the shirt he was to put on that day; a trifle which often, as Lord Hervey remarks, shows more of the real character than events of importance, from which one frequently knows no more of a person's state of mind than one does of his natural gait from his dancing. Lady Sundon was, meantime, ill at Bath, so that the queen's secret rested alone in her own heart. 'I have an ill,' she said, one evening, to her daughter Caroline, 'that nobody knows of.' Still, neither the princess nor Lord Hervey could guess at the full meaning of that sad assertion. The famous Sir Hans Sloane was then called in; but no remedy except large and repeated bleedings were suggested, and blisters were put on her legs. There seems to have been no means left untried by the faculty to hasten the catastrophe--thus working in the dark. The king now sat up with her whom he had so cruelly wounded in every nice feeling. On being asked, by Lord Hervey, what was to be done in case the Prince of Wales should come to inquire after the queen, he answered in the following terms, worthy of his ancestry--worthy of himself. It is difficult to say which was the most painful scene, that in the chamber where the queen lay in agony, or without, where the curse of family dissensions came like a ghoul to hover near the bed of death, and to gloat over the royal corpse. This was the royal dictum:--'If the puppy should, in one of his impertinent airs of duty and affection, dare to come to St. James's, I order you to go to the scoundrel, and tell him I wonder at his impudence for daring to come here; that he has my orders already, and knows my pleasure, and bid him go about his business; for his poor mother is not in a condition to see him act his false, whining, cringing tricks now, nor am I in a humour to bear with his impertinence; and bid him trouble me with no more messages, but get out of my house.' In the evening, whilst Lord Hervey sat at tea in the queen's outer apartment with the Duke of Cumberland, a page came to the duke to speak to the prince in the passage. It was to prefer a request to see his mother. This message was conveyed by Lord Hervey to the king, whose reply was uttered in the most vehement rage possible. 'This,' said he, 'is like one of his scoundrel tricks; it is just of a piece with his kneeling down in the dirt before the mob to kiss her hand at the coach door when she came home from Hampton Court to see the Princess, though he had not spoken one word to her during her whole visit. I always hated the rascal, but now I hate him worse than ever. He wants to come and insult his poor dying mother; but she shall not see him: you have heard her, and all my daughters have heard her, very often this year at Hampton Court desire me if she should be ill, and out of her senses, that I would never let him come near her; and whilst she had her senses she was sure she should never desire it. No, no! he shall not come and act any of his silly plays here.' In the afternoon the queen said to the king, she wondered the _Griff_, a nickname she gave to the prince, had not sent to inquire after her yet; it would be so like one of his _paroitres_. 'Sooner or later,' she added, 'I am sure we shall be plagued with some message of that sort, because he will think it will have a good air in the world to ask to see me; and, perhaps, hopes I shall be fool enough to let him come, and give him the pleasure of seeing the last breath go out of my body, by which means he would have the joy of knowing I was dead five minutes sooner than he could know it in Pall Mall.' She afterwards declared that nothing would induce her to see him except the king's absolute commands. 'Therefore, if I grow worse,' she said, 'and should I be weak enough to talk of seeing him, I beg you, sir, to conclude that I doat--or rave.' The king, who had long since guessed at the queen's disease, urged her now to permit him to name it to her physicians. She begged him not to do so; and for the first time, and the last, the unhappy woman spoke peevishly and warmly. Then Ranby, the house-surgeon, who had by this time discovered the truth, said, 'There is no more time to be lost; your majesty has concealed the truth too long: I beg another surgeon may be called in immediately.' The queen, who had, in her passion, started up in her bed, lay down again, turned her head on the other side, and, as the king told Lord Hervey, 'shed the only tear he ever saw her shed whilst she was ill.' At length, too late, other and more sensible means were resorted to: but the queen's strength was failing fast. It must have been a strange scene in that chamber of death. Much as the king really grieved for the queen's state, he was still sufficiently collected to grieve also lest Richmond Lodge, which was settled on the queen, should go to the hated _Griff_:[22] and he actually sent Lord Hervey to the lord chancellor to inquire about that point. It was decided that the queen could make a will, so the king informed her of his inquiries, in order to set her mind at ease, and to assure her it was impossible that the prince could in any way benefit pecuniarily from her death. The Princess Emily now sat up with her mother. The king went to bed. The Princess Caroline slept on a couch in the antechamber, and Lord Hervey lay on a mattress on the floor at the foot of the Princess Caroline's couch. On the following day (four after the first attack) mortification came on, and the weeping Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey were informed that the queen could not hold out many hours. Hervey was ordered to withdraw. The king, the Duke of Cumberland, and the queen's four daughters alone remained, the queen begging them not to leave her until she expired; yet her life was prolonged many days. When alone with her family, she took from her finger a ruby ring, which had been placed on it at the time of the coronation, and gave it to the king. 'This is the last thing,' she said, 'I have to give you; naked I came to you, and naked I go from you; I had everything I ever possessed from you, and to you whatever I have I return.' She then asked for her keys, and gave them to the king. To the Princess Caroline she intrusted the care of her younger sisters; to the Duke of Cumberland, that of keeping up the credit of the family. 'Attempt nothing against your brother, and endeavour to mortify him by showing superior merit,' she said to him. She advised the king to marry again; he heard her in sobs, and with much difficulty got out this sentence: '_Non, j'aurai des maitresses_' To which the queen made no other reply than '_Ah, mon Dieu! cela n'empêche pas._' 'I know,' says Lord Hervey, in his Memoirs, 'that this episode will hardly be credited, but it is literally true.' She then fancied she could sleep. The king kissed her, and wept over her; yet when she asked for her watch, which hung near the chimney, that she might give him the seal to take care of, his brutal temper broke forth. In the midst of his tears he called out, in a loud voice, 'Let it alone! _mon Dieu!_ the queen has such strange fancies; who should meddle with your seal? It is as safe there as in my pocket.' The queen then thought she could sleep, and, in fact, sank to rest. She felt refreshed on awakening and said, 'I wish it was over; it is only a reprieve to make me suffer a little longer; I cannot recover, but my nasty heart will not break yet.' She had an impression that she should die on a Wednesday: she had, she said, been born on a Wednesday, married on a Wednesday, crowned on a Wednesday, her first child was born on a Wednesday, and she had heard of the late king's death on a Wednesday. On the ensuing day she saw Sir Robert Walpole. 'My good Sir Robert,' she thus addressed him, 'you see me in a very indifferent situation. I have nothing to say to you but to recommend the king, my children, and the kingdom to your care.' Lord Hervey, when the minister retired, asked him what he thought of the queen's state. 'My lord,' was the reply, 'she is as much dead as if she was in her coffin; if ever I heard a corpse speak, it was just now in that room!' It was a sad, an awful death-bed. The Prince of Wales having sent to inquire after the health of his dying mother, the queen became uneasy lest he should hear the true state of her case, asking 'if no one would send those ravens,' meaning the prince's attendants, out of the house. 'They were only,' she said, 'watching her death, and would gladly tear her to pieces whilst she was alive.' Whilst thus she spoke of her son's courtiers, that son was sitting up all night in his house in Pall Mall, and saying, when any messenger came in from St. James's, 'Well, sure, we shall soon have good news, she cannot hold out much longer.' And the princesses were writing letters to prevent the Princess Royal from coming to England, where she was certain to meet with brutal unkindness from her father, who could not endure to be put to any expense. Orders were, indeed, sent to stop her if she set out. She came, however, on pretence of taking the Bath waters; but George II., furious at her disobedience, obliged her to go direct to and from Bath without stopping, and never forgave her. Notwithstanding her predictions, the queen survived the fatal Wednesday. Until this time no prelate had been called in to pray by her majesty, nor to administer the Holy Communion and as people about the court began to be scandalized by this omission, Sir Robert Walpole advised that the Archbishop of Canterbury should be sent for: his opinion was couched in the following terms, characteristic at once of the man, the times, and the court:-- 'Pray, madam,' he said to the Princess Emily, 'let this farce be played; the archbishop will act it very well. You may bid him be as short as you will: it will do the queen no hurt, no more than any good; and it will satisfy all the wise and good fools, who will call us atheists if we don't pretend to be as great fools as they are.' Unhappily, Lord Hervey, who relates this anecdote, was himself an unbeliever; yet the scoffing tone adopted by Sir Robert seems to have shocked even him. In consequence of this advice, Archbishop Potter prayed by the queen morning and evening, the king always quitting the room when his grace entered it. Her children, however, knelt by her bedside. Still the whisperers who censured were unsatisfied--the concession was thrown away. Why did not the queen receive the communion? Was it, as the world believed, either 'that she had reasoned herself into a very low and cold assent to Christianity?' or 'that she was heterodox?' or 'that the archbishop refused to administer the sacrament until she should be reconciled to her son?' Even Lord Hervey, who rarely left the antechamber, has only by his silence proved that she did _not_ take the communion. That antechamber was crowded with persons who, as the prelate left the chamber of death, crowded around, eagerly asking, 'Has the queen received?' 'Her majesty,' was the evasive reply, 'is in a heavenly disposition:' the public were thus deceived. Among those who were near the queen at this solemn hour was Dr. Butler, author of the 'Analogy.' He had been made clerk of the closet, and became, after the queen's death, Bishop of Bristol. He was in a remote living in Durham, when the queen, remembering that it was long since she had heard of him, asked the Archbishop of York 'whether Dr. Butler was dead?'--'No, madam,' replied that prelate (Dr. Blackburn), 'but he is buried;' upon which she had sent for him to court. Yet he was not courageous enough, it seems, to speak to her of her son and of the duty of reconciliation; whether she ever sent the prince any message or not is uncertain; Lord Hervey is silent on that point, so that it is to be feared that Lord Chesterfield's line-- 'And, unforgiving, unforgiven, dies!' had but too sure a foundation in fact; so that Pope's sarcastic verses-- 'Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn, And hail her passage to the realms of rest; All _parts performed_ and _all_ her children blest,' may have been but too just, though cruelly bitter. The queen lingered till the 20th of November. During that interval of agony her consort was perpetually boasting to every one of her virtues, her sense, her patience, her softness, her delicacy; and ending with the praise, '_Comme elle soutenoit sa dignité avec grace, avec politesse, avec douceur!_' Nevertheless he scarcely ever went into her room. Lord Hervey states that he did, even in this moving situation, _snub_ her for something or other she did or said. One morning, as she lay with her eyes fixed on a point in the air, as people sometimes do when they want to keep their thoughts from wandering, the king coarsely told her 'she looked like a calf which had just had its throat cut.' He expected her to die in state. Then, with all his bursts of tenderness he always mingled his own praises, hinting that though she was a good wife he knew he had deserved a good one, and remarking, when he extolled her understanding, that he did not 'think it the worse for her having kept him company so many years.' To all this Lord Hervey listened with, doubtless, well-concealed disgust; for cabals were even then forming for the future influence that might or might not be obtained. The queen's life, meantime, was softly ebbing away in this atmosphere of selfishness, brutality, and unbelief. One evening she asked Dr. Tessier impatiently how long her state might continue. 'Your Majesty,' was the reply, 'will soon be released.' 'So much the better,' the queen calmly answered. At ten o'clock that night, whilst the king lay at the foot of her bed, on the floor, and the Princess Emily on a couch-bed in the room, the fearful death-rattle in the throat was heard. Mrs. Purcell, her chief and old attendant, gave the alarm: the Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey were sent for; but the princess was too late, her mother had expired before she arrived. All the dying queen said was, 'I have now got an asthma; open the window:' then she added, '_Pray!_' That was her last word. As the Princess Emily began to read some prayers, the sufferer breathed her last sigh. The Princess Caroline held a looking-glass to her lips, and finding there was no damp on it, said, ''Tis over!' Yet she shed not one tear upon the arrival of that event, the prospect of which had cost her so many heartrending sobs. The king kissed the lifeless face and hands of his often-injured wife, and then retired to his own apartment, ordering that a page should sit up with him for that and several other nights, for his Majesty was afraid of apparitions, and feared to be left alone. He caused himself, however, to be buried by the side of his queen, in Henry VII.'s chapel, and ordered that one side of his coffin and of hers should be withdrawn; and in that state the two coffins were discovered not many years ago. With the death of Queen Caroline, Lord Hervey's life, as to court, was changed. He was afterwards made lord privy seal, and had consequently to enter the political world, with the disadvantage of knowing that much was expected from a man of so high a reputation for wit and learning. He was violently opposed by Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, who had been adverse to his entering the ministry, and since, with Walpole's favour, it was impossible to injure him by fair means, it was resolved to oppose Lord Hervey by foul ones. One evening, when he was to speak, a party of fashionable Amazons, with two duchesses--her grace of Queensberry and her grace of Ancaster--at their head, stormed the House of Lords and disturbed the debate with noisy laughter and sneers. Poor Lord Hervey was completely daunted, and spoke miserably. After Sir Robert Walpole's fall Lord Hervey retired. The following letter from him to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu fully describes his position and circumstances:-- 'I must now,' he writes to her, 'since you take so friendly a part in what concerns me, give you a short account of my natural and political health; and when I say I am still alive, and still privy seal, it is all I can say for the pleasure of one or the honour of the other; for since Lord Orford's retiring, as I am too proud to offer my service and friendship where I am not sure they will be accepted of, and too inconsiderable to have those advances made to me (though I never forgot or failed to return any obligation I ever received), so I remain as illustrious a nothing in this office as ever filled it since it was erected. There is one benefit, however, I enjoy from this loss of my court interest, which is, that all those flies which were buzzing about me in the summer sunshine and full ripeness of that interest, have all deserted its autumnal decay, and from thinking my natural death not far off, and my political demise already over, have all forgot the death-bed of the one and the coffin of the other.' Again he wrote to her a characteristic letter:-- 'I have been confined these three weeks by a fever, which is a sort of annual tax my detestable constitution pays to our detestable climate at the return of every spring; it is now much abated, though not quite gone off.' He was long a helpless invalid; and on the 8th of August, 1743, his short, unprofitable, brilliant, unhappy life was closed. He died at Ickworth, attended and deplored by his wife, who had ever held a secondary part in the heart of the great wit and beau of the court of George II. After his death his son George returned to Lady Mary all the letters she had written to his father: the packet was sealed: an assurance was at the same time given that they had not been read. In acknowledging this act of attention, Lady Mary wrote that she could almost regret that he had not glanced his eye over a correspondence which might have shown him what so young a man might perhaps be inclined to doubt--'the possibility of a long and steady friendship subsisting between two persons of different sexes without the least mixture of love.' Nevertheless some expressions of Lord Hervey's seem to have bordered on the tender style, when writing to Lady Mary in such terms as these. She had complained that she was too old to inspire a passion (a sort of challenge for a compliment), on which he wrote: 'I should think anybody a great fool that said he liked spring better than summer, merely because it is further from autumn, or that they loved green fruit better than ripe only because it was further from being rotten. I ever did, and believe ever shall, like woman best-- '"Just in the noon of life--those golden days, When the mind ripens ere the form decays."' Certainly this looks very unlike a pure Platonic, and it is not to be wondered at that Lady Hervey refused to call on Lady Mary, when, long after Lord Hervey's death, that fascinating woman returned to England. A wit, a courtier at the very fount of all politeness, Lord Hervey wanted the genuine source of all social qualities--Christianity. That moral refrigerator which checks the kindly current of neighbourly kindness, and which prevents all genial feeling from expanding, produced its usual effect--misanthropy. Lord Hervey's lines, in his 'Satire after the manner of Persius,' describe too well his own mental canker:-- 'Mankind I know, their motives and their art, Their vice their own, their virtue best apart, Till played so oft, that all the cheat can tell, And dangerous only when 'tis acted well.' Lord Hervey left in the possession of his family a manuscript work, consisting of memoirs of his own time, written in his own autograph, which was clean and legible. This work, which has furnished many of the anecdotes connected with his court life in the foregoing pages, was long guarded from the eye of any but the Hervey family, owing to an injunction given in his will by Augustus, third Earl of Bristol, Lord Hervey's son, that it should not see the light until after the death of his Majesty George III. It was not therefore published until 1848, when they were edited by Mr. Croker. They are referred to both by Horace Walpole, who had heard of them, if he had not seen them, and by Lord Hailes, as affording the most intimate portraiture of a court that has ever been presented to the English people. Such a delineation as Lord Hervey has left ought to cause a sentiment of thankfulness in every British heart for not being exposed to such influences, to such examples as he gives, in the present day, when goodness, affection, purity, benevolence, are the household deities of the court of our beloved, inestimable Queen Victoria. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 22: Prince Frederick.] PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, FOURTH EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. The King of Table Wits.--Early Years.--Hervey's Description of his Person.--Resolutions and Pursuits.--Study of Oratory.--The Duties of an Ambassador.--King George II.'s Opinion of his Chroniclers.--Life in the Country.--Melusina, Countess of Walsingham.--George II. and his Father's Will.--Dissolving Views.--Madame du Bouchet.--The Broad-Bottomed Administration.--Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in Time of Peril.--Reformation of the Calendar.--Chesterfield House.--Exclusiveness.--Recommending 'Johnson's Dictionary.'--'Old Samuel,' to Chesterfield.--Defensive Pride.--The Glass of Fashion.--Lord Scarborough's Friendship for Chesterfield.--The Death of Chesterfield's Son.--His Interest in his Grandsons.--'I must go and Rehearse my Funeral.'--Chesterfield's Will.--What is a Friend?--Les Manières Nobles.--Letters to his Son. The subject of this memoir may be thought by some rather the modeller of wits than the original of that class; the great critic and judge of manners rather than the delight of the dinner-table: but we are told to the contrary by one who loved him not. Lord Hervey says of Lord Chesterfield that he was 'allowed by everybody to have more conversable entertaining table-wit than any man of his time; his propensity to ridicule, in which he indulged himself with infinite humour and no distinction; and his inexhaustible spirits, and no discretion; made him sought and feared--liked and not loved--by most of his acquaintance.' This formidable personage was born in London on the 2nd day of September, 1694. It was remarkable that the father of a man so vivacious, should have been of a morose temper; all the wit and spirit of intrigue displayed by him remind us of the frail Lady Chesterfield, in the time of Charles II.[23]--that lady who was looked on as a martyr because her husband was jealous of her: 'a prodigy,' says De Grammont, 'in the city of London,' where indulgent critics endeavoured to excuse his lordship on account of his bad education, and mothers vowed that none of their sons should ever set foot in Italy, lest they should 'bring back with them that infamous custom of laying restraint on their wives.' Even Horace Walpole cites Chesterfield as the 'witty earl:' apropos to an anecdote which he relates of an Italian lady, who said that she was only four-and-twenty; 'I suppose,' said Lord Chesterfield, 'she means four-and-twenty stone.' By his father the future wit, historian, and orator was utterly neglected; but his grandmother, the Marchioness of Halifax, supplied to him the place of both parents, his mother--her daughter, Lady Elizabeth Saville--having died in his childhood. At the age of eighteen, Chesterfield, then Lord Stanhope, was entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. It was one of the features of his character to fall at once into the tone of the society into which he happened to be thrown. One can hardly imagine his being 'an absolute pedant,' but such was, actually, his own account of himself:--'When I talked my best, I quoted Horace; when I aimed at being facetious, I quoted Martial; and when I had a mind to be a fine gentleman, I talked Ovid. I was convinced that none but the ancients had common sense; that the classics contained everything that was either necessary, useful, or ornamental to men; and I was not even without thoughts of wearing the toga virilis of the Romans, instead of the vulgar and illiberal dress of the moderns.' Thus, again, when in Paris, he caught the manners, as he had acquired the language, of the Parisians. 'I shall not give you my opinion of the French, because I am very often taken for one of them, and several have paid me the highest compliment they think it in their power to bestow--which is, "Sir, you are just like ourselves." I shall only tell you that I am insolent; I talk a great deal; I am very loud and peremptory; I sing and dance as I walk along; and, above all, I spend an immense sum in hair-powder, feathers, and white gloves.' Although he entered Parliament before he had attained the legal age, and was expected to make a great figure in that assembly, Lord Chesterfield preferred the reputation of a wit and a beau to any other distinction. 'Call it vanity, if you will,' he wrote in after-life to his son, 'and possibly it was so; but my great object was to make every man and every woman love me. I often succeeded: but why? by taking great pains.' According to Lord Hervey's account he often even sacrificed his interest to his vanity. The description given of Lord Chesterfield by one as bitter as himself implies, indeed, that great pains were requisite to counterbalance the defects of nature. Wilkes, one of the ugliest men of his time, used to say, that with an hour's start he would carry off the affections of any woman from the handsomest man breathing. Lord Chesterfield, according to Lord Hervey, required to be still longer in advance of a rival. 'With a person,' Hervey writes, 'as disagreeable, as it was possible for a human figure to be without being deformed, he affected following many women of the first beauty and the most in fashion. He was very short, disproportioned, thick and clumsily made; had a broad, rough-featured, ugly face, with black teeth, and a head big enough for a Polyphemus. One Ben Ashurst, who said a few good things, though admired for many, told Lord Chesterfield once, that he was like a stunted giant--which was a humorous idea and really apposite.' Notwithstanding that Chesterfield, when young, injured both soul and body by pleasure and dissipation, he always found time for serious study: when he could not have it otherwise, he took it out of his sleep. How late soever he went to bed, he resolved always to rise early; and this resolution he adhered to so faithfully, that at the age of fifty-eight he could declare that for more than forty years he had never been in bed at nine o'clock in the morning, but had generally been up before eight. He had the good sense, in this respect, not to exaggerate even this homely virtue. He did not rise with the dawn, as many early risers pride themselves in doing, putting all the engagements of ordinary life out of their usual beat, just as if the clocks had been set two hours forward. The man in ordinary society, who rises at four in this country, and goes to bed at nine, is a social and family nuisance. Strong good sense characterized Chesterfield's early pursuits. Desultory reading he abhorred. He looked on it as one of the resources of age, but as injurious to the young in the extreme. 'Throw away,' thus he writes to his son, 'none of your time upon those trivial, futile books, published by idle necessitous authors for the amusement of idle and ignorant readers.' Even in those days such books 'swarm and buzz about one:' 'flap them away,' says Chesterfield, 'they have no sting.' The earl directed the whole force of his mind to oratory, and became the finest speaker of his time. Writing to Sir Horace Mann, about the Hanoverian debate (in 1743, Dec. 15), Walpole praising the speeches of Lords Halifax and Sandwich, adds, 'I was there, and heard Lord Chesterfield make the finest oration I have ever heard there.' This from a man who had listened to Pulteney, to Chatham, to Carteret, was a singularly valuable tribute. Whilst a student at Cambridge, Chesterfield was forming an acquaintance with the Hon. George Berkeley, the youngest son of the second Earl of Berkeley, and remarkable rather as being the second husband of Lady Suffolk, the favourite of George II., than from any merits or demerits of his own. This early intimacy probably brought Lord Chesterfield into the close friendship which afterwards subsisted between him and Lady Suffolk, to whom many of his letters are addressed. His first public capacity was a diplomatic appointment: he afterwards attained to the rank of an ambassador, whose duty it is, according to a witticism of Sir Henry Wotton's '_to lie_ abroad for the good of his country;' and no man was in this respect more competent to fulfil these requirements than Chesterfield. Hating both wine and tobacco, he had smoked and drunk at Cambridge, 'to be in the fashion;' he gamed at the Hague, on the same principle; and, unhappily, gaming became a habit and a passion. Yet never did he indulge it when acting, afterwards, in a ministerial capacity. Neither when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or as Under-secretary of State, did he allow a gaming-table in his house. On the very night that he resigned office he went to _White's_. The Hague was then a charming residence: among others who, from political motives, were living there, were John Duke of Marlborough and Queen Sarah, both of whom paid Chesterfield marked attention. Naturally industrious, with a ready insight into character--a perfect master in that art which bids us keep one's thoughts close, and our countenances open, Chesterfield was admirably fitted for diplomacy. A master of modern languages and of history, he soon began to like business. When in England, he had been accused of having 'a need of a certain proportion of talk in a day:' 'that,' he wrote to Lady Suffolk, 'is now changed into a need of such a proportion of writing in a day.' In 1728 he was promoted: being sent as ambassador to the Hague, where he was popular, and where he believed his stay would be beneficial both to soul and body, there being 'fewer temptations, and fewer opportunities to sin,' as he wrote to Lady Suffolk, 'than in England.' Here his days passed, he asserted, in doing the king's business, very ill--and his own still worse:--sitting down daily to dinner with fourteen or fifteen people; whilst at five the pleasures of the evening began with a lounge on the Voorhoot, a public walk planted by Charles V.:--then, either a very bad French play, or a '_reprise quadrille_,' with three ladies, the youngest of them fifty, and the chance of losing, perhaps, three florins (besides one's time)--lasted till ten o'clock; at which time 'His Excellency' went home, 'reflecting with satisfaction on the innocent amusements of a well-spent day, that left nothing behind them,' and retired to bed at eleven, 'with the testimony of a good conscience.' All, however, of Chesterfield's time was not passed in this serene dissipation. He began to compose 'The History of the Reign of George II.' at this period. About only half a dozen chapters were written. The intention was not confined to Chesterfield: Carteret and Bolingbroke entertained a similar design, which was completed by neither. When the subject was broached before George II., he thus expressed himself; and his remarks are the more amusing as they were addressed to Lord Hervey, who was, at that very moment, making his notes for that bitter chronicle of his majesty's reign, which has been ushered into the world by the late Wilson Croker--'They will all three,' said King George II., 'have about as much truth in them as the _Mille et Une Nuits_. Not but I shall like to read Bolingbroke's, who of all those rascals and knaves that have been lying against me these ten years has certainly the best parts, and the most knowledge. He is a scoundrel, but he is a scoundrel of a higher class than Chesterfield. Chesterfield is a little, tea-table scoundrel, that tells little womanish lies to make quarrels in families: and tries to make women lose their reputations, and make their husbands beat them, without any object but to give himself airs; as if anybody could believe a woman could like a dwarf baboon.' Lord Hervey gave the preference to Bolingbroke; stating as his reason, that 'though Lord Bolingbroke had no idea of wit, his satire was keener than any one's. Lord Chesterfield, on the other hand, would have a great deal of wit in them; but, in every page you see he intended to be witty: every paragraph would be an epigram. _Polish_, he declared, would be his bane;' and Lord Hervey was perfectly right. In 1732 Lord Chesterfield was obliged to retire from his embassy on the plea of ill-health, but probably, from some political cause. He was in the opposition against Sir Robert Walpole in the Excise Bill; and felt the displeasure of that all-powerful minister by being dismissed from his office of High Steward. Being badly received at court he now lived in the country; sometimes at Buxton, where his father drank the waters, where he had his recreations, when not persecuted by two young brothers. Sir William Stanhope and John Stanhope, one of whom performed 'tolerably ill upon a broken hautboy, and the other something worse upon a cracked flute.' There he won three half-crowns from the curate of the place, and a shilling from 'Gaffer Foxeley' at a cock-match. Sometimes he sought relaxation in Scarborough, where fashionable beaux 'danced with the pretty ladies all night,' and hundreds of Yorkshire country bumpkins 'played the inferior parts; and, as it were, only tumble, whilst the others dance upon the high ropes of gallantry.' Scarborough was full of Jacobites: the popular feeling was then all rife against Sir Robert Walpole's excise scheme. Lord Chesterfield thus wittily satirized that famous measure:-- 'The people of this town are, at present, in great consternation upon a report they have heard from London, which, if true, they think will ruin them. They are informed, that considering the vast consumption of these waters, there is a design laid of _excising_ them next session; and, moreover, that as bathing in the sea is become the general practice of both sexes, and as the kings of England have always been allowed to be masters of the seas, every person so bathing shall be gauged, and pay so much per foot square, as their cubical bulk amounts to.' In 1733, Lord Chesterfield married Melusina, the supposed niece, but, in fact, the daughter of the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of George I. This lady was presumed to be a great heiress, from the dominion which her mother had over the king. Melusina had been created (for life) Baroness of Aldborough, county Suffolk, and Countess of Walsingham, county Norfolk, nine years previous to her marriage. Her father being George I., as Horace Walpole terms him, 'rather a good sort of man than a shining king,' and her mother 'being no genius,' there was probably no great attraction about Lady Walsingham, except her expected dowry. During her girlhood Melusina resided in the apartments at St. James's--opening into the garden; and here Horace Walpole describes his seeing George I., in the rooms appropriated to the Duchess of Kendal, next to those of Melusina Schulemberg, or, as she was then called, the Countess of Walsingham. The Duchess of Kendal was then very 'lean and ill-favoured.' 'Just before her,' says Horace, 'stood a tall, elderly man, rather pale, of an aspect rather good-natured than august: in a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour, and a blue riband over all. That was George I.' [Illustration: A ROYAL ROBBER.] The Duchess of Kendal had been maid of honour to the Electress Sophia, the mother of George I. and the daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia. The duchess was always frightful; so much so that one night the electress, who had acquired a little English, said to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk,--glancing at Mademoiselle Schulemberg--'Look at that _mawkin_, and think of her being my son's passion!' The duchess, however, like all the Hanoverians, knew how to profit by royal preference. She took bribes:--she had a settlement of £3,000 a year. But her daughter was eventually disappointed of the expected bequest from her father, the king.[24] In the apartments at St. James's Lord Chesterfield for some time lived, when he was not engaged in office abroad; and there he dissipated large sums in play. It was here, too, that Queen Caroline, the wife of George II., detected the intimacy that existed between Chesterfield and Lady Suffolk. There was an obscure window in Queen Caroline's apartments, which looked into a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at night. One Twelfth Night Lord Chesterfield, having won a large sum at cards, deposited it with Lady Suffolk, thinking it not safe to carry it home at night. He was watched, and his intimacy with the mistress of George II. thereupon inferred. Thenceforth he could obtain no court influence; and, in desperation, he went into the opposition. On the death of George I., a singular scene, with which Lord Chesterfield's interests were connected, occurred in the Privy Council. Dr Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced the king's will, and delivered it to his successor, expecting that it would be opened and read in the council; what was his consternation, when his Majesty, without saying a word, put it into his pocket, and stalked out of the room with real German imperturbability! Neither the astounded prelate nor the subservient council ventured to utter a word. The will was never more heard of: and rumour declared that it was burnt. The contents, of course, never transpired; and the legacy of £40,000, said to have been left to the Duchess of Kendal, was never more spoken of, until Lord Chesterfield, in 1733, married the Countess of Walsingham. In 1743, it is said, he claimed the legacy--in right of his wife--the Duchess of Kendal being then dead: and was 'quieted' with £20,000, and got, as Horace Walpole observes, nothing from the duchess--'except his wife.' The only excuse that was urged to extenuate this act on the part of George II., was that his royal father had burned two wills which had been made in his favour. These were supposed to be the wills of the Duke and Duchess of Zell and of the Electress Sophia. There was not even common honesty in the house of Hanover at that period. Disappointed in his wife's fortune, Lord Chesterfield seems to have cared very little for the disappointed heiress. Their union was childless. His opinion of marriage appears very much to have coincided with that of the world of malcontents who rush, in the present day, to the court of Judge Cresswell, with 'dissolving views.' On one occasion he writes thus: 'I have at last done the best office that can be done to most married people; that is, I have fixed the separation between my brother and his wife, and the definitive treaty of peace will be proclaimed in about a fortnight.' Horace Walpole related the following anecdote of Sir William Stanhope (Chesterfield's brother) and his lady, whom he calls 'a fond couple.' After their return from Paris, when they arrived at Lord Chesterfield's house at Blackheath, Sir William, who had, like his brother, a cutting, polite wit, that was probably expressed with the 'allowed simper' of Lord Chesterfield, got out of the chaise and said, with a low bow, 'Madame, I hope I shall never see your face again.' She replied, 'Sir, I will take care that you never shall;' and so they parted. There was little probability of Lord Chesterfield's participating in domestic felicity, when neither his heart nor his fancy were engaged in the union which he had formed. The lady to whom he was really attached, and by whom he had a son, resided in the Netherlands: she passed by the name of Madame du Bouchet, and survived both Lord Chesterfield and her son. A permanent provision was made for her, and a sum of five hundred pounds bequeathed to her, with these words: 'as a small reparation for the injury I did her.' 'Certainly,' adds Lord Mahon, in his Memoir of his illustrious ancestor, 'a small one.' For some time Lord Chesterfield remained in England, and his letters are dated from Bath, from Tonbridge, from Blackheath. He had, in 1726, been elevated to the House of Lords upon the death of his father. In that assembly his great eloquence is thus well described by his biographer:--[25] 'Lord Chesterfield's eloquence, the fruit of much study, was less characterized by force and compass than by elegance and perspicuity, and especially by good taste and urbanity, and a vein of delicate irony which, while it sometimes inflicted severe strokes, never passed the limits of decency and propriety. It was that of a man who, in the union of wit and good sense with politeness, had not a competitor. These qualities were matured by the advantage which he assiduously sought and obtained, of a familiar acquaintance with almost all the eminent wits and writers of his time, many of whom had been the ornaments of a preceding age of literature, while others were destined to become those of a later period.' The accession of George II., to whose court Lord Chesterfield had been attached for many years, brought him no political preferment. The court had, however, its attractions even for one who owed his polish to the belles of Paris, and who was almost always, in taste and manners, more foreign than English. Henrietta, Lady Pomfret, the daughter and heiress of John, Lord Jeffreys, the son of Judge Jeffreys, was at that time the leader of fashion. Six daughters, one of them, Lady Sophia, surpassingly lovely recalled the perfections of that ancestress, Arabella Fermor whose charms Pope has so exquisitely touched in the 'Rape of the Lock.' Lady Sophia became eventually the wife of Lord Carteret, the minister, whose talents and the charms of whose eloquence constituted him a sort of rival to Chesterfield. With all his abilities, Lord Chesterfield may be said to have failed both as a courtier and as a political character, as far as permanent influence in any ministry was concerned, until in 1744, when what was called the 'Broad-bottomed administration' was formed, when he was admitted into the cabinet. In the following year, however, he went, for the last time, to Holland, as ambassador, and succeeded beyond the expectations of his party in the purposes of his embassy. He took leave of the States-General just before the battle of Fontenoy, and hastened to Ireland, where he had been nominated Lord-Lieutenant previous to his journey to Holland. He remained in that country only a year; but long enough to prove how liberal were his views--how kindly the dispositions of his heart. Only a few years before Lord Chesterfield's arrival in Dublin, the Duke of Shrewsbury had given as a reason for accepting the vice-regency of that country, (of which King James I. had said, there was 'more ado' than with any of his dominions,) 'that it was a place where a man had business enough to keep him from falling asleep, and not enough to keep him awake.' Chesterfield, however, was not of that opinion. He did more in one year than the duke would have accomplished in five. He began by instituting a principle of impartial justice. Formerly, Protestants had alone been employed as 'managers;' the Lieutenant was to see with Protestant eyes, to hear with Protestant ears. 'I have determined to proscribe no set of persons whatever,' says Chesterfield, 'and determined to be governed by none. Had the Papists made any attempt to put themselves above the law, I should have taken good care to have quelled them again. It was said my lenity to the Papists had wrought no alteration either in their religious or their political sentiments. I did not expect that it would: but surely that was no reason for cruelty towards them.' Often by a timely jest Chesterfield conveyed a hint, or even shrouded a reproof. One of the ultra-zealous informed him that his coachman was a Papist, and went every Sunday to mass. 'Does he indeed? I will take care he never drives me there,' was Chesterfield's cool reply. It was at this critical period, when the Hanoverian dynasty was shaken almost to its downfall by the insurrection in Scotland of 1745, that Ireland was imperilled: 'With a weak or wavering, or a fierce and headlong Lord-Lieutenant--with a Grafton or a Strafford,' remarks Lord Mahon, 'there would soon have been a simultaneous rising in the Emerald Isle.' But Chesterfield's energy, his lenity, his wise and just administration saved the Irish from being excited into rebellion by the emissaries of Charles Edward, or slaughtered, when conquered, by the 'Butcher,' and his tiger-like dragoons. When all was over, and that sad page of history in which the deaths of so many faithful adherents of the exiled family are recorded, had been held up to the gaze of bleeding Caledonia, Chesterfield recommended mild measures, and advised the establishment of schools in the Highlands; but the age was too narrow-minded to adopt his views. In January, 1748, Chesterfield retired from public life. 'Could I do any good,' he wrote to a friend, 'I would sacrifice some more quiet to it; but convinced as I am that I can do none, I will indulge my ease, and preserve my character. I have gone through pleasures while my constitution and my spirits would allow me. Business succeeded them; and I have now gone through every part of it without liking it at all the better for being acquainted with it. Like many other things, it is most admired by those who know it least.... I have been behind the scenes both of pleasure and business; I have seen all the coarse pulleys and dirty ropes which exhibit and move all the gaudy machines; and I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which illuminate the whole decoration, to the astonishment and admiration of the ignorant multitude.... My horse, my books, and my friends will divide my time pretty equally.' He still interested himself in what was useful; and carried a Bill in the House of Lords for the Reformation of the Calendar, in 1751. It seems a small matter for so great a mind as his to accomplish, but it was an achievement of infinite difficulty. Many statesmen had shrunk from the undertaking; and even Chesterfield found it essential to prepare the public, by writing in some periodical papers on the subject. Nevertheless the vulgar outcry was vehement: 'Give us back the eleven days we have been robbed of!' cried the mob at a general election. When Bradley was dying, the common people ascribed his sufferings to a judgment for the part he had taken in that 'impious transaction,' the alteration of the calendar. But they were not less _bornés_ in their notions than the Duke of Newcastle, then prime minister. Upon Lord Chesterfield giving him notice of his Bill, that bustling premier, who had been in a hurry for forty years, who never 'walked but always ran,' greatly alarmed, begged Chesterfield not to stir matters that had been long quiet; adding, that he did not like 'new-fangled things.' He was, as we have seen, overruled, and henceforth the New Style was adopted; and no special calamity has fallen on the nation, as was expected, in consequence. Nevertheless, after Chesterfield had made his speech in the House of Lords, and when every one had complimented him on the clearness of his explanation--'God knows,' he wrote to his son, 'I had not even attempted to explain the Bill to them; I might as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonic to them as astronomy. They would have understood it full as well.' So much for the 'Lords' in those days! After his _furore_ for politics had subsided, Chesterfield returned to his ancient passion for play. We must linger a little over the still brilliant period of his middle life, whilst his hearing was spared; whilst his wit remained, and the charming manners on which he had formed a science, continued; and before we see him in the mournful decline of a life wholly given to the world. He had now established himself in Chesterfield House. Hitherto his progenitors had been satisfied with Bloomsbury Square, in which the Lord Chesterfield mentioned by De Grammont resided; but the accomplished Chesterfield chose a site near Audley Street, which had been built on what was called Mr. Audley's land, lying between Great Brook Field and the 'Shoulder of Mutton Field.' And near this locality with the elegant name, Chesterfield chose his spot, for which he had to wrangle and fight with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who asked an exorbitant sum for the ground. Isaac Ware, the editor of 'Palladio,' was the architect to whom the erection of this handsome residence was intrusted. Happily it is still untouched by any _renovating_ hand. Chesterfield's favourite apartments, looking on the most spacious private garden in London, are just as they were in his time; one especially, which he termed the 'finest room in London,' was furnished and decorated by him. 'The walls,' says a writer in the 'Quarterly Review,' 'are covered half way up with rich and classical stores of literature; above the cases are in close series the portraits of eminent authors, French and English, with most of whom he had conversed; over these, and immediately under the massive cornice, extend all round in foot-long capitals the Horatian lines:-- 'Nunc . veterum . libris . Nunc . somno . et . inertibus . Horis. Lucen . solicter . jucunda . oblivia . vitea. 'On the mantel-pieces and cabinets stand busts of old orators, interspersed with voluptuous vases and bronzes, antique or Italian, and airy statuettes in marble or alabaster of nude or semi-nude opera nymphs.' What Chesterfield called the 'cannonical pillars' of the house were columns brought from Cannons, near Edgeware, the seat of the Duke of Chandos. The antechamber of Chesterfield House has been erroneously stated as the room in which Johnson waited the great lord's pleasure. That state of endurance was probably passed by 'Old Samuel' in Bloomsbury. In this stately abode--one of the few, the very few, that seem to hold _noblesse_ apart in our levelling metropolis--Chesterfield held his assemblies of all that London, or indeed England, Paris, the Hague, or Vienna, could furnish of what was polite and charming. Those were days when the stream of society did not, as now, flow freely, mingling with the grace of aristocracy the acquirements of hard-working professors; there was then a strong line of demarcation; it had not been broken down in the same way as now, when people of rank and wealth live in rows, instead of inhabiting hotels set apart. Paris has sustained a similar revolution, since her gardens were built over, and their green shades, delicious, in the centre of that hot city, are seen no more. In the very Faubourg St. Germain, the grand old hotels are rapidly disappearing, and with them something of the exclusiveness of the higher orders. Lord Chesterfield, however, triumphantly pointing to the fruits of his taste and distribution of his wealth, witnessed, in his library at Chesterfield House, the events which time produced. He heard of the death of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and of her bequest to him of twenty thousand pounds, and her best and largest brilliant diamond ring, 'out of the great regard she had for his merit, and the infinite obligations she had received from him.' He witnessed the change of society and of politics which occurred when George II. expired, and the Earl of Bute, calling himself a descendant of the house of Stuart, 'and humble enough to be proud of it,' having quitted the isle of Bute, which Lord Chesterfield calls 'but a little south of Nova Zembla,' took possession, not only of the affections, but even of the senses of the young king, George III., who, assisted by the widowed Princess of Wales (supposed to be attached to Lord Bute), was 'lugged out of the seraglio,' and 'placed upon the throne.' Chesterfield lived to have the honour of having the plan of 'Johnson's Dictionary' inscribed to him, and the dishonour of neglecting the great author. Johnson, indeed, denied the truth of the story which gained general belief, in which it was asserted that he had taken a disgust at being kept waiting in the earl's antechamber, the reason being assigned that his lordship 'had company with him;' when at last the door opened, and forth came Colley Cibber. Then Johnson--so report said--indignant, not only for having been kept waiting but also for _whom_, went away, it was affirmed, in disgust; but this was solemnly denied by the doctor, who assured Boswell that his wrath proceeded from continual neglect on the part of Chesterfield. Whilst the Dictionary was in progress, Chesterfield seemed to forget the existence of him, whom, together with the other literary men, he affected to patronize. He once sent him ten pounds, after which he forgot Johnson's address, and said 'the great author had changed his lodgings.' People who really wish to benefit others can always discover where they lodge. The days of patronage were then expiring, but they had not quite ceased, and a dedication was always to be in some way paid for. When the publication of the Dictionary drew near, Lord Chesterfield flattered himself that, in spite of all his neglect, the great compliment of having so vast an undertaking dedicated to him would still be paid, and wrote some papers in the 'World,' recommending the work, more especially referring to the 'plan,' and terming Johnson the 'dictator,' in respect to language: 'I will not only obey him,' he said, 'as my dictator, like an old Roman, but like a modern Roman, will implicitly believe in him as my pope.' Johnson, however, was not to be propitiated by those 'honeyed words.' He wrote a letter couched in what he called 'civil terms,' to Chesterfield, from which we extract the following passages: 'When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself _vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre_--that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. 'Seven years, my lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward room, or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour: such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.... Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man who is struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.' The conduct of Johnson, on this occasion, was approved by most manly minds, except that of his publisher, Mr. Robert Dodsley; Dr. Adams, a friend of Dodsley, said he was sorry that Johnson had written that celebrated letter (a very model of polite contempt). Dodsley said he was sorry too, for he had a property in the Dictionary, to which his lordship's patronage might be useful. He then said that Lord Chesterfield had shown him the letter. 'I should have thought,' said Adams, 'that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed it.' 'Pooh!' cried Dodsley, 'do you think a letter from Johnson could hurt Lord Chesterfield? not at all, sir. It lay on his table, where any one might see it. He read it to me; said, "this man has great powers," pointed out the severest passages, and said, "how well they were expressed."' The art of dissimulation, in which Chesterfield was perfect, imposed on Mr. Dodsley. Dr. Adams expostulated with the doctor, and said Lord Chesterfield declared he would part with the best servant he had, if he had known that he had turned away a man who was '_always_ welcome.' Then Adams insisted on Lord Chesterfield's affability, and easiness of access to literary men. But the sturdy Johnson replied, 'Sir, that is not Lord Chesterfield; he is the proudest man existing.' 'I think,' Adams rejoined, 'I know one that is prouder; you, by your own account, are the prouder of the two.' 'But mine,' Johnson answered, with one of his happy turns, 'was defensive pride.' 'This man,' he afterwards said, referring to Chesterfield, 'I thought had been a lord among wits, but I find he is only a wit among lords.' In revenge, Chesterfield in his Letters depicted Johnson, it is said, in the character of the 'respectable Hottentot.' Amongst other things, he observed of the Hottentot, 'he throws his meat anywhere but down his throat.' This being remarked to Johnson, who was by no means pleased at being immortalized as the Hottentot--'Sir,' he answered, 'Lord Chesterfield never saw me eat in his life.' [Illustration: DR. JOHNSON AT LORD CHESTERFIELD'S.] Such are the leading points of this famous and lasting controversy. It is amusing to know that Lord Chesterfield was not always precise as to directions to his letters. He once directed to Lord Pembroke, who was always swimming 'To the Earl of Pembroke, in the Thames, over against Whitehall. This, as Horace Walpole remarks, was sure of finding him within a certain fathom.' Lord Chesterfield was now admitted to be the very 'glass of fashion,' though age, and, according to Lord Hervey, a hideous person, impeded his being the 'mould of form.' 'I don't know why,' writes Horace Walpole, in the dog-days, from Strawberry Hill, 'but people are always more anxious about their hay than their corn, or twenty other things that cost them more: I suppose my Lord Chesterfield, or some such dictator, made it fashionable to care about one's hay. Nobody betrays solicitude about getting in his rents.' 'The prince of wits,' as the same authority calls him--'his entrance into the world was announced by his bon-mots, and his closing lips dropped repartees that sparkled with his juvenile fire.' No one, it was generally allowed, had such a force of table-wit as Lord Chesterfield; but while the 'Graces' were ever his theme, he indulged himself without distinction or consideration in numerous sallies. He was, therefore, at once sought and feared; liked but not loved; neither sex nor relationship, nor rank, nor friendship, nor obligation, nor profession, could shield his victim from what Lord Hervey calls, 'those pointed, glittering weapons, that seemed to shine only to a stander-by, but cut deep into those they touched.' He cherished 'a voracious appetite for abuse;' fell upon every one that came in his way, and thus treated each one of his companions at the expense of the other. To him Hervey, who had probably often smarted, applied the lines of Boileau-- 'Mais c'est un petit fou qui se croit tout permis, Et qui pour un bon mot va perdre vingt amis.' Horace Walpole (a more lenient judge of Chesterfield's merits) observes that 'Chesterfield took no less pains to be the phoenix of fine gentlemen, than Tully did to qualify himself as an orator. Both succeeded: Tully immortalized his name; Chesterfield's reign lasted a little longer than that of a fashionable beauty.' It was, perhaps, because, as Dr. Johnson said, all Lord Chesterfield's witty sayings were puns, that even his brilliant wit failed to please, although it amused, and surprised its hearers. Notwithstanding the contemptuous description of Lord Chesterfield's personal appearance by Lord Hervey, his portraits represent a handsome, though hard countenance, well-marked features, and his figure and air appear to have been elegant. With his commanding talents, his wonderful brilliancy and fluency of conversation, he would perhaps sometimes have been even tedious, had it not been for his invariable cheerfulness. He was always, as Lord Hervey says, 'present' in his company. Amongst the few friends who really loved this thorough man of the world, was Lord Scarborough, yet no two characters were more opposite. Lord Scarborough had judgment, without wit: Chesterfield wit, and no judgment; Lord Scarborough had honesty and principle; Lord Chesterfield had neither. Everybody liked the one, but did not care for his company. Everyone disliked the other, but wished for his company. The fact was, Scarborough was 'splendid and absent.' Chesterfield 'cheerful and present:' wit, grace, attention to what is passing, the surface, as it were, of a highly-cultured mind, produced a fascination with which all the honour and respectability in the Court of George II. could not compete. In the earlier part of Chesterfield's career, Pope, Bolingbroke, Hervey, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and, in fact, all that could add to the pleasures of the then early dinner-table, illumined Chesterfield House by their wit and gaiety. Yet in the midst of this exciting life, Lord Chesterfield found time to devote to the improvement of his natural son, Philip Stanhope, a great portion of his leisure. His celebrated Letters to that son did not, however, appear during the earl's life; nor were they in any way the source of his popularity as a wit, which was due to his merits in that line alone. The youth to whom these letters, so useful and yet so objectionable, were addressed, was intended for a diplomatist. He was the very reverse of his father: learned, sensible, and dry; but utterly wanting in the graces, and devoid of eloquence. As an orator, therefore, he failed; as a man of society, he must also have failed; and his death, in 1768, some years before that of his father, left that father desolate, and disappointed. Philip Stanhope had attained the rank of envoy to Dresden, where he expired. During the five years in which Chesterfield dragged out a mournful life after this event, he made the painful discovery that his son had married without confiding that step to the father to whom he owed so much. This must have been almost as trying as the awkward, ungraceful deportment of him whom he mourned. The world now left Chesterfield ere he had left the world. He and his contemporary Lord Tyrawley were now old and infirm. 'The fact is,' Chesterfield wittily said, 'Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it known.' 'The Bath,' he wrote to his friend Dayrolles, 'did me more good than I thought anything could do me; but all that good does not amount to what builders call half-repairs, and only keeps up the shattered fabric a little longer than it would have stood without them; but take my word for it, it will stand but a very little while longer. I am now in my grand climacteric, and shall not complete it. Fontenelle's last words at a hundred and three were, _Je souffre d'être._ deaf and infirm as I am, I can with truth say the same thing at sixty-three. In my mind it is only the strength of our passions, and the weakness of our reason, that makes us so fond of life; but when the former subside and give way to the latter, we grow weary of being, and willing to withdraw. I do not recommend this train of serious reflections to you, nor ought you to adopt them.... You have children to educate and provide for, you have all your senses, and can enjoy all the comforts both of domestic and social life. I am in every sense _isolé_, and have wound up all my bottoms; I may now walk off quietly, without missing nor being missed.' The kindness of his nature, corrupted as it was by a life wholly worldly, and but little illumined in its course by religion, shone now in his care of his two grandsons, the offspring of his lost son, and of their mother, Eugenia Stanhope. To her he thus wrote:-- 'The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, I was so taken up in playing with the boys, that I forgot their more important affairs. How soon would you have them placed at school? When I know your pleasure as to that, I will send to Monsieur Perny, to prepare everything for their reception. In the mean time, I beg that you will equip them thoroughly with clothes, linen, &c., all good, but plain; and give me the amount, which I will pay; for I do not intend, from this time forwards, the two boys should cost you one shilling.' He lived, latterly, much at Blackheath, in the house which, being built on Crown land, has finally become the Ranger's lodge; but which still sometimes goes by the name of Chesterfield House. Here he spent large sums, especially on pictures, and cultivated Cantelupe melons; and here, as he grew older, and became permanently afflicted with deafness, his chief companion was a useful friend, Solomon Dayrolles--one of those indebted hangers-on whom it was an almost invariable custom to find, at that period, in great houses--and perhaps too frequently in our own day. Dayrolles, who was employed in the embassy under Lord Sandwich at the Hague, had always, to borrow Horace Walpole's ill-natured expression, 'been a led-captain to the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton, used to be sent to auctions for them, and to walk in the parks with their daughters, and once went dry-nurse in Holland with them. He has belonged, too, a good deal to my Lord Chesterfield, to whom I believe he owes this new honour, "that of being minister at the Hague," as he had before made him black-rod in Ireland, and gave the ingenious reason that he had a black face.' But the great 'dictator' in the empire of politeness was now in a slow but sure decline. Not long before his death he was visited by Monsieur Suard, a French gentleman, who was anxious to see '_l'homme le plus aimable, le plus poli et le plus spirituel des trois royaumes_,' but who found him fearfully altered; morose from his deafness, yet still anxious to please. 'It is very sad,' he said, with his usual politeness, 'to be deaf, when one would so much enjoy listening. I am not,' he added, 'so philosophic as my friend the President de Montesquieu, who says, "I know how to be blind, but I do not yet know how to be deaf."' 'We shortened our visit,' says M. Suard, 'lest we should fatigue the earl.' 'I do not detain you,' said Chesterfield, 'for I must go and rehearse my funeral.' It was thus that he styled his daily drive through the streets of London. Lord Chesterfield's wonderful memory continued till his latest hour. As he lay, gasping in the last agonies of extreme debility, his friend, Mr. Dayrolles, called in to see him half an hour before he expired. The politeness which had become part of his very nature did not desert the dying earl. He managed to say, in a low voice, to his valet, 'Give Dayrolles a chair.' This little trait greatly struck the famous Dr. Warren, who was at the bedside of this brilliant and wonderful man. He died on the 24th of March, 1773, in the 79th year of his age. The preamble to a codicil (Feb. 11, 1773) contains the following striking sentences, written when the intellect was impressed with the solemnity of that solemn change which comes alike to the unreflecting and to the heart stricken, holy believer:-- 'I most humbly recommend my soul to the extensive mercy of that Eternal, Supreme, Intelligent Being who gave it me; most earnestly at the same time deprecating his justice. Satiated with the pompous follies of this life, of which I have had an uncommon share, I would have no posthumous ones displayed at my funeral, and therefore desire to be buried in the next burying-place to the place where I shall die, and limit the whole expense of my funeral to £100.' His body was interred, according to his wish, in the vault of the chapel in South Audley Street, but it was afterwards removed to the family burial-place in Shelford Church, Nottinghamshire. In his will he left legacies to his servants.[26] 'I consider them,' he said, 'as unfortunate friends; my equals by nature, and my inferiors only in the difference of our fortunes.' There was something lofty in the mind that prompted that sentence. His estates reverted to a distant kinsman, descended from a younger son of the first earl; and it is remarkable, on looking through the Peerage of Great Britain, to perceive how often this has been the case in a race remarkable for the absence of virtue. Interested marriages, vicious habits, perhaps account for the fact; but retributive justice, though it be presumptuous to trace its course, is everywhere. He had so great a horror in his last days of gambling, that in bequeathing his possessions to his heir, as he expected, and godson, Philip Stanhope, he inserts this clause:-- 'In case my said godson, Philip Stanhope, shall at any time hereinafter keep, or be concerned in keeping of, any race-horses, or pack of hounds, or reside one night at Newmarket, that infamous seminary of iniquity and ill-manners, during the course of the races there; or shall resort to the said races; or shall lose, in any one day, at any game or bet whatsoever, the sum of £500, then, in any the cases aforesaid, it is my express will that he, my said godson, shall forfeit and pay, out of my estate, the sum of £5,000 to and for the use of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.' When we say that Lord Chesterfield was a man who had _no friend_, we sum up his character in those few words. Just after his death a small but distinguished party of men dined together at Topham Beauclerk's. There was Sir Joshua Reynolds; Sir William Jones, the orientalist; Bennet Langton; Steevens; Boswell; Johnson. The conversation turned on Garrick, who, Johnson said, had friends, but no friend. Then Boswell asked, 'what is a friend?' 'One who comforts and supports you, while others do not.' 'Friendship, you know, sir, is the cordial drop to make the nauseous draught of life go down.' Then one of the company mentioned Lord Chesterfield as one who had no friend; and Boswell said: 'Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf, Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.' And, for once, Johnson did not contradict him. But not so do we judge Lord Chesterfield. He was a man who acted on false principles through life; and those principles gradually undermined everything that was noble and generous in character; just as those deep under-ground currents, noiseless in their course, work through fine-grained rock, and produce a chasm. Everything with Chesterfield was self: for self, and self alone, were agreeable qualities to be assumed; for self, was the country to be served, because that country protects and serves us: for self, were friends to be sought and cherished, as useful auxiliaries, or pleasant accessories: in the very core of the cankered heart, that advocated this corrupting doctrine of expediency, lay unbelief; that worm which never died in the hearts of so many illustrious men of that period--the refrigerator of the feelings. One only gentle and genuine sentiment possessed Lord Chesterfield, and that was his love for his son. Yet in this affection the worldly man might be seen in mournful colours. He did not seek to render his son good; his sole desire was to see him successful: every lesson that he taught him, in those matchless Letters which have carried down Chesterfield's fame to us when his other productions have virtually expired, exposes a code of dissimulation which Philip Stanhope, in his marriage, turned upon the father to whom he owed so much care and advancement. These Letters are, in fact, a complete exposition of Lord Chesterfield's character and views of life. No other man could have written them; no other man have conceived the notion of existence being one great effort to deceive, as well as to excel, and of society forming one gigantic lie. It is true they were addressed to one who was to enter the maze of a diplomatic career, and must be taken, on that account, with some reservation. They have justly been condemned on the score of immorality; but we must remember that the age in which they were written was one of lax notions, especially among men of rank, who regarded all women accessible, either from indiscretion or inferiority of rank, as fair game, and acted accordingly. But whilst we agree with one of Johnson's bitterest sentences as to the immorality of Chesterfield's letters, we disagree with his styling his code of manners the manners of a dancing-master. Chesterfield was in himself a perfect instance of what he calls _les manières nobles_; and this even Johnson allowed. 'Talking of Chesterfield,' Johnson said, 'his manner was exquisitely elegant, and he had more knowledge than I expected.' Boswell: 'Did you find, sir, his conversation to be of a superior sort?'--Johnson: 'Sir, in the conversation which I had with him, I had the best right to superiority, for it was upon philology and literature.' It was well remarked how extraordinary a thing it was that a man who loved his son so entirely should do all he could to make him a rascal. And Foote even contemplated bringing on the stage a father who had thus tutored his son; and intended to show the son an honest man in everything else, but practising his father's maxims upon him, and cheating him. 'It should be so contrived,' Johnson remarked, referring to Foote's plan, 'that the father should be the _only_ sufferer by the son's villany, and thus there would be poetical justice.' 'Take out the immorality,' he added, on another occasion, 'and the book (Chesterfield's Letters to his Son) should be put into the hands of every young gentleman.' We are inclined to differ, and to confess to a moral taint throughout the whole of the Letters; and even had the immorality been expunged, the false motives, the deep, invariable advocacy of principles of expediency, would have poisoned what otherwise might be of effectual benefit to the minor virtues of polite society. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 23: The Countess of Chesterfield here alluded to was the second wife of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield. Philip Dormer, fourth Earl, was grandson of the second Earl by his third wife.] [Footnote 24: In the 'Annual Register,' for 1774, p. 20, it is stated that as George I. had left Lady Walsingham a legacy which his successor did not think proper to deliver, the Earl of Chesterfield was determined to recover it by a suit in Chancery, had not his Majesty, on questioning the Lord Chancellor on the subject, and being answered that he could give no opinion extrajudicially, thought proper to fulfil the bequest.] [Footnote 25: Lord Mahon, now Earl of Stanhope, if not the most eloquent, one of the most honest historians of our time.] [Footnote 26: Two years' wages were left to the servants.] THE ABBÉ SCARRON. An Eastern Allegory.--Who comes Here?--A Mad Freak and its Consequences.--Making an Abbé of him.--The May-Fair of Paris.--Scarron's Lament to Pellisson.--The Office of the Queen's Patient.--'Give me a Simple Benefice.'--Scarron's Description of Himself.--Improvidence and Servility.--The Society at Scarron's.--The Witty Conversation.--Francoise D'Aubigné's Début.--The Sad Story of La Belle Indienne.--Matrimonial Considerations.--'Scarron's Wife will live for ever.'--Petits Soupers.--Scarron's last Moments.--A Lesson for Gay and Grave. There is an Indian or Chinese legend, I forget which, from which Mrs. Shelley may have taken her hideous idea of Frankenstein. We are told in this allegory that, after fashioning some thousands of men after the most approved model, endowing them with all that is noble, generous, admirable, and loveable in man or woman, the eastern Prometheus grew weary in his work, stretched his hand for the beer-can, and draining it too deeply, lapsed presently into a state of what Germans call 'other-man-ness.'--There is a simpler Anglo-Saxon term for this condition, but I spare you. The eastern Prometheus went on seriously with his work, and still produced the same perfect models, faultless alike in brain and leg. But when it came to the delicate finish, when the last touches were to be made, his hand shook a little, and the more delicate members went awry. It was thus that instead of the power of seeing every colour properly, one man came out with a pair of optics which turned everything to green, and this verdancy probably transmitted itself to the intelligence. Another, to continue the allegory, whose tympanum had slipped a little under the unsteady fingers of the man-maker, heard everything in a wrong sense, and his life was miserable, because, if you sang his praises, he believed you were ridiculing him, and if you heaped abuse upon him, he thought you were telling lies of him. But as Prometheus Orientalis grew more jovial, it seems to have come into his head to make mistakes on purpose. 'I'll have a friend to laugh with,' quoth he; and when warned by an attendant Yaksha, or demon, that men who laughed one hour often wept the next, he swore a lusty oath, struck his thumb heavily on a certain bump in the skull he was completing, and holding up his little doll, cried, 'Here is one who will laugh at everything!' I must now add what the legend neglects to tell. The model laugher succeeded well enough in his own reign, but he could not beget a large family. The laughers who never weep, the real clowns of life, who do not, when the curtain drops, retire, after an infinitesimal allowance of 'cordial,' to a half-starved, complaining family, with brats that cling round his parti-coloured stockings, and cry to him--not for jokes--but for bread, these laughers, I say, are few and far between. You should, therefore, be doubly grateful to me for introducing to you now one of the most famous of them; one who with all right and title to be lugubrious, was the merriest man of his age. On Shrove Tuesday, in the year 1638, the good city of Mans was in a state of great excitement: the carnival was at its height, and everybody had gone mad for one day before turning pious for the long, dull forty days of Lent. The market-place was filled with maskers in quaint costumes, each wilder and more extravagant than the last. Here were magicians with high peaked hats covered with cabalistic signs, here Eastern sultans of the medieval model, with very fierce looks and very large scimitars: here Amadis de Gaul with a wagging plume a yard high, here Pantagruel, here harlequins, here Huguenots ten times more lugubrious than the despised sectaries they mocked, here Cæsar and Pompey in trunk hose and Roman helmets, and a mass of other notabilities who were great favourites in that day, appeared. But who comes here? What is the meaning of these roars of laughter that greet the last mask who runs into the market-place? Why do all the women and children hurry together, calling up one another, and shouting with delight? What is this thing? Is it some new species of bird, thus covered with feathers and down? In a few minutes the little figure is surrounded by a crowd of boys and women, who begin to pluck him of his borrowed plumes, while he chatters to them like a magpie, whistles like a song-bird, croaks like a raven, or in his natural character showers a mass of funny nonsense on them, till their laughter makes their sides ache. The little wretch is literally covered with small feathers from head to foot, and even his face is not to be recognized. The women pluck him behind and before; he dances round and tries to evade their fingers. This is impossible; he breaks away, runs down the market pursued by a shouting crowd, is again surrounded, and again subjected to a plucking process. The bird must be stripped; he must be discovered. Little by little his back is bared, and little by little is seen a black jerkin, black stockings, and, wonder upon wonder! the bands of a canon. Now they have cleared his face of its plumage, and a cry of disgust and shame hails the disclosure. Yes, this curious masker is no other than a reverend abbé, a young canon of the cathedral of Mans! 'This is too much--it is scandalous--it is disgraceful. The church must be respected, the sacred order must not descend to such frivolities.' The people, lately laughing, are now furious at the shameless abbé and not his liveliest wit can save him; they threaten and cry shame on him, and in terror of his life, he beats his way through the crowd, and takes to his heels. The mob follows, hooting and savage. The little man is nimble; those well-shaped legs--_qui ont si bien dansé_--stand him in good stead. Down the streets, and out of the town go hare and hounds. The pursuers gain on him--a bridge, a stream filled with tall reeds, and delightfully miry, are all the hope of refuge he sees before him. He leaps gallantly from the bridge in among the oziers, and has the joy of listening to the disappointed curses of the mob, when reaching the stream, their quarry is nowhere to be seen. The reeds conceal him, and there he lingers till nightfall, when he can issue from his lurking-place, and escape from the town. Such was the mad freak which deprived the Abbé Scarron of the use of his limbs for life. His health was already ruined when he indulged this caprice; the damp of the river brought on a violent attack, which closed with palsy, and the gay young abbé had to pay dearly for the pleasure of astonishing the citizens of Mans. The disguise was easily accounted for--he had smeared himself with honey, ripped open a feather-bed, and rolled himself in it. This little incident gives a good idea of what Scarron was in his younger days--ready at any time for any wild caprice. Paul Scarron was the son of a Conseiller du Parlement of good family, resident in Paris. He was born in 1610, and his early days would have been wretched enough, if his elastic spirits had allowed him to give way to misery. His father was a good-natured, weak-minded man, who on the death of his first wife married a second, who, as one hen will peck at another's chicks, would not, as a stepmother, leave the little Paul in peace. She was continually putting her own children forward, and ill-treating the late 'anointed' son. The father gave in too readily, and young Paul was glad enough to be set free from his unhappy home. There may be some excuse in this for the licentious living to which he now gave himself up. He was heir to a decent fortune, and of course thought himself justified in spending it before-hand. Then, in spite of his quaint little figure, he had something attractive about him, for his merry face was good-looking, if not positively handsome. If we add to this, spirits as buoyant as an Irishman's--a mind that not only saw the ridiculous wherever it existed, but could turn the most solemn and awful themes to laughter, a vast deal of good-nature, and not a little assurance--we can understand that the young Scarron was a favourite with both men and women, and among the reckless pleasure-seekers of the day soon became one of the wildest. In short, he was a fast young Parisian, with as little care for morality or religion as any youth who saunters on the Boulevards of the French capital to this day. But his stepmother was not content with getting rid of young Paul, but had her eye also on his fortune, and therefore easily persuaded her husband that the service of the church was precisely the career for which the young reprobate was fitted. There was an uncle who was Bishop of Grenoble, and a canonry could easily be got for him. The fast youth was compelled to give in to this arrangement, but declined to take full orders; so that while drawing the revenue of his stall, he had nothing to do with the duties of his calling. Then, too, it was rather a fashionable thing to be an abbé, especially a gay one. The position placed you on a level with people of all ranks. Half the court was composed of love-making ecclesiastics, and the _soutane_ was a kind of diploma for wit and wickedness. Viewed in this light, the church was as jovial a profession as the army, and the young Scarron went to the full extent of the letter allowed to the black gown. It was only such stupid superstitious louts as those of Mans, who did not know anything of the ways of Paris life, who could object to such little freaks as he loved to indulge in. The merry little abbé was soon the delight of the Marais. This distinct and antiquated quarter of Paris was then the Mayfair of that capital. Here lived in ease, and contempt of the bourgeoisie, the great, the gay, the courtier, and the wit. Here Marion de Lorme received old Cardinals and young abbés; here were the salons of Madame de Martel, of the Comtesse de la Suze, who changed her creed in order to avoid seeing her husband in this world or the next, and the famous--or infamous--Ninon de l'Enclos; and at these houses young Scarron met the courtly Saint-Evremond, the witty Sarrazin, and the learned but arrogant Voiture. Here he read his skits and parodies, here travestied Virgil, made epigrams on Richelieu, and poured out his indelicate but always laughable witticisms. But his indulgences were not confined to intrigues; he also drank deep, and there was not a pleasure within his reach which he ever thought of denying himself. He laughed at religion, thought morality a nuisance, and resolved to be merry at all costs. The little account was brought in at last. At the age of five-and-twenty his constitution was broken up. Gout and rheumatism assailed him alternately or in leash. He began to feel the annoyance of the constraint they occasioned; he regretted those legs which had figured so well in a ronde or a minuet, and those hands which had played the lute to dames more fair than modest; and to add to this, the pain he suffered was not slight. He sought relief in gay society, and was cheerful in spite of his sufferings. At length came the Shrove Tuesday and the feathers; and the consequences were terrible. He was soon a prey to doctors, whom he believed in no more than in the church of which he was so great a light. His legs were no longer his own, so he was obliged to borrow those of a chair. He was soon tucked down into a species of dumb-waiter on castors, in which he could be rolled about in a party. In front of this chair was fastened a desk, on which he wrote; for too wise to be overcome by his agony, he drove it away by cultivating his imagination, and in this way some of the most fantastic productions in French literature were composed by this quaint little abbé. Nor was sickness his only trial now. Old Scarron was a citizen, and had, what was then criminal, sundry ideas of the liberty of the nation. He saw with disgust the tyranny of Richelieu, and joined a party in the Parliament to oppose the cardinal's measures. He even had the courage to speak openly against one of the court edicts; and the pitiless cardinal, who never overlooked any offence, banished him to Touraine, and naturally extended his animosity to the conseiller's son. This happened at a moment at which the cripple believed himself to be on the road to favour. He had already won that of Madame de Hautefort, on whom Louis XIII. had set his affections, and this lady had promised to present him to Anne of Austria. The father's honest boldness put a stop to the son's intended servility, and Scarron lamented his fate in a letter to Pellisson: O mille écus, par malheur retranchés, Que vous pouviez m'épargner de péchés! Quand un valet me dit, tremblant et hâve, Nous n'avons plus de bûches dans la cave Que pour aller jusqu'à demain matin, Je peste alors sur mon chien de destin, Sur le grand froid, sur le bois de la grève, Qu'on vend si cher, et qui si-tôt s'achève. Je jure alors, et même je médis De l'action de mon père étourdi, Quand sans songer à ce qu'il allait faire Il m'ébaucha sous un astre contraire, Et m'acheva par un discours maudit Qu'il fit depuis sur un certain édit. The father died in exile: his second wife had spent the greater part of the son's fortune, and secured the rest for her own children. Scarron was left with a mere pittance, and, to complete his troubles, was involved in a lawsuit about the property. The cripple, with his usual impudence, resolved to plead his own cause, and did it only too well; he made the judges laugh so loud that they took the whole thing to be a farce on his part, and gave--most ungratefully--judgment against him. Glorious days were those for the penniless, halcyon days for the toady and the sycophant. There was still much of the old oriental munificence about the court, and sovereigns like Mazarin and Louis XIV. granted pensions for a copy of flattering verses, or gave away places as the reward of a judicious speech. Sinecures were legion, yet to many a holder they were no sinecures at all, for they entailed constant servility and a complete abdication of all freedom of opinion. Scarron was nothing more than a merry buffoon. Many another man has gained a name for his mirth, but most of them have been at least independent. Scarron seems to have cared for nothing that was honourable or dignified. He laughed at everything but money, and at that he smiled, though it is only fair to say that he was never avaricious, but only cared for ease and a little luxury. When Richelieu died, and the gentler, but more subtle Mazarin mounted his throne, Madame de Hautefort made another attempt to present her _protégé_ to the queen, and this time succeeded. Anne of Austria had heard of the quaint little man who could laugh over a lawsuit in which his whole fortune was staked, and received him graciously. He begged for some place to support him. What could he do? What was he fit for? 'Nothing, your majesty, but the important office of The Queen's Patient; for that I am fully qualified.' Anne smiled, and Scarron from that time styled himself 'par la grace de Dieu, le malade de la Reine.' But there was no stipend attached to this novel office. Mazarin procured him a pension of 500 crowns. He was then publishing his 'Typhon, or the Gigantomachy,' and dedicated it to the cardinal, with an adulatory sonnet. He forwarded the great man a splendidly bound copy, which was accepted with nothing more than thanks. In a rage the author suppressed the sonnet and substituted a satire. This piece was bitterly cutting, and terribly true. It galled Mazarin to the heart, and he was undignified enough to revenge himself by cancelling the poor little pension of £60 per annum which had previously been granted to the writer. Scarron having lost his pension, soon afterwards asked for an abbey, but was refused. 'Then give me,' said he, 'a simple benefice, so simple, indeed, that all its duties will be comprised in believing in God.' But Scarron had the satisfaction of gaining a great name among the cardinal's many enemies, and with none more so than De Retz, then _coadjuteur_[27] to the Archbishop of Paris, and already deeply implicated in the Fronde movement. To insure the favour of this rising man, Scarron determined to dedicate to him a work he was just about to publish, and on which he justly prided himself as by far his best. This was the 'Roman Comique,' the only one of his productions which is still read. That it should be read, I can quite understand, on account not only of the ease of its style, but of the ingenuity of its improbable plots, the truth of the characters, and the charming bits of satire which are found here and there, like gems amid a mass of mere fun. The scene is laid at Mans, the town in which the author had himself perpetrated his chief follies; and many of the characters were probably drawn from life, while it is likely enough that some of the stories were taken from facts which had there come to his knowledge. As in many of the romances of that age, a number of episodes are introduced into the main story, which consists of the adventures of a strolling company. These are mainly amatory, and all indelicate, while some are as coarse as anything in French literature. Scarron had little of the clear wit of Rabelais to atone for this; but he makes up for it, in a measure, by the utter absurdity of some of his incidents. Not the least curious part of the book is the Preface, in which he gives a description of himself, in order to contradict, as he affirms, the extravagant reports circulated about him, to the effect that he was set upon a table, in a cage, or that his hat was fastened to the ceiling by a pulley, that he might 'pluck it up or let it down, to do compliment to a friend, who honoured him with a visit.' This description is a tolerable specimen of his style, and we give it in the quaint language of an old translation, published in 1741:-- 'I am past thirty, as thou may'st see by the back of my Chair. If I live to be forty, I shall add the Lord knows how many Misfortunes to those I have already suffered for these eight or nine Years past. There was a Time when my Stature was not to be found fault with, tho' now 'tis of the smallest. My Sickness has taken me shorter by a Foot. My Head is somewhat too big, considering my Height; and my Face is full enough, in all Conscience, for one that carries such a Skeleton of a Body about him. I have Hair enough on my Head not to stand in need of a Peruke; and 'tis gray, too, in spite of the Proverb. My Sight is good enough, tho' my Eyes are large; they are of a blue Colour, and one of them is sunk deeper into my Head than the other, which was occasion'd by my leaning on that Side. My Nose is well enough mounted. My Teeth, which in the Days of Yore look'd like a Row of square Pearl, are now of an Ashen Colour; and in a few Years more, will have the Complexion of a Small-coal Man's Saturday Shirt. I have lost one Tooth and a half on the left Side, and two and a half precisely on the right; and I have two more that stand somewhat out of their Ranks. My Legs and Thighs, in the first place, compose an obtuse Angle, then a right one, and lastly an acute. My Thighs and Body make another; and my Head, leaning perpetually over my Belly, I fancy makes me not very unlike the Letter Z. My Arms are shortened, as well as my Legs; and my Fingers as well as my Arms. In short, I am a living Epitome of human Misery. This, as near as I can give it, is my Shape. Since I am got so far, I will e'en tell thee something of my Humour. Under the Rose, be it spoken, Courteous Reader, I do this only to swell the Bulk of my Book, at the Request of the Bookseller--the poor Dog, it seems, being afraid he should be a Loser by this Impression, if he did not give Buyer enough for his Money.' This allusion to the publisher reminds us that, on the suppression of his pension--on hearing of which Scarron only said, 'I should like, then, to suppress myself'--he had to live on the profits of his works. In later days it was Madame Scarron herself who often carried them to the bookseller's, when there was not a penny in the house. The publisher was Quinet, and the merry wit, when asked whence he drew his income, used to reply with mock haughtiness, 'De mon Marquisat de Quinet.' His comedies, which have been described as mere burlesques--I confess I have never read them, and hope to be absolved--were successful enough, and if Scarron had known how to keep what he made, he might sooner or later have been in easy circumstances. He knew neither that nor any other art of self-restraint, and, therefore, was in perpetual vicissitudes of riches and penury. At one time he could afford to dedicate a piece to his sister's greyhound, at another he was servile in his address to some prince or duke. In the latter spirit, he humbled himself before Mazarin, in spite of the publication of his 'Mazarinade,' and was, as he might have expected, repulsed. He then turned to Fouquet, the new Surintendant de Finances, who was liberal enough with the public money, which he so freely embezzled, and extracted from him a pension of 1,600 francs (about £64). In one way or another, he got back a part of the property his stepmother had alienated from him, and obtained a prebend in the diocese of Mans, which made up his income to something more respectable. He was now able to indulge to the utmost his love of society. In his apartment, in the Rue St. Louis, he received all the leaders of the Fronde, headed by De Retz, and bringing with them their pasquinades on Mazarin, which the easy Italian read and laughed at and pretended to heed not at all. Politics, however, was not the staple of the conversation at Scarron's. He was visited as a curiosity, as a clever buffoon, and those who came to see, remained to laugh. He kept them all alive by his coarse, easy, impudent wit; in which there was more vulgarity and dirtiness than ill-nature. He had a fund of _bonhommie_, which set his visitors at their ease, for no one was afraid of being bitten by the chained dog they came to pat. His salon became famous; and the admission to it was a diploma of wit. He kept out all the dull, and ignored all the simply great. Any man who could say a good thing, tell a good story, write a good lampoon, or mimic a fool, was a welcome guest. Wits mingled with pedants, courtiers with poets. Abbés and gay women were at home in the easy society of the cripple, and circulated freely round his dumb-waiter. The ladies of the party were not the most respectable in Paris, yet some who were models of virtue met there, without a shudder, many others who were patterns of vice. Ninon de l'Enclos--then young--though age made no alteration in _her_--and already slaying her scores, and ruining her hundreds of admirers, there met Madame de Sévigné, the most respectable, as well as the most agreeable, woman of that age. Mademoiselle de Scudéry, leaving, for the time, her twelve-volume romance, about Cyrus and Ibrahim, led on a troop of Molière's Précieuses Ridicules, and here recited her verses, and talked pedantically to Pellisson, the ugliest man in Paris, of whom Boileau wrote: 'L'or même à Pellisson donne un teint de beauté.' Then there was Madame de la Sablière, who was as masculine as her husband the marquis was effeminate; the Duchesse de Lesdiguières, who was so anxious to be thought a wit that she employed the Chevalier de Méré to make her one; and the Comtesse de la Suze, a clever but foolish woman. The men were poets, courtiers, and pedants. Ménage with his tiresome memory, Montreuil and Marigni the song-writers, the elegant De Grammont, Turenne, Coligni, the gallant Abbé Têtu, and many another celebrity, thronged the rooms where Scarron sat in his curious wheelbarrow. The conversation was decidedly light; often, indeed, obscene, in spite of the presence of ladies; but always witty. The hostility of Scarron to the reigning cardinal was a great recommendation, and when all else flagged, or the cripple had an unusually sharp attack, he had but to start with a line of his 'Mazarinade,' and out came a fresh lampoon, a new caricature, or fresh rounds of wit fired off at the Italian, from the well-filled cartridge-boxes of the guests, many of whom kept their _mots_ ready made up for discharge. But a change came over the spirit of the paralytic's dream. In the Rue St. Louis, close to Scarron's, lived a certain Madame Neuillant, who visited him as a neighbour, and one day excited his curiosity by the romantic history of a mother and daughter, who had long lived in Martinique, who had been ruined by the extravagance and follies of a reprobate husband and father; and were now living in great poverty--the daughter being supported by Madame de Neuillant herself. The good-natured cripple was touched by this story, and begged his neighbour to bring the unhappy ladies to one of his parties. The evening came; the abbé was, as usual, surrounded by a circle of lady wits, dressed in the last fashions, flaunting their fans, and laughing merrily at his sallies. Madame de Neuillant was announced, and entered, followed by a simply-dressed lady, with the melancholy face of one broken-down by misfortunes, and a pretty girl of fifteen. The contrast between the new-comers and the fashionable _habituées_ around him at once struck the abbé. The girl was not only badly, but even shabbily dressed, and the shortness of her gown showed that she had grown out of it, and could not afford a new one. The _grandes dames_ turned upon her their eye-glasses, and whispered comments behind their fans. She was very pretty, they said, very interesting, elegant, lady-like, and so on; but, _parbleu!_ how shamefully _mal mise!_ The new-comers were led up to the cripple's dumb-waiter, and the _grandes dames_ drew back their ample petticoats as they passed. The young girl was overcome with shame, their whispers reached her; she cast down her pretty eyes, and growing more and more confused, she could bear it no longer, and burst into tears. The abbé and his guests were touched by her shyness, and endeavoured to restore her confidence. Scarron himself leant over, and whispered a few kind words in her ear; then breaking out into some happy pleasantry, he gave her time to recover her composure. Such was the first _début_ in Parisian society of Françoise d'Aubigné, who was destined, as Madame Scarron, to be afterwards one of its leaders, and, as Madame de Maintenon, to be its ruler. [Illustration: SCARRON AND THE WITS--FIRST APPEARANCE OF LA BELLE INDIENNE.] Some people are cursed with bad sons--some with erring daughters. Françoise d'Aubigné was long the victim of a wicked father. Constans d'Aubigné belonged to an old and honourable family, and was the son of that famous old Huguenot general, Théodore-Agrippa d'Aubigné, who fought for a long time under Henry of Navarre, and in his old age wrote the history of his times. To counterbalance this distinction, the son Constans brought all the discredit he could on the family. After a reckless life, in which he squandered his patrimony, he married a rich widow, and then, it is said, contrived to put her out of the way. He was imprisoned as a murderer, but acquitted for want of evidence. The story goes, that he was liberated by the daughter of the governor of the gaol, whom he had seduced in the prison, and whom he married when free. He sought to retrieve his fortune in the island of Martinique, ill-treated his wife, and eventually ran away, and left her and her children to their fate. They followed him to France, and found him again incarcerated. Madame d'Aubigné was foolishly fond of her good-for-nothing spouse, and lived with him in his cell, where the little Françoise, who had been born in prison, was now educated. Rescued from starvation by a worthy Huguenot aunt, Madame de Vilette, the little girl was brought up as a Protestant, and a very stanch one she proved for a time. But Madame d'Aubigné, who was a Romanist, would not allow her to remain long under the Calvinist lady's protection, and sent her to be converted by her godmother, the Madame de Neuillant above mentioned. This woman, who was as merciless as a woman can be, literally broke her into Romanism, treated her like a servant, made her groom the horses, and comb the maid's hair, and when all these efforts failed, sent her to a convent to be finished off. The nuns did by specious reasoning what had been begun by persecution, and young Françoise, at the time she was introduced to Scarron, was a highly respectable member of 'the only true church.' Madame d'Aubigné was at this time supporting herself by needlework. Her sad story won the sympathy of Scarron's guests, who united to relieve her wants. _La belle Indienne_, as the cripple styled her, soon became a favourite at his parties, and lost her shyness by degrees. Ninon de l'Enclos, who did not want heart, took her by the hand, and a friendship thus commenced between that inveterate Laïs and the future wife of Louis XIV. which lasted till death. The beauty of Françoise soon brought her many admirers, among whom was even one of Ninon's slaves; but as marriage was not the object of these attentions, and the young girl would not relinquish her virtue, she remained for some time unmarried but respectable. Scarron was particularly fond of her, and well knew that, portionless as she was, the poor girl would have but little chance of making a match. His kindness touched her, his wit charmed her; she pitied his infirmities, and as his neighbour, frequently saw and tried to console him. On the other hand the cripple, though forty years old, and in a state of health which it is impossible to describe, fell positively in love with the young girl, who alone of all the ladies who visited him combined wit with perfect modesty. He pitied her destitution. There was mutual pity, and we all know what passion that feeling is akin to. Still, for a paralytic, utterly unfit for marriage in any point of view, to offer to a beautiful young girl, would have seemed ridiculous, if not unpardonable. But let us take into account the difference in ideas of matrimony between ourselves and the French. We must remember that marriage has always been regarded among our neighbours as a contract for mutual benefit, into which the consideration of money of necessity entered largely. It is true that some qualities are taken as equivalents for actual cash: thus, if a young man has a straight and well-cut nose he may sell himself at a higher price than a young man there with the hideous pug; if a girl is beautiful, the marquis will be content with some thousands of francs less for her dower than if her hair were red or her complexion irreclaimably brown. If Julie has a pretty foot, a _svelte_ waist, and can play the piano thunderingly, or sing in the charmingest soprano, her ten thousand francs are quite as acceptable as those of stout awkward, glum-faced Jeannette. The faultless boots and yellow kids of young Adolphe counterbalance the somewhat apocryphal vicomté of ill-kempt and ill-attired Henri. But then there must be _some_ fortune. A Frenchman is so much in the habit of expecting it, that he thinks it almost a crime to fall in love where there is none. Françoise, pretty, clever, agreeable as she was, was penniless, and even worse, she was the daughter of a man who had been imprisoned on suspicion of murder, and a woman who had gained her livelihood by needlework. All these considerations made the fancy of the merry abbé less ridiculous, and Françoise herself, being sufficiently versed in the ways of the world to understand the disadvantage under which she laboured, was less amazed and disgusted than another girl might have been, when, in due course, the cripple offered her himself and his dumb-waiter. He had little more to give--his pension, a tiny income from his prebend and his Marquisat de Quinet. The offer of the little man was not so amusing as other episodes of his life. He went honestly to work; represented to her what a sad lot would hers be, if Madame de Neuillant died, and what were the temptations of beauty without a penny. His arguments were more to the point than delicate, and he talked to the young girl as if she was a woman of the world. Still, she accepted him, cripple as he was. Madame de Neuillant made no objection, for she was only too glad to be rid of a beauty, who ate and drank, but did not marry. On the making of the contract, Scarron's fun revived. When asked by the notary what was the young lady's fortune, he replied: 'Four louis, two large wicked eyes, one fine figure, one pair of good hands, and lots of mind.' 'And what do you give her?' asked the lawyer.--'Immortality,' replied he, with the air of a bombastic poet 'The names of the wives of kings die with them--that of Scarron's wife will live for ever!' His marriage obliged him to give up his canonry, which he sold to Ménage's man-servant, a little bit of simony which was not even noticed in those days. It is amusing to find a man who laughed at all religion, insisting that his wife should make a formal avowal of the Romish faith. Of the character of this marriage we need say no more than that Scarron had at that time the use of no more than his eyes, tongue, and hands. Yet such was then, as now, the idea of matrimony in France, that the young lady's friends considered her fortunate. Scarron in love was a picture which amazed and amused the whole society of Paris, but Scarron married was still more curious. The queen, when she heard of it, said that Françoise would be nothing but a useless bit of furniture in his house. She proved not only the most useful appendage he could have, but the salvation alike of his soul and his reputation. The woman who charmed Louis XIV. by her good sense, had enough of it to see Scarron's faults, and prided herself on reforming him as far as it was possible. Her husband had hitherto been the great Nestor of indelicacy, and when he was induced to give it up, the rest followed his example. Madame Scarron checked the licence of the abbé's conversation, and even worked a beneficial change in his mind. The joviality of their parties still continued. Scarron had always been famous for his _petits soupers_, the fashion of which he introduced, but as his poverty would not allow him to give them in proper style, his friends made a pic-nic of it, and each one either brought or sent his own dish of ragout, or whatever it might be, and his own bottle of wine. This does not seem to have been the case after the marriage, however; for it is related as a proof of Madame Scarron's conversational powers, that, when one evening a poorer supper than usual was served, the waiter whispered in her ear, 'Tell them another story, Madame, if you please, for we have no joint to-night.' Still both guests and host could well afford to dispense with the coarseness of the cripple's talk, which might raise a laugh, but must sometimes have caused disgust, and the young wife of sixteen succeeded in making him purer both in his conversation and his writings. The household she entered was indeed a villainous one. Scarron rather gloried in his early delinquencies, and, to add to this, his two sisters had characters far from estimable. One of them had been maid of honour to the Princesse de Conti, but had given up her appointment to become the mistress of the Duc de Trêmes. The laugher laughed even at his sister's dishonour, and allowed her to live in the same house on a higher _étage_. When, on one occasion, some one called on him to solicit the lady's interest with the duke, he coolly said, 'You are mistaken; it is not I who know the duke; go up to the next storey.' The offspring of this connection he styled 'his nephews after the fashion of the Marais.' Françoise did her best to reclaim this sister and to conceal her shame, but the laughing abbé made no secret of it. But the laugher was approaching his end. His attacks became more and more violent: still he laughed at them. Once he was seized with a terrible choking hiccup, which threatened to suffocate him. The first moment he could speak he cried, 'If I get well, I'll write a satire on the hiccup.' The priests came about him, and his wife did what she could to bring him to a sense of his future danger. He laughed at the priests and at his wife's fears. She spoke of hell. 'If there is such a place,' he answered, 'it won't be for me, for without you I must have had my hell in this life.' The priests told him, by way of consolation, that 'God had visited him more than any man.'--He does me too much honour,' answered the mocker. 'You should give him thanks,' urged the ecclesiastic. 'I can't see for what,' was the shameless answer. On his death-bed he parodied a will, leaving to Corneille 'two hundred pounds of patience; to Boileau (with whom he had a long feud), the gangrene; and to the Academy, the power to alter the French language as they liked.' His legacy in verse to his wife is grossly disgusting, and quite unfit for quotation. Yet he loved her well, avowed that his chief grief in dying was the necessity of leaving her, and begged her to remember him sometimes, and to lead a virtuous life. His last moments were as jovial as any. When he saw his friends weeping around him he shook his head and cried, 'I shall never make you weep as much as I have made you laugh.' A little later a softer thought of hope came across him. 'No more sleeplessness, no more gout,' he murmured; 'the Queen's patient will be well at last' At length the laugher was sobered. In the presence of death, at the gates of a new world, he muttered, half afraid, 'I never thought it was so easy to laugh at death,' and so expired. This was in October, 1660, when the cripple had reached the age of fifty. Thus died a laugher. It is unnecessary here to trace the story of his widow's strange rise to be the wife of a king. Scarron was no honour to her, and in later years she tried to forget his existence. Boileau fell into disgrace for merely mentioning his name before the king. Yet Scarron was in many respects a better man than Louis; and, laugher as he was, he had a good heart. There is a time for mirth and a time for mourning, the Preacher tells us. Scarron never learned this truth, and he laughed too much and too long. Yet let us not end the laugher's life in sorrow: 'It is well to be merry and wise,' &c. Let us be merry as the poor cripple, who bore his sufferings so well, and let us be wise too. There is a lesson for gay and grave in the life of Scarron, the laugher. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 27: _Coadjuteur._--A high office in the Church of Rome.] FRANÇOIS DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT AND THE DUC DE SAINT-SIMON. Rank and Good Breeding.--The Hôtel de Rochefoucault.--Racine and his Plays.--La Rochefoucault's Wit and Sensibility.--Saint Simon's Youth.--Looking out for a Wife.--Saint-Simon's Court Life.--The History of Louise de la Vallière.--A mean Act of Louis Quatorze.--All has passed away.--Saint-Simon's Memoirs of His Own Time. The precursor of Saint-Simon, the model of Lord Chesterfield, this ornament of his age, belonged, as well as Saint-Simon, to that state of society in France which was characterised--as Lord John Russell, in his 'Memoirs of the Duchess of Orleans,' tells us--by an idolatry of power and station. 'God would not condemn a person of that rank,' was the exclamation of a lady of the old _régime_, on hearing, that a notorious sinner, 'Pair de France,' and one knows not what else, had gone to his account impenitent and unabsolved; and though the sentiment may strike us as profane, it was, doubtless, genuine. Rank, however was often adorned by accomplishments which, like an exemption from rules of conduct, it almost claimed as a privilege. Good-breeding was a science in France; natural to a peasant, even, it was studied as an epitome of all the social virtues. '_N'étre pas poli_' was the sum total of all dispraise: a man could only recover from it by splendid valour or rare gifts; a woman could not hope to rise out of that Slough of Despond to which good-breeding never came. We were behind all the arts of civilization in England, as François de Rochefoucault (we give the orthography of the present day) was in his cradle. This brilliant personage, who combined the wit and the moralist, the courtier and the soldier, the man of literary tastes and the sentimentalist _par excellence_, was born in 1613. In addition to his hereditary title of duc, he had the empty honour, as Saint-Simon calls it, of being Prince de Marsillac, a designation which was lost in that of _De la Rochefoucault_--so famous even to the present day. As he presented himself at the court of the regency, over which Anne of Austria nominally presided, no youth there was more distinguished for his elegance or for the fame of his exploits during the wars of the Fronde than this youthful scion of an illustrious house. Endowed by nature with a pleasing countenance, and, what was far more important in that fastidious region, an air of dignity, he displayed wonderful contradictions in his character and bearing. He had, says Madame de Maintenon, '_beaucoup d'esprit, et peu de savoir_;' an expressive phrase. 'He was,' she adds, 'pliant in nature, intriguing, and cautious;' nevertheless she never, she declares, possessed a more steady friend, nor one more confiding and better adapted to advise. Brave as he was, he held personal valour, or affected to do so, in light estimation. His ambition was to rule others. Lively in conversation, though naturally pensive, he assembled around him all that Paris or Versailles could present of wit and intellect. The old Hôtel de Rochefoucault, in the Rue de Seine, in the Faubourg St. Germain, in Paris, still grandly recalls the assemblies in which Racine, Boileau, Madame de Sévigné, the La Fayettes, and the famous Duchesse de Longueville, used to assemble. The time honoured family of De la Rochefoucault still preside there; though one of its fairest ornaments, the young, lovely, and pious Duchesse de la Rochefoucault of our time, died in 1852--one of the first known victims to diphtheria in France, in that unchanged old locality. There, when the De Longuevilles, the Mazarins, and those who had formed the famous council of state of Anne of Austria had disappeared, the poets and wits who gave to the age of Louis XIV. its true brilliancy, collected around the Duc de la Rochefoucault. What a scene it must have been in those days, as Buffon said of the earth in spring '_tout four-mille de vie!_' Let us people the salon of the Hôtel de Rochefoucault with visions of the past; see the host there, in his chair, a martyr to the gout, which he bore with all the cheerfulness of a Frenchman, and picture to ourselves the great men who were handing him his cushion, or standing near his _fauteuil_. Racine's joyous face may be imagined as he comes in fresh from the College of Harcourt. Since he was born in 1639, he had not arrived at his zenith till La Rochefoucault was almost past his prime. For a man at thirty-six in France can no longer talk prospectively of the departure of youth; it is gone. A single man of thirty, even in Paris, is '_un vieux garçon_:' life begins too soon and ends too soon with those pleasant sinners, the French. And Racine, when he was first routed out of Port Royal, where he was educated, and presented to the whole Faubourg St. Germain, beheld his patron, La Rochefoucault, in the position of a disappointed man. An early adventure of his youth had humbled, perhaps, the host of the Hôtel de Rochefoucault. At the battle of St. Antoine, where he had distinguished himself, 'a musket-ball had nearly deprived him of sight. On this occasion he had quoted these lines, taken from the tragedy of '_Alcyonnée_.' It must, however, be premised that the famous Duchess de Longueville had urged him to engage in the wars of the Fronde. To her these lines were addressed:-- 'Pour mériter son coeur, pour plaire à ses beaux yeux, J'ai fait la guerre aux Rois, je l'aurais faite aux dieux.' But now he had broken off his intimacy with the duchesse, and he therefore parodied these lines:-- 'Pour ce coeur inconstant, qu'enfin je connais mieux, J'ai fait la guerre aux Rois, j'en ai perdue les yeux.' Nevertheless, La Rochefoucault was still the gay, charming, witty host and courtier. Racine composed, in 1660, his '_Nymphe de Seine_,' in honour of the marriage of Louis XIV., and was then brought into notice of those whose notice was no empty compliment, such as, in our day, illustrious dukes pay to more illustrious authors, by asking them to be jumbled in a crowd at a time when the rooks are beginning to caw. We catch, as they may, the shadow of a dissolving water-ice, or see the exit of an unattainable tray of negus. No; in the days of Racine, as in those of Halifax and Swift in England, solid fruits grew out of fulsome praise; and Colbert, then minister, settled a pension of six hundred livres, as francs were called in those days (twenty-four pounds), on the poet. And with this the former pupil of Port Royal was fain to be content. Still he was so poor that he _almost_ went into the church, an uncle offering to resign him a priory of his order if he would become a regular. He was a candidate for orders, and wore a sacerdotal dress when he wrote the tragedy of 'Theagenes,' and that of the 'Frères Ennemis,' the subject of which was given him by Molière. He continued, in spite of a quarrel with the saints of Port Royal, to produce noble dramas from time to time, but quitted theatrical pursuits after bringing out (in 1677) 'Phèdre,' that _chef-d'oeuvre_ not only of its author, but, as a performance, of the unhappy but gifted Rachel. Corneille was old, and Paris looked to Racine to supply his place, yet he left the theatrical world for ever. Racine had been brought up with deep religious convictions; they could not, however, preserve him from a mad, unlawful attachment. He loved the actress Champmesle: but repentance came. He resolved not only to write no more plays, but to do penance for those already given to the world. He was on the eve of becoming, in his penitence, a Carthusian friar, when his religious director advised marriage instead. He humbly did as he was told, and united himself to the daughter of a treasurer for France, of Amiens, by whom he had seven children. It was only at the request of Madame de Maintenon that he wrote 'Esther' for the convent of St. Cyr, where it was first acted. His death was the result of his benevolent, sensitive nature. Having drawn up an excellent paper on the miseries of the people, he gave it to Madame de Maintenon to read it to the king. Louis, in a transport of ill-humour, said, 'What! does he suppose because he is a poet that he ought to be minister of state?' Racine is said to have been so wounded by this speech that he was attacked by a fever and died. His decease took place in 1699, nineteen years after that of La Rochefoucault, who died in 1680. Amongst the circle whom La Rochefoucault loved to assemble were Boileau--Despréaux, and Madame de Sévigné--the one whose wit and the other whose grace completed the delights of that salon. A life so prosperous as La Rochefoucault's had but one cloud--the death of his son who was killed during the passage of the French troops over the Rhine. We attach to the character of this accomplished man the charms of wit; we may also add the higher attractions of sensibility. Notwithstanding the worldly and selfish character which is breathed forth in his 'Maxims and Reflections,' there lay at the bottom of his heart true piety. Struck by the death of a neighbour, this sentiment seems even on the point of being expressed; but, adds Madame de Sévigné, and her phrase is untranslatable, '_il n'est pas effleuré_.' All has passed away! the _Fronde_ has become a memory, not a realized idea. Old people shake their heads, and talk of Richelieu; of his gorgeous palace at Rueil, with its lake and its prison thereon, and its mysterious dungeons, and its avenues of chestnuts, and its fine statues; and of its cardinal, smiling, whilst the worm that never dieth is eating into his very heart; a seared conscience, and playing the fine gentleman to fine ladies in a rich stole, and with much garniture of costly lace: whilst beneath all is the hair shirt, that type of penitence and sanctity which he ever wore as a salvo against all that passion and ambition that almost burst the beating heart beneath that hair shirt. Richelieu has gone to his fathers. Mazarin comes on the scene; the wily, grasping Italian. He too vanishes; and forth, radiant in youth, and strong in power, comes Louis, and the reign of politeness and periwigs begins. The Duc de Saint-Simon, perhaps the greatest portrait-painter of any time, has familiarized us with the greatness, the littleness, the graces, the defects of that royal actor on the stage of Europe, whom his own age entitled Louis the Great. A wit, in his writings, of the first order--if we comprise under the head of wit the deepest discernment, the most penetrating satire--Saint-Simon was also a soldier, philosopher, a reformer, a Trappist, and, eventually, a devotee. Like all young men who wished for court favour, he began by fighting: Louis cared little for carpet knights. He entered, however, into a scene which he has chronicled with as much fidelity as our journalists do a police report, and sat quietly down to gather observations--not for his own fame, not even for the amusement of his children or grandchildren--but for the edification of posterity yet a century afar off his own time. The treasures were buried until 1829. A word or two about Saint-Simon and his youth. At nineteen he was destined by his mother to be married. Now every one knows how marriages are managed in France, not only in the time of Saint-Simon, but even to the present day. A mother or an aunt, or a grandmother, or an experienced friend, looks out; be it for son, be it for daughter, it is the business of her life. She looks and she finds: family, suitable; fortune, convenient; person, _pas mal_; principles, Catholic, with a due abhorrence of heretics, especially English ones. After a time, the lady is to be looked at by the unhappy _prétendû_; a church, a mass, or vespers, being very often the opportunity agreed. The victim thinks she will do. The proposal is discussed by the two mammas; relatives are called in; all goes well; the contract is signed; then, a measured acquaintance is allowed: but no _tête-à-têtes;_ no idea of love. 'What! so indelicate a sentiment before marriage! Let me not hear of it,' cries mamma, in a sanctimonious panic. 'Love! _Quelle bêtise!_' adds _mon pére_. But Saint-Simon, it seems, had the folly to wish to make a marriage of inclination. Rich, _pair de France_, his father--an old _roué_, who had been page to Louis XIII.--dead, he felt extremely alone in the world. He cast about to see whom he could select. The Duc de Beauvilliers had eight daughters; a misfortune, it may be thought, in France or anywhere else. Not at all: three of the young ladies were kept at home, to be married; the other five were at once disposed of, as they passed the unconscious age of infancy, in convents. Saint-Simon was, however, disappointed. He offered, indeed; first for the eldest, who was not then fifteen years old; and finding that she had a vocation for a conventual life, went on to the third, and was going through the whole family, when he was convinced that his suit was impossible. The eldest daughter happened to be a disciple of Fénélon's, and was on the very eve of being vowed to heaven. Saint-Simon went off to La Trappe, to console himself for his disappointment. There had been an old intimacy between Monsieur La Trappe and the father of Saint-Simon; and this friendship had induced him to buy an estate close to the ancient abbey where La Trappe still existed. The friendship became hereditary; and Saint-Simon, though still a youth, revered and loved the penitent recluse of _Ferté au Vidame_, of which Lamartine has written so grand and so poetical a description. Let us hasten over his marriage with Mademoiselle de Lorges, who proved a good wife. It was this time a grandmother, the Maréchale de Lorges, who managed the treaty; and Saint-Simon became the happy husband of an innocent blonde, with a majestic air, though only fifteen years of age. Let us hasten on, passing over his presents; his six hundred louis, given in a corbeille full of what he styles 'gallantries;' his mother's donation of jewellery; the midnight mass, by which he was linked to the child who scarcely knew him; let us lay all that aside, and turn to his court life. At this juncture Louis XIV., who had hitherto dressed with great simplicity, indicated that he desired his court should appear in all possible magnificence. Instantly the shops were emptied. Even gold and silver appeared scarcely rich enough. Louis himself planned many of the dresses for any public occasion. Afterwards he repented of the extent to which he had permitted magnificence to go, but it was then impossible to check the excess. Versailles, henceforth in all its grandeur, contains an apartment which is called, from its situation, and the opportunities it presents of looking down upon the actors of the scene around, _L'OEil de Boeuf_. The revelations of the OEil de Boeuf, during the reign of Louis XV., form one of the most amazing pictures of wickedness, venality, power misapplied, genius polluted, that was ever drawn. No one that reads that infamous book can wonder at the revolution of 1789. Let us conceive Saint-Simon to have taken his stand here, in this region, pure in the time of Louis XIV., comparatively, and note we down his comments on men and women. He has journeyed up to court from La Trappe, which has fallen into confusion and quarrels, to which the most saintly precincts are peculiarly liable. The history of Mademoiselle de la Vallière was not, as he tells us, of his time. He hears of her death, and so indeed does the king, with emotion. She expired in 1710, in the Rue St. Jacques, at the Carmelite convent, where, though she was in the heart of Paris, her seclusion from the world had long been complete. Amongst the nuns of the convent none was so humble, so penitent, so chastened as this once lovely Louise de la Vallière, now, during a weary term of thirty-five years, 'Marie de la Miséricorde.' She had fled from the scene of her fall at one-and-thirty years of age. Twice had she taken refuge among the 'blameless vestals,' whom she envied as the broken-spirited envy the passive. First, she escaped from the torture of witnessing the king's passion for Madame de Montespan, by hiding herself among the Benedictine sisters at St. Cloud. Thence the king fetched her in person, threatening to order the cloister to be burnt. Next, Lauzun, by the command of Louis, sought her, and brought her _avec main forte_. The next time she fled no more; but took a public farewell of all she had too fondly loved, and throwing herself at the feet of the queen, humbly entreated her pardon. Never since that voluntary sepulture had she ceased, during those long and weary years, to lament--as the heart-stricken can alone lament--her sins. In deep contrition she learned the death of her son by the king, and bent her head meekly beneath the chastisement. Three years before her death the triumphant Athénée de Montespan had breathed her last at Bourbon. If Louis XIV. had nothing else to repent of, the remorse of these two women ought to have wrung his heart. Athénée de Montespan was a youthful, innocent beauty, fresh from the seclusion of provincial life, when she attracted the blighting regards of royalty. A _fête_ was to be given; she saw, she heard that she was its object. She entreated her husband to take her back to his estate in Guyenne, and to leave her there till the king had forgotten her. Her husband, in fatal confidence, trusted her resistance, and refused her petition. It was a life-long sorrow; and he soon found his mistake. He lived and died passionately attached to his wife, but never saw her after her fall. When she retired from court, to make room for the empire of the subtle De Maintenon, it was her son, the Duc de Maine, who induced her, not from love, but from ambition, to withdraw. She preserved, even in her seclusion in the country, the style of a queen, which she had assumed. Even her natural children by the king were never allowed to sit in her presence, on a _fauteuil_, but were only permitted to have small chairs. Every one went to pay her court, and she spoke to them as if doing them an honour; neither did she ever return a visit, even from the royal family. Her fatal beauty endured to the last: nothing could exceed her grace, her tact, her good sense in conversation, her kindness to every one. But it was long before her restless spirit could find real peace. She threw herself on the guidance of the Abbé de la Tour; for the dread of death was ever upon her. He suggested a terrible test of her penitence. It was, that she should entreat her husband's pardon, and return to him. It was a fearful struggle with herself, for she was naturally haughty and high spirited; but she consented. After long agonies of hesitation, she wrote to the injured man. Her letter was couched in the most humble language; but it received no reply. The Marquis de Montespan, through a third person, intimated to her that he would neither receive her, nor see her, nor hear her name pronounced. At his death she wore widow's weeds; but never assumed his arms, nor adopted his liveries. Henceforth, all she had was given to the poor. When Louis meanly cut down her pension, she sent word that she was sorry for the poor, not for herself; they would be the losers. She then humbled herself to the very dust: wore the hardest cloth next her fair skin; had iron bracelets; and an iron girdle, which made wounds on her body. Moreover, she punished the most unruly members of her frame: she kept her tongue in bounds; she ceased to slander; she learned to bless. The fear of death still haunted her; she lay in bed with every curtain drawn, the room lighted up with wax candles; whilst she hired watchers to sit up all night, and insisted that they should never cease talking or laughing, lest, when she woke, the fear of _death_ might come over her affrighted spirit. She died at last after a few hours' illness, having just time to order all her household to be summoned, and before them to make a public confession of her sins. As she lay expiring, blessing God that she died far away from the children of her adulterous connection, the Comte d'Antin, her only child by the Marquis de Montespan, arrived. Peace and trust had then come at last to the agonized woman. She spoke to him about her state of mind, and expired. To Madame de Maintenon the event would, it was thought, be a relief: yet she wept bitterly on hearing of it. The king showed, on the contrary, the utmost indifference, on learning that one whom he had once loved so much was gone for ever. All has passed away! The _OEil de Boeuf_ is now important only as being pointed out to strangers; Versailles is a show-place, not a habitation. Saint-Simon, who lived until 1775, was truly said to have turned his back on the new age, and to live in the memories of a former world of wit and fashion. He survived until the era of the 'Encyclopédie' of Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He lived, indeed, to hear that Montesquieu was no more. How the spirit of Louis XIV. spoke in his contemptuous remarks on Voltaire, whom he would only call Arouet; 'The son of my father's and my own notary.' At length, after attaining his eightieth year, the chronicler, who knew the weaknesses, the vices, the peculiarities of mankind, even to a hair's breadth, expired; having long given up the court and occupied himself, whilst secluded in his country seat, solely with the revising and amplification of his wonderful Memoirs. No works, it has been remarked, since those of Sir Walter Scott, have excited so much sensation as the Memoirs of his own time, by the soldier, ambassador, and _Trappist_, Duc de Saint-Simon. Transcriber's Notes. 1. The following typos were corrected: narative//narrative Rochoucault's//Rochefoucault's Ormonde's//Ormond's Gramont//Grammont Warmistre//Warmestre Frederic//Frederick 2. The various spellings of Shakespeare//Shakespere//Shakspeare and Dutchess//Duchess in the original text were retained. 3. The year Mary Fairfax and George Villiers, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, were married is transposed from 1657 to 1675 in the original text. The day also appears to be in error (6th->15th). 
6053	----	Celebration of Women Writers ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EVELINA OR THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY'S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD 1778 BY FANNY BURNEY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ORIGINAL INSCRIPTION: TO DR. BURNEY Oh, Author of my being!-far more dear To me than light, than nourishment, or rest, Hygeia's blessings, Rapture's burning tear, Or the life-blood that mantles in my breast! If in my heart the love of Virtue glows, 'T was planted there by an unerring rule; From thy example the pure flame arose, Thy life, my precept,-thy good works, my school. Could my weak pow'rs thy num'rous virtues trace, By filial love each fear should be repress'd, The blush of Incapacity I'd chace, And stand, Recorder of thy worth, confess'd: But since my niggard stars that gift refuse, Concealment is the only boon I claim; Obscure be still the unsuccessful Muse, Who cannot raise, but would not sink, thy fame. Oh! of my life at once the source and joy! If e'er thy eyes these feeble lines survey, Let not their folly their intent destroy; Accept the tribute-but forget the lay. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS - LETTER I. Lady Howard to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER II. Mr. Villars to Lady Howard - LETTER III. Lady Howard to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER IV. Mr. Villars to Lady Howard - LETTER V. Mr. Villars to Lady Howard - LETTER VI. Lady Howard to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER VII. Lady Howard to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER VIII. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER IX. Mr. Villars to Evelina - LETTER X. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XI. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XIII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XIV. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XV. Mr. Villars to Evelina. - LETTER XVI. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XVII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XVIII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XIX. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XX. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XXI. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XXII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XXIII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XXIV. Mr. Villars to Evelina. - LETTER XXV. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XXVI. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XXVII. Lady Howard to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XXVIII. Mr. Villars to Lady Howard - LETTER XXIX. Mr. Villars to Evelina. - LETTER XXX. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XXXI. Lady Howard to Sir John Belmont, Bart - LETTER XXXII. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XXXIII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XXXIV. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XXXV. Sir John Belmont to Lady Howard - LETTER XXXVI. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XXXVII. Mr. Villars to Evelina - LETTER XXXVIII. Mr. Villars to Lady Howard - LETTER XXXIX. Mr. Villars to Evelina - LETTER XL. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XLI. Evelina to Miss Mirvan - LETTER XLII. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XLIII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XLIV. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XLV. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XLVI. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XLVII. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER XLVIII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER XLIX. Mr. Villars to Evelina - LETTER L. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER LI. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LIII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LIV. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LV. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LVI. Mr. Villars to Evelina - LETTER LVII. Evelina to Miss Mirvan - LETTER LVIII. Evelina to Miss Mirvan - LETTER LIX. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LX. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXI. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXII. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER LXIII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXIV. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXV. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXVI. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXVII. Mr. Villars to Evelina - LETTER LXVIII. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER LXIX. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXX. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXI. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXIII. Mr. Villars to Evelina - LETTER LXXIV. Lady Belmont to Sir John Belmont - LETTER LXXV. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars - LETTER LXXVI. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXVII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXVIII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXIX. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXX. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXXI. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXXII. Evelina in Continuation - LETTER LXXXIII. Mr. Villars to Evelina - LETTER LXXXIV. Evelina to the Rev. Mr. Villars ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ORIGINAL DEDICATION. TO THE AUTHORS OF THE MONTHLY AND CRITICAL REVIEWS. GENTLEMEN, The liberty which I take in addressing to you the trifling production of a few idle hours, will doubtless move your wonder, and probably your contempt. I will not, however, with the futility of apologies, intrude upon your time, but briefly acknowledge the motives of my temerity; lest, by a premature exercise of that patience which I hope will befriend me, I should lessen its benevolence, and be accessary to my own condemnation. Without name, without recommendation, and unknown alike to success and disgrace, to whom can I so properly apply for patronage, as to those who publicly profess themselves Inspectors of all literary performances? The extensive plan of your critical observations,-which, not confined to works of utility or ingenuity, is equally open to those of frivolous amusement,-and, yet worse than frivolous, dullness,-encourages me to seek for your protection, since,-perhaps for my sins!-it intitles me to your annotations. To resent, therefore, this offering, however insignificant, would ill become the universality of your undertaking; though not to despise it may, alas! be out of your power. The language of adulation, and the incense of flattery, though the natural inheritance, and constant resource, from time immemorial, of the Dedicator, to me offer nothing but the wistful regret that I dare not invoke their aid. Sinister views would be imputed to all I could say; since, thus situated, to extol your judgment, would seem the effect of art, and to celebrate your impartiality, be attributing to suspecting it. As magistrates of the press, and Censors for the public,-to which you are bound by the sacred ties of integrity to exert the most spirited impartiality, and to which your suffrages should carry the marks of pure, dauntless, irrefragable truth-to appeal to your MERCY, were to solicit your dishonour; and therefore,-though 'tis sweeter than frankincense,-more grateful to the senses than all the odorous perfumes of Arabia,-and though It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath,- I court it not! to your justice alone I am intitled, and by that I must abide. Your engagements are not to the supplicating authors; but to the candid public, which will not fail to crave The penalty and forfeit of your bond. No hackneyed writer, inured to abuse, and callous to criticism, here braves your severity;-neither does a half-starved garretteer, Oblig'd by hunger-and request of friends,- implore your lenity: your examination will be alike unbiassed by partiality and prejudice;-no refractory murmuring will follow your censure, no private interest will be gratified by your praise. Let not the anxious solicitude with which I recommend myself to your notice, expose me to your derision. Remember, Gentlemen, you were all young writers once, and the most experienced veteran of your corps may, by recollecting his first publication, renovate his first terrors, and learn to allow for mine. For though Courage is one of the noblest virtues of this nether sphere; and though scarcely more requisite in the field of battle, to guard the fighting hero from disgrace, than in the private commerce of the world, to ward off that littleness of soul which leads, by steps imperceptible, to all the base train of the inferior passions, and by which the too timid mind is betrayed into a servility derogatory to the dignity of human nature! yet is it a virtue of no necessity in a situation such as mine; a situation which removes, even from cowardice itself, the sting of ignominy;-for surely that courage may easily be dispensed with, which would rather excite disgust than admiration! Indeed, it is the peculiar privilege of an author, to rob terror of contempt, and pusillanimity of reproach. Here let me rest- and snatch myself, while I yet am able, from the fascination of EGOTISM:-a monster who has more votaries than ever did homage to the most popular deity of antiquity; and whose singular quality is, that while he excites a blind and involuntary adoration in almost every individual, his influence is universally disallowed, his power universally contemned, and his worship, even by his followers, never mentioned but with abhorence. In addressing you jointly, I mean but to mark the generous sentiments by which liberal criticism, to the utter annihilation of envy, jealousy, and all selfish views, ought to be distinguished. I have the honour to be, GENTLEMEN, Your most obedient Humble Servant, *** **** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ORIGINAL PREFACE. IN the republic of letters, there is no member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his brethren of the quill, as the humble Novelist; nor is his fate less hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers, perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous but less respectable. Yet, while in the annals of those few of our predecessors, to whom this species of writing is indebted for being saved from contempt, and rescued from depravity, we can trace such names as Rousseau, Johnson,(1)Marivaux, Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, no man need blush at starting from the same post, though many, nay, most men, may sigh at finding themselves distanced. The following letters are presented to the Public-for such, by novel writers, novel readers will be called,-with a very singular mixture of timidity and confidence, resulting from the peculiar situation of the editor; who, though trembling for their success from a consciousness of their imperfections, yet fears not being involved in their disgrace, while happily wrapped up in a mantle of impenetrable obscurity. To draw characters from nature, though not from life, and to mark the manners of the times, is the attempted plan of the following letters. For this purpose, a young female, educated in the most secluded retirement, makes, at the age of seventeen, her first appearance upon the great and busy stage of life; with a virtuous mind, a cultivated understanding, and a feeling heart, her ignorance of the forms, and inexperience in the manners of the world, occasion all the little incidents which these volumes record, and which form the natural progression of the life of a young woman of obscure birth, but conspicuous beauty, for the first six months after her Entrance into the world. Perhaps, were it possible to effect the total extirpation of novels, our young ladies in general, and boarding-school damsels in particular, might profit from their annihilation; but since the distemper they have spread seems incurable, since their contagion bids defiance to the medicine of advice or reprehension, and since they are found to baffle all the mental art of physic, save what is prescribed by the slow regimen of Time, and bitter diet of Experience; surely all attempts to contribute to the number of those which may be read, if not with advantage, at least without injury, ought rather to be encouraged than contemned. Let me, therefore, prepare for disappointment those who, in the perusal of these sheets, entertain the gentle expectation of being transported to the fantastic regions of Romance, where Fiction is coloured by all the gay tints of luxurious Imagination, where Reason is an outcast, and where the sublimity of the Marvellous rejects all aid from sober Probability. The heroine of these memoirs, young, artless, and inexperienced, is No faultless Monster that the world ne'er saw; but the offspring of Nature, and of Nature in her simplest attire. In all the Arts, the value of copies can only be proportioned to the scarcity of originals: among sculptors and painters, a fine statue, or a beautiful picture, of some great master, may deservedly employ the imitative talents of young and inferior artists, that their appropriation to one spot may not wholly prevent the more general expansion of their excellence; but, among authors, the reverse is the case, since the noblest productions of literature are almost equally attainable with the meanest. In books, therefore, imitation cannot be shunned too sedulously; for the very perfection of a model which is frequently seen, serves but more forcibly to mark the inferiority of a copy. To avoid what is common, without adopting what is unnatural, must limit the ambition of the vulgar herd of authors: however zealous, therefore, my veneration of the great writers I have mentioned, however I may feel myself enlightened by the knowledge of Johnson, charmed with the eloquence of Rousseau, softened by the pathetic powers of Richardson, and exhiliarated by the wit of Fielding and humour of Smollett, I yet presume not to attempt pursuing the same ground which they have tracked; whence, though they may have cleared the weeds, they have also culled the flowers; and, though they have rendered the path plain, they have left it barren. The candour of my readers I have not the impertinence to doubt, and to their indulgence I am sensible I have no claim; I have, therefore, only to intreat, that my own words may not pronounce my condemnation; and that what I have here ventured to say in regard to imitation, may be understood as it is meant, in a general sense, and not be imputed to an opinion of my own originality, which I have not the vanity, the folly, or the blindness, to entertain. Whatever may be the fate of these letters, the editor is satisfied they will meet with justice; and commits them to the press, though hopeless of fame, yet not regardless of censure. 1)However superior the capacities in which these great writers deserve to be considered, they must pardon me that, for the dignity of my subject, I here rank the authors of Rasselas and Eloise as Novelists. LETTER I LADY HOWARD TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, Kent. CAN any thing, my good Sir, be more painful to a friendly mind, than a necessity of communicating disagreeable intelligence? Indeed it is sometimes difficult to determine, whether the relator or the receiver of evil tidings is most to be pitied. I have just had a letter from Madame Duval; she is totally at a loss in what manner to behave; she seems desirous to repair the wrongs she has done, yet wishes the world to believe her blameless. She would fain cast upon another the odium of those misfortunes for which she alone is answerable. Her letter is violent, sometimes abusive, and that of you!-you, to whom she is under obligations which are greater even than her faults, but to whose advice she wickedly imputes all the sufferings of her much injured daughter, the late Lady Belmont. The chief purport of her writing I will acquaint you with; the letter itself is not worthy your notice. She tells me that she has, for many years past, been in continual expectation of making a journey to England, which prevented her writing for information concerning this melancholy subject, by giving her hopes of making personal inquiries; but family occurrences have still detained her in France, which country she now sees no prospect of quitting. She has, therefore, lately used her utmost endeavors to obtain a faithful account of whatever related to her ill-advised daughter; the result of which giving her some reason to apprehend, that, upon her death-bed, she bequeathed an infant orphan to the world, she most graciously says, that if you, with whom she understands the child is placed, will procure authentic proofs of its relationship to her, you may sent it to Paris, where she will properly provide for it. This woman is, undoubtedly, at length, self-convicted of her most unnatural behaviour; it is evident, from her writing, that she is still as vulgar and illiterate as when her first husband, Mr. Evelyn, had the weakness to marry her; nor does she at all apologize for addressing herself to me, though I was only once in her company. Her letter has excited in my daughter Mirvan, a strong desire to be informed of the motives which induced Madame Duval to abandon the unfortunate Lady Belmont, at a time when a mother's protection was peculiarly necessary for her peace and her reputation. Notwithstanding I was personally acquainted with all the parties concerned in that affair, the subject always appeared of too delicate a nature to be spoken of with the principals; I cannot, therefore, satisfy Mrs. Mirvan otherwise than by applying to you. By saying that you may send the child, Madame Duval aims at conferring, where she most owes obligation. I pretend not to give you advice; you, to whose generous protection this helpless orphan is indebted for every thing, are the best and only judge of what she ought to do; but I am much concerned at the trouble and uneasiness which this unworthy woman may occasion you. My daughter and my grandchild join with me in desiring to be most kindly remembered to the amiable girl; and they bid me remind you, that the annual visit to Howard Grove, which we were formerly promised, has been discontinued for more than four years. I am, dear Sir, with great regard, Your most obedient friend and servant, M. HOWARD. LETTER II MR. VILLARS TO LADY HOWARD Berry Hill, Dorsetshire. YOUR Ladyship did but too well foresee the perplexity and uneasiness of which Madame Duval's letter has been productive. However, I ought rather to be thankful that I have so many years remained unmolested, than repine at my present embarrassment; since it proves, at least, that this wretched woman is at length awakened to remorse. In regard to my answer, I must humbly request your Ladyship to write to this effect: "That I would not, upon any account, intentionally offend Madame Duval; but that I have weighty, nay unanswerable reasons for detaining her grand-daughter at present in England; the principal of which is, that it was the earnest desire of one to whose will she owes implicit duty. Madame Duval may be assured, that she meets with the utmost attention and tenderness; that her education, however short of my wishes, almost exceeds my abilities; and I flatter myself, when the time arrives that she shall pay her duty to her grand-mother, Madame Duval will find no reason to be dissatisfied with what has been done for her." Your Ladyship will not, I am sure, be surprised at this answer. Madame Duval is by no means a proper companion or guardian for a young woman: she is at once uneducated and unprincipled; ungentle in temper, and unamiable in her manners. I have long known that she has persuaded herself to harbour an aversion for me-Unhappy woman! I can only regard her as an object of pity! I dare not hesitate at a request from Mrs. Mirvan; yet, in complying with it, I shall, for her own sake, be as concise as I possibly can; since the cruel transactions which preceded the birth of my ward can afford no entertainment to a mind so humane as her's. Your Ladyship may probably have heard, that I had the honour to accompany Mr. Evelyn, the grandfather of my young charge, when upon his travels, in the capacity of a tutor. His unhappy marriage, immediately upon his return to England, with Madame Duval, then a waiting-girl at a tavern, contrary to the advice and entreaties of all his friends, among whom I was myself the most urgent, induced him to abandon his native land, and fix his abode in France. Thither he was followed by shame and repentance; feelings which his heart was not framed to support; for, notwithstanding he had been too weak to resist the allurements of beauty, which nature, though a niggard to her of every other boon, had with a lavish hand bestowed on his wife; yet he was a young man of excellent character, and, till thus unaccountably infatuated, of unblemished conduct. He survived this ill-judged marriage but two years. Upon his death-bed, with an unsteady hand, he wrote me the following note: "My friend, forget your resentment, in favour of your humanity;-a father, trembling for the welfare of his child, bequeaths her to your care. O Villars! hear! pity! And relieve me!" Had my circumstances permitted me, I should have answered these words by an immediate journey to Paris; but I was obliged to act by the agency of a friend, who was upon the spot, and present at the opening of the will. Mr. Evelyn left to me a legacy of a thousand pounds, and the sole guardianship of his daughter's person till her eighteenth year; conjuring me, in the most affecting terms, to take the charge of her education till she was able to act with propriety for herself; but, in regard to fortune, he left her wholly dependent on her mother, to whose tenderness he earnestly recommended her. Thus, though he would not, to a woman low-bred and illiberal as Mrs. Evelyn, trust the conduct and morals of his daughter, he nevertheless thought proper to secure to her the respect and duty to which, from her own child, were certainly her due; but unhappily, it never occurred to him that the mother, on her part, could fail in affection or justice. Miss Evelyn, Madam, from the second to the eighteenth year of her life, was brought up under my care, and, except when at school under my roof. I need not speak to your Ladyship of the virtues of that excellent young creature. She loved me as her father; nor was Mrs. Villars less valued by her; while to me she became so dear, that her loss was little less afflicting than that which I have since sustained of Mrs. Villars herself. At that period of her life we parted; her mother, then married to Monsieur Duval, sent for her to Paris. How often have I since regretted that I did not accompany her thither! Protected and supported by me, the misery and disgrace which awaited her might perhaps have been avoided. But, to be brief-Madame Duval, at the instigation of her husband, earnestly, or rather tyrannically, endeavoured to effect a union between Miss Evelyn and one of his nephews. And, when she found her power inadequate to her attempt, enraged at her non-compliance, she treated her with the grossest unkindness, and threatened her with poverty and ruin. Miss Evelyn, to whom wrath and violence had hitherto been strangers, soon grew weary of such usage; and rashly, and without a witness, consented to a private marriage with Sir John Belmont, a very profligate young man, who had but too successfully found means to insinuate himself into her favour. He promised to conduct her to England-he did.-O, Madam, you know the rest!-Disappointed of the fortune he expected, by the inexorable rancour of the Duvals, he infamously burnt the certificate of their marriage, and denied that they had ever been united. She flew to me for protection. With what mixed transports of joy and anguish did I again see her! By my advice, she endeavoured to procure proofs of her marriage-but in vain; her credulity had been no match for his art. Every body believed her innocent, from the guiltless tenor of her unspotted youth, and from the known libertinism of her barbarous betrayer. Yet her sufferings were too acute for her slender frame; and the same moment that gave birth to her infant, put an end at once to the sorrows and the life of its mother. The rage of Madame Duval at her elopement, abated not while this injured victim of cruelty yet drew breath. She probably intended, in time, to have pardoned her; but time was not allowed. When she was informed of her death, I have been told, that the agonies of grief and remorse, with which she was seized, occasioned her a severe fit of illness. But, from the time of her recovery to the date of her letter to your Ladyship, I had never heard that she manifested any desire to be made acquainted with the circumstances which attended the death of Lady Belmont, and the birth of her helpless child. That child, Madam, shall never, while life is lent me, know the loss she has sustained. I have cherished, succoured, and supported her, from her earliest infancy to her sixteenth year; and so amply has she repaid my care and affection, that my fondest wish is now circumscribed by the desire of bestowing her on one who may be sensible of her worth, and then sinking to eternal rest in her arms. Thus it has happened, that the education of the father, daughter, and grand-daughter, has devolved on me. What infinite misery have the two first caused me! Should the fate of the dear survivor be equally adverse, how wretched will be the end of my cares-the end of my days! Even had Madame Duval merited the charge she claims, I fear my fortitude would have been unequal to such a parting; but being such as she is, not only my affection, but my humanity, recoils, at the barbarous idea of deserting the sacred trust reposed in me. Indeed, I could but ill support her former yearly visits to the respectable mansion at Howard Grove: pardon me, dear Madam, and do not think me insensible of the honour which your Ladyship's condescension confers upon us both; but so deep is the impression which the misfortunes of her mother have made on my heart, that she does not, even for a moment, quit my sight without exciting apprehensions and terrors which almost overpower me. Such, Madam, is my tenderness, and such my weakness!-But she is the only tie I have upon earth, and I trust to your Ladyship's goodness not to judge of my feelings with severity. I beg leave to present my humble respects to Mrs. and Miss Mirvan; and have the honour to be, Madam, your Ladyship's most obedient and most humble servant, ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER III [Written some months after the last] LADY HOWARD TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, March 8. Dear and Rev. Sir, YOUR last letter gave me infinite pleasure: after so long and tedious an illness, how grateful to yourself and to your friends must be your returning health! You have the hearty wishes of every individual of this place for its continuance and increase. Will you not think I take advantage of your acknowledged recovery, if I once more venture to mention your pupil and Howard Grove together? Yet you must remember the patience with which we submitted to your desire of not parting with her during the bad state of your health, tho' it was with much reluctance we forbore to solicit her company. My grand-daughter in particular, has scarce been able to repress her eagerness to again meet the friend of her infancy; and for my own part, it is very strongly my wish to manifest the regard I had for the unfortunate Lady Belmont, by proving serviceable to her child; which seems to me the best respect that can be paid to her memory. Permit me, therefore, to lay before you a plan which Mrs. Mirvan and I have formed, in consequence of your restoration to health. I would not frighten you;-but do you think you could bear to part with your young companion for two or three months? Mrs. Mirvan proposes to spend the ensuing spring in London, whither for the first time, my grandchild will accompany her: Now, my good friend, it is very earnestly their wish to enlarge and enliven their party by the addition of your amiable ward, who would share, equally with her own daughter, the care and attention of Mrs. Mirvan. Do not start at this proposal; it is time that she should see something of the world. When young people are too rigidly sequestered from it, their lively and romantic imaginations paint it to them as a paradise of which they have been beguiled; but when they are shown it properly, and in due time, they see it such as it really is, equally shared by pain and pleasure, hope and disappointment. You have nothing to apprehend from her meeting with Sir John Belmont, as that abandoned man is now abroad, and not expected home this year. Well, my good Sir, what say you to our scheme? I hope it will meet with your approbation; but if it should not, be assured I can never object to any decision of one who is so much respected and esteemed as Mr. Villars, by His most faithful, humble servant, M. HOWARD. LETTER IV MR. VILLARS TO LADY HOWARD Berry Hill, March 12. I AM grieved, Madam, to appear obstinate, and I blush to incur the imputation of selfishness. In detaining my young charge thus long with myself in the country, I consulted not solely my own inclination. Destined, in all probability, to possess a very moderate fortune, I wished to contract her views to something within it. The mind is but too naturally prone to pleasure, but too easily yielded to dissipation: it has been my study to guard her against their delusions, by preparing her to expect-and to despise them. But the time draws on for experience and observation to take the place of instruction: if I have in some measure, rendered her capable of using one with discretion, and making the other with improvement, I shall rejoice myself with the assurance of having largely contributed to her welfare. She is now of an age that happiness is eager to attend,-let her then enjoy it! I commit her to the protection of your Ladyship, and only hope she may be found worthy half the goodness I am satisfied she will meet with at your hospitable mansion. Thus far, Madam, I cheerfully submit to your desire. In confiding my ward to the care of Lady Howard, I can feel no uneasiness from her absence, but what will arise from the loss of her company, since I shall be as well convinced of her safety as if she were under my own roof.-But can your Ladyship be serious in proposing to introduce her to the gaieties of a London life? Permit me to ask, for what end, or for what purpose? A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment. I apprehend nothing more than too much raising her hopes and her views, which the natural vivacity of her disposition would render but too easy to effect. The town-acquaintance of Mrs. Mirvan are all in the circle of high life; this artless young creature, with too much beauty to escape notice, has too much sensibility to be indifferent to it; but she has too little wealth to be sought with propriety by men of the fashionable world. Consider Madam, the peculiar cruelty of her situation. Only child of a wealthy Baronet, whose person she has never seen, whose character she has reason to abhor, and whose name she is forbidden to claim; entitled as she is to lawfully inherit his fortune and estate, is there any probability that he will properly own her? And while he continues to persevere in disavowing his marriage with Miss Evelyn, she shall never, at the expense of her mother's honour, receive a part of her right as the donation of his bounty. And as to Mr. Evelyn's estate, I have no doubt but that Madame Duval and her relations will dispose of it among themselves. It seems, therefore, as if this deserted child, though legally heiress to two large fortunes, must owe all her rational expectations to adoption and friendship. Yet her income will be such as may make her happy, if she is disposed to be so in private life; though it will by no means allow her to enjoy the luxury of a London fine lady. Let Miss Mirvan, then, Madam, shine in all the splendour of high life; but suffer my child still to enjoy the pleasures of humble retirement, with a mind to which greater views are unknown. I hope this reasoning will be honoured with your approbation; and I have yet another motive which has some weight with me: I would not willingly give offence to any human being; and surely Madame Duval might accuse me of injustice, if, while I refuse to let her grand-daughter wait upon her, I consent that she should join a party of pleasure to London. In sending her to Howard Grove, not one of these scruples arise; and therefore Mrs. Clinton, a most worthy woman, formerly her nurse, and now my housekeeper, shall attend her thither next week. Though I have always called her by the name of Anville, and reported in this neighbourhood that her father, my intimate friend, left her to my guardianship; yet I have thought it necessary she should herself be acquainted with the melancholy circumstances attending her birth: for though I am very desirous of guarding her from curiosity and impertinence, by concealing her name, family, and story, yet I would not leave it in the power of chance to shock her gentle nature with a tale of so much sorrow. You must not, Madam, expect too much from my pupil; she is quite a little rustic, and knows nothing of the world; and though her education has been the best I could bestow in this retired place, to which Dorchester, the nearest town, is seven miles distant, yet I shall not be surprised if you should discover in her a thousand deficiencies of which I have never dreamt. She must be very much altered since she was last at Howard Grove. But I will say nothing of her; I leave her to your Ladyship's own observations, of which I beg a faithful relation; and am, Dear Madam, with great respect, Your obedient and most humble Servant, ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER V MR. VILLARS TO LADY HOWARD March 18. Dear Madam, THIS letter will be delivered to you by my child-the child of my adoption-my affection! Unblest with one natural friend, she merits a thousand. I send her to you innocent as an angel, and artless as purity itself; and I send you with her the heart of your friend, the only hope he has on earth, the subject of his tenderest thoughts, and the object of his latest cares. She is one, Madam, for whom alone I have lately wished to live; and she is one whom to serve I would with transport die! Restore her but to me all innocence as you receive her, and the fondest hope of my heart will be amply gratified. A. VILLARS. LETTER VI LADY HOWARD TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove. Dear Rev. Sir, THE solemn manner in which you have committed your child to my care, has in some measure damped the pleasure which I receive from the trust, as it makes me fear that you suffer from your compliance, in which case I shall very sincerely blame myself for the earnestness with which I have requested this favour: but remember, my good Sir, she is within a few days summons; and be assured, I will not detain her a moment longer than you wish. You desire my opinion of her. She is a little angel! I cannot wonder that you sought to monopolize her: neither ought you, at finding it impossible. Her face and person answer my most refined ideas of complete beauty: and this, though a subject of praise less important to you, or, to me than any other, is yet so striking, it is not possible to pass it unnoticed. Had I not known from whom she received her education, I should at first sight of so perfect a face, have been in pain for her understanding; since it has been long and justly remarked, that folly has ever sought alliance with beauty. She has the same gentleness in her manners, the same natural graces in her motions, that I formerly so much admired in her mother. Her character seems truly ingenuous and simple; and at the same time that nature has blessed her with an excellent understanding and great quickness of parts, she has a certain air of inexperience and innocency that is extremely interesting. You have not reason to regret the retirement in which she has lived; since that politeness which is acquired by an acquaintance with high life, is in her so well supplied by a natural desire of obliging, joined to a deportment infinitely engaging. I observe, with great satisfaction, a growing affection between this amiable girl and my grand-daughter, whose heart is as free from selfishness or conceit, as that of her young friend is from all guile. Their regard may be mutually useful, since much is to be expected from emulation where nothing is to be feared from envy. I would have them love each other as sisters, and reciprocally supply the place of that tender and happy relationship to which neither of them has a natural claim. Be satisfied, my good Sir, that your child shall meet with the same attention as our own. We all join in most hearty wishes for your health and happiness, and in returning our sincere thanks for the favour you have conferred on us. I am, dear Sir, Your most faithful servant, M. HOWARD. LETTER VII LADY HOWARD TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, March 26. BE not alarmed, my worthy friend, at my so speedily troubling you again; I seldom use the ceremony of waiting for answers, or writing with any regularity, and I have at present immediate occasion for begging your patience. Mrs. Mirvan has just received a letter from her long absent husband, containing the welcome news of his hoping to reach London by the beginning of next week. My daughter and the Captain have been separated almost seven years, and it would therefore be needless to say what joy, surprise, and consequently confusion, his at present unexpected return has caused at Howard Grove. Mrs. Mirvan, you cannot doubt, will go instantly to town to meet him; her daughter is under a thousand obligations to attend her; I grieve that her mother cannot. And now, my good Sir, I almost blush to proceed;-but, tell me, may I ask-will you permit-that your child may accompany them? Do not think us unreasonable, but consider the many inducements which conspire to make London the happiest place at present she can be in. The joyful occasion of the journey; the gaiety of the whole party, opposed to the dull life she must lead, if left here with a solitary old woman for her sole companion, while she so well knows the cheerfulness and felicity enjoyed by the rest of the family,-are circumstances that seem to merit your consideration. Mrs. Mirvan desires me to assure you that one week is all she asks, as she is certain that the Captain, who hates London, will be eager to revisit Howard Grove; and Maria is so very earnest in wishing to have the company of her friend, that, if you are inexorable, she will be deprived of half the pleasure she otherwise hopes to receive. However, I will not, my good Sir, deceive you into an opinion that they intend to live in a retired manner, as that cannot be fairly expected. But you have no reason to be uneasy concerning Madame Duval; she has not any correspondent in England, and obtains no intelligence but by common report. She must be a stranger to the name your child bears; and, even should she hear of this excursion, so short a time as a week or less spent in town upon so particular an occasion, though previous to their meeting, cannot be construed into disrespect to herself. Mrs. Mirvan desires me to assure you, that if you will oblige her, her two children shall equally share her time and her attention. She has sent a commission to a friend in town to take a house for her; and while she waits for an answer concerning it, I shall for one from you to our petition. However, your child is writing herself; and that, I doubt not, will more avail than all we can possible urge. My daughter desires her best compliments to you if, she says, you will grant her request but not else. Adieu, my dear Sir, we all hope every thing from your goodness. M. HOWARD. LETTER VIII EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, March 26. THIS house seems to be the house of joy; every face wears a smile, and a laugh is at every body's service. It is quite amusing to walk about and see the general confusion; a room leading to the garden is fitting up for Captain Mirvan's study. Lady Howard does not sit a moment in a place; Miss Mirvan is making caps; every body so busy!-such flying from room to room!-so many orders given, and retracted, and given again! nothing but hurry and perturbation. Well but, my dear Sir, I am desired to make a request to you. I hope you will not think me an encroacher; Lady Howard insists upon my writing!-yet I hardly know how to go on; a petition implies a want and have you left me one? No, indeed. I am half ashamed of myself for beginning this letter. But these dear ladies are so pressing-I cannot, for my life, resist wishing for the pleasures they offer me,-provided you do not disapprove them. They are to make a very short stay in town. The Captain will meet them in a day or two. Mrs. Mirvan and her sweet daughter both go; what a happy party! Yet, I am not very eager to accompany them: at least I shall be contented to remain where I am, if you desire that I should. Assured, my dearest Sir, of your goodness, your bounty, and your indulgent kindness, ought I to form a wish that has not your sanction? Decide for me, therefore, without the least apprehension that I shall be uneasy or discontented. While I am yet in suspense, perhaps I may hope; but I am most certain that when you have once determined I shall not repine. They tell me that London is now in full splendour. Two playhouses are open,-the Opera-house,-Ranelagh,-and the Pantheon.-You see I have learned all their names. However, pray don't suppose that I make any point of going, for I shall hardly sigh, to see them depart without me, though I shall probably never meet with such another opportunity. And, indeed, their domestic happiness will be so great,-it is natural to wish to partake of it. I believe I am bewitched! I made a resolution, when I began, that I would not be urgent; but my pen-or rather my thoughts, will not suffer me to keep it-for I acknowledge, I must acknowledge, I cannot help wishing for your permission. I almost repent already that I have made this confession; pray forget that you have read it, if this journey is displeasing to you. But I will not write any longer; for the more I think of this affair, the less indifferent to it I find myself. Adieu, my most honoured, most reverenced, most beloved father! for by what other name can I call you? I have no happiness or sorrow, no hope or fear, but what your kindness bestows, or your displeasure may cause. You will not, I am sure, send a refusal without reasons unanswerable, and therefore I shall cheerfully acquiesce. Yet I hope-I hope you will be able to permit me to go! I am, with the utmost affection, gratitude, and duty, your EVELINA - I cannot to you sign ANVILLE, and what other name may I claim? LETTER IX MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA Berry Hill, March 28. TO resist the urgency of intreaty, is a power which I have not yet acquired: I aim not at an authority which deprives you of liberty, yet I would fain guide myself by a prudence which should save me the pangs of repentance. Your impatience to fly to a place which your imagination has painted to you in colors so attractive, surprises me not; I have only to hope, that the liveliness of your fancy may not deceive you: to refuse, would be raising it still higher. To see my Evelina happy, is to see myself without a wish: go, then my child; and may that Heaven, which alone can direct, preserve and strengthen you! To that, my love, will I daily offer prayers for your felicity. O may it guard, watch over you, defend you from danger, save you from distress, and keep vice as distant from your person as from your heart! And to me, may it grant, the ultimate blessing of closing these aged eyes in the arms of one so dear-so deservedly beloved! ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER X EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Queen Ann Street, London, Saturday, April 2. THIS moment arrived. Just going to Drury Lane Theatre. The celebrated Mr. Garrick performs Ranger. I am quite in ecstasy. So is Miss Mirvan. How fortunate that he should happen to play! We would not let Mrs. Mirvan rest till she consented to go. Her chief objection was to our dress, for we have had no time to Londonize ourselves; but we teased her into compliance, and so we are to sit in some obscure place that she may not be seen. As to me, I should be alike unknown in the most conspicuous or most private part of the house. I can write no more now. I have hardly time to breathe-only just this, the houses and streets are not quite so superb as I expected. However, I have seen nothing yet, so I ought not to judge. Well; adieu, my dearest Sir, for the present; I could not forbear writing a few words instantly on my arrival, though I suppose my letter of thanks for your consent is still on the road. Saturday Night. O, my dear Sir, in what raptures am I returned? Well may Mr. Garrick be so celebrated, so universally admired-I had not any idea of so great a performer. Such ease! such vivacity in his manner! such grace in his motions! such fire and meaning in his eyes!-I could hardly believe he had studied a written part, for every word seemed to be uttered from the impulse of the moment. His action-at once so graceful and so free!-his voice-so clear, so melodious, yet so wonderfully various in its tones!-Such animation!-every look speaks! I would have given the world to have had the whole play acted over again. And when he danced-O, how I envied Clarinda! I almost wished to have jumped on the stage and joined them. I am afraid you will think me mad, so I won't say any more; yet, I really believe Mr. Garrick would make you mad too if you could see him. I intend to ask Mrs. Mirvan to go to the play every night while we stay in town. She is extremely kind to me; and Maria, her charming daughter, is the sweetest girl in the world. I shall write to you every evening all that passes in the day, and that in the same manner as, if I could see, I should tell you. Sunday. This morning we went to Portland chapel; and afterwards we walked in the mall of St. James's Park, which by no means answered my expectations: it is a long straight walk of dirty gravel, very uneasy to the feet; and at each end instead of an open prospect, nothing is to be seen but houses built of brick. When Mrs. Mirvan pointed out the Palace to me-I think I was never much more surprised. However, the walk was very agreeable to us; every body looked gay, and seemed pleased; and the ladies were so much dressed, that Miss Mirvan and I could do nothing but look at them. Mrs. Mirvan met several of her friends. No wonder, for I never saw so many people assembled together before. I looked about for some of my acquaintance, but in vain; for I saw not one person that I knew, which is very odd, for all the world seemed there. Mrs. Mirvan says we are not to walk in the Park again next Sunday, even if we should be in town, because there is better company in Kensington Gardens; but really if you had seen how much every body was dressed, you would not think that possible. Monday. We are to go this evening to a private ball, given by Mrs. Stanley, a very fashionable lady of Mrs. Mirvan's acquaintance. We have been a-shopping as Mrs. Mirvan calls it, all this morning, to buy silks, caps, gauzes, and so forth. The shops are really very entertaining, especially the mercers; there seem to be six or seven men belonging to each shop; and every one took care by bowing and smirking, to be noticed. We were conducted from one to another, and carried from room to room with so much ceremony, that at I was almost afraid to go on. I thought I should never have chosen a silk: for they produced so many, I knew not which to fix upon; and they recommended them all so strongly, that I fancy they thought I only wanted persuasion to buy every thing they showed me. And, indeed, they took so much trouble, that I was almost ashamed I could not. At the milliners, the ladies we met were so much dressed, that I should rather have imagined they were making visits than purchases. But what most diverted me was, that we were more frequently served by men than by women; and such men! so finical, so affected! they seemed to understand every part of a woman's dress better than we do ourselves; and they recommended caps and ribbands with an air of so much importance, that I wished to ask them how long they had left off wearing them. The dispatch with which they work in these great shops is amazing, for they have promised me a complete suit of linen against the evening. I have just had my hair dressed. You can't think how oddly my head feels; full of powder and black pins, and a great cushion on the top of it. I believe you would hardly know me, for my face looks quite different to what it did before my hair was dressed. When I shall be able to make use of a comb for myself I cannot tell; for my hair is so much entangled, frizzled they call it, that I fear it will be very difficult. I am half afraid of this ball to-night; for, you know, I have never danced but at school: however, Miss Mirvan says there is nothing in it. Yet, I wish it was over. Adieu, my dear Sir, pray excuse the wretched stuff I write; perhaps I may improve by being in this town, and then my letters will be less unworthy your reading. Meantime, I am, Your dutiful and affectionate, though unpolished, EVELINA. Poor Miss Mirvan cannot wear one of the caps she made, because they dress her hair too large for them. LETTER XI EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Queen Ann Street, April 5, Tuesday Morning. I HAVE a vast deal to say, and shall give all this morning to my pen. As to my plan of writing every evening the adventures of the day, I find it impracticable; for the diversions here are so very late, that if I begin my letters after them, I could not go to bed at all. We passed a most extraordinary evening. A private ball this was called, so I expected to have seen about four or five couple; but Lord! my dear Sir, I believe I saw half the world! Two very large rooms were full of company; in one were cards for the elderly ladies, and in the other were the dancers. My mamma Mirvan, for she always calls me her child, said she would sit with Maria and me till we were provided with partners, and then join the card-players. The gentlemen, as they passed and repassed, looked as if they thought we were quite at their disposal, and only waiting for the honour of their commands; and they sauntered about, in a careless, indolent manner, as if with a view to keep us in suspense. I don't speak of this in regard to Miss Mirvan and myself only, but to the ladies in general: and I thought it so provoking, that I determined in my own mind that, far from humouring such airs, I would rather not dance at all, than with any one who would seem to think me ready to accept the first partner who would condescend to take me. Not long after, a young man, who had for some time looked at us with a kind of negligent impertinence, advanced on tiptoe towards me; he had a set smile on his face, and his dress was so foppish, that I really believed he even wished to be stared at; and yet he was very ugly. Bowing almost to the ground with a sort of swing, and waving his hand, with the greatest conceit, after a short and silly pause, he said, "Madam-may I presume?"-and stopt, offering to take my hand. I drew it back, but could scarce forbear laughing. "Allow me, Madam," continued he, affectedly breaking off every half moment, "the honour and happiness-if I am not so unhappy as to address you too late-to have the happiness and honour-" Again he would have taken my hand; but bowing my head, I begged to be excused, and turned to Miss Mirvan to conceal my laughter. He then desired to know if I had already engaged myself to some more fortunate man? I said No, and that I believed I should not dance at all. He would keep himself he told me, disengaged, in hopes I should relent; and then, uttering some ridiculous speeches of sorrow and disappointment, though his face still wore the same invariable smile, he retreated. It so happened, as we have since recollected, that during this little dialogue Mrs. Mirvan was conversing with the lady of the house. And very soon after, another gentleman, who seemed about six-and-twenty years old, gaily but not foppishly dressed, and indeed extremely handsome, with an air of mixed politeness and gallantry, desired to know if I was engaged, or would honour him with my hand. So he was pleased to say, though I am sure I know not what honour he could receive from me; but these sort of expressions, I find, are used as words of course, without any distinction of persons, or study of propriety. Well, I bowed, and I am sure I coloured; for indeed I was frightened at the thoughts of dancing before so many people, all strangers, and, which was worse, with a stranger: however, that was unavoidable; for, though I looked round the room several times, I could not see one person that I knew. And so he took my hand, and led me to join in the dance. The minuets were over before we arrived, for we were kept late by the milliners making us wait for our things. He seemed very desirous of entering into conversation with me; but I was seized with such a panic, that I could hardly speak a word, and nothing but the shame of so soon changing my mind prevented my returning to my seat, and declining to dance at all. He appeared to be surprised at my terror, which I believe was but too apparent: however, he asked no questions, though I fear he must think it very strange, for I did not choose to tell him it was owing to my never before dancing but with a school-girl. His conversation was sensible and spirited; his air, and address were open and noble; his manners gentle, attentive, and infinitely engaging; his person is all elegance, and his countenance the most animated and expressive I have ever seen. In a short time we were joined by Miss Mirvan, who stood next couple to us. But how I was startled when she whispered me that my partner was a nobleman! This gave me a new alarm: how will he be provoked, thought I, when he finds what a simple rustic he has honoured with his choice! one whose ignorance of the world makes her perpetually fear doing something wrong! That he should be so much my superior in every way, quite disconcerted me; and you will suppose my spirits were not much raised, when I heard a lady, in passing us, say, "This is the most difficult dance I ever saw." "O dear, then" cried Maria to her partner, "with your leave, I'll sit down till the next." "So will I too, then," cried I, "for I am sure I can hardly stand." "But you must speak to your partner first," answered she; for he had turned aside to talk with some gentlemen. However, I had not sufficient courage to address him; and so away we all three tript, and seated ourselves at another end of the room. But, unfortunately for me, Miss Mirvan soon after suffered herself to be prevailed upon to attempt the dance; and just as she rose to go, she cried, "My dear, yonder is your partner, Lord Orville walking about the room in search of you." "Don't leave me then, dear girl!" cried I; but she was obliged to go. And now I was more uneasy than ever; I would have given the world to have seen Mrs. Mirvan, and begged of her to make my apologies; for what, thought I, can I possibly say to him in excuse for running away? He must either conclude me a fool, or half mad; for any one brought up in the great world, and accustomed to its ways, can have no idea of such sort of fears as mine. My confusion increased when I observed that he was every where seeking me, with apparent perplexity and surprise; but when, at last, I saw him move towards the place where I sat, I was ready to sink with shame and distress. I found it absolutely impossible to keep my seat, because I could not think of a word to say for myself; and so I rose, and walked hastily towards the card-room, resolving to stay with Mrs. Mirvan the rest of the evening, and not to dance at all. But before I could find her, Lord Orville saw and approached me. He begged to know if I was not well? You may easily imagine how much I was embarrassed. I made no answer; but hung my head like a fool, and looked on my fan. He then, with an air the most respectfully serious, asked if he had been so unhappy as to offend me? "No, indeed!" cried I; and, in hopes of changing the discourse, and preventing his further inquiries, I desired to know if he had seen the young lady who had been conversing with me? No;-but would I honour him with any commands to her? "O, by no means!" Was there any other person with whom I wished to speak? I said no, before I knew I had answered at all. Should he have the pleasure of bringing me any refreshment? I bowed, almost involuntarily. And away he flew. I was quite ashamed of being so troublesome, and so much above myself as these seeming airs made me appear; but indeed I was too much confused to think or act with any consistency. If he had not been as swift as lightning, I don't know whether I should not have stolen away again; but he returned in a moment. When I had drank a glass of lemonade, he hoped, he said, that I would again honour him with my hand, as a new dance was just begun. I had not the presence of mind to say a single word, and so I let him once more lead me to the place I had left. Shocked to find how silly, how childish a part I had acted, my former fears of dancing before such a company, and with such a partner, returned more forcibly than ever. I suppose he perceived my uneasiness; for he entreated me to sit down again if dancing was disagreeable to me. But I was quite satisfied with the folly I had already shewn; and therefore declined his offer, though I was really scarce able to stand. Under such conscious disadvantages, you may easily imagine my dear Sir, how ill I acquitted myself. But, though I both expected and deserved to find him very much mortified and displeased at his ill fortune in the choice he had made; yet, to my very great relief, he appeared to be even contented, and very much assisted and encouraged me. These people in high life have too much presence of mind, I believe, to seem disconcerted, or out of humour, however they may feel: for had I been the person of the most consequence in the room, I could not have met with more attention and respect. When the dance was over, seeing me still very much flurried, he led me to a seat, saying that he would not suffer me to fatigue myself from politeness. And then, if my capacity, or even, if my spirits had been better, in how animated a conversation I might have been engaged! it was then I saw that the rank of Lord Orville was his least recommendation, his understanding and his manners being far more distinguished. His remarks upon the company in general were so apt, so just, so lively, I am almost surprised myself that they did not reanimate me; but, indeed, I was too well convinced of the ridiculous part I had myself played before so nice an observer, to be able to enjoy his pleasantry: so self-compassion gave me feeling for others. Yet I had not the courage to attempt either to defend them or to rally in my turn; but listened to him in silent embarrassment. When he found this, he changed the subject, and talked of public places, and public performers; but he soon discovered that I was totally ignorant of them. He then, very ingeniously, turned the discourse to the amusements and occupations of the country. It now struck me that he was resolved to try whether or not I was capable of talking upon any subject. This put so great a restraint upon my thoughts, that I was unable to go further than a monosyllable, and not ever so far, when I could possibly avoid it. We were sitting in this manner, he conversing with all gaiety, I looking down with all foolishness, when that fop who had first asked me to dance, with a most ridiculous solemnity approached, and, after a profound bow or two, said, "I humbly beg pardon, Madam,-and of you too, my Lord,-for breaking in upon such agreeable conversation-which must, doubtless, be more delectable-than what I have the honour to offer-but-" I interrupted him-I blush for my folly,-with laughing; yet I could not help it; for, added to the man's stately foppishness, (and he actually took snuff between every three words) when I looked around at Lord Orville, I saw such extreme surprise in his face,-the cause of which appeared so absurd, that I could not for my life preserve my gravity. I had not laughed before from the time I had left Miss Mirvan, and I had much better have cried then; Lord Orville actually stared at me; the beau, I know not his name, looked quite enraged. "Refrain-Madam," said he, with an important air, "a few moments refrain!-I have but a sentence to trouble you with.-May I know to what accident I must attribute not having the honour of your hand?" "Accident, Sir!" repeated I, much astonished. "Yes, accident, Madam;-for surely,-I must take the liberty to observe-pardon me, Madam,-it ought to be no common one-that should tempt a lady-so young a one too,-to be guilty of ill-manners." A confused idea now for the first time entered my head, of something I had heard of the rules of an assembly; but I was never at one before,-I have only danced at school,-and so giddy and heedless I was, that I had not once considered the impropriety of refusing one partner, and afterwards accepting another. I was thunderstruck at the recollection: but, while these thoughts were rushing into my head, Lord Orville with some warmth, said, "This Lady, Sir, is incapable of meriting such an accusation!" The creature-for I am very angry with him-made a low bow and with a grin the most malicious I ever saw, "My Lord," said he, "far be it from me to accuse the lady, for having the discernment to distinguish and prefer-the superior attractions of your Lordship." Again he bowed and walked off. Was ever any thing so provoking? I was ready to die with shame. "What a coxcomb!" exclaimed Lord Orville: while I, without knowing what I did, rose hastily, and moving off, "I can't imagine," cried I, "where Mrs. Mirvan has hid herself!" "Give me leave to see," answered he. I bowed and sat down again, not daring to meet his eyes; for what must he think of me, between my blunder, and the supposed preference? He returned in a moment, and told me that Mrs. Mirvan was at cards, but would be glad to see me; and I went immediately. There was but one chair vacant; so, to my great relief, Lord Orville presently left us. I then told Mrs. Mirvan my disasters; and she good-naturedly blamed herself for not having better instructed me; but said, she had taken it for granted that I must know such common customs. However, the man may, I think, be satisfied with his pretty speech and carry his resentment no farther. In a short time Lord Orville returned. I consented, with the best grace I could, to go down another dance, for I had had time to recollect myself; and therefore resolved to use some exertion, and, if possible, to appear less a fool than I had hitherto done; for it occurred to me, that, insignificant as I was, compared to a man of his rank and figure; yet, since he had been so unfortunate as to make choice of me for a partner, why I should endeavour to make the best of it. The dance, however, was short, and he spoke very little; so I had no opportunity of putting my resolution in practice. He was satisfied, I suppose, with his former successless efforts to draw me out or, rather, I fancied he had been inquiring who I was. This again disconcerted me; and the spirits I had determined to exert, again failed me. Tired, ashamed, and mortified, I begged to sit down till we returned home, which I did soon after. Lord Orville did me the honour to hand me to the coach, talking all the way of the honour I had done him! O these fashionable people! Well, my dear Sir, was it not a strange evening? I could not help being thus particular, because, to me, every thing is so new. But it is now time to conclude. I am, with all love and duty, your EVELINA. LETTER XII EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Tuesday, April 5. THERE is to be no end to the troubles of last night. I have this moment, between persuasion and laughter, gathered from Maria the most curious dialogue that ever I heard. You will at first be startled at my vanity; but, my dear Sir, have patience! It must have passed while I was sitting with Mrs. Mirvan, in the card-room. Maria was taking some refreshment, and saw Lord Orville advancing for the same purpose himself; but he did not know her, though she immediately recollected him. Presently after, a very gay-looking man, stepping hastily up to him cried, "Why, my Lord, what have you done with your lovely partner?" "Nothing!" answered Lord Orville with a smile and a shrug. "By Jove," cried the man, "she is the most beautiful creature I ever saw in my life!" Lord Orville, as he well might, laughed; but answered, "Yes, a pretty modest-looking girl." "O my Lord!" cried the madman, "she is an angel!" "A silent one," returned he. "Why ay, my Lord, how stands she as to that? She looks all intelligence and expression." "A poor weak girl!" answered Lord Orville, shaking his head. "By Jove," cried the other, "I am glad to hear it!" At that moment, the same odious creature who had been my former tormentor, joined them. Addressing Lord Orville with great respect, he said, "I beg pardon, my Lord,-if I was-as I fear might be the case-rather too severe in my censure of the lady who is honoured with your protection-but, my Lord, ill-breeding is apt to provoke a man." "Ill-breeding!" cried my unknown champion, "impossible! that elegant face can never be so vile a mask!" "O Sir, as to that," answered he, "you must allow me to judge; for though I pay all deference to your opinion-in other things-yet I hope you will grant-and I appeal to your Lordship also-that I am not totally despicable as a judge of good or ill-manners." "I was so wholly ignorant," said Lord Orville, gravely, "of the provocation you might have had, that I could not but be surprised at your singular resentment." "It was far from my intention," answered he, "to offend your lordship; but, really, for a person who is nobody, to give herself such airs,-I own I could not command my passion. For, my Lord, though I have made diligent inquiry-I cannot learn who she is." "By what I can make out," cried my defender, "she must be a country parson's daughter." "He! he! he! very good, 'pon honour!" cried the fop;-"well, so I could have sworn by her manners." And then, delighted at his own wit, he laughed, and went away, as I suppose, to repeat it. "But what the deuce is all this?" demanded the other. "Why a very foolish affair," answered Lord Orville; "your Helen first refused this coxcomb, and then-danced with me. This is all I can gather of it." "O, Orville," returned he, "you are a happy man!-But ill-bred? -I can never believe it! And she looks too sensible to be ignorant." "Whether ignorant or mischievous, I will not pretend to determine; but certain it is, she attended to all I could say to her, though I have really fatigued myself with fruitless endeavours to entertain her, with the most immovable gravity; but no sooner did Lovel begin his complaint, than she was seized with a fit of laughing, first affronting the poor beau, and then enjoying his mortification." "Ha! ha! ha! why there is some genius in that, my Lord, perhaps rather-rustic." Here Maria was called to dance, and so heard no more. Now, tell me, my dear Sir, did you ever know any thing more provoking? "A poor weak girl!" "ignorant or mischievous!" What mortifying words! I am resolved, however, that I will never again be tempted to go to an assembly. I wish I had been in Dorsetshire. Well, after this, you will not be surprised that Lord Orville contented himself with an inquiry after our healths this morning, by his servant, without troubling himself to call, as Miss Mirvan had told me he would; but perhaps it may be only a country custom. I would not live here for the world. I care not how soon we leave town. London soon grows tiresome. I wish the Captain would come. Mrs. Mirvan talks of the opera for this evening; however, I am very indifferent about it. Wednesday Morning. Well, my dear Sir, I have been pleased against my will, I could almost say; for I must own I went out in very ill humour, which I think you cannot wonder at: but the music and the singing were charming; they soothed me into a pleasure the most grateful, the best suited to my present disposition in the world. I hope to persuade Mrs. Mirvan to go again on Saturday. I wish the opera was every night. It is, of all entertainments, the sweetest and most delightful. Some of the songs seemed to melt my very soul. It was what they call a serious opera, as the comic first singer was ill. To-night we go to Ranelagh. If any of those three gentlemen who conversed so freely about me should be there-but I won't think of it. Thursday Morning. Well, my dear Sir, we went to Ranelagh. It is a charming place; and the brilliancy of the lights, on my first entrance, made me almost think I was in some enchanted castle or fairy palace, for all looked like magic to me. The very first person I saw was Lord Orville. I felt so confused!-but he did not see me. After tea, Mrs. Mirvan being tired, Maria and I walked round the room alone. Then again we saw him, standing by the orchestra. We, too, stopt to hear a singer. He bowed to me; I courtesied, and I am sure I coloured. We soon walked on, not liking our situation; however, he did not follow us; and when we passed by the orchestra again, he was gone. Afterwards, in the course of the evening, we met him several times; but he was always with some party, and never spoke to us, though whenever he chanced to meet my eyes, he condescended to bow. I cannot but be hurt at the opinion he entertains of me. It is true my own behaviour incurred it-yet he is himself the most agreeable, and, seemingly, the most amiable man in the world, and therefore it is that I am grieved to be thought ill of by him: for of whose esteem ought we to be ambitious, if not of those who most merit our own?-But it is too late to reflect upon this now. Well I can't help it.-However, I think I have done with assemblies. This morning was destined for seeing sights, auctions, curious shops, and so forth; but my head ached, and I was not in a humour to be amused, and so I made them go without me, though very unwillingly. They are all kindness. And now I am sorry I did not accompany them, for I know not what to do with myself. I had resolved not to go to the play to-night; but I believe I shall. In short, I hardly care whether I do or not. * * * * * I thought I had done wrong! Mrs. Mirvan and Maria have been half the town over, and so entertained!-while I, like a fool, staid at home to do nothing. And, at the auction in Pall-mall, who should they meet but Lord Orville. He sat next to Mrs. Mirvan, and they talked a great deal together; but she gave me no account of the conversation. I may never have such another opportunity of seeing London; I am quite sorry that I was not of the party; but I deserve this mortification, for having indulged my ill-humour. Thursday Night. We are just returned from the play, which was King Lear, and has made me very sad. We did not see any body we knew. Well, adieu, it is too late to write more. Friday. Captain Mirvan is arrived. I have not spirits to give an account of his introduction, for he has really shocked me. I do not like him. He seems to be surly, vulgar, and disagreeable. Almost the same moment that Maria was presented to him, he began some rude jests upon the bad shape of her nose, and called her a tall ill-formed thing. She bore it with the utmost good-humour; but that kind and sweet-tempered woman, Mrs. Mirvan, deserved a better lot. I am amazed she would marry him. For my own part, I have been so shy, that I have hardly spoken to him, or he to me. I cannot imagine why the family was so rejoiced at his return. If he had spent his whole life abroad, I should have supposed they might rather have been thankful than sorrowful. However, I hope they do not think so ill of him as I do. At least, I am sure they have too much prudence to make it known. Saturday Night. We have been to the opera, and I am still more pleased than I was on Tuesday. I could have thought myself in Paradise, but for the continual talking of the company around me. We sat in the pit, where every body was dressed in so high a style, that if I had been less delighted with the performance, my eyes would have found me sufficient entertainment from looking at the ladies. I was very glad I did not sit next the Captain; for he could not bear the music or singers, and was extremely gross in his observations of both. When the opera was over, we went into a place called the coffee-room where ladies, as well as gentlemen, assemble. There are all sorts of refreshments, and the company walk about, and chat with the same ease and freedom as in a private room. On Monday we go to a ridotto, and on Wednesday we return to Howard Grove. The Captain says he won't stay here to be smoked with filth any longer; but, having been seven years smoked with a burning sun, he will retire to the country, and sink into a fair weather chap. Adieu, my dear Sir. LETTER XIII EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Tuesday, April 12. My dear Sir, WE came home from the ridotto so late, or rather so early that it was not possible for me to write. Indeed, we did not go -you will be frightened to hear it-till past eleven o'clock: but no body does. A terrible reverse of the order of nature! We sleep with the sun, and wake with the moon. The room was very magnificent, the lights and decorations were brilliant, and the company gay and splendid. But I should have told you, that I made many objections to being of the party, according to the resolution I had formed. However, Maria laughed me out of my scruples, and so once again I went to an assembly. Miss Mirvan danced a minuet; but I had not the courage to follow her example. In our walks I saw Lord Orville. He was quite alone, but did not observe us. Yet, as he seemed of no party, I thought it was not impossible that he might join us; and though I did not wish much to dance at all-yet, as I was more acquainted with him than with any other person in the room, I must own I could not help thinking it would be infinitely more desirable to dance again with him than with an entire stranger. To be sure, after all that had passed, it was very ridiculous to suppose it even probable that Lord Orville would again honour me with his choice; yet I am compelled to confess my absurdity, by way of explaining what follows. Miss Mirvan was soon engaged; and presently after a very fashionable gay looking man, who seemed about thirty years of age, addressed himself to me, and begged to have the honour of dancing with me. Now Maria's partner was a gentleman of Mrs. Mirvan's acquaintance; for she had told us it was highly improper for young women to dance with strangers at any public assembly. Indeed it was by no means my wish so to do: yet I did not like to confine myself from dancing at all; neither did I dare refuse this gentleman as I had done Mr. Lovel, and then, if any acquaintance should offer, accept him: and so, all these reasons combining, induced me to tell him-yet I blush to write it to you!-that I was already engaged; by which I meant to keep myself at liberty to a dance, or not, as matters should fall out. I suppose my consciousness betrayed my artifice, for he looked at me as if incredulous; and, instead of being satisfied with my answer and leaving me, according to my expectation, he walked at my side, and, with the greatest ease imaginable, began a conversation in the free style which only belongs to old and intimate acquaintance. But, what was most provoking, he asked me a thousand questions concerning the partner to whom I was engaged. And at last he said, "Is it really possible that a man whom you have honoured with your acceptance can fail to be at hand to profit from your goodness?" I felt extremely foolish; and begged Mrs. Mirvan to lead to a seat; which she very obligingly did. The Captain sat next her; and to my great surprise, this gentleman thought proper to follow, and seat himself next to me. "What an insensible!" continued he; "why, Madam, you are missing the most delightful dance in the world!-The man must be either mad or a fool-Which do you incline to think him yourself?" "Neither, Sir," answered I, in some confusion. He begged my pardon for the freedom of his supposition, saying, "I really was off my guard, from astonishment that any man can be so much and so unaccountably his own enemy. But where, Madam, can he possibly be!-has he left the room!-or has not he been in it?" "Indeed, Sir," said I peevishly, "I know nothing of him." "I don't wonder that you are disconcerted, Madam; it is really very provoking. The best part of the evening will be absolutely lost. He deserves not that you should wait for him." "I do not, Sir," said I, "and I beg you not to-" "Mortifying, indeed, Madam," interrupted he, "a lady to wait for a gentleman!-O fie!-careless fellow!-What can detain him?-Will you give me leave to seek him?" "If you please, Sir," answered I; quite terrified lest Mrs. Mirvan should attend to him; for she looked very much surprised at seeing me enter into conversation with a stranger. "With all my heart," cried he; "pray, what coat has he on?" "Indeed I never looked at it." "Out upon him!" cried he; "What! did he address you in a coat not worth looking at?-What a shabby wretch!" How ridiculous! I really could not help laughing, which I fear encouraged him, for he went on. "Charming creature!-and can you really bear ill usage with so much sweetness? Can you, like patience on a monument, smile in the midst of disappointment? For my part, though I am not the offended person, my indignation is so great, that I long to kick the fellow round the room!-unless, indeed,-(hesitating and looking earnestly at me,) unless, indeed,-it is a partner of your own creating?" I was dreadfully abashed, and could not make an answer. "But no!" cried he (again, and with warmth,) "It cannot be that you are so cruel! Softness itself is painted in your eyes.-You could not, surely, have the barbarity so wantonly to trifle with my misery." I turned away from this nonsense with real disgust, Mrs. Mirvan saw my confusion, but was perplexed what to think of it, and I could not explain to her the cause, lest the Captain should hear me. I therefore proposed to walk; she consented, and we all rose; but, would you believe it? this man had the assurance to rise too, and walk close by my side, as if of my party! "Now," cried he, "I hope we shall see this ingrate.-Is that he?"-pointing to an old man who was lame, "or that?" And in this manner he asked me of whoever was old or ugly in the room. I made no sort of answer: and when he found that I was resolutely silent, and walked on as much as I could without observing him, he suddenly stamped his foot, and cried out in a passion, "Fool! idiot! booby!" I turned hastily toward him: "O, Madam," continued he, "forgive my vehemence; but I am distracted to think there should exist a wretch who can slight a blessing for which I would forfeit my life!-O that I could but meet him, I would soon-But I grow angry: pardon me, Madam, my passions are violent, and your injuries affect me!" I began to apprehend he was a madman, and stared at him with the utmost astonishment. "I see you are moved, Madam," said he; "generous creature!-but don't be alarmed, I am cool again, I am indeed,-upon my soul I am;-I entreat you, most lovely of mortals! I intreat you to be easy." "Indeed, Sir," said I very seriously, "I must insist upon your leaving me; you are quite a stranger to me, and I am both unused, and averse to your language and your manners." This seemed to have some effect on him. He made me a low bow, begged my pardon, and vowed he would not for the world offend me. "Then, Sir, you must leave me," cried I. "I am gone, Madam, I am gone!" with a most tragical air; and he marched away at a quick pace, out of sight in a moment; but before I had time to congratulate myself, he was again at my elbow. "And could you really let me go, and not be sorry?-Can you see me suffer torments inexpressible, and yet retain all your favour for that miscreant who flies you?-Ungrateful puppy!-I could bastinado him!" "For Heaven's sake, my dear," cried Mrs. Mirvan, "who is he talking of?" "Indeed-I do not know, Madam," said I; "but I wish he would leave me." "What's all that there?" cried the Captain. The man made a low bow, and said, "Only, Sir, a slight objection which this young lady makes to dancing with me, and which I am endeavouring to obviate. I shall think myself greatly honoured if you will intercede for me." "That lady, Sir," said the Captain coldly, "is her own mistress." And he walked sullenly on. "You, Madam," said the man (who looked delighted, to Mrs. Mirvan), "You, I hope, will have the goodness to speak for me." "Sir," answered she gravely, "I have not the pleasure of being acquainted with you." "I hope when you have, Ma'am," cried he, undaunted, "you will honour me with your approbation: but, while I am yet unknown to you, it would be truly generous in you to countenance me; and I flatter myself, Madam, that you will not have cause to repent it." Mrs. Mirvan, with an embarrassed air, replied, "I do not at all mean, Sir, to doubt your being a gentleman,-but-" "But what, Madam?-that doubt removed, why a but?" "Well, Sir," said Mrs. Mirvan (with a good humoured smile), "I will even treat you with your own plainness, and try what effect that will have on you: I must therefore tell you, once for all-" "O pardon me, Madam!" interrupted he, eagerly, "you must not proceed with those words once for all; no, if I have been too plain, and though a man, deserve a rebuke, remember, dear ladies that if you copy, you ought in justice to excuse me." We both stared at the man's strange behaviour. "Be nobler than your sex," continued he, turning to me, "honour me with one dance, and give up the ingrate who has merited so ill your patience." Mrs. Mirvan looked with astonishment at us both. "Who does he speak of, my dear?-you never mentioned-" "O, Madam!" exclaimed he, "he was not worth mentioning-it is a pity he was ever though of; but let us forget his existence. One dance is all I solicit. Permit me, Madam, the honour of this young lady's hand; it will be a favour I shall ever most gratefully acknowledge." "Sir," answered she, "favours and strangers have with me no connection." "If you have hitherto," said he, "confined your benevolence to your intimate friends, suffer me to be the first for whom your charity is enlarged." "Well, Sir, I know not what to say to you,-but-" He stopt her but with so many urgent entreaties that she at last told me, I must either go down one dance, or avoid his importunities by returning home. I hesitated which alternative to chose; but this impetuous man at length prevailed, and I was obliged to consent to dance with him. And thus was my deviation from truth punished; and thus did this man's determined boldness conquer. During the dance, before we were too much engaged in it for conversation, he was extremely provoking about my partner, and tried every means in his power to make me own that I had deceived him; which, though I would not so far humble myself as to acknowledge, was indeed but too obvious. Lord Orville, I fancy, did not dance at all. He seemed to have a large acquaintance, and joined several different parties: but you will easily suppose, I was not much pleased to see him, in a few minutes after I was gone, walk towards the place I had just left, and bow to and join Mrs. Mirvan! How unlucky I thought myself, that I had not longer withstood this stranger's importunities! The moment we had gone down the dance, I was hastening away from him; but he stopt me, and said, that I could by no means return to my party without giving offence, before we had done our duty of walking up the dance. As I know nothing at all of these rules and customs I was obliged to submit to his directions; but I fancy I looked rather uneasy, for he took notice of my inattention, saying, in his free way, "Whence that anxiety?-Why are those lovely eyes perpetually averted?" "I wish you would say no more to me, Sir," cried I peevishly; "you have already destroyed all my happiness for this evening." "Good Heaven! What is it I have done?-How have I merited this scorn?" "You have tormented me to death; you have forced me from my friends, and intruded yourself upon me, against my will, for a partner." "Surely, my dear Madam, we ought to be better friends, since there seems to be something of sympathy in the frankness of our dispositions.-And yet, were you not an angel-how do you think I could brooke such contempt?" "If I have offended you," cried I, "you have but to leave me-and O how I wish you would!" "My dear creature," said he, half laughing, "why where could you be educated?" "Where I most sincerely wish I now was!" "How conscious you must be, all beautiful that you are, that those charming airs serve only to heighten the bloom of your complexion!" "Your freedom, Sir, where you are more acquainted, may perhaps be less disagreeable; but to me -" "You do me justice," cried he, interrupting me, "yes, I do indeed improve upon acquaintance; you will hereafter be quite charmed with me." "Hereafter, Sir, I hope I shall never-" "O hush!-hush!-have you forgot the situation in which I found you?-Have you forgot, that when deserted, I pursued you,-when betrayed, I adored you?-but for me-" "But for you, Sir, I might perhaps have been happy." "What then, am I to conclude that, but for me, your partner would have appeared?-poor fellow!-and did my presence awe him?" "I wish his presence, Sir, could awe you!" "His presence!-perhaps then you see him?" "Perhaps, Sir, I do," cried I, quite wearied of his raillery. "Where? Where?-for Heaven's sake show me the wretch!" "Wretch, Sir!" "O, a very savage!-a sneaking, shame-faced, despicable puppy!" I know not what bewitched me-but my pride was hurt, and my spirits were tired, and-in short, I had the folly, looking at Lord Orville, to repeat, "Despicable, you think?" His eyes instantly followed mine; "Why, is that the gentleman?" I made no answer; I could not affirm, and I would not deny:-for I hoped to be relieved from his teasing by his mistake. The very moment we had done what he called our duty, I eagerly desired to return to Mrs. Mirvan. "To your partner, I presume, Madam?" said he, very gravely. This quite confounded me. I dreaded lest this mischievous man ignorant of his rank, should address himself to Lord Orville, and say something which might expose my artifice. Fool! to involve myself in such difficulties! I now feared what I had before wished; and therefore, to avoid Lord Orville, I was obliged myself to propose going down another dance, though I was ready to sink with shame while I spoke. "But your partner, Ma'am?" said he, affecting a very solemn air, "perhaps he may resent my detaining you: if you will give me leave to ask his consent-" "Not for the universe." "Who is he, Madam?" I wished myself a hundred miles off. He repeated his question, "What is his name?" "Nothing-nobody-I don't know-" He assumed a most important solemnity: "How!-not know?-Give me leave, my dear Madam, to recommend this caution to you: Never dance in public with a stranger,-with one whose name you are unacquainted with,-who may be a mere adventurer,-a man of no character, consider to what impertinence you may expose yourself." Was ever anything so ridiculous? I could not help laughing, in spite of my vexation. At this instant, Mrs. Mirvan, followed by Lord Orville, walked up to us. You will easily believe it was not difficult for me to recover my gravity; but what was my consternation, when this strange man, destined to be the scourge of my artifice, exclaimed, "Ha! My Lord Orville!-I protest I did not know your Lordship. What can I say for my usurpation?-Yet, faith, my Lord, such a prize was not to be neglected." My shame and confusion were unspeakable. Who could have supposed or foreseen that this man knew Lord Orville? But falsehood is not more unjustifiable than unsafe. Lord Orville-well he might-looked all amazement. "The philosophic coldness of your Lordship," continued this odious creature, "every man is not endowed with. I have used my utmost endeavours to entertain this lady, though I fear without success; and your lordship will not be a little flattered, if acquainted with the difficulty which attended my procuring the honour of only one dance." Then, turning to me, who was sinking with shame, while Lord Orville stood motionless, and Mrs. Mirvan astonished,-he suddenly seized my hand, saying, "Think, my Lord, what must be my reluctance to resign this fair hand to your Lordship!" In the same instant, Lord Orville took it of him; I coloured violently, and made an effort to recover it. "You do me too much honour, Sir," cried he, (with an air of gallantry, pressing it to his lips before he let it go;) "however, I shall be happy to profit by it, if this lady," turning to Mrs. Mirvan, "will permit me to seek for her party." To compel him thus to dance, I could not endure; and eagerly called out, "By no means-not for the world!-I must beg-" "Will you honour me, Madam, with your commands," cried my tormentor; "may I seek the lady's party?" "No, Sir," answered I, turning from him. "What shall be done, my dear?" said Mrs. Mirvan. "Nothing, Ma'am;-anything, I mean-" "But do you dance, or not? you see his Lordship waits." "I hope not-I beg that-I would not for the world-I am sure I ought to-to-" I could not speak; but that confident man, determining to discover whether or not I had deceived him, said to Lord Orville, who stood suspended, "My Lord, this affair, which at present seems perplexed, I will briefly explain:-this lady proposed to me another dance,-nothing could have made me more happy,-I only wished for your Lordship's permission; which, if now granted, will, I am persuaded, set everything right." I glowed with indignation. "No, Sir-it is your absence, and that alone, can set everything right." "For Heaven's sake, my dear," cried Mrs. Mirvan, who could no longer contain her surprise, "what does all this mean?-were you pre-engaged?-had Lord Orville-" "No, Madam," cried I, "only-only I did not know that gentleman,-and so-and so I thought-I intended-I-" Overpowered by all that had passed, I had not strength to make my mortifying explanation;-my spirits quite failed me, and I burst into tears. They all seemed shocked and amazed. "What is the matter, my dearest love?" cried Mrs. Mirvan, with kindest concern. "What have I done!" exclaimed my evil genius, and ran officiously for a glass of water. However, a hint was sufficient for Lord Orville, who comprehended all I would have explained. He immediately led me to a seat, and said in a low voice, "Be not distressed, I beseech you: I shall ever think my name honoured by your making use of it." This politeness relieved me. A general murmur had alarmed Miss Mirvan, who flew instantly to me; while Lord Orville the moment Mrs. Mirvan had taken the water, led my tormentor away. "For Heaven's sake, dear Madam," cried I, "let me go home;-indeed I cannot stay here any longer." "Let us all go," cried my kind Maria. "But the Captain, what will he say-I had better go home in a chair." Mrs. Mirvan consented, and I rose to depart. Lord Orville and that man both came to me. The first, with an attention I but ill-merited from him, led me to a chair; while the other followed, pestering me with apologies. I wished to have made mine to Lord Orville, but was too much ashamed. It was about one o'clock. Mrs. Mirvan's servants saw me home. And now,-what again shall ever tempt me to an assembly? I dread to hear what you will think of me, my most dear and honoured Sir: you will need your utmost partiality to receive me without displeasure. This morning Lord Orville has sent to inquire after our health; and Sir Clement Willoughby, for that, I find, is the name of my persecutor, has called; but I would not go down stairs till he was gone. And now, my dear Sir, I can somewhat account for the strange, provoking, and ridiculous conduct of this Sir Clement last night; for Miss Mirvan says he is the very man with whom she heard Lord Orville conversing at Mrs. Stanley's, when I was spoken of in so mortifying a manner. He was pleased to say he was glad to hear I was a fool; and therefore, I suppose, he concluded he might talk as much nonsense as he pleased to me: however, I am very indifferent as to his opinion;-but for Lord Orville,-if then he thought me an idiot, now, I am sure, he must suppose me both bold and presuming. Make use of his name!-what impertinence-he can never know how it happened,-he can only imagine it was from an excess of vanity;-well, however, I shall leave this bad city to-morrow, and never again will I enter it. The Captain intends to take us to-night to the Fantoccini. I cannot bear that Captain; I can give you no idea how gross he is. I heartily rejoice that he was not present at the disagreeable conclusion of yesterday's adventure, for I am sure he would have contributed to my confusion; which might, perhaps, have diverted him, as he seldom or never smiles but at some other person's expense. And here I conclude my London letters,-and without any regret; for I am too inexperienced and ignorant to conduct myself with propriety in this town, where everything is new to me, and many things are unaccountable and perplexing. Adieu, my dear Sir; Heaven restore me safely to you! I wish I was to go immediately to Berry Hill; yet the wish is ungrateful to Mrs. Mirvan, and therefore I will repress it. I shall write an account of the Fantoccini from Howard Grove. We have not been to half the public places that are now open, though I dare say you will think we have been to all. But they are almost as innumerable as the persons who fill them. LETTER XIV. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Queen Ann Street, April 13. HOW much will you be surprised, my dearest Sir, at receiving another letter, from London, of your Evelina's writing! But, believe me, it was not my fault, neither is it my happiness, that I am still here: our journey has been postponed by an accident equally unexpected and disagreeable. We went last night to see the Fantoccini, where we had infinite entertainment from the performance of a little comedy in French and Italian, by puppets, so admirably managed, that they both astonished and diverted us all, except the Captain, who has a fixed and most prejudiced hatred of whatever is not English. When it was over, while we waited for the coach, a tall elderly woman brushed quickly past us, calling out, "My God, what shall I do?" "Why, what would you do?" cried the Captain. "Ma foi, Monsieur," answered she, "I have lost my company, and in this place I don't know nobody." There was something foreign in her accent, though it was difficult to discover whether she was an English or a French woman. She was very well dressed; and seemed so entirely at a loss what to do, that Mrs. Mirvan proposed to the Captain to assist her. "Assist her!" cried he, "ay, with all my heart;-let a link-boy call her a coach." There was not one to be had, and it rained very fast. "Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the stranger, "what shall become of me? Je suis au desespoir!" "Dear Sir," cried Miss Mirvan, "pray let us take the poor lady into our coach. She is quite alone, and a foreigner-" "She's never the better for that," answered he: "she may be a woman of the town, for anything you know." "She does not appear such," said Mrs. Mirvan; "and indeed she seems so much distressed, that we shall but follow the golden rule, if we carry her to her lodgings." "You are mighty fond of new acquaintance," returned he; "but first let us know if she be going our way." Upon inquiry, we found that she lived in Oxford Road; and, after some disputing, the Captain surlily, and, with a very bad grace, consented to admit her into his coach; though he soon convinced us, that he was determined she should not be too much obliged to him, for he seemed absolutely bent upon quarrelling with her: for which strange inhospitality I can assign no other reason, than that she appeared to be a foreigner. The conversation began, by her telling us, that she had been in England only two days; that the gentlemen belonging to her were Parisians, and had left her to see for a hackney-coach, as her own carriage was abroad; and that she had waited for them till she was quite frightened, and concluded that they had lost themselves. "And pray," said the Captain, "why did you go to a public place without an Englishman?" "Ma foi, Sir," answered she, "because none of my acquaintance is in town." "Why then," said he, "I'll tell you what, your best way is to go out of it yourself." "Pardi, Monsieur," returned she, "and so I shall; for, I promise you, I think the English a parcel of brutes; and I'll go back to France as fast as I can, for I would not live among none of you." "Who wants you?" cried the Captain: "do you suppose, Madam French, we have not enough of other nations to pick our pockets already? I'll warrant you, there's no need for you for to put in your oar." "Pick your pockets, Sir! I wish nobody wanted to pick your pockets no more than I do; and I'll promise you you'd be safe enough. But there's no nation under the sun can beat the English for ill-politeness: for my part, I hate the very sight of them; and so I shall only just visit a person of quality or two of my particular acquaintance, and then I shall go back again to France." "Ay, do," cried he; "and then go to the devil together, for that's the fittest voyage for the French and the quality." "We'll take care, however," cried the stranger with great vehemence, "not to admit none of your vulgar unmannered English among us." "O never fear," returned he, coolly, "we shan't dispute the point with you; you and the quality may have the devil all to yourselves." Desirous of changing the subject of a conversation which now became very alarming, Miss Mirvan called out, "Lord, how slow the man drives!" "Never mind, Moll," said her father, "I'll warrant you he'll drive fast enough to-morrow, when you are going to Howard Grove." "To Howard Grove!" exclaimed the stranger, "why, mon Dieu, do you know Lady Howard?" "Why, what if we do?" answered he; "that's nothing to you; she's none of your quality, I'll promise you." "Who told you that?" cried she; "you don't know nothing about the matter! besides, you're the ill-bredest person ever I see: and as to your knowing Lady Howard, I don't believe no such a thing; unless, indeed, you are her steward." The Captain, swearing terribly, said, with great fury, "You would much sooner be taken for her wash-woman." "Her wash-woman, indeed?-Ha, ha, ha, why you han't no eyes; did you ever see a wash-woman in such a gown as this?-Besides, I'm no such mean person, for I'm as good as Lady Howard, and as rich too; and besides, I'm now come to England to visit her." "You may spare yourself that there trouble," said the Captain, "she has paupers enough about her already." "Paupers, Mister!-no more a pauper than yourself, nor so much neither;-but you are a low, dirty fellow, and I shan't stoop to take no more notice of you." "Dirty fellow!" exclaimed the Captain, seizing both her wrists, "hark you, Mrs. Frog, you'd best hold your tongue; for I must make bold to tell you, if you don't, that I shall make no ceremony of tripping you out of the window, and there you may lie in the mud till some of your Monseers come to help you out of it." Their increasing passion quite terrified us; and Mrs. Mirvan was beginning to remonstrate with the Captain, when we were all silenced by what follows. "Let me go, villain that you are, let me go, or I'll promise you I'll get you put to prison for this usage. I'm no common person, I assure you; and, ma foi, I'll go to Justice Fielding about you; for I'm a person of fashion, and I'll make you know it, or my name a'n't Duval." I heard no more: amazed, frightened, and unspeakably shocked, an involuntary exclamation of Gracious Heaven! escaped me, and, more dead than alive, I sunk into Mrs. Mirvan's arms. But let me draw a veil over a scene too cruel for a heart so compassionately tender as your's; it is sufficient that you know this supposed foreigner proved to be Madame Duval,-the grandmother of your Evelina! O, Sir, to discover so near a relation in a woman, who had thus introduced herself!-what would become of me, were it not for you, my protector, my friend, and my refuge? My extreme concern, and Mrs. Mirvan's surprise, immediately betrayed me. But, I will not shock you with the manner of her acknowledging me, or the bitterness, the grossness -I cannot otherwise express myself,-with which she spoke of those unhappy past transactions you have so pathetically related to me. All the misery of a much injured parent, dear, though never seen, regretted, though never known, crowded so forcibly upon my memory, that they rendered this interview-one only excepted-the most afflicting I can ever know. When we stopt at her lodgings, she desired me to accompany her into the house, and said she could easily procure a room for me to sleep in. Alarmed and trembling, I turned to Mrs. Mirvan. "My daughter, Madam," said that sweet woman, "cannot so abruptly part with her young friend; you must allow a little time to wean them from each other." "Pardon me, Ma'am," answered Madame Duval, (who, from the time of her being known, somewhat softened her manners) "Miss can't possibly be so nearly connected to this child as I am." "No matter for that," cried the Captain, (who espoused my cause to satisfy his own pique, tho' an awkward apology had passed between them) "she was sent to us; and so, dy'e see, we don't choose for to part with her." I promised to wait upon her at what time she pleased the next day; and, after a short debate, she desired me to breakfast with her, and we proceeded to Queen Ann Street. What an unfortunate adventure! I could not close my eyes the whole night. A thousand times I wished I had never left Berry Hill: however, my return thither shall be accelerated to the utmost of my power; and, once more in that abode of tranquil happiness, I will suffer no temptation to allure me elsewhere. Mrs. Mirvan was so kind as to accompany me to Madame Duval's house this morning. The Captain, too, offered his service; which I declined, from a fear she should suppose I meant to insult her. She frowned most terribly upon Mrs. Mirvan; but she received me with as much tenderness as I believe she is capable of feeling. Indeed, our meeting seems really to have affected her; for when, overcome by the variety of emotions which the sight of her occasioned, I almost fainted in her arms, she burst into tears, and said, "let me not lose my poor daughter a second time!" This unexpected humanity softened me extremely; but she very soon excited my warmest indignation, by the ungrateful mention she made of the best of men, my dear and most generous benefactor. However, grief and anger mutually gave way to terror, upon her avowing the intention of her visiting England was to make me return with her to France. This, she said, was a plan she had formed from the instant she had heard of my birth; which, she protested, did not reach her ears till I must have been twelve years of age; but Monsieur Duval, who she declared was the worst husband in the world, would not permit her to do any thing she wished: he had been dead but three months; which had been employed in arranging certain affairs, that were no sooner settled, than she set off for England. She was already out of mourning, for she said nobody here could tell how long she had been a widow. She must have been married very early in life: what her age is I do not know; but she really looks to be less than fifty. She dresses very gaily, paints very high, and the traces of former beauty are still very visible in her face. I know not when, or how, this visit would have ended, had not the Captain called for Mrs. Mirvan, and absolutely insisted upon my attending her. He is become, very suddenly, so warmly my friend, that I quite dread his officiousness. Mrs. Mirvan, however, whose principal study seems to be healing those wounds which her husband inflicts, appeased Madame Duval's wrath, by a very polite invitation to drink tea and spend the evening here. Not without great difficulty was the Captain prevailed upon to defer his journey some time longer; but what could be done? It would have been indecent for me to have quitted town the very instant I discovered that Madame Duval was in it; and to have staid here solely under her protection-Mrs. Mirvan, thank Heaven, was too kind for such a thought. That she should follow us to Howard Grove, I almost equally dreaded. It is therefore determined, that we remain in London for some days, or a week: though the Captain has declared that the old French hag, as he is pleased to call her, shall fare never the better for it. My only hope is to get safe to Berry Hill; where, counselled and sheltered by you, I shall have nothing more to fear. Adieu, my ever dear and most honoured Sir! I shall have no happiness till I am again with you. LETTER XV MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA Berry Hill, April 16. IN the belief and hope that my Evelina would, ere now, have bid adieu to London, I had intended to have deferred writing, till I heard of her return to Howard Grove; but the letter I have this moment received, with intelligence of Madame Duval's arrival in England, demands an immediate answer. Her journey hither equally grieves and alarms me. How much did I pity my child, when I read of a discovery at once so unexpected and unwished! I have long dreaded this meeting and its consequence; to claim you seems naturally to follow acknowledging you. I am well acquainted with her disposition, and have for many years foreseen the contest which now threatens us. Cruel as are the circumstances of this affair, you must not, my love, suffer it to depress your spirits: remember, that while life is lent me, I will devote it to your service; and, for future time, I will make such provisions as shall seem to me most conducive to your future happiness. Secure of my protection, and relying on my tenderness, let no apprehensions of Madame Duval disturb your peace: conduct yourself towards her with all the respect and deference due to so near a relation, remembering always, that the failure of duty on her part, can by no means justify any neglect on your's. Indeed, the more forcibly you are struck with improprieties and misconduct in another, the greater should be your observance and diligence to avoid even the shadow of similar errors. Be careful, therefore, that no remissness of attention, no indifference of obliging, make known to her the independence I assure you of; but when she fixes the time for her leaving England, trust to me the task of refusing your attending her: disagreeable to myself, I own, it will be; yet to you it would be improper, if not impossible. In regard to her opinion of me, I am more sorry than surprised at her determined blindness; the palliation which she feels the want of, for her own conduct, leads her to seek for failings in all who were concerned in those unhapppy transactions which she has so much reason to lament. And this, as it is the cause, so we must in some measure consider it as the excuse of her inveteracy. How grateful to me are your wishes to return to Berry Hill! Your lengthened stay in London, and the dissipation in which I find you are involved, fill me with uneasiness. I mean not, however, that I would have you sequester yourself from the party to which you belong, since Mrs. Mirvan might thence infer a reproof which your youth and her kindness would render inexcusable. I will not, therefore, enlarge upon this subject; but content myself with telling you, that I shall heartily rejoice when I hear of your safe arrival at Howard Grove, for which place I hope you will be preparing at the time you receive this letter. I cannot too much thank you, my best Evelina, for the minuteness of your communications. Continue to me this indulgence, for I should be miserable if in ignorance of your proceedings. How new to you is the scene of life in which you are engaged!-balls-plays-operas-ridottos!-Ah, my child! At your return hither, how will you bear the change? My heart trembles for your future tranquility.-Yet I will hope every thing from the unsullied whiteness of your soul, and the native liveliness of your disposition. I am sure I need not say, how much more I was pleased with the mistakes of your inexperience at the private ball, than with the attempted adoption of more fashionable manners at the ridotto. But your confusion and mortifications were such as to entirely silence all reproofs on my part. I hope you will see no more of Sir Clement Willoughby, whose conversation and boldness are extremely disgustful to me. I was gratified by the good nature of Lord Orville, upon your making use of his name; but I hope you will never again put it to such a trial. Heaven bless thee, my dear child! And grant that neither misfortune nor vice may ever rob thee of that gaiety of heart, which, resulting from innocence, while it constitutes your own, contributes also to the felicity of all who know you! ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER XVI EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Queen Ann Street, Thursday morning, April 14. BEFORE our dinner was over yesterday Madame Duval came to tea; though it will lessen your surprise, to hear that it was near five o'clock, for we never dine till the day is almost over. She was asked into another room while the table was cleared, and then was invited to partake of the dessert. She was attended by a French gentleman, whom she introduced by the name of Monsieur Du Bois: Mrs. Mirvan received them both with her usual politeness; but the Captain looked very much displeased; and after a short silence, very sternly said to Madame Duval, "Pray who asked you to bring that there spark with you?" "O," cried she, "I never go no where without him." Another short silence ensued, which was terminated by the Captain's turning roughly to the foreigner, and saying, "Do you know, Monseer, that you are the first Frenchman I ever let come into my house?" Monsieur Du Bois made a profound bow. He speaks no English, and understands it so imperfectly, that he might possibly imagine he had received a compliment. Mrs. Mirvan endeavourd to divert the Captain's ill-humour, by starting new subjects: but he left to her all the trouble of supporting them, and leant back in his chair in gloomy silence, except when any opportunity offered of uttering some sarcasm upon the French. Finding her efforts to render the evening agreeable were fruitless, Mrs. Mirvan proposed a party to Ranelagh. Madame Duval joyfully consented to it; and the Captain though he railed against the dissipation of the women, did not oppose it; and therefore Maria and I ran up stairs to dress ourselves. Before we were ready, word was brought us that Sir Clement Willoughby was in the drawing-room. He introduced himself under the pretence of inquiring after all our healths, and entered the room with the easy air of an old acquaintance; though Mrs. Mirvan confessed that he seemed embarrassed when he found how coldly he was received, not only by the Captain, but by herself. I was extremely disconcerted at the thoughts of seeing this man again, and did not go downstairs till I was called to tea. He was then deeply engaged in a discourse upon French manners with Madame Duval and the Captain; and the subject seemed so entirely to engross him, that he did not, at first, observe my entrance into the room. Their conversation was supported with great vehemence; the Captain roughly maintaining the superiority of the English in every particular, and Madame Duval warmly refusing to allow of it in any; while Sir Clement exerted all his powers of argument and of ridicule, to second and strengthen whatever was advanced by the Captain: for he had the sagacity to discover, that he could take no method so effectual for making the master of the house his friend, as to make Madame Duval his enemy; and indeed, in a very short time, he had reason to congratulate himself upon his successful discernment. As soon as he saw me, he made a most respectful bow, and hoped I had not suffered from the fatigue of the ridotto: I made no other answer than a slight inclination of the head, for I was very much ashamed of that whole affair. He then returned to the disputants; where he managed the argument so skilfully, at once provoking Madame Duval, and delighting the Captain, that I could not forbear admiring his address, though I condemned his subtlety. Mrs. Mirvan, dreading such violent antagonists, attempted frequently to change the subject; and she might have succeeded, but for the interposition of Sir Clement, who would not suffer it to be given up, and supported it with such humour and satire, that he seems to have won the Captain's heart; though their united forces so enraged and overpowered Madame Duval, that she really trembled with passion. I was very glad when Mrs. Mirvan said it was time to be gone. Sir Clement arose to take leave; but the Captain very cordially invited him to join our party: he had an engagement, he said, but would give it up to have that pleasure. Some little confusion ensued in regard to our manner of setting off. Mrs. Mirvan offered Madame Duval a place in her coach, and proposed that we four females should go all together; however, this she rejected, declaring she would by no means go so far without a gentleman, and wondering so polite a lady could make so English a proposal. Sir Clement Willoughby said, his chariot was waiting at the door, and begged to know if it could be of any use. It was at last decided, that a hackney-coach should be called for Monsieur Du Bois and Madame Duval, in which the Captain, and, at his request, Sir Clement, went also; Mrs. and Miss Mirvan and I had a peaceful and comfortable ride by ourselves. I doubt not but they quarrelled all the way; for when we met at Ranelagh every one seemed out of humour; and though we joined parties, poor Madame Duval was avoided as much as possible by all but me. The room was so very much crowded, that but for the uncommon assiduity of Sir Clement Willoughby, we should not have been able to procure a box (which is the name given to the arched recesses that are appropriated for tea-parties) till half the company had retired. As we were taking possession of our places, some ladies of Mrs. Mirvan's acquaintance stopped to speak to her, and persuaded her to take a round with them. When she returned to us, what was my surprise, to see that Lord Orville had joined her party! The ladies walked on: Mrs. Mirvan seated herself, and made a slight, though respectful, invitation to Lord Orville to drink his tea with us; which, to my no small consternation, he accepted. I felt a confusion unspeakable at again seeing him, from the recollection of the ridotto adventure: nor did my situation lessen it; for I was seated between Madame Duval and Sir Clement, who seemed as little as myself to desire Lord Orville's presence. Indeed, the continual wrangling and ill-breeding of Captain Mirvan and Madame Duval made me blush that I belonged to them. And poor Mrs. Mirvan and her amiable daughter had still less reason to be satisfied. A general silence ensued after he was seated: his appearance, from different motives, gave an universal restraint to every body. What his own reasons were for honouring us with his company, I cannot imagine; unless, indeed, he had a curiosity to know whether I should invent any new impertinence concerning him. The first speech was made by Madame Duval, who said, "It's quite a shocking thing to see ladies come to so genteel a place as Ranelagh with hats on; it has a monstrous vulgar look: I can't think what they wear them for. There is no such a thing to be seen in Paris." "Indeed," cried Sir Clement, "I must own myself no advocate for hats; I am sorry the ladies ever invented or adopted so tantalizing a fashion: for, where there is beauty, they only serve to shade it; and, where there is none, to excite a most unavailing curiosity. I fancy they were originally worn by some young and whimsical coquette." "More likely," answered the Captain, "they were invented by some wrinkled old hag, who'd a mind for to keep the young fellows in chace, let them be never so weary." "I don't know what you may do in England," cried Madame Duval, "but I know in Paris no woman needn't be at such a trouble as that to be taken very genteel notice of." "Why, will you pretend for to say," returned the Captain, "that they don't distinguish the old from the young there as well as here?" "They don't make no distinguishments at all," said she; "they're vastly too polite." "More fools they!" cried the Captain, sneeringly. "Would to Heaven," cried, Sir Clement, "that, for our own sakes, we Englishmen too were blest with so accommodating a blindness!" "Why the devil do you make such a prayer as that?" demanded the Captain: "them are the first foolish words I've heard you speak; but I suppose you're not much used to that sort of work. Did you ever make a prayer before, since you were a sniveler?" "Ay, now," cried Madame Duval, "that's another of the unpolitenesses of you English, to go to talking of such things as that: now in Paris nobody never says nothing about religion, no more than about politics." "Why then," answered he, "it's a sign they take no more care of their souls than of their country, and so both one and t'other go to old Nick." "Well, if they do," said she, "who's the worse, so long as they don't say nothing about it? It's the tiresomest thing in the world to be always talking of them sort of things, and nobody that's ever been abroad troubles their heads about them." "Pray then," cried the Captain, "since you know so much of the matter, be so good as to tell us what they do trouble their heads about?-Hey, Sir Clement! han't we a right to know that much?" "A very comprehensive question," said Sir Clement, "and I expect much instruction from the lady's answer." "Come, Madam," continued the Captain, "never flinch; speak at once; don't stop for thinking." "I assure you I am not going," answered she; "for as to what they do do, why they've enough to do, I promise you, what with one thing or another." "But what, what do they do, these famous Monseers?" demanded the Captain; "can't you tell us? do they game?-or drink?-or fiddle?-or are they jockeys?-or do they spend all their time in flummering old women?" "As to that, Sir-but indeed I shan't trouble myself to answer such a parcel of low questions, so don't ask me no more about it." And then, to my great vexation, turning to Lord Orville, she said, "Pray, Sir, was you ever in Paris?" He only bowed. "And pray, Sir, how did you like it?" This comprehensive question, as Sir Clement would have called it, though it made him smile, also made him hesitate; however, his answer was expressive of his approbation. "I thought you would like it, Sir, because you look so like a gentleman. As to the Captain, and as to that other gentleman, why they may very well not like what they don't know: for I suppose, Sir, you was never abroad?" "Only three years, Ma'am," answered Sir Clement, drily. "Well, that's very surprising! I should never have thought it: however, I dare say you only kept company with the English." "Why, pray, who should he keep company with?" cried the Captain: "what I suppose you'd have him ashamed of his own nation, like some other people not a thousand miles off, on purpose to make his own nation ashamed of him?" "I'm sure it would be a very good thing if you'd go abroad yourself." "How will you make out that, hey, Madam? come, please to tell me, where would be the good of that?" "Where! why a great deal. They'd make quite another person of you." "What, I suppose you'd have me to learn to cut capers?-and dress like a monkey?-and palaver in French gibberish?-hey, would you?-And powder, and daub, and make myself up, like some other folks?" "I would have you learn to be more politer, Sir, and not to talk to ladies in such a rude, old-fashion way as this. You, Sir, as have been in Paris," again addressing herself to Lord Orville, "can tell this English gentleman how he'd be despised, if he was to talk in such an ungenteel manner as this before any foreigners. Why, there isn't a hairdresser, nor a shoemaker, nor nobody, that wouldn't blush to be in your company." "Why, look ye, Madam," answered the Captain, "as to your hair-pinchers and shoe-blacks, you may puff off their manners, and welcome; and I am heartily glad you like 'em so well: but as to me, since you must needs make so free of your advice, I must e'en tell you, I never kept company with any such gentry." "Come, ladies and gentlemen," said Mrs. Mirvan, "as many of you as have done tea, I invite to walk with me." Maria and I started up instantly; Lord Orville followed; and I question whether we were not half round the room ere the angry disputants knew that we had left the box. As the husband of Mrs. Mirvan had borne so large a share in the disagreeable altercation, Lord Orville forbore to make any comments upon it; so that the subject was immediately dropt, and the conversation became calmly sociable, and politely cheerful, and, to every body but me, must have been highly agreeable:-but, as to myself, I was so eagerly desirous of making some apology to Lord Orville, for the impertinence of which he must have thought me guilty at the ridotto, and yet so utterly unable to assume sufficient courage to speak to him, concerning an affair in which I had so terribly exposed myself, that I hardly ventured to say a word all the time we were walking. Besides, the knowledge of his contemptuous opinion haunted and dispirited me, and made me fear he might possibly misconstrue whatever I should say. So that, far from enjoying a conversation which might, at any other time, have delighted me, I continued silent, uncomfortable, and ashamed. O, Sir, shall I ever again involve myself in so foolish an embarrassment? I am sure that, if I do, I shall deserve greater mortification. We were not joined by the rest of the party till we had taken three or four turns around the room; and then they were so quarrelsome, that Mrs. Mirvan complained of being fatigued and proposed going home. No one dissented. Lord Orville joined another party, having first made an offer of his services, which the gentlemen declined, and we proceeded to an outward room, where we waited for the carriages. It was settled that we should return to town in the same manner we came to Ranelagh; and, accordingly, Monsieur Du Bois handed Madame Duval into a hackney coach, and was just preparing to follow her, when she screamed, and jumped hastily out, declaring she was wet through all her clothes. Indeed, upon examination the coach was found to be in a dismal condition; for the weather proved very bad, and the rain had, though I know not how, made its way into the carriage. Mrs. and Miss Mirvan, and myself, were already disposed of as before; but no sooner did the Captain hear this account, than, without any ceremony, he was so civil as to immediately take possession of the vacant seat in his own coach, leaving Madame Duval and Monsieur Du Bois to take care of themselves. As to Sir Clement Willoughby, his own chariot was in waiting. I instantly begged permission to offer Madame Duval my own place, and made a motion to get out; but Mrs. Mirvan stopped me, saying, that I should then be obliged to return to town with only the foreigner, or Sir Clement. "O never mind the old beldame," cried the Captain, "she's weather-proof, I'll answer for her; and besides, as we are all, I hope, English, why she'll meet with no worse than she expects from us." "I do not mean to defend her," said Mrs. Mirvan; "but indeed, as she belongs to our party, we cannot, with any decency, leave the place till she is, by some means, accommodated." "Lord, my dear," cried the Captain, whom the distress of Madame Duval had put into very good humour, "why, she'll break her heart if she meets with any civility from a filthy Englishman." Mrs. Mirvan, however, prevailed; and we all got out of the coach, to wait till Madame Duval could meet with some better carriage. We found her, attended by Monsieur Du Bois, standing amongst the servants, and very busy in wiping her negligee, and endeavouring to save it from being stained by the wet, as she said it was a new Lyons silk. Sir Clement Willoughby offered her the use of his chariot, but she had been too much piqued by his raillery to accept it. We waited some time, but in vain; for no hackney-coach could be procured. The Captain, at last, was persuaded to accompany Sir Clement himself, and we four females were handed into Mrs. Mirvan's carriage, though not before Madame Duval had insisted upon our making room for Monsieur Du Bois, to which the Captain only consented in preference to being incommoded by him in Sir Clement's chariot. Our party drove off first. We were silent and unsociable; for the difficulties attending this arrangement had made every one languid and fatigued. Unsociable, I must own, we continued; but very short was the duration of our silence, as we had not proceeded thirty yards before every voice was heard at once-for the coach broke down! I suppose we concluded, of course, that we were all half killed, by the violent shrieks that seemed to come from every mouth. The chariot was stopped, the servants came to our assistance, and we were taken out of the carriage, without having been at all hurt. The night was dark and wet; but I had scarce touched the ground when I was lifted suddenly from it by Sir Clement Willoughby, who begged permission to assist me, though he did not wait to have it granted, but carried me in his arms back to Ranelagh. He enquired very earnestly if I was not hurt by the accident? I assured him I was perfectly safe, and free from injury; and desired he would leave me, and return to the rest of the party, for I was very uneasy to know whether they had been equally fortunate. He told me he was happy in being honoured with my commands, and would joyfully execute them; but insisted upon first conducting me to a warm room, as I had not wholly escaped being wet. He did not regard my objections; but made me follow him to an apartment, where we found an excellent fire, and some company waiting for carriages. I readily accepted a seat, and then begged he would go. And go, indeed, he did; but he returned in a moment, telling me that the rain was more violent than ever, and that he had sent his servants to offer their assistance, and acquaint the Mirvans of my situation. I was very mad that he would not go himself; but as my acquaintance with him was so very slight, I did not think proper to urge him contrary to his inclination. Well, he drew a chair close to mine; and, after again enquiring how I did, said, in a low voice, "You will pardon me, Miss Anville, if the eagerness I feel to vindicate myself, induces me to snatch this opportunity of making sincere acknowledgments for the impertinence with which I tormented you at the last ridotto. I can assure you, Madam, I have been a true and sorrowful penitent ever since; but-shall I tell you honestly what encouraged me to-" He stopt, but I said nothing; for I thought instantly of the conversation Miss Mirvan had overheard, and supposed he was going to tell me himself what part Lord Orville had borne in it; and really I did not wish to hear it repeated. Indeed, the rest of his speech convinces me that such was his intention; with what view I know not, except to make a merit of his defending me. "And yet," he continued, "my excuse may only expose my own credulity, and want of judgment and penetration. I will, therefore, merely beseech your pardon, and hope that some future time-" Just then the door was opened by Sir Clement's servant, and I had the pleasure of seeing the Captain, Mrs. and Miss Mirvan, enter the room. "O ho!" cried the former, "you have got a good warm berth here; but we shall beat up your quarters. Here, Lucy, Moll, come to the fire, and dry your trumpery. But, hey-day-why, where's old Madame French?" "Good God," cried I, "is not Madame Duval then with you?" "With me! No,-thank God." I was very uneasy to know what might have become of her; and, if they would have suffered me, I should have gone in search of her myself; but all the servants were dispatched to find her; and the Captain said, we might be very sure her French beau would take care of her. We waited some time without any tidings, and were soon the only party in the room. My uneasiness increased so much that Sir Clement now made a voluntary offer of seeking her. However, the same moment that he opened the door with this design, she presented herself at it, attended by Monsieur Du Bois. "I was this instant, Madam," said he, "coming to see for you." "You are mighty good, truly," cried she, "to come when all the mischief's over." She then entered,-in such a condition!-entirely covered with mud, and in so great a rage, it was with difficulty she could speak. We all expressed our concern, and offered our assistance-except the Captain, who no sooner beheld her than he burst out into a loud laugh. We endeavoured, by our enquiries and condolements, to prevent her attending to him; and she was for some time so wholly engrossed by her anger and her distress, that we succeeded without much trouble. We begged her to inform us how this accident happened. "How!" repeated she,-"why it was all along of your all going away,-and there poor Monsieur Du Bois-but it wasn't his fault,-for he's as bad off as me." All eyes were then turned to Monsieur Du Bois, whose clothes were in the same miserable plight with those of Madame Duval; and who, wet, shivering, and disconsolate, had crept to the fire. The Captain laughed yet more heartily; while Mrs. Mirvan, ashamed of his rudeness, repeated her inquiries to Madame Duval; who answered, "Why, as we were a-coming along, all in the rain, Monsieur Du Bois was so obliging, though I'm sure it was an unlucky obligingness for me, as to lift me up in his arms to carry me over a place that was ankle-deep in mud; but instead of my being ever the better for it, just as we were in the worst part,-I'm sure I wish we had been fifty miles off,-for somehow or other his foot slipt,-at least, I suppose so,-though I can't think how it happened, for I'm so such great weight;-but, however that was, down we both came, together, all in the mud; and the more we tried to get up, the more deeper we got covered with the nastiness-and my new Lyons negligee, too, quite spoilt!-however, it's well we got up at all, for we might have laid there till now, for aught you all cared; nobody never came near us." This recital put the Captain into an ecstasy; he went from the lady to the gentleman, and from the gentleman to the lady, to enjoy alternately the sight of their distress. He really shouted with pleasure; and, shaking Monsieur Du Bois strenuously by the hand, wished him joy of having touched English ground; and then he held a candle to Madame Duval, that he might have a more complete view of her disaster, declaring repeatedly, that he had never been better pleased in his life. The rage of poor Madame Duval was unspeakable; she dashed the candle out of his hand, stamping upon the floor, and, at last, spat in his face. This action seemed immediately to calm them both, as the joy of the Captain was converted into resentment, and the wrath of Madame Duval into fear: for he put his hands upon her shoulders, and gave her so violent a shake, that she screamed out for help; assuring her, at the same time, that if she had been one ounce less old, or less ugly, she should have had it all returned in her own face. Monsieur Du Bois, who had seated himself very quietly at the fire, approached them, and expostulated very warmly with the Captain; but he was neither understood nor regarded; and Madame Duval was not released till she quite sobbed with passion. When they were parted, I intreated her to permit the woman who has charge of the ladies' cloaks to assist in drying her clothes; she consented, and we did what was possible to save her from catching cold. We were obliged to wait in this disagreeable situation near an hour before a hackney-coach could be found; and then we were disposed in the same manner as before our accident. I am going this morning to see poor Madame Duval, and to inquire after her health, which I think must have suffered by her last night's misfortunes; though, indeed, she seems to be naturally strong and hearty. Adieu, my dear Sir, till to-morrow. LETTER XVII EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Friday Morning, April 15. SIR CLEMENT WILLOUGHBY called here yesterday at noon, and Captain Mirvan invited him to dinner. For my part I spent the day in a manner the most uncomfortable imaginable. I found Madame Duval at breakfast in bed, though Monsieur Du Bois was in the chamber; which so much astonished me, that I was, involuntarily, retiring, without considering how odd an appearance my retreat would have, when Madame Duval called me back, and laughed very heartily at my ignorance of foreign customs. The conversation, however, very soon took a more serious turn; for she began, with great bitterness, to inveigh against the barbarous brutality of that fellow the Captain, and the horrible ill-breeding of the English in general, declaring, she should make her escape with all expedition from so beastly a nation. But nothing can be more strangely absurd, than to hear politeness recommended in language so repugnant to it as that of Madame Duval. She lamented, very mournfully, the fate of her Lyons silk; and protested she had rather have parted with all the rest of her wardrobe, because it was the first gown she had bought to wear upon leaving off her weeds. She has a very bad cold, and Monsieur Du Bois is so hoarse, he can hardly speak. She insisted upon my staying with her all day; as she intended, she said, to introduce me to some of my own relations. I would very fain have excused myself, but she did not allow me any choice. Till the arrival of these relations, one continued series of questions on her side, and of answers on mine, filled up all the time we passed together. Her curiosity was insatiable; she inquired into every action of my life, and every particular that had fallen under my observation in the lives of all I knew. Again, she was so cruel as to avow the most inveterate rancour against the sole benefactor her deserted child and grand-child have met with; and such was the indignation her ingratitude raised, that I would actually have quitted her presence and house, had she not, in a manner the most peremptory, absolutely forbid me. But what, good Heaven! can induce her to such shocking injustice? O, my friend and father! I have no command of myself when this subject is started. She talked very much of taking me to Paris, and said I greatly wanted the polish of a French education. She lamented that I had been brought up in the country, which, she observed, had given me a very bumpkinish air. However, she bid me not despair, for she had known many girls much worse than me, who had become very fine ladies after a few years residence abroad; and she particularly instanced a Miss Polly Moore, daughter of a chandler's-shop woman, who, by an accident not worth relating, happened to be sent to Paris, where, from an awkward ill-bred girl, she so much improved, that she has since been taken for a woman of quality. The relations to whom she was pleased to introduce me, consisted of a Mr. Branghton, who is her nephew, and three of his children, the eldest of which is a son, and the two younger are daughters. Mr. Branghton appears about forty years of age. He does not seem to want a common understanding, though he is very contracted and prejudiced: he has spent his whole time in the city, and I believe feels a great contempt for all who reside elsewhere. His son seems weaker in his understanding, and more gay in his temper; but his gaiety is that of a foolish, overgrown school-boy, whose mirth consists in noise and disturbance. He disdains his father for his close attention to business, and love of money; though he seems himself to have no talents, spirit, or generosity, to make him superior to either. His chief delight appears to be tormenting and ridiculing his sisters; who, in return, most heartily despise him. Miss Branghton, the eldest daughter, is by no means ugly; but looks proud, ill-tempered, and conceited. She hates the city, though without knowing why; for it is easy to discover she has lived no where else. Miss Polly Branghton is rather pretty, very foolish, very ignorant, very giddy, and, I believe, very good-natured. The first half-hour was allotted to making themselves comfortable; for they complained of having had a very dirty walk, as they came on foot from Snow Hill, where Mr. Branghton keeps a silversmith's shop; and the young ladies had not only their coats to brush, and shoes to dry, but to adjust their head-dress, which their bonnets had totally discomposed. The manner in which Madame Duval was pleased to introduce me to this family extremely shocked me. "Here, my dears," said she, "here's a relation you little thought of; but you must know, my poor daughter Caroline had this child after she run away from me,-though I never knew nothing of it, not I, for a long while after; for they took care to keep it a secret from me, though the poor child has never a friend in the world besides." "Miss seems very tender-hearted, aunt," said Miss Polly; "and to be sure she's not to blame for her mama's undutifulness, for she couldn't help it." "Lord, no," answered she, "and I never took no notice of it to her: for, indeed, as to that, my own poor daughter wasn't so much to blame as you may think; for she'd never have gone astray, if it had not been for that meddling old parson I told you of." "If aunt pleases," said young Mr. Branghton, "we'll talk o' somewhat else, for Miss looks very uneasy-like." The next subject that was chosen was the age of the three young Branghtons and myself. The son is twenty; the daughters upon hearing that I was seventeen, said that was just the age of Miss Polly; but their brother, after a long dispute, proved that she was two years older, to the great anger of both sisters, who agreed that he was very ill-natured and spiteful. When this point was settled, the question was put, Which was tallest?-We were desired to measure, as the Branghtons were all of different opinions. None of them, however, disputed my being the tallest in the company; but, in regard to one another, they were extremely quarrelsome: the brother insisted upon their measuring fair, and not with heads and heels; but they would by no means consent to lose those privileges of our sex; and therefore the young man was cast, as shortest; though he appealed to all present upon the injustice of the decree. This ceremony over, the young ladies begun, very freely, to examine my dress, and to interrogate me concerning it. "This apron's your own work, I suppose, Miss? but these sprigs a'n't in fashion now. Pray, if it is not impertinent, what might you give a yard for this lutestring?-Do you make your own caps, Miss?" and many other questions equally interesting and well-bred. Then they asked me how I liked London? and whether I should not think the country a very dull place, when I returned thither? "Miss must try if she can't get a good husband," said Mr. Branghton, "and then she may stay and live here." The next topic was public places, or rather the theatres, for they knew of no other; and the merits and defects of all the actors and actresses were discussed: the young man here took the lead, and seemed to be very conversant on the subject. But during this time, what was my concern, and, suffer me to add, my indignation, when I found, by some words I occasionally heard, that Madame Duval was entertaining Mr. Branghton with all the most secret and cruel particulars of my situation! The eldest daughter was soon drawn to them by the recital; the youngest and the son still kept their places; intending, I believe, to divert me, though the conversation was all their own. In a few minutes, Miss Branghton coming suddenly up to her sister, exclaimed, "Lord, Polly, only think! Miss never saw her papa!" "Lord, how odd!" cried the other; "why, then, Miss, I suppose you wouldn't know him?" This was quite too much for me; I rose hastily, and ran out of the room: but I soon regretted I had so little command of myself; for the two sisters both followed, and insisted upon comforting me, notwithstanding my earnest intreaties to be left alone. As soon as I returned to the company, Madame Duval said, "Why, my dear, what was the matter with you? why did you run away so?" This question almost made me run again, for I knew not how to answer it. But, is it not very extraordinary, that she can put me in situations so shocking, and then wonder to find me sensible of any concern? Mr. Branghton junior now inquired of me, whether I had seen the Tower, or St. Paul's church? and upon my answering in the negative, they proposed making a party to shew them to me. Among other questions, they also asked, if I had ever seen such a thing as an opera? I told them I had. "Well," said Mr. Branghton, "I never saw one in my life, so long as I've lived in London; and I never desire to see one, if I live here as much longer." "Lord, papa," cried Miss Polly, "why not? you might as well for once, for the curiosity of the thing: besides, Miss Pomfret saw one, and she says it was very pretty." "Miss will think us very vulgar," said Miss Branghton, "to live in London, and never have been to an opera; but it's no fault of mine, I assure you, Miss, only papa don't like to go." The result was, that a party was proposed, and agreed to, for some early opportunity. I did not dare contradict them; but I said that my time, while I remained in town, was at the disposal of Mrs. Mirvan. However, I am sure I will not attend them, if I can possibly avoid doing so. When we parted, Madame Duval desired to see me the next day; and the Branghtons told me, that the first time I went towards Snow Hill, they should be very glad if I would call upon them. I wish we may not meet again till that time arrives. I am sure I shall not be very ambitious of being known to any more of my relations, if they have any resemblance to those whose acquaintance I have been introduced to already. LETTER XVIII EVELINA IN CONTINUATION I HAD just finished my letter to you this morning, when a violent rapping at the door made me run down stairs; and who should I see in the drawing room, but-Lord Orville! He was quite alone, for the family had not assembled to breakfast. He inquired first of mine, then of the health of Mrs. and Miss Mirvan, with a degree of concern that rather surprised me, till he said he had just been informed of the accident we had met with at Ranelagh. He expressed his sorrow upon the occasion with utmost politeness, and lamented that he had not been so fortunate as to hear of it in time to offer his services. "But I think," he added, "Sir Clement Willoughby had the honour of assisting you?" "He was with Captain Mirvan, my Lord." "I had heard of his being of your party." I hope that flighty man has not been telling Lord Orville he only assisted me! however, he did not pursue the subject: but said, "This accident though extremely unfortunate, will not, I hope, be the means of frightening you from gracing Ranelagh with your presence in future?" "Our time, my Lord, for London, is almost expired already." "Indeed! do you leave town so very soon?" "O yes, my Lord, our stay has already exceeded our intentions." "Are you, then, so particularly partial to the country?" "We merely came to town, my Lord, to meet Captain Mirvan." "And does Miss Anville feel no concern at the idea of the many mourners her absence will occasion?" "O, my Lord,-I'm sure you don't think-" I stopt there; for, indeed, I hardly knew what I was going to say. My foolish embarrassment, I suppose, was the cause of what followed; for he came to me, and took my hand saying, "I do think, that whoever has once seen Miss Anville, must receive an impression never to be forgotten." This compliment,-from Lord Orville,-so surprised me, that I could not speak; but felt myself change colour, and stood for some moments silent, and looking down: however, the instant I recollected my situation, I withdrew my hand, and told him that I would see if Mrs. Mirvan was not dressed. He did not oppose me-so away I went. I met them all on the stairs, and returned with them to breakfast. I have since been extremely angry with myself for neglecting so excellent an opportunity of apologizing for my behaviour at the ridotto: but, to own the truth, that affair never once occurred to me during the short tete-e-tete which we had together. But, if ever we should happen to be so situated again, I will certainly mention it; for I am inexpressibly concerned at the thought of his harbouring an opinion that I am bold or impertinent, and I could almost kill myself for having given him the shadow of a reason for so shocking an idea. But was not it very odd that he should make me such a compliment? I expected it not from him;-but gallantry, I believe, is common to all men, whatever other qualities they may have in particular. Our breakfast was the most agreeable meal, if it may be called a meal, that we have had since we came to town. Indeed, but for Madame Duval, I should like London extremely. The conversation of Lord Orville is really delightful. His manners are so elegant, so gentle, so unassuming, that they at once engage esteem, and diffuse complacence. Far from being indolently satisfied with his own accomplishments, as I have already observed many men here are, though without any pretensions to his merit, he is most assiduously attentive to please and to serve all who are in his company, and, though his success is invariable, he never manifests the smallest degree of consciousness. I could wish that you, my dearest Sir, knew Lord Orville, because I am sure you would love him; and I have felt that wish for no other person I have seen since I came to London. I sometimes imagine, that when his youth is flown, his vivacity abated, and his life is devoted to retirement, he will, perhaps, resemble him whom I most love and honour. His present sweetness, politeness, and diffidence, seem to promise in future the same benevolence, dignity, and goodness. But I must not expatiate upon this subject. When Lord Orville was gone,-and he made but a very short visit,-I was preparing, most reluctantly, to wait upon Madame Duval; but Mrs. Mirvan proposed to the Captain, that she should be invited to dinner in Queen Ann Street; and he readily consented, for he said he wished to ask after her Lyons negligee. The invitation is accepted, and we expect her every moment. But to me, it is very strange, that a woman who is the uncontrolled mistress of her time, fortune, and actions, should choose to expose herself voluntarily to the rudeness of a man who is openly determined to make her his sport. But she has very few acquaintance; and, I fancy, scarce knows how to employ herself. How great is my obligation to Mrs. Mirvan, for bestowing her time in a manner so disagreeable to herself, merely to promote my happiness! Every dispute in which her undeserving husband engages, is productive of pain and uneasiness to herself; of this I am so sensible, that I even besought her not to send to Madame Duval; but she declared she could not bear to have me pass all my time, while in town, with her only. Indeed she could not be more kind to me, were she your daughter. LETTER XIX EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Saturday Morning, April 16. MADAM DUVAL was accompanied by Monsieur Du Bois. I am surprised that she should choose to introduce him where he is so unwelcome: and, indeed, it is strange that they should be so constantly together, though I believe I should have taken notice of it, but that Captain Mirvan is perpetually rallying me upon my grandmama's beau. They were both received by Mrs. Mirvan with her usual good-breeding; but the Captain, most provokingly, attacked her immediately, saying, "Now, Madame, you that have lived abroad, please to tell me this here: Which did you like best, the warm room at Ranelagh, or the cold bath you went into afterwards? though I assure you, you look so well, that I should advise you to take another dip." "Ma foi, Sir," cried she, "nobody asked for your advice, so you may as well keep it to yourself: besides, it's no such great joke to be splashed, and to catch cold, and spoil all one's things, whatever you may think of it." "Splashed, quoth-a!-why I thought you were soused all over.-Come, come, don't mince the matter, never spoil a good story; you know you hadn't a dry thread about you-'Fore George, I shall never think on't without hollooing! such a poor forlorn draggle-tailed-gentlewoman! and poor Monseer French, here, like a drowned rat, by your side!-" "Well, the worse pickle we was in, so much the worser in you not to help us; for you knowed where we were fast enough, because, while I laid in the mud, I'm pretty sure I heard you snigger: so it's like enough you jostled us down yourself; for Monsieur Du Bois says, that he is sure he had a great jolt given him, or he shouldn't have fell." The Captain laughed so immoderately, that he really gave me also a suspicion that he was not entirely innocent of the charge: however, he disclaimed it very peremptorily. "Why then," continued she, "if you didn't do that, why didn't you come to help us?" "Who, I?-what, do you suppose I had forgot I was an Englishman, a filthy, beastly Englishman?" "Very well, Sir, very well; but I was a fool to expect any better, for it's all of a piece with the rest; you know, you wanted to fling me out of the coach-window, the very first time ever I see you: but I'll never go to Ranelagh with you no more, that I'm resolved; for I dare say, if the horses had runn'd over me, as I laid in that nastiness, you'd never have stirred a step to save me." "Lord, no, to be sure, Ma'am, not for the world! I know your opinion of our nation too well, to affront you by supposing a Frenchman would want my assistance to protect you. Did you think that Monseer here, and I had changed characters, and that he should pop you into the mud, and I help you out of it? Ha, ha, ha!" "O very well, Sir, laugh on, it's like your manners; however, if poor Monsieur Du Bois hadn't met with that unlucky accident himself I shouldn't have wanted nobody's help." "O, I promise you, Madame, you'd never have had mine; I knew my distance better: and as to your being a little ducked, or so, why, to be sure, Monseer and you settled that between yourselves; so it was no business of mine." "What, then, I suppose you want to make me believe as Monsieur Du Bois served me that trick o'purpose?" "O' purpose! ay, certainly; whoever doubted that? Do you think a Frenchman ever made a blunder? If he had been some clumsy-footed English fellow, indeed, it might have been accidental: but what the devil signifies all your hopping and capering with your dancing-masters, if you can't balance yourselves upright?" In the midst of this dialogue, Sir Clement Willoughby made his appearance. He affects to enter the house with the freedom of an old acquaintance; and this very easiness, which, to me, is astonishing, is what most particularly recommends him to the Captain. Indeed, he seems very successfully to study all the humours of that gentleman. After having heartily welcomed him, "You are just come in time, my boy," said he, "to settle a little matter of a dispute between this here gentlewoman and I; do you know she has been trying to persuade me, that she did not above half like the ducking Monseer gave her t'other night." "I should have hoped," said Sir Clement, with the utmost gravity, "that the friendship subsisting between that lady and gentleman would have guarded them against any actions professed disagreeable to each other: but, probably, they might not have discussed the matter previously; in which case the gentleman, I must own, seems to have been guilty of inattention, since, in my humble opinion, it was his business first to have inquired whether the lady preferred soft or hard ground, before he dropt her." "O very fine, gentlemen, very fine," cried Madame Duval, "you may try to set us together by the ears as much as you will; but I'm not such an ignorant person as to be made a fool of so easily; so you needn't talk no more about it, for I sees into your designs." Monsieur Du Bois, who was just able to discover the subject upon which the conversation turned, made his defence, in French, with great solemnity: he hoped, he said, that the company would at least acknowledge he did not come from a nation of brutes; and consequently, that to wilfully offend any lady, was, to him, utterly impossible; but that, on the contrary, in endeavouring, as was his duty, to save and guard her, he had himself suffered, in a manner which he would forbear to relate, but which, he greatly apprehended, he should feel the ill effects of for many months: and then, with a countenance exceedingly lengthened, he added, that he hoped it would not be attributed to him as national prejudice, when he owned that he must, to the best of his memory, aver, that his unfortunate fall was owing to a sudden but violent push, which, he was shocked to say, some malevolent person, with a design to his injury, must certainly have given him; but whether with a view to mortify him, by making him let the lady fall, or whether merely to spoil his clothes, he could not pretend to determine. This disputation was, at last, concluded by Mrs. Mirvan's proposing that we should all go to Cox's Museum. Nobody objected, and carriages were immediately ordered. In our way down stairs, Madame Duval, in a very passionate manner, said, "Ma foi, if I wouldn't give fifty guineas only to know who gave us that shove!" This Museum is very astonishing, and very superb; yet if afforded me but little pleasure, for it is a mere show, though a wonderful one. Sir Clement Willoughby, in our walk round the room, asked me what my opinion was of this brilliant spectacle! "It is a very fine, and very ingenious," answered I; "and yet-I don't know how it is-but I seem to miss something." "Excellently answered!" cried he; "you have exactly defined my own feelings, though in a manner I should never have arrived at. But I was certain your taste was too well formed, to be pleased at the expense of your understanding." "Pardi," cried Madame Duval, "I hope you two is difficult enough! I'm sure if you don't like this you like nothing; for it's the grandest, prettiest, finest sight that ever I see in England." "What," cried the Captain with a sneer, "I suppose this may be in your French taste? it's like enough, for it's all kickshaw work. But pr'ythee, friend," turning to the person who explained the devices, "will you tell me the use of all this? for I'm not enough of a conjuror to find it out." "Use, indeed!" repeated Madame Duval, disdainfully; "Lord if every thing's to be useful!-" "Why, Sir, as to that, Sir," said our conductor, "the ingenuity of the mechanism-the beauty of the workmanship-the-undoubtedly, Sir, any person of taste may easily discern the utility of such extraordinary performances." "Why then, Sir," answered the Captain, "your person of taste must be either a coxcomb, or a Frenchman; though, for the matter of that, 'tis the same thing." Just then our attention was attracted by a pine-apple; which, suddenly opening, discovered a nest of birds, which immediately began to sing. "Well," cried Madame Duval, "this is prettier than all the rest! I declare, in all my travels, I never see nothing eleganter." "Hark ye, friend," said the Captain, "hast never another pine-apple?" "Sir?-" "Because, if thou hast, pr'ythee give it us without the birds; for, d'ye see, I'm no Frenchman, and should relish something more substantial." This entertainment concluded with a concert of mechanical music: I cannot explain how it was produced, but the effect was pleasing. Madame Duval was in ecstasies; and the Captain flung himself into so many ridiculous distortions, by way of mimicking her, that he engaged the attention of all the company; and, in the midst of the performance of the Coronation Anthem, while Madame Duval was affecting to beat time, and uttering many expressions of delight, he called suddenly for salts, which a lady, apprehending some distress, politely handed to him, and which, instantly applying to the nostrils of poor Madame Duval, she involuntarily snuffed up such a quantity, that the pain and surprise made her scream aloud. When she recovered, she reproached him with her usual vehemence; but he protested he had taken that measure out of pure friendship, as he concluded, from her raptures, that she was going into hysterics. This excuse by no means appeased her, and they had a violent quarrel; but the only effect her anger had on the Captain, was to increase his diversion. Indeed, he laughs and talks so terribly loud in public, that he frequently makes us ashamed of belonging to him. Madame Duval, notwithstanding her wrath, made no scruple of returning to dine in Queen Ann Street. Mrs. Mirvan had secured places for the play at Drury-Lane Theatre, and, though ever uneasy in her company, she very politely invited Madame Duval to be of our party; however, she had a bad cold and chose to nurse it. I was sorry for her indisposition; but I knew not how to be sorry she did not accompany us, for she is-I must not say what, but very unlike other people. LETTER XX EVELINA IN CONTINUATION OUR places were in the front row of a side-box. Sir Clement Willoughby, who knew our intention, was at the door of the theatre, and handed us from the carriage. We had not been seated five minutes before Lord Orville, whom we saw in the stage-box, came to us; and he honoured us with his company all the evening; Miss Mirvan and I both rejoiced that Madam Duval was absent, as we hoped for the enjoyment of some conversation, uninterrupted by her quarrels with the Captain: but I soon found that her presence would have made very little alteration; for as far was I from daring to speak, that I knew not where even to look. The play was Love for Love; and though it is fraught with wit and entertainment I hope I shall never see it represented again; for it is so extremely indelicate-to use the softest word I can-that Miss Mirvan and I were perpetually out of countenance, and could neither make any observations ourselves, nor venture to listen to those of others. This was the most provoking, as Lord Orville was in excellent spirits, and exceedingly entertaining. When the play was over, I flattered myself I should be able to look about me with less restraint, as we intended to stay the farce; but the curtain had hardly dropped, when the box-door opened, and in came Mr. Lovel, the man by whose foppery and impertinence I was so much teased at the ball where I first saw Lord Orville. I turned away my head, and began talking to Miss Mirvan; for I was desirous to avoid speaking to him-but in vain; for, as soon as he had made his compliments to Lord Orville and Sir Clement Willoughby, who returned them very coldly, he bent his head forward and said to me, "I hope, Ma'am, you have enjoyed your health since I had the honour-I beg ten thousand pardons, but, I protest I was going to say the honour of dancing with you-however, I mean the honour of seeing you dance?" He spoke with a self-complacency that convinced me that he had studied this address, by way of making reprisals for my conduct at the ball; I therefore bowed slightly, but made no answer. After a short silence he again called my attention, by saying, in an easy, negligent way, "I think, Ma'am, you was never in town before?" "No, Sir." "So I did presume. Doubtless, Ma'am, every thing must be infinitely novel to you. Our customs, our manners, and les etiquettes de nous autres, can have little very resemblance to those you have been used to. I imagine, Ma'am, your retirement is at no very small distance from the capital?" I was so much disconcerted at this sneering speech, that I said not a word; though I have since thought my vexation both stimulated and delighted him. "The air we breathe here, however, Ma'am," continued he, very conceitedly, "though foreign to that you have been accustomed to, has not I hope been at variance with your health?" "Mr. Lovel," said Lord Orville, "could not your eye have spared that question?" "O, my Lord," answered he, "if health were the only cause of a lady's bloom, my eye, I grant, had been infallible from the first glance; but-" "Come, come," cried Mrs. Mirvan, "I must beg no insinuations of that sort: Miss Anville's colour, as you have successfully tried, may, you see, be heightened; but, I assure you, it would be past your skill to lessen it." "'Pon honour, Madam," returned he, "you wrong me; I presumed not to infer that rouge was the only succedaneum for health; but, really, I have known so many different causes for a lady's colour, such as flushing-anger-mauvaise honte-and so forth, that I never dare decide to which it may be owing." "As to such causes as them there," cried the Captain, "they must belong to those that they keep company with." "Very true, Captain," said Sir Clement; "the natural complexion has nothing to do with the occasional sallies of the passions, or any accidental causes." "No, truly," returned the Captain: "for now here's me, why I look like any other man; just now; and yet, if you were to put me in a passion, 'fore George, you'd soon see me have as fine a high colour as any painted Jezebel in all this place, be she never so bedaubed." "But," said Lord Orville, "the difference of natural and of artificial colour seems to me very easily discerned; that of nature is mottled and varying; that of art set, and too smooth; it wants that animation, that glow, that indescribable something, which, even now that I see it, wholly surpasses all my powers of expression." "Your Lordship," said Sir Clement, "is universally acknowledged to be a connoisseur in beauty." "And you, Sir Clement," returned he, "an enthusiast." "I am proud to own it," cried Sir Clement; "in such a cause, and before such objects, enthusiasm is simply the consequence of not being blind." "Pr'ythee, a truce with all this palavering," cried the Captain: "the women are vain enough already; no need for to puff 'em up more." "We must all submit to the commanding officer," said Sir Clement: "therefore, let us call another subject. Pray, ladies, how have you been entertained with the play?" "Want of entertainment," said Mrs. Mirvan, "is its least fault; but I own there are objections to it, which I should be glad to see removed." "I could have ventured to answer for the ladies," said Lord Orville, "since I am sure this is not a play that can be honoured with their approbation." "What, I suppose it is not sentimental enough!" cried the Captain, "or else it is too good for them; for I'll maintain it's one of the best comedies in our language, and has more wit in one scene than there is in all the new plays put together." "For my part," said Mr. Lovel, "I confess I seldom listen to the players: one has so much to do, in looking about and finding out one's acquaintance, that, really, one has no time to mind the stage. Pray," most affectedly fixing his eyes upon a diamond ring on his little finger, "pray-what was the play to-night?" "Why, what the D-l," cried the Captain, "do you come to the play without knowing what it is?" "O yes, Sir, yes, very frequently: I have no time to read play-bills; one merely comes to meet one's friends, and shew that one's alive." "Ha, ha, ha!-and so," cried the Captain, "it costs you five shillings a-night just to shew you're alive! Well, faith, my friends should all think me dead and underground before I'd be at that expense for 'em. Howsomever-this here you may take from me-they'll find you out fast enough if you have anything to give 'em.-And so you've been here all this time, and don't know what the play was?" "Why, really Sir, a play requires so much attention,-it is scarce possible to keep awake if one listens;-for, indeed, by the time it is evening, one has been so fatigued with dining,-or wine,-or the house,-or studying,-that it is-it is perfectly an impossibility. But, now I think of it, I believe I have a bill in my pocket; O, ay, here it is-Love for Love, ay,-true, ha, ha!-how could I be so stupid!" "O, easily enough, as to that, I warrant you," said the Captain; "but, by my soul, this is one of the best jokes I ever heard!-Come to a play, and not know what it is!-Why, I suppose you wouldn't have found it out, if they had fob'd you off with a scraping of fiddlers, or an opera?-Ha, ha, ha!-Why, now, I should have thought you might have taken some notice of one Mr. Tattle, that is in this play!" This sarcasm, which caused a general smile, made him colour: but, turning to the Captain with a look of conceit, which implied that he had a retort ready, he said, "Pray, Sir, give me leave to ask-What do you think of one Mr. Ben, who is also in this play?" The Captain, regarding him with the utmost contempt, answered in a loud voice, "Think of him!-why, I think he is a man!" And then, staring full in his face, he struck his cane on the ground with a violence that made him start. He did not however, choose to take any notice of this: but, having bit his nails some time in manifest confusion, he turned very quick to me, and in a sneering tone of voice, said, "For my part, I was most struck with the country young lady, Miss Prue; pray what do you think of her, Ma'am?" "Indeed, Sir," cried I, very much provoked, "I think-that is, I do not think any thing about her." "Well, really, Ma'am, you prodigiously surprise me!-mais, apparemment ce n'est qu'une facon de parler? -though I should beg your pardon, for probably you do not understand French?" I made no answer, for I thought his rudeness intolerable; but Sir Clement, with great warmth, said, "I am surprised that you can suppose such an object as Miss Prue would engage the attention of Miss Anville even for a moment." "O, Sir," returned this fop, "'tis the first character in the piece!-so well drawn!-so much the thing!-such true country breeding-such rural ignorance! ha, ha, ha!-'tis most admirably hit off, 'pon honour!" I could almost have cried, that such impertinence should be leveled at me; and yet, chagrined as I was, I could never behold Lord Orville and this man at the same time, and feel any regret for the cause I had given of displeasure. "The only female in the play," said Lord Orville, "worthy of being mentioned to these ladies is Angelica." "Angelica," cried Sir Clement, "is a noble girl; she tries her lover severely, but she rewards him generously." "Yet, in a trial so long," said Mrs. Mirvan, "there seems rather too much consciousness of her power." "Since my opinion has the sanction of Mrs. Mirvan," added Lord Orville, "I will venture to say, that Angelica bestows her hand rather with the air of a benefactress, than with the tenderness of a mistress. Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally gives as much pain as pleasure. The uncertainty in which she keeps Valentine, and her manner of trifling with his temper, give no very favourable idea of her own." "Well, my Lord," said Mr. Lovel, "it must, however, be owned, that uncertainty is not the ton among our ladies at present; nay, indeed, I think they say,-though faith," taking a pinch of snuff, "I hope it is not true-but they say, that we now are most shy and backward." The curtain then drew up, and our conversation ceased. Mr. Lovel, finding we chose to attend to the players, left the box. How strange it is, Sir, that this man, not contented with the large share of foppery and nonsense which he has from nature, should think proper to affect yet more! for what he said of Tattle and of Miss Prue, convinced me that he really had listened to the play, though he was so ridiculous and foolish as to pretend ignorance. But how malicious and impertinent is this creature to talk to me in such a manner! I am sure I hope I shall never see him again. I should have despised him heartily as a fop, had he never spoken to me at all; but now, that he thinks proper to resent his supposed ill-usage, I am really quite afraid of him. The entertainment was, The Duece is in Him; which Lord Orville observed to be the most finished and elegant petit piece that was ever written in English. In our way home, Mrs. Mirvan put me into some consternation by saying, it was evident, from the resentment which this Mr. Lovel harbours of my conduct, that he would think it a provocation sufficiently important for a duel, if his courage equaled his wrath. I am terrified at the very idea. Good Heaven! that a man so weak and frivolous should be so revengeful! However, if bravery would have excited him to affront Lord Orville, how much reason have I to rejoice that cowardice makes him contended with venting his spleen upon me! But we shall leave town soon, and, I hope, see him no more. It was some consolation to me to hear from Miss Mirvan, that, while he was speaking to me so cavalierly, Lord Orville regarded him with great indignation. But, really, I think there ought to be a book of the laws and customs -e;-la-mode, presented to all young people upon their first introduction into public company. To-night we go to the opera, where I expect very great pleasure. We shall have the same party as at the play, for Lord Orville said he should be there, and would look for us. LETTER XXI EVELINA IN CONTINUATION I HAVE a volume to write of the adventures of yesterday. In the afternoon,-at Berry Hill I should have said the evening, for it was almost six o'clock,-while Miss Mirvan and I were dressing for the opera, and in high spirits from the expectation of great entertainment and pleasure, we heard a carriage stop at the door, and concluded that Sir Clement Willoughby, with his usual assiduity, was come to attend us to the Haymarket; but, in a few moments, what was our surprise to see our chamber door flung open, and the two Miss Branghtons enter the room! They advanced to me with great familiarity, saying, "How do you do, Cousin?-so we've caught you at the glass!-well, I'm determined I'll tell my brother of that!" Miss Mirvan, who had never before seen them, and could not at first imagine who they were, looked so much astonished, that I was ready to laugh myself, till the eldest said, "We're come to take you to the opera, Miss; papa and my brother are below, and we are to call for your grand-mama as we go along." "I am very sorry," answered I, "that you should have taken so much trouble, as I am engaged already." "Engaged! Lord, Miss, never mind that," cried the youngest; "this young lady will make your excuses I dare say; it's only doing as one would be done by, you know." "Indeed Ma'am," said Miss Mirvan, "I shall myself be very sorry to be deprived of Miss Anville's company this evening." "Well, Miss, that is not so very good-natured in you," said Miss Branghton, "considering we only come to give our cousin pleasure; it's no good to us; it's all upon her account; for we came, I don't know how much round about to take her up." "I am extremely obliged to you," said I, "and very sorry you have lost so much time; but I cannot possibly help it, for I engaged myself without knowing you would call." "Lord, what signifies that?" said Miss Polly, "you're no old maid, and so you needn't be so very formal: besides I dare say those you are engaged to a'n't half so near related to you as we are." "I must beg you not to press me any further, for I assure you it is not in my power to attend you." "Why, we came all out of the city on purpose: besides, your grand-mama expects you;-and, pray, what are we to say to her?" "Tell her, if you please, that I am much concerned,-but that I am pre-engaged." "And who to?" demanded the abrupt Miss Branghton. "To Mrs. Mirvan,-and a large party." "And, pray, what are you all going to do, that it would be such a mighty matter for you to come along with us?" "We are all going to-to the opera." "O dear, if that be all, why can't we go altogether?" I was extremely disconcerted at this forward and ignorant behaviour, and yet their rudeness very much lessened my concern at refusing them. Indeed, their dress was such as would have rendered their scheme of accompanying our party impracticable, even if I had desired it; and this, as they did not themselves find it out, I was obliged, in terms the least mortifying I could think of, to tell them. They were very much chagrined, and asked where I should sit. "In the pit," answered I. "In the pit," repeated Miss Branghton; "well, really, I must own, I should never have supposed that my gown was not good enough for the pit: but come, Polly, let's go; if Miss does not think us fine enough for her, why to be sure she may choose." Surprised at this ignorance, I would have explained to them, that the pit at the opera required the same dress as the boxes; but they were so much affronted they would not hear me; and, in great displeasure, left the room, saying, they would not have troubled me, only they thought I should not be proud with my own relations, and that they had at least as good a right to my company as strangers. I endeavoured to apologize, and would have sent a long message to Madame Duval: but they hastened away without listening to me; and I could not follow them down stairs, because I was not dressed. The last words I heard them say were, "Well, her grandmama will be in a fine passion, that's one good thing." Though I was extremely mad at this visit, yet I so heartily rejoiced at their going, that I would not suffer myself to think gravely about it. Soon after, Sir Clement actually came, and we all went down stairs. Mrs. Mirvan ordered tea; and we were engaged in a very lively conversation, when the servant announced Madame Duval, who instantly followed him into the room. Her face was the colour of scarlet, and her eyes sparkled with fury. She came up to me with a hasty step, saying, "So, Miss, you refuses to come to me, do you? And pray who are you, to dare to disobey me?" I was quite frightened;-I made no answer;-I even attempted to rise, and could not, but sat still, mute and motionless. Everybody but Miss Mirvan seemed in the utmost astonishment; and the Captain rising and approaching Madame Duval, with a voice of authority, said, "Why, how now, Mrs. Turkey-cock, what's put you into this here fluster?" "It's nothing to you," answered she, "so you may as well hold your tongue; for I shan't be called to no account by you, I assure you." "There you're out, Madame Fury," returned he; "for you must know, I never suffer anybody to be in a passion in my house, but myself." "But you shall," cried she, in a great rage; "for I'll be in as great a passion as ever I please, without asking your leave: so don't give yourself no more airs about it. And as for you Miss," again advancing to me, "I order you to follow me this moment, or else I'll make you repent it all your life." And, with these words, she flung out of the room. I was in such extreme terror, at being addressed and threatened in a manner to which I am so wholly unused, that I almost thought I should have fainted. "Don't be alarmed, my love," cried Mrs. Mirvan, "but stay where you are, and I will follow Madame Duval, and try to bring her to reason." Miss Mirvan took my hand, and most kindly endeavoured to raise my spirits. Sir Clement, too, approached me, with an air so interested in my distress, that I could not but feel myself obliged to him; and, taking my other hand, said, "For Heaven's sake, my dear Madam, compose yourself: surely the violence of such a wretch ought merely to move your contempt; she can have no right, I imagine, to lay her commands upon you, and I only wish that you would allow me to speak to her." "O no! not for the world!-indeed, I believe,-I am afraid-I had better follow her." "Follow her! Good God, my dear Miss Anville, would you trust yourself with a mad woman? for what else can you call a creature whose passions are so insolent? No, no; send her word at once to leave the house, and tell her you desire that she will never see you again." "O, Sir! you don't know who you talk of!-it would ill become me to send Madame Duval such a message." "But why," cried he, (looking very inquisitive,) "why should you scruple to treat her as she deserves?" I then found that his aim was to discover the nature of her connection with me; but I felt so much ashamed of my near relationship to her, that I could not persuade myself to answer him, and only intreated that he would leave her to Mrs. Mirvan, who just then entered the room. Before she could speak to me, the Captain, called out, "Well, Goody, what have you done with Madame French? is she cooled a little? cause if she ben't, I've just thought of a most excellent device to bring her to." "My dear Evelina," said Mrs. Mirvan, "I have been vainly endeavouring to appease her; I pleaded your engagement, and promised your future attendance: but I am sorry to say, my love, that I fear her rage will end in a total breach (which I think you had better avoid) if she is any further opposed." "Then I will go to her, Madam," cried I; "and, indeed, it is now no matter, for I should not be able to recover my spirits sufficiently to enjoy much pleasure any where this evening." Sir Clement began a very warm expostulation and intreaty, that I would not go; but I begged him to desist, and told him, very honestly, that, if my compliance were not indispensably necessary I should require no persuasion to stay. He then took my hand, to lead me down stairs; but the Captain desired him to be quiet, saying he would 'squire me himself, "because" he added, (exultingly rubbing his hands) "I have a wipe ready for the old lady, which may serve her to chew as she goes along." We found her in the parlour, "O you're come at last, Miss, are you?-fine airs you give yourself, indeed!-ma foi, if you hadn't come, you might have staid, I assure you, and have been a beggar, for your pains." "Heyday, Madam," cried the Captain, (prancing forward, with a look of great glee) "what, a'n't you got out of that there passion yet? why then, I'll tell you what to do to cool yourself; call upon your old friend, Monseer Slippery, who was with you at Ranelagh, and give my service to him, and tell him, if he sets any store by your health, that I desire he'll give you such another souse as he did before: he'll know what I mean, and I'll warrant you he'll do't for my sake." "Let him, if he dares!" cried Madame Duval; "but I shan't stay to answer you no more; you are a vulgar fellow;-and so, child, let us leave him to himself." "Hark ye, Madam," cried the Captain, "you'd best not call names; because, d'ye see, if you do, I shall make bold to shew you the door." She changed colour, and saying, "Pardi, I can shew it myself," hurried out of the room, and I followed her into a hackney-coach. But, before we drove off, the Captain, looking out of the parlour window, called out "D'ye hear, Madam, don't forget my message to Monseer." You will believe our ride was not the most agreeable in the world; indeed, it would be difficult to say which was least pleased, Madame Duval or me, though the reasons of our discontent were so different: however, Madame Duval soon got the start of me; for we had hardly turned out of Queen Ann Street, when a man, running full speed, stopt the coach. He came up to the window, and I saw he was the Captain's servant. He had a broad grin on his face, and panted for breath. Madame Duval demanded his business: "Madam," answered he, "my master desires his compliments to you, and-and-and he says he wishes it well over with you. He! he! he!-" Madame Duval instantly darted forward, and gave him a violent blow on the face; "Take that back for your answer, sirrah," cried she, "and learn not to grin at your betters another time. Coachman, drive on!" The servant was in a violent passion, and swore terribly; but we were soon out of hearing. The rage of Madame Duval was greater than ever; and she inveighed against the Captain with such fury, that I was even apprehensive she would have returned to his house, purposely to reproach him, which she repeatedly threatened to do; nor would she, I believe, have hesitated a moment, but that, notwithstanding her violence, he has really made her afraid of him. When we came to her lodgings we found all the Branghtons in the passage, impatiently waiting for us with the door open. "Only see, here's Miss!" cried the brother. "Well, I declare I thought as much!" said the younger sister. "Why, Miss," said Mr. Branghton, "I think you might as well have come with your cousins at once; it's throwing money in the dirt, to pay two coaches for one fare." "Lord, father," cried the son, "make no words about that; for I'll pay for the coach that Miss had." "O, I know very well," answered Mr. Branghton, "that you're always more ready to spend than to earn." I then interfered, and begged that I might myself be allowed to pay the fare, as the expense was incurred upon my account; they all said no, and proposed that the same coach should carry us to the opera. While this passed the Miss Branghtons were examining my dress, which, indeed, was very improper for my company; and, as I was extremely unwilling to be so conspicuous amongst them, I requested Madame Duval to borrow a hat or bonnet for me of the people of the house. But she never wears either herself, and thinks them very English and barbarous; therefore she insisted that I should go full dressed, as I had prepared myself for the pit, though I made many objections. We were then all crowded into the same carriage; but when we arrived at the opera-house, I contrived to pay the coachman. They made a great many speeches; but Mr. Branghton's reflection had determined me not to be indebted to him. If I had not been too much chagrined to laugh, I should have been extremely diverted at their ignorance of whatever belongs to an opera. In the first place they could not tell at what door we ought to enter, and we wandered about for some time, without knowing which way to turn: they did not choose to apply to me, though I was the only person of the party who had ever before been at an opera; because they were unwilling to suppose that their country counsin, as they were pleased to call me, should be better acquainted with any London public place than themselves. I was very indifferent and careless upon this subject; but not a little uneasy at finding that my dress, so different from that of the company to which I belonged, attracted general notice and observation. In a short time, however, we arrived at one of the door-keeper's bars. Mr. Branghton demanded for what part of the house they took money? They answered, the pit; and regarded us all with great earnestness. The son then advancing, said "Sir, if you please, I beg that I may treat Miss." "We'll settle that another time," answered Mr. Branghton, and put down a guinea. Two tickets of admission were given to him. Mr. Branghton, in his turn, now stared at the door-keeper, and demanded what he meant by giving him only two tickets for a guinea. "Only two, Sir!" said the man; "why, don't you know that the tickets are half-a guinea each?" "Half-a-guinea each!" repeated Mr. Branghton, "why, I never heard of such a thing in my life! And pray, Sir, how many will they admit?" "Just as usual, Sir, one person each." "But one person for half-a-guinea!-why, I only want to sit in the pit, friend." "Had not the ladies better sit in the gallery, Sir; for they'll hardly choose to go into the pit with their hats on?" "O, as to that," cried Miss Branghton, "if our hats are too high we'll take them off when we get in. I sha'n't mind, it, for I did my hair on purpose." Another party then approaching, the door-keeper could no longer attend to Mr. Branghton; who, taking up the guinea, told him it should be long enough before he'd see it again, and walked away. The young ladies, in some confusion, expressed their surprise that their papa should not know the opera prices, which, for their parts, they had read in the papers a thousand times. "The price of stocks," said he, "is enough for me to see after; and I took it for granted it was the same thing here as at the playhouse." "I knew well enough what the price was," said the son; "but I would not speak, because I thought perhaps they'd take less, as we're such a large party." The sisters both laughed very contemptuously at this idea, and asked him if he ever heard of people's abating any thing at a public place? I don't know whether I have or not," answered he; "but I am sure if they would, you'd like it so much the worse." "Very true, Tom," cried Mr. Branghton; "tell a woman that any thing is reasonable, and she'll be sure to hate it." "Well," said Miss Polly, "I hope that aunt and Miss will be of our side, for papa always takes part with Tom." "Come, come," cried Madame Duval, "if you stand talking here, we shan't get no place at all." Mr. Branghton then enquired the way to the gallery; and, when we came to the door-keeper, demanded what was to pay. "The usual price, Sir," said the man. "Then give me change," cried Mr. Branghton, again putting down his guinea. "For how many, Sir?" "Why-let's see,-for six." "For six, Sir? why, you're given me but a guinea." "But a guinea! why, how much would you have? I suppose it is'n't half-a-guinea a piece here too?" "No, Sir, only five shillings." Mr. Branghton again took up his unfortunate guinea, and protested he would not submit to no such imposition. I then proposed that we should return home, but Madame Duval would not consent; and we were conducted, by a woman who sells books of the opera, to another gallery-door, where, after some disputing, Mr. Branghton at last paid, and we all went up stairs. Madame Duval complained very much of the trouble of going so high: but Mr. Branghton desired her not to hold the place too cheap; "for, whatever you think," cried he, "I assure you I paid pit price; so don't suppose I come here to save my money." "Well, to be sure," said Miss Branghton, "there's no judging of a place by the outside, else, I must needs say, there's nothing very extraordinary in the stair-case." But, when we entered the gallery their amazement and disappointment became general. For a few instants, they looked at one another without speaking, and then they all broke silence at once. "Lord, papa," exclaimed Miss Polly, "why, you have brought us to the one-shilling gallery!" "I'll be glad to give you two shillings, though," answered he, "to pay. I was never so fooled out of my money before, since the house of my birth. Either the door-keeper's a knave, or this is the greatest imposition that ever was put upon the public." "Ma foi," cried Madame Duval, "I never sat in such a mean place in all my life;-why, it's as high-we shan't see nothing." "I thought at the time," said Mr. Branghton, "that three shillings was an exorbitant price for a place in the gallery: but as we'd been asked so much at the other doors, why I paid it without many words; but, then, to be sure, thinks I, it can never be like any other gallery, we shall see some crinkum-crankum or other for our money; but I find it's as arrant a take-in as ever I met with." "Why, it's as like the twelve-penny gallery at Drury Lane," cried the son, "as two peas are to one another. I never knew father so bit before." "Lord," said Miss Branghton, "I thought it would have been quite a fine place,-all over, I don't know what,-and done quite in taste." In this manner they continued to express their dissatisfaction till the curtain drew up; after which their observations were very curious. They made no allowance for the customs, or even for the language, of another country; but formed all their remarks upon comparisons with the English theatre. Notwithstanding my vexation at having been forced into a party so very disagreeable, and that, too, from one so much-so very much the contrary-yet, would they have suffered me to listen, I should have forgotten every thing unpleasant, and felt nothing but delight in hearing the sweet voice of Signor Millico, the first singer; but they tormented me with continual talking. "What a jabbering they make!" cried Mr. Branghton, "there's no knowing a word they say. Pray, what's the reason they can't as well sing in English?-but I suppose the fine folks would not like it, if they could understand it." "How unnatural their action is!" said the son: "why, now, who ever saw an Englishman put himself in such out-of-the-way postures?" "For my part," said Miss Polly, "I think it's very pretty, only I don't know what it means." "Lord, what does that signify," cried her sister; "mayn't one like a thing without being so very particular?-You may see that Miss likes it, and I don't suppose she knows more of the matter than we do." A gentleman, soon after, was so obliging as to make room in the front row for Miss Branghton and me. We had no sooner seated ourselves, than Miss Branghton exclaimed, "Good gracious! only see!-why, Polly, all the people in the pit are without hats, dressed like anything!" "Lord, so they are," cried Miss Polly; "well, I never saw the like!-it's worth coming to the opera, if one saw nothing else." I was then able to distinguish the happy party I had left; and I saw that Lord Orville had seated himself next to Mrs. Mirvan. Sir Clement had his eyes perpetually cast towards the five-shilling gallery, where I suppose he concluded that we were seated; however, before the opera was over, I have reason to believe that he had discovered me, high and distant as I was from him. Probably he distinguished me by my head-dress. At the end of the first act, as the green curtain dropped to prepare for the dance, they imagined that the opera was done; and Mr. Branghton expressed great indignation that he had been tricked out of his money with so little trouble. "Now, if any Englishman was to do such an impudent thing as this," said he, "why, he'd be pelted;-but here, one of these outlandish gentry may do just what he pleases, and come on, and squeak out a song or two, and then pocket your money without further ceremony." However, so determined he was to be dissatisfied, that, before the conclusion of the third act, he found still more fault with the opera for being too long; and wondered whether they thought their singing good enough to serve us for supper. During the symphony of a song of Signor Millico's, in the second act, young Mr. Branghton said, "It's my belief that that fellow's going to sing another song!-why, there's nothing but singing!-I wonder when they'll speak." This song, which was slow and pathetic, caught all my attention, and I leaned my head forward to avoid hearing their observations, that I might listen without interruption: but, upon turning round, when the song was over, I found that I was the object of general diversion to the whole party; for the Miss Branghtons were tittering, and the two gentlemen making signs and faces at me, implying their contempt of my affectation. This discovery determined me to appear as inattentive as themselves; but I was very much provoked at being thus prevented enjoying the only pleasure, which, in such a party, was within my power. "So Miss," said Mr. Branghton, "you're quite in the fashion, I see-so you like operas? Well, I'm not so polite; I can't like nonsense, let it be never so much the taste." "But pray, Miss," said the son, "what makes that fellow look so doleful while he is singing?" "Probably because the character he performs is in distress." "Why, then, I think he might as well let alone singing till he's in better cue: it's out of all nature for a man to be piping when he's in distress. For my part, I never sing but when I'm merry; yet I love a song as well as most people." When the curtain dropt they all rejoiced. "How do you like it?"-and "How do you like it?" passed from one to another with looks of the utmost contempt. "As for me," said Mr. Branghton, "they've caught me once; but if ever they do again, I'll give 'em leave to sing me to Bedlam for my pains: for such a heap of stuff never did I hear: there isn't one ounce of sense in the whole opera, nothing but one continued squeaking and squalling from beginning to end." "If I had been in the pit," said Madame Duval, "I should have liked it vastly, for music is my passion; but sitting in such a place as this, is quite unbearable." Miss Branghton, looking at me, declared, that she was not genteel enough to admire it. Miss Polly confessed, that, if they would but sing English, she would like it very well. The brother wished he could raise a riot in the house, because then he might get his money again. And, finally, they all agreed that it was monstrous dear. During the last dance, I perceived standing near the gallery-door, Sir Clement Willoughby. I was extremely vexed, and would have given the world to have avoided being seen by him: my chief objection was, from the apprehension that he would hear Miss Branghton call me cousin.-I fear you will think this London journey has made me grow very proud; but indeed this family is so low-bred and vulgar, that I should be equally ashamed of such a connection in the country, or anywhere. And really I had already been so much chagrined that Sir Clement had been a witness of Madame Duval's power over me, that I could not bear to be exposed to any further mortification. As the seats cleared, by parties going away, Sir Clement approached nearer to us. The Miss Branghtons observed with surprise, what a fine gentleman was come into the gallery; and they gave me great reason to expect, that they would endeavour to attract his notice, by familiarity with me, whenever he should join us; and so I formed a sort of plan to prevent any conversation. I'm afraid you will think it wrong; and so I do myself now;-but, at the time, I only considered how I might avoid immediate humiliation. As soon as he was within two seats of us, he spoke to me: "I am very happy, Miss Anville, to have found you, for the ladies below have each an humble attendant, and therefore I am come to offer my services here." "Why then," cried I, (not without hesitating) "if you please,-I will join them." "Will you allow me the honour of conducting you?" cried he eagerly; and, instantly taking my hand, he would have marched away with me: but I turned to Madame Duval, and said, "As our party is so large, Madame, if you will give me leave, I will go down to Mrs. Mirvan, that I may not crowd you in the coach." And then, without waiting for an answer, I suffered Sir Clement to hand me out of the gallery. Madame Duval, I doubt not, will be very angry; and so I am with myself now, and therefore I cannot be surprised: but Mr. Branghton, I am sure, will easily comfort himself, in having escaped the additional coach-expense of carrying me to Queen Ann Street; as to his daughters, they had no time to speak; but I saw they were in utter amazement. My intention was to join Mrs. Mirvan, and accompany her home. Sir Clement was in high spirits and good humour; and all the way he went, I was fool enough to rejoice in secret at the success of my plan; nor was it till I got down stairs, and amidst the servants, that any difficulty occurred to me of meeting with my friends. I then asked Sir Clement, how I should contrive to acquaint Mrs. Mirvan that I had left Madame Duval? "I fear it will be almost impossible to find her," answered he; "but you can have no objection to permitting me to see you safe home." He then desired his servant, who was waiting, to order his chariot to draw up. This quite startled me; I turned to him hastily, and said that I could not think of going away without Mrs. Mirvan. "But how can we meet with her?" cried he; "you will not choose to go into the pit yourself; I cannot send a servant there; and it is impossible for me to go and leave you alone." The truth of this was indisputable, and totally silenced me. Yet, as soon as I could recollect myself, I determined not to go into his chariot, and told him I believed I had best return to my party up stairs. He would not hear of this; and earnestly intreated me not to withdraw the trust I had reposed in him. While he was speaking, I saw Lord Orville, with several ladies and gentlemen, coming from the pit passage: unfortunately he saw me too, and, leaving his company, advanced instantly towards me, and with an air and voice of surprise, said, "Good God, do I see Miss Anville!" I now most severely felt the folly of my plan, and the awkwardness of my situation: however, I hastened to tell him, though in a hesitating manner, that I was waiting for Mrs. Mirvan; but what was my disappointment, when he acquainted me that she was already gone home! I was inexpressibly distressed; to suffer Lord Orville to think me satisfied with the single protection of Sir Clement Willoughby, I could not bear; yet I was more than ever averse to returning to a party which I dreaded his seeing. I stood some moments in suspense, and could not help exclaiming, "Good Heaven, what can I do!" "Why, my dear madam," cried Sir Clement, "should you be thus uneasy?-you will reach Queen Ann Street almost as soon as Mrs. Mirvan, and I am sure you cannot doubt being as safe." I made no answer, and Lord Orville then said, "My coach is here; and my servants are ready to take any commands Miss Anville will honour me with for them. I shall myself go home in a chair, and therefore-" How grateful did I feel for a proposal so considerate, and made with so much delicacy! I should gladly have accepted it, had I been permitted, but Sir Clement would not let him even finish his speech; he interrupted him with evident displeasure, and said, "My Lord, my own chariot is now at the door." And just then the servant came, and told him the carriage was ready. He begged to have the honour of conducting me to it, and would have taken my hand; but I drew it back, saying, "I can't-I can't indeed! pray go by yourself-and as to me, let me have a chair." "Impossible," cried he with vehemence, "I cannot think of trusting you with strange chairmen,-I cannot answer it to Mrs. Mirvan;-come, dear Madam, we shall be home in five minutes." Again I stood suspended. With what joy would I then have compromised with my pride, to have been once more with Madame Duval and the Branghtons, provided I had not met with Lord Orville! However, I flatter myself that he not only saw but pitied my embarrassment; for he said in a tone of voice unusually softened, "To offer my services in the presence of Sir Clement Willoughby would be superfluous; but I hope I need not assure Miss Anville how happy it would make me to be of the least use to her." I courtsied my thanks. Sir Clement, with great earnestness, pressed me to go; and while I was thus uneasily deliberating what to do, the dance, I suppose, finished, for the people crowded down stairs. Had Lord Orville then repeated his offer, I would have accepted it notwithstanding Sir Clement's repugnance; but I fancy he thought it would be impertinent. In a very few minutes I heard Madame Duval's voice, as she descended from the gallery. "Well," cried I hastily, "if I must go-" I stopt; but Sir Clement immediately handed me into his chariot, called out, "Queen Ann Street," and then jumped in himself. Lord Orville, with a bow and a half smile, wished me good night. My concern was so great at being seen and left by Lord Orville in so strange a situation, that I should have been best pleased to have remained wholly silent during our ride home; but Sir Clement took care to prevent that. He began by making many complaints of my unwillingness to trust myself with him, and begged to know what could be the reason? This question so much embarrassed me, that I could not tell what to answer; but only said, that I was sorry to have taken up so much of his time. "O Miss Anville," cried he, taking my hand, "if you knew with what transport I would dedicate to you not only the present but all the future time allotted to me, you would not injure me by making such an apology." I could not think of a word to say to this, nor to a great many other equally fine speeches with which he ran on; though I would fain have withdrawn my hand, and made almost continual attempts; but in vain, for he actually grasped it between both his, without any regard to my resistance. Soon after, he said that he believed the coachman was going the wrong way; and he called to his servant, and gave him directions. Then again addressing himself to me, "How often, how assiduously have I sought an opportunity of speaking to you, without the presence of that brute, Captain Mirvan! Fortune has now kindly favoured me with one; and permit me," again seizing my hand, "permit me to use it in telling you that I adore you." I was quite thunderstruck at this abrupt and unexpected declaration. For some moments I was silent; but when I recovered from my surprise, I said, "Indeed, Sir, if you were determined to make me repent leaving my own party so foolishly, you have very well succeeded." "My dearest life," cried he, "is it possible you can be so cruel? Can your nature and your countenance be so totally opposite? Can the sweet bloom upon those charming cheeks, which appears as much the result of good-humour as of beauty-" "O, Sir," cried I, interrupting him, "this is very fine; but I had hoped we had had enough of this sort of conversation at the ridotto, and I did not expect you would so soon resume it." "What I then said, my sweet reproacher, was the effect of a mistaken, a profane idea, that your understanding held no competition with your beauty; but now, now that I find you equally incomparable in both, all words, all powers of speech, are too feeble to express the admiration I feel of your excellencies." "Indeed," cried I, "if your thoughts had any connection with your language, you would never suppose that I could give credit to praise so very much above my desert." This speech, which I made very gravely, occasioned still stronger protestations; which he continued to pour forth, and I continued to disclaim, till I began to wonder that we were not in Queen Ann Street, and begged he would desire the coachman to drive faster. "And does this little moment," cried he, "which is the first of happiness I have ever known, does it already appear so very long to you?" "I am afraid the man has mistaken the way," answered I, "or else we should ere now have been at our journey's end. I must beg you will speak to him." "And can you think me so much my own enemy?-if my good genius has inspired the man with a desire of prolonging my happiness, can you expect that I should counteract its indulgence?" I now began to apprehend that he had himself ordered the man to go a wrong way; and I was so much alarmed at the idea, that, the very instant it occurred to me, I let down the glass, and made a sudden effort to open the chariot-door myself, with a view of jumping into the street; but he caught hold of me, exclaiming, "For Heaven's sake, what is the matter?" "I-I don't know," cried I (quite out of breath), "but I am sure the man goes wrong; and if you will not speak to him, I am determined I will get out myself." "You amaze me," answered he (still holding me), "I cannot imagine what you apprehend. Surely you can have no doubts of my honour?" He drew me towards him as he spoke. I was frightened dreadfully, and could hardly say, "No, Sir, no,-none at all: only Mrs. Mirvan,-I think she will be uneasy." "Whence this alarm, my dearest angel?-What can you fear?-my life is at your devotion, and can you, then, doubt my protection?" And so saying, he passionately kissed my hand. Never, in my whole life, have I been so terrified. I broke forcibly from him, and, putting my head out of the window, called aloud to the man to stop. Where we then were, I know not; but I saw not a human being, or I should have called for help. Sir Clement, with great earnestness, endeavoured to appease and compose me: "If you do not intend to murder me," cried I, "for mercy's, for pity's sake, let me get out!" "Compose your spirits, my dearest life," cried he, "and I will do everything you would have me." And then he called to the man himself, and bid him make haste to Queen Ann Street. "This stupid fellow," continued he, "has certainly mistaken my orders; but I hope you are now fully satisfied." I made no answer, but kept my head at the window watching which way he drove, but without any comfort to myself, as I was quite unacquainted with either the right or the wrong. Sir Clement now poured forth abundant protestations of honour, and assurances of respect, intreating my pardon for having offended me, and beseeching my good opinion: but I was quite silent, having too much apprehension to make reproaches, and too much anger to speak without. In this manner we went through several streets, till at last, to my great terror, he suddenly ordered the man to stop, and said, "Miss Anville, we are now within twenty yards of your house; but I cannot bear to part with you, till you generously forgive me for the offence you have taken, and promise not to make it known to the Mirvan's." I hesitated between fear and indignation. "Your reluctance to speak redoubles my contrition for having displeased you, since it shews the reliance I might have on a promise which you will not give without consideration." "I am very, very much distressed," cried I; "you ask a promise which you must be sensible I ought not to grant, and yet dare not refuse." "Drive on!" cried he to the coachman;-"Miss Anville, I will not compel you; I will exact no promise, but trust wholly to your generosity." This rather softened me; which advantage he no sooner received, than he determined to avail himself of; for he flung himself on his knees, and pleaded with so much submission, that I was really obliged to forgive him, because his humiliation made me quite ashamed: and, after that, he would not let me rest till I gave him my word that I would not complain of him to Mrs. Mirvan. My own folly and pride, which had put me in his power, were pleas which I could not but attend to in his favour. However, I shall take very particular care never to be again alone with him. When, at last, we arrived at our house, I was so overjoyed, that I should certainly have pardoned him then, if I had not before. As he handed me up stairs, he scolded his servant aloud, and very angrily, for having gone so much out of the way. Miss Mirvan ran out to meet me; -and who should I see behind her, but Lord Orville! All my joy now vanished, and gave place to shame and confusion; for I could not endure that he should know how long a time Sir Clement and I had been together, since I was not at liberty to assign any reason for it. They all expressed great satisfaction at seeing me; and said they had been extremely uneasy and surprised that I was so long coming home, as they had heard from Lord Orville that I was not with Madame Duval. Sir Clement, in an affected passion, said, that his booby of a servant had misunderstood his orders, and was driving us to the upper end of Piccadilly. For my part, I only coloured; for though I would not forfeit my word, I yet disdained to confirm a tale in which I had myself no belief. Lord Orville, with great politeness, congratulated me, that the troubles of the evening had so happily ended; and said, that he had found it impossible to return home, before he enquired after my safety. In a very short time he took his leave, and Sir Clement followed him. As soon as they were gone, Mrs. Mirvan, though with great softness, blamed me for having quitted Madame Duval. I assured her, and with truth, that for the future I would be more prudent. The adventures of the evening so much disconcerted me, that I could not sleep all night. I am under the most cruel apprehensions lest Lord Orville should suppose my being on the gallery-stairs with Sir Clement was a concerted scheme, and even that our continuing so long together in his chariot was with my approbation, since I did not say a word on the subject, nor express my dissatisfaction at the coachman's pretended blunder. Yet his coming hither to wait our arrival though it seems to imply some doubt, shews also some anxiety. Indeed, Miss Mirvan says, that he appeared extremely anxious, nay, uneasy and impatient for my return. If I did not fear to flatter myself, I should think it not impossible but that he had a suspicion of Sir Clement's design, and was therefore concerned for my safety. What a long letter is this! however, I shall not write many more from London; for the Captain said this morning, that he would leave town on Tuesday next. Madame Duval will dine here to-day, and then she is to be told his intention. I am very much amazed that she accepted Mrs. Mirvan's invitation, as she was in such wrath yesterday. I fear that to-day I shall myself be the principal object of her displeasure; but I must submit patiently, for I cannot defend myself. Adieu, my dearest Sir. Should this letter be productive of any uneasiness to you, more than ever shall I repent the heedless imprudence which it recites. LETTER XXII EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Monday Morning, April 18. MRS. MIRVAN has just communicated to me an anecdote concerning Lord Orville, which has much surprised, half pleased, and half pained me. While they were sitting together during the opera, he told her that he had been greatly concerned at the impertinence which the young lady under her protection had suffered from Mr. Lovel; but that he had the pleasure of assuring her, she had no future disturbance to apprehend from him. Mrs. Mirvan, with great eagerness, begged he would explain himself; and said she hoped he had not thought so insignificant an affair worthy his serious attention. "There is nothing," answered he, "which requires more immediate notice than impertinence, for it ever encroaches when it is tolerated." He then added, that he believed he ought to apologize for the liberty he had taken in interfering; but that, as he regarded himself in the light of a party concerned, from having had the honour of dancing with Miss Anville, he could not possibly reconcile to himself a patient neutrality. He then proceeded to tell her, that he had waited upon Mr. Lovel the morning after the play; that the visit had proved an amicable one, but the particulars were neither entertaining nor necessary: he only assured her, Miss Anville might be perfectly easy, since Mr. Lovel had engaged his honour never more to mention, or even to hint at what had passed at Mrs. Stanley's assembly. Mrs. Mirvan expressed her satisfaction at this conclusion, and thanked him for his polite attention to her young friend. "It would be needless," said he, "to request that this affair may never transpire, since Mrs. Mirvan cannot but see the necessity of keeping it inviolably secret; but I thought it incumbent upon me, as the young lady is under your protection, to assure both you and her of Mr. Lovel's future respect." Had I known of this visit previous to Lord Orville's making it, what dreadful uneasiness would it have cost me! Yet that he should so much interest himself in securing me from offence, gives me, I must own, an internal pleasure, greater than I can express; for I feared he had too contemptuous an opinion of me, to take any trouble upon my account. Though, after all, this interference might rather be to satisfy his own delicacy, than from thinking well of me. But how cool, how quiet is true courage! Who, from seeing Lord Orville at the play, would have imagined his resentment would have hazarded his life? yet his displeasure was evident, though his real bravery and his politeness equally guarded him from entering into any discussion in our presence. Madame Duval, as I expected, was most terribly angry yesterday: she scolded me for, I believe, two hours, on account of having left her; and protested she had been so much surprised at my going, without giving her time to answer, that she hardly knew whether she was awake or asleep. But she assured me that if ever I did so again, she would never more take me into public. And she expressed an equal degree of displeasure against Sir Clement, because he had not even spoken to her, and because he was always of the Captain's side in an argument. The Captain, as bound in honour, warmly defended him, and then followed a dispute in the usual style. After dinner, Mrs. Mirvan introduced the subject of our leaving London. Madame Duval said she would stay a month or two longer. The Captain told her she was welcome, but that he and his family should go into the country on Tuesday morning. A most disagreeable scene followed. Madame Duval insisted upon keeping me with her; but Mrs. Mirvan said, that as I was actually engaged on a visit to Lady Howard, who had only consented to my leaving her for a few days, she could not think of returning without me. Perhaps, if the Captain had not interfered, the good-breeding and mildness of Mrs. Mirvan might have had some effect upon Madame Duval; but he passes no opportunity of provoking her; and therefore made so many gross and rude speeches, all of which she retorted, that, in conclusion, she vowed she would sooner go to law in right of her relationship, than that I should be taken away from her. I heard this account from Mrs. Mirvan, who was so kindly considerate as to give me a pretence for quitting the room as soon as this dispute began, lest Madame Duval should refer to me, and insist on my obedience. The final result of the conversation was, that, to soften matters for the present, Madame Duval should make one in the party to Howard Grove, whither we are positively to go next Wednesday. And though we are none of us satisfied with this plan, we know not how to form a better. Mrs. Mirvan is now writing to Lady Howard, to excuse bringing this unexpected guest, and prevent the disagreeable surprise which must otherwise attend her reception. This dear lady seems eternally studying my happiness and advantage. To-night we go to the Pantheon, which is the last diversion we shall partake of in London; for to-morrow- * * * * * This moment, my dearest Sir, I have received your kind letter. If you thought us too dissipated the first week, I almost fear to know what you will think of us this second;-however, the Pantheon this evening will probably be the last public place which I shall ever see. The assurance of your support and protection in regard to Madame Duval, though what I never doubted, excites my utmost gratitude. How, indeed, cherished under your roof, the happy object of your constant indulgence, how could I have borne to become the slave of her tyrannical humours? -Pardon me that I speak so hardly of her; but whenever the idea of passing my days with her occurs to me, the comparison which naturally follows, takes from me all that forbearance which, I believe, I owe her. You are already displeased with Sir Clement: to be sure, then, his behaviour after the opera will not make his peace with you. Indeed the more I reflect upon it, the more angry I am. I was entirely in his power, and it was cruel in him to cause me so much terror. O, my dearest Sir, were I but worthy the prayers and the wishes you offer for me, the utmost ambition of my heart would be fully satisfied! but I greatly fear you will find me, now that I am out of the reach of your assisting prudence, more weak and imperfect than you could have expected. I have not now time to write another word, for I must immediately hasten to dress for the evening. LETTER XXIII EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Queen Ann Street, Tuesday, April 19. THERE is something to me half melancholy in writing an account of our last adventures in London. However, as this day is merely appropriated to packing and preparations for our journey, and as I shall shortly have no more adventures to write, I think I may as well complete my town journal at once: and, when you have it all together, I hope, my dear Sir, you will send me your observations and thoughts upon it to Howard Grove. About eight o'clock we went to the Pantheon. I was extremely struck with the beauty of the building, which greatly surpassed whatever I could have expected or imagined. Yet it has more the appearance of a chapel than of a place of diversion; and, though I was quite charmed with the magnificence of the room, I felt that I could not be as gay and thoughtless there as at Ranelagh; for there is something in it which rather inspires awe and solemnity, than mirth and pleasure. However, perhaps it may only have this effect upon such a novice as myself. I should have said, that our party consisted only of Captain, Mrs. and Miss Mirvan, as Madame Duval spent the day in the city;-which I own I could not lament. There was a great deal of company; but the first person we saw was Sir Clement Willoughby. He addressed us with his usual ease, and joined us for the whole evening. I felt myself very uneasy in his presence; for I could not look at him, nor hear him speak, without recollecting the chariot adventure; but, to my great amazement, I observed that he looked at me without the least apparent discomposure, though, certainly, he ought not to think of his behaviour without blushing. I really wish I had not forgiven him, and then he could not have ventured to speak to me any more. There was an exceeding good concert, but too much talking to hear it well. Indeed I am quite astonished to find how little music is attended to in silence; for, though every body seems to admire, hardly any body listens. We did not see Lord Orville till we went into the tea-room, which is large, low, and under ground, and serves merely as a foil to the apartments above; he then sat next to us. He seemed to belong to a large party, chiefly of ladies; but, among the gentlemen attending them, I perceived Mr. Lovel. I was extremely irresolute whether or not I ought to make any acknowledgments to Lord Orville for his generous conduct in securing me from the future impertinence of that man; and I thought, that, as he had seemed to allow Mrs. Mirvan to acquaint me, though no one else, of the measures which he had taken, he might perhaps suppose me ungrateful if silent: however, I might have spared myself the trouble of deliberating, as I never once had the shadow of an opportunity of speaking unheard by Sir Clement. On the contrary, he was so exceedingly officious and forward, that I could not say a word to any body but instantly he bent his head forward, with an air of profound attention, as if I had addressed myself wholly to him; and yet I never once looked at him, and would not have spoken to him on any account. Indeed, Mrs. Mirvan herself, though unacquainted with the behaviour of Sir Clement after the opera, says it is not right for a young woman to be seen so frequently in public with the same gentleman; and, if our stay in town was to be lengthened, she would endeavour to represent to the Captain the impropriety of allowing his constant attendance; for Sir Clement with all his easiness, could not be so eternally of our parties, if the Captain was less fond of his company. At the same table with Lord Orville sat a gentleman,-I call him so only because he was at the same table,-who, almost from the moment I was seated, fixed his eyes steadfastly on my face, and never once removed them to any other object during tea-time, notwithstanding my dislike of his staring must, I am sure, have been very evident. I was quite surprised, that a man, whose boldness was so offensive, could have gained admission into a party of which Lord Orville made one; for I naturally concluded him to be some low-bred, uneducated man; and I thought my idea was indubitably confirmed, when I heard him say to Sir Clement Willoughby, in an audible whisper,-which is a mode of speech very distressing and disagreeable to bystanders,-"For Heaven's sake, Willoughby, who is that lovely creature?" But what was my amazement, when, listening attentively for the answer, though my head was turned another way, I heard Sir Clement say, "I am sorry I cannot inform your Lordship, but I am ignorant myself." Lordship! how extraordinary! that a nobleman, accustomed, in all probability, to the first rank of company in the kingdom, from his earliest infancy, can possibly be deficient in good manners, however faulty in morals and principles! Even Sir Clement Willoughby appeared modest in comparison with this person. During tea, a conversation was commenced upon the times, fashions, and public places, in which the company of both tables joined. It began by Sir Clement's inquiring of Miss Mirvan and of me, if the Pantheon had answered our expectations. We both readily agreed that it had greatly exceeded them. "Ay, to be sure," said the Captain, "why, you don't suppose they'd confess they didn't like it, do you? Whatever's the fashion, they must like, of course;-or else, I'd be bound for it, they'd own, that there never was such a dull place as this here invented." "And has, then, this building," said Lord Orville, "no merit that may serve to lessen your censure? Will not your eye, Sir, speak something in its favour?" "Eye!" cried the Lord, (I don't know his name,) "and is there any eye here, that can find pleasure in looking at dead walls or statues, when such heavenly living objects as I now see demand all their admiration?" "O, certainly," said Lord Orville, "the lifeless symmetry of architecture, however beautiful the design and proportion, no man would be so mad as to put in competition with the animated charms of nature: but when, as to-night, the eye may be regaled at the same time, and in one view, with all the excellence of art, and all the perfection of nature, I cannot think that either suffer by being seen together." "I grant, my Lord," said Sir Clement, "that the cool eye of unimpassioned philosophy may view both with equal attention, and equal safety; but, where the heart is not so well guarded, it is apt to interfere, and render, even to the eye, all objects but one insipid and uninteresting." "Aye, Aye," cried the Captain, "you may talk what you will of your eye here, and your eye there, and, for the matter of that, to be sure you have two,-but we all know they both squint one way." "Far be it from me," said Lord Orville, "to dispute the magnetic power of beauty, which irresistibly draws and attracts whatever has soul and sympathy: and I am happy to acknowledge, that though we have now no gods to occupy a mansion professedly built for them, yet we have secured their better halves, for we have goddesses to whom we all most willingly bow down." And then with a very droll air, he made a profound reverence to the ladies. "They'd need to be goddesses with a vengeance," said the Captain, "for they're mortal dear to look at. Howsomever, I should be glad to know what you can see in e'er a face among them that's worth half-a-guinea for a sight." "Half-a-guinea!" exclaimed that same Lord, "I would give half I am worth for a sight of only one, provided I make my own choice. And, prithee, how can money be better employed than in the service of fine women?" "If the ladies of his own party can pardon the Captain's speech," said Sir Clement, "I think he has a fair claim to the forgiveness of all." "Then you depend very much, as I doubt not but you may," said Lord Orville, "upon the general sweetness of the sex;-but as to the ladies of the Captain's party, they may easily pardon, for they cannot be hurt." "But they must have a devilish good conceit of themselves, though," said the Captain, "to believe all that. Howsomever, whether or no, I should be glad to be told by some of you, who seem to be knowing in them things, what kind of diversion can be found in such a place as this here, for one who has had, long ago, his full of face-hunting?" Every body laughed, but nobody spoke. "Why, look you there now," continued the Captain, "you're all at a dead stand!-not a man among you can answer that there question. Why, then, I must make bold to conclude, that you all come here for no manner of purpose but to stare at one another's pretty faces:-though, for the matter of that, half of 'em are plaguy ugly;-and, as to t'other half,-I believe it's none of God's manufactory." "What the ladies may come hither for, Sir," said Mr. Lovel, (stroking his ruffles, and looking down,) "it would ill become us to determine; but as to we men, doubtless we can have no other view than to admire them." "If I ben't mistaken," cried the Captain, (looking earnestly in his face,) "you are that same person we saw at Love for Love t'other night; ben't you?" Mr. Lovel bowed. "Why, then, Gentlemen," continued he, with a loud laugh, "I must tell you a most excellent good joke;-when all was over, as sure as you're alive, he asked what the play was! Ha, ha, ha!" "Sir," said Mr. Lovel, colouring, "if you were as much used to town-life as I am,-which, I presume, is not precisely the case,-I fancy you would not find so much diversion from a circumstance so common." "Common! What, is it common?" repeated the Captain; "why then, 'fore George, such chaps are more fit to be sent to school, and well disciplined with a cat-o'-nine tails, than to poke their heads into a play-house. Why, a play is the only thing left, now-a-days, that has a grain of sense in it; for as to all the rest of your public places, d'ye see, if they were all put together, I wouldn't give that for 'em!" (snapping his fingers.) "And now we're talking of them sort of things, there's your operas,-I should like to know, now, what any of you can find to say for them." Lord Orville, who was most able to have answered, seemed by no means to think the Captain worthy an argument, upon a subject concerning which he had neither knowledge nor feeling: but, turning to us, he said, "The ladies are silent, and we seem to have engrossed the conversation to ourselves, in which we are much more our own enemies than theirs. But," addressing himself to Miss Mirvan and me, "I am most desirous to hear the opinions of these young ladies, to whom all public places must, as yet, be new." We both, and with eagerness, declared that we had received as much, if not more pleasure, at the opera than any where: but we had better have been silent; for the Captain, quite displeased, said, "What signifies asking them girls? Do you think they know their own minds yet? Ask 'em after any thing that's called diversion, and you're sure they'll say it's vastly fine-they are a set of parrots, and speak by rote, for they all say the same thing: but ask 'em how they like making puddings and pies, and I'll warrant you'll pose 'em. As to them operas, I desire I may hear no more of their liking such nonsense; and for you, Moll" (to his daughter,) "I charge you, as you value my favour, that you'll never again be so impertinent as to have a taste of your own before my face. There are fools enough in the world, without your adding to their number. I'll have no daughter of mine affect them sort of megrims. It is a shame they a'n't put down; and if I'd my will, there's not a magistrate in this town but should be knocked on the head for suffering them. If you've a mind to praise any thing, why you may praise a play, and welcome, for I like it myself." This reproof effectually silenced us both for the rest of the evening. Nay, indeed, for some minutes it seemed to silence every body else; till Mr. Lovel, not willing to lose an opportunity of returning the Captain's sarcasm, said, "Why, really Sir, it is but natural to be most pleased with what is most familiar; and, I think, of all our diversions, there is not one so much in common between us and the country as a play. Not a village but has its barns and comedians; and as for the stage business, why it may be pretty equally done any where; and even in regard to us, and the canaille, confined as we all are within the semi-circle of a theatre, there is no place where the distinction is less obvious." While the Captain seemed considering for Mr. Lovel's meaning, Lord Orville, probably with a view to prevent his finding it, changed the subject to Cox's Museum, and asked what he thought of it? "Think!-"said he, "why I think as how it i'n't worth thinking about. I like no such jemcracks. It is only fit, in my mind, for monkeys:-though, for aught I know, they too might turn up their noses at it." "May we ask your Lordship's own opinion?" said Mrs. Mirvan. "The mechanism," answered he, "is wonderfully ingenioous: I am sorry it is turned to no better account; but its purport is so frivolous, so very remote from all aim at instruction or utility, that the sight of so fine a show leaves a regret on the mind, that so much work, and so much ingenuity, should not be better bestowed." "The truth is," said the Captain, "that in all this huge town, so full as it is of folks of all sorts, there i'n't so much as one public place, besides the play-house, where a man, that's to say, a man who is a man, ought not to be ashamed to shew his face. T'other day they got me to a ridotto: but, I believe, it will be long enough before they get me to another. I knew no more what to do with myself, than if my ship's company had been metamorphosed into Frenchman. Then, again, there's your famous Ranelagh, that you make such a fuss about;-why what a dull place is that!-it's the worst of all." "Ranelagh dull!"-"Ranelagh dull!-was echoed from mouth to mouth; and all the ladies, as if of one accord, regarded the Captain with looks of the most ironical contempt. "As to Ranelagh," said Mr. Lovell, "most indubitably, though the price is blebian, it is by no means adapted to the plebian taste. It requires a certain acquaintance with high life, and-and-and something of-of-something d'un vrai gout, to be really sensible of its merit. Those whose-whose connections, and so forth, are not among les gens comme il faut, can feel nothing but ennui at such a place as Ranelagh." "Ranelagh!" cried Lord -, "O, tis the divinest place under heaven,-or, indeed,-for aught I know-" "O you creature!" cried a pretty, but affected young lady, patting him with her fan, "you sha'n't talk so; I know what you are going to say; but, positively, I won't sit by you, if you're so wicked." "And how can one sit by you, and be good?" said he, "when only to look at you is enough to make one wicked-or wish to be so?" "Fie, my Lord!" returned she, "you really are insufferable. I don't think I shall speak to you again these seven years." "What a metamorphosis," cried Lord Orville," should you make a patriarch of his Lordship." "Seven years!" said he, "dear Madam, be contented with telling me you will not speak to me after seven years, and I will endeavour to submit." "O, very well, my Lord," answered she, "pray date the end of our speaking to each other as early as you please, I'll promise to agree to your time." "You know, dear Madam," said he, sipping his tea, "you know I only live in your sight." "O yes, my Lord, I have long known that. But I begin to fear we shall be too late for Ranelagh this evening." "O no, Madame," said Mr. Lovel, looking at his watch, "it is but just past ten." "No more!" cried she, "O then we shall do very well." All the ladies now started up, and declared they had no time to lose. "Why, what the D-l," cried the Captain, leaning forward with both his arms on the table," are you going to Ranelagh at this time of night?" The ladies looked at one another, and smiled. "To Ranelagh?" cried Lord -, "yes, and I hope you are going too; for we cannot possibly excuse these ladies." "I go to Ranelagh?-if I do, I'll be -." Everybody now stood up; and the stranger Lord, coming round to me, said, "You go, I hope?" "No, my Lord, I believe not." "O you cannot, must not be so barbarous." And he took my hand, and ran on, saying such fine speeches, and compliments, that I might almost have supposed myself a goddess, and him a pagan paying me adoration. As soon as I possibly could, I drew back my hand; but he frequently, in the course of conversation, contrived to take it again, though it was extremely disagreeable to me; and the more so, as I saw that Lord Orville had his eyes fixed upon us, with a gravity of attention that made me uneasy. And, surely, my dear Sir, it was a great liberty in this lord, not withstanding his rank, to treat me so freely. As to Sir Clement, he seemed in misery. They all endeavoured to prevail with the Captain to join the Ranelagh party; and this lord told me, in a low voice, that it was tearing his heart out to go without me. During this conversation Mr. Lovel came forward, and assuming a look of surprise, made me a bow, and inquired how I did, protesting upon his honour, that he had not seen me before, or would have sooner paid his respects to me. Though his politeness was evidently constrained, yet I was very glad to be thus assured of having nothing more to fear from him. The Captain, far from listening to their persuasions of accompanying them to Ranelagh, was quite in a passion at the proposal, and vowed he would sooner go to the Blackhole in Calcutta. "But," said Lord -, "if the ladies will take their tea at Ranelagh, you may depend upon our seeing them safe home; for we shall be proud of the honour of attending them." "May be so," said the Captain, "but I'll tell you what, if one of these places ben't enough for them to-night, why to-morrow they shall go to ne'er a one." We instantly declared ourselves ready to go home. "It is not for yourselves that we petition," said Lord -. "But for us; if you have any charity, you will not be so cruel as to deny us; we only beg you to prolong our happiness for a few minutes,-the favour is but a small one for you to grant, though so great a one for us to receive." "To tell you a piece of my mind," said the Captain, surlily, "I think you might as well not give the girls so much of this palaver; they'll take it all for gospel. As to Moll, why she's well enough, but nothing extraordinary; though, perhaps, you may persuade her that her pug nose is all the fashion; and as to the other, why she's good white and red to be sure; but what of that?-I'll warrant she'll moulder away as fast as her neighbours." "Is there," cried Lord -, "another man in this place, who, seeing such objects, could make such a speech?" "As to that there," returned the Captain, "I don't know whether there be or no, and, to make free, I don't care; for I sha'n't go for to model myself by any of these fair-weather chaps, who dare not so much as say their souls are their own,-and, for aught I know, no more they ben't. I'm almost as much ashamed of my countrymen as if I was a Frenchman, and I believe in my heart there i'n't a pin to choose between them; and, before long, we shall hear the very sailors talking that lingo, and see never a swabber without a bag and a sword." "He, he, he!-well, 'pon honour," cried Mr. Lovel, "you gentlemen of the ocean have a most severe way of judging." "Severe! 'fore George, that is impossible; for, to cut the matter short, the men, as they call themselves, are no better than monkeys; and as to the women, why they are mere dolls. So now you've got my opinion of this subject; and I so wish you good night." The ladies, who were very impatient to be gone, made their courtsies, and tripped away, followed by all the gentlemen of their party, except the lord before mentioned, and, Lord Orville, who stayed to make inquiries of Mrs. Mirvan concerning our leaving town; and then saying, with his usual politeness, something civil to each of us, with a very grave air he quitted us. Lord - remained some minutes longer, which he spent in making a profusion of compliments to me; by which he prevented my hearing distinctly what Lord Orville said, to my great vexation, especially as he looked-I thought so, at least-as if displeased at his particularity of behaviour to me. In going to an outward room, to wait for the carriage, I walked, and could not possibly avoid it, between this nobleman and Sir Clement Willoughby, and, when the servant said the coach stopped the way, though the latter offered me his hand, which I should much have preferred, this same lord, without any ceremony, took mine himself; and Sir Clement, with a look extremely provoked, conducted Mrs. Mirvan. In all ranks and all stations of life, how strangely do characters and manners differ! Lord Orville, with a politeness which knows no intermission, and makes no distinction, is as unassuming and modest as if he had never mixed with the great, and was totally ignorant of every qualification he possesses; this other lord, though lavish of compliments and fine speeches, seems to me an entire stranger to real good-breeding; whoever strikes his fancy, engrosses his whole attention. He is forward and bold; has an air of haughtiness towards men, and a look of libertinism towards woman; and his conscious quality seems to have given him a freedom in his way of speaking to either sex, that is very little short of rudeness. When we returned home, we were all low-spirited. The evening's entertainment had displeased the Captain; and his displeasure, I believe, disconcerted us all. And here I thought to have concluded my letter; but, to my great surprise, just now we had a visit from Lord Orville. He called, he said, to pay his respects to us before we left town, and made many inquiries concerning our return; and, when Mrs Mirvan told him we were going into the country without any view of again quitting it, he expressed concern in such terms-so polite, so flattering, so serious-that I could hardly forbear being sorry for myself. Were I to go immediately to Berry Hill, I am sure I should feel nothing but joy;-but, now we are joined by this Captain, and Madame Duval, I must own I expect very little pleasure at Howard Grove. Before Lord Orville went, Sir Clement Willoughby called. He was more grave than I had ever seen him; and made several attempts to speak to me in a low voice, and to assure me that his regret upon the occasion of our journey was entirely upon my account. But I was not in spirits, and could not bear to be teased by him. However, he has so well paid his court to Captain Mirvan, that he gave him a very hearty invitation to the Grove. At this he brightened,-and just then Lord Orville took leave. No doubt but he was disgusted at this ill-timed, ill-bred partiality; for surely it was very wrong to make an invitation before Lord Orville in which he was not included! I was so much chagrined, that, as soon as he went, I left the room; and I shall not go down stairs till Sir Clement is gone. Lord Orville cannot but observe his assiduous endeavours to ingratiate himself into my favour; and does not this extravagant civility of Captain Mirvan give him reason to suppose that it meets with our general approbation? I cannot thimk upon this subject without inexpressible uneasiness; and yet I can think of nothing else. Adieu, my dearest Sir. Pray write to me immediately. How many long letters has this one short fortnight produced! More than I may probably ever write again. I fear I shall have tired you with reading them; but you will now have time to rest, for I shall find but little to say in future. And now, most honoured Sir, with all the follies and imperfections which I have thus faithfully recounted, can you, and with unabated kindness, suffer me to sign myself Your dutiful and most affectionate EVELINA? LETTER XXIV MR VILLARS TO EVELINA Berry Hill, April 22. HOW much do I rejoice that I can again address my letters to Howard Grove! My Evelina would have grieved had she known the anxiety of my mind during her residence in the great world. My apprehensions have been inexpressibly alarming; and your journal, at once exciting and relieving my fears, has almost wholly occupied me since the time of your dating it from London. Sir Clement Willoughby must be an artful designing man: I am extremely irritated at his conduct. The passion he pretends for you has neither sincerity nor honour; the manner and the opportunities he has chosen to declare it, are bordering upon insult. His unworthy behaviour after the opera, convinces me, that, had not your vehemence frightened him, Queen Ann Street would have been the last place whither he would have ordered his chariot. O, my child, how thankful am I for your escape! I need not now, I am sure, enlarge upon your indiscretion and want of thought, in so hastily trusting yourself with a man so little known to you, and whose gaiety and flightiness should have put you on your guard. The nobleman you met at the Pantheon, bold and forward as you describe him to be, gives me no apprehension; a man who appears so openly licentious, and who makes his attack with so little regard to decorum, is one who, to a mind such as my Evelina's, can never be seen but with the disgust which his manners ought to excite. But Sir Clement, though he seeks occasion to give real offence, contrives to avoid all appearance of intentional evil. He is far more dangerous, because more artful: but I am happy to observe, that he seems to have made no impression upon your heart; and therefore a very little care and prudence may secure you from those designs which I fear he has formed. Lord Orville appears to be of a better order of beings. His spirited conduct to the meanly impertinent Lovel, and his anxiety for you after the opera, prove him to be a man of sense and feeling. Doubtless he thought there was much reason to tremble for your safety while exposed to the power of Sir Clement; and he acted with a regard to real honour, that will always incline me to think well of him, in so immediately acquainting the Mirvan family with your situation. Many men of this age, from a false and pretended delicacy to a friend, would have quietly pursued their own affairs, and thought it more honourable to leave an unsuspecting young creature to the mercy of a libertine, than to risk his displeasure by taking measures for her security. Your evident concern at leaving London is very natural, and yet it afflicts me. I ever dreaded your being too much pleased with a life of dissipation, which youth and vivacity render but too alluring; and I almost regret the consent for your journey, which I had not the resolution to withhold. Alas, my child, the artfulness of your nature, and the simplicity of your education, alike unfit you for the thorny paths of the great and busy world. The supposed obscurity of your birth and situation, makes you liable to a thousand disagreeable adventures. Not only my views, but my hopes for your future life, have ever centered in the country. Shall I own to you, that, however I may differ from Captain Mirvan in other respects, yet my opinion of the town, its manners, inhabitants, and diversions, is much upon upon a level with his own? Indeed it is the general harbour of fraud and of folly, of duplicity and of impertinence; and I wish few things more fervently, than that you may have taken a lasting leave of it. Remember, however, that I only speak in regard to a public and dissipated life; in private families we may doubtless find as much goodness, honesty, and virtue, in London as in the country. If contented with a retired station, I still hope I shall live to see my Evelina the ornament of her neighbourhood, and the pride and delight of her family; and giving and receiving joy from such society as may best deserve her affection, and employing herself in such useful and innocent occupations as may secure and merit the tenderest love of her friends, and the worthiest satisfaction of her own heart. Such are my hopes, and such have been my expectations. Disappointment them not, my beloved child; but cheer me with a few lines, that may assure me, this one short fortnight spent in town has not undone the work of seventeen years spent in the country. ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER XXV EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, April 25. NO, my dear Sir, no: the work of seventeen years remains such as it was, ever unworthy your time and your labour; but not more so now-at least I hope not,-than before that fortnight which has so much alarmed you. And yet I must confess, that I am not half so happy here at present as I was ere I went to town: but the change is in the place, not in me. Captain Mirvan and Madame Duval have ruined Howard Grove. The harmony that reigned here is disturbed, our schemes are broken, our way of life is altered, and our comfort is destroyed. But do not suppose London to be the source of these evils; for, had our excursion been any where else, so disagreeable an addition to our household must have caused the same change at our return. I was sure you would be displeased with Sir Clement Willoughby, and therefore I am by no means surprised at what you say of him; but for Lord Orville-I must own I had greatly feared that my weak and imperfect account would not have procured him the good opinion which he so well deserves, and which I am delighted to find you seem to have of him. O, Sir, could I have done justice to the merit of which I believe him posessed;-could I have painted him to you such as he appeared to me;-then, indeed, you would have had some idea of the claim which he has to your approbation! After the last letter which I wrote in town, nothing more passed previous to our journey hither, except a very violent quarrel between Captain Mirvan and Madame Duval. As the Captain intended to travel on horseback, he had settled that we four females should make use of his coach. Madame Duval did not come to Queen Ann Street till the carriage had waited some time at the door; and then, attended by Monsieur Du Bois, she made her appearance. The Captain, impatient to be gone, would not suffer them to enter the house, but insisted that we should immediately get into the coach. We obeyed; but were no sooner seated, than Madame Duval said, "Come, Monsieur Du Bois, these girls can make very good room for you; sit closer, children." Mrs. Mirvan looked quite confounded; and M. Du Bois, after making some apologies about crowding us, actually got into the coach, on the side with Miss Mirvan and me. But no sooner was he seated, than the Captain, who had observed this transaction very quietly, walked up to the coach door, saying, "What, neither with your leave, nor by your leave?" M. Du Bois seemed rather shocked, and began to make abundance of excuses: but the Captain neither understood nor regarded him, and, very roughly, said, "Look'ee, Monseer, this here may be a French fashion for aught I know,-but give and take is fair in all nations; and so now, d'ye see, I'll make bold to show you an English one." And then, seizing his wrist, he made him jump out of the coach. M. Du Bois instantly put his hand upon his sword, and threatened to resent this indignity. The Captain, holding up his stick, bid him draw at his peril. Mrs. Mirvan, greatly alarmed, got out of the coach, and, standing between them, intreated her husband to re-enter the house. "None of your clack!" cried he angrily; "what the D-l, do you suppose I can't manage a Frenchman?" Meantime, Madame Duval called out to M. Du Bois, "Eh, laissez-le, mon ami, ne le corrigez pas; c'est une villaine bete qui n'en vaut pas la peine." "Monsieur le Capitaine," cried M. Du Bois, "voulez-vous bien ne demander pardon?" "O ho, you demand pardon, do you?" said the Captain," I thought as much; I thought you'd come to;-so you have lost your relish for an English salutation, have you?" strutting up to him with looks of defiance. A crowd was now gathering, and Mrs. Mirvan again besought her husband to go into the house. "Why, what a plague is the woman afraid of?-Did you ever know a Frenchman that could not take an affront?-I warrant Monseer knows what he is about;-don't you Monseer?" M. Du Bois, not understanding him, only said, "plait-il, Monsieur?" "No, nor dish me neither," answered the Captain; "but, be that as it may, what signifies our parleying here? If you've any thing to propose, speak at once; if not, why let us go on our journey without more ado." "Parbleu, je n'entends rien, moi!" cried M. Du Bois, shrugging up his shoulders, and looking very dismal. Mrs. Mirvan then advanced to him, and said in French, that she was sure the Captain had not any intention to affront him, and begged he would desist from a dispute which could only be productive of mutual misunderstanding, as neither of them knew the language of the other. This sensible remonstrance had the desired effect; and M. Du Bois, making a bow to every one except the Captain, very wisely gave up the point, and took leave. We then hoped to proceed quietly on our journey; but the turbulent Captain would not yet permit us. He approached Madame Duval with an exulting air, and said, "Why, how's this, Madame? what, has your champion deserted you? why, I thought you told me, that you old gentlewomen had it all your own way among them French sparks?" "As to that, Sir," answered she, "it's not of no consequence what you thought; for a person who can behave in such a low way, may think what he pleases for me, for I sha'n't mind." "Why then, Mistress, since you must needs make so free," cried he, "please to tell me the reason you took the liberty for to ask any of your followers into my coach without my leave? Answer me to that." "Why, then, pray, Sir," returned she, "tell me the reaon why you took the liberty to treat the gentleman in such an unpolite way, as to take and pull him neck and heels out? I'm sure he hadn't done nothing to affront you, nor nobody else; and I don't know what great hurt he would have done you, by just sitting still in the coach; he would not have eat it." "What, do you think, then, that my horses have nothing to do but to carry about your snivelling Frenchmen? If you do, Madam, I must make bold to tell you, you are out, for I'll see 'em hang'd first." "More brute you, then! For they've never carried nobody half so good." "Why, look'ee, Madam, if you must needs provoke me, I'll tell you a piece of my mind; you must know, I can see as far into a millstone as another man; and so, if you thought for to fob me off with another one of your smirking French puppies for a son-in-law, why you'll find yourself in a hobble, that's all." "Sir, you're a-but I won't say what;-but I protest I hadn't no such a thought, no more hadn't Monsieur Du Bois." "My dear," said Mrs. Mirvan, "we shall be very late." "Well, well," answered he, "get away then; off with you as fast as you can, it's high time. As to Molly, she's fine lady enough in all conscience; I want none of your French chaps to make her worse." And so saying he mounted his horse and we drove off. And I could not but think, with regret, of the different feelings we experienced upon leaving London, to what had belonged to our entering it. During the journey Madame Duval was so very violent against the Captain, that she obliged Mrs. Mirvan to tell her, that, when in her presence, she must beg her to choose some other subject of discourse. We had a most affectionate reception from Lady Howard, whose kindness and hospitality cannot fail of making every body happy who is disposed so to be. Adieu, my dearest Sir. I hope, though I have hitherto neglected to mention it, that you have always remembered me to whoever has made any inquiry concerning me. LETTER XXVI EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, April 27. O MY dear Sir, I now write in the greatest uneasiness! Madame Duval has made a proposal which terrifies me to death, and which was as unexpected as it is shocking. She had been employed for some hours this afternoon in reading letters from London: and, just about tea-time, she sent for me into her room, and said, with a look of great satisfaction, "Come here, child, I've got some very good news to tell you: something that will surprise you, I'll give you my word, for you ha'n't no notion of it." I begged her to explain herself; and then, in terms which I cannot repeat, she said she had been considering what a shame it was to see me such a poor country, shame-faced thing, when I ought to be a fine lady; and that she had long, and upon several occasions, blushed for me, though she must own the fault was none of mine; for nothing better could be expected from a girl who had been so immured. However, she assured me she had, at length, hit upon a plan, which would make quite another creature of me. I waited, without much impatience, to hear what this preface led to; but I was soon awakened to more lively sensations, when she aquainted me, that her intention was to prove my birthright, and to claim, by law, the inheritance of my real family! It would be impossible for me to express my extreme consternation when she thus unfolded her scheme. My surprise and terror were equally great; I could say nothing: I heard her with a silence which I had not the power to break. She then expatiated very warmly upon the advantages I should reap from her plan; talked in a high style of my future grandeur; assured me how heartily I should despise almost every body and every thing I had hitherto seen; predicted my marrying into some family of the first rank in the kingdom; and, finally, said I should spend a few months in Paris, where my education and manners might receive their last polish. She enlarged also upon the delight she should have, in common with myself, from mortifying the pride of certain people, and showing them that she was not to be slighted with impunity. In the midst of this discourse, I was relieved by a summons to tea. Madame Duval was in great spirits; but my emotion was too painful for concealment, and every body enquired into the cause. I would fain have waived the subject, but Madame Duval was determined to make it public. She told tham that she had it in her head to make something of me, and that they should soon call me by another name than that of Anville; and yet that she was not going to have the child married neither. I could not endure to hear her proceed, and was going to leave the room; which, when Lady Howard perceived, she begged Madame Duval would defer her intelligence to some other opportunity; but she was so eager to communicate her scheme, that she could bear no delay; and therefore they suffered me to go without opposition. Indeed, whenever my situation or affairs are mentioned by Madame Duval, she speaks of them with such bluntness and severity, that I cannot be enjoined a task more cruel than to hear her. I was afterwards accquainted with some particulars of the conversation by Miss Mirvan; who told me that Madame Duval informed them of her plan wih the utmost complacency, and seemed to think herself very fortunate in having suggested it; but, soon after, she accidentally betrayed, that she had been instigated to the scheme by her relations the Branghtons, whose letters, which she received today, first mentioned the proposal. She declared that she would have nothing to do with any roundabout ways, but go openly and instantly to law, in order to prove my birth, real name, and title to the estate of my ancestors. How impertinent and officious in these Branghtons, to interfere thus in my concerns! You can hardly imagine what a disturbance this plan has made in the family. The Captain, without enquiring into any particulars of the affair, has peremptorily declared himself against it, merely because it has been proposed by Madame Duval; and they have battled the point together with great violence. Mrs. Mirvan says, she will not even think, till she hears your opinion. But Lady Howard, to my great surprise, openly avows her appprobation of Madame Duval's intention; however, she will write her reasons and sentiments upon the subject to you herself. As to Miss Mirvan, she is my second self, and neither hopes nor fears but as I do. And as to me,-I know not what to say, nor even what to wish; I have often thought my fate peculiarly cruel, to have but one parent, and from that one to be banished for ever;-while, on the other side, I have but too well known and felt the propriety of the separation. And yet, you may much better imagine, than I can express, the internal anguish which sometimes oppresses my heart, when I reflect upon the strange indifference that must occasion a father never to make the least enquiry after the health, the welfare, or even the life of his child! O Sir, to me the loss is nothing!-greatly, sweetly, and most benevolently have you guarded me from feeling it; but for him, I grieve indeed!-I must be divested, not merely of all filial piety, but of all humanity, could I ever think upon this subject, and not be wounded to the soul. Again I must repeat, I know not what to wish; think for me, therefore, my dearest Sir, and suffer my doubting mind, that knows not which way to direct its hopes, to be guided by your wisdom and unerring counsel. EVELINA. LETTER XXVII LADY HOWARD TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove. Dear Sir, I CANNOT give a greater proof of the high opinion I have of your candour, than by the liberty I am now going to take, of presuming to offer you advice, upon a subject concerning which you have so just a claim to act for yourself; but I know you have too unaffected a love of justice, to be partially tenacious of your own judgment. Madame Duval has been proposing a scheme which has put us all in commotion, and against which, at first, in common with the rest of my family, I exclaimed: but, upon more mature consideration, I own my objections have almost wholly vanished. This scheme is no other than to commence a lawsuit with Sir John Belmont, to prove the validity of his marriage with Miss Evelyn; the necessary consequence of which proof will be, securing his fortune and estate to his daughter. And why, my dear Sir, should not this be? I know that, upon first hearing, such a plan conveys ideas that must shock you; but I know, too, that your mind is superior to being governed by prejudices, or to opposing any important cause on account of a few disagreeable attendant circumstances. Your lovely charge, now first entering into life, has merit which ought not to be buried in obscurity. She seems born for an ornament to the world. Nature has been bountiful to her of whatever she had to bestow; and the peculiar attention you have given to her education, has formed her mind to a degree of excellence, that in one so young I have scarce ever seen equalled. Fortune alone has hitherto been sparing of her gifts; and she, too, now opens the way which leads to all that is left to wish for her. What your reasons may have been, my good Sir, for so carefully concealing the birth, name, and pretensions of this amiable girl, and forbearing to make any claim upon Sir John Belmont, I am totally a stranger to; but, without knowing, I respect them, from the high opinion that I have of your character and judgment: but I hope they are not insuperable; for I cannot but think, that it was never designed for one who seems meant to grace the world, to have her life devoted to retirement. Surely Sir John Belmont, wretch as he has shown himself, could never see his accomplished daughter, and not be proud to own her, and eager to secure her the inheritance of his fortune. The admiration she met with in town, though merely the effect of her external attractions, was such, that Mrs. Mirvan assures me, she would have had the most splendid offers, had there not seemed to be some mystery in regard to her birth, which, she was well informed was assiduously, though vainly, endeavoured to be discovered. Can it be right, my dear Sir, that this promising young creature should be deprived of the fortune and rank of life to which she is lawfully entitled, and which you have prepared her to support and to use so nobly? To despise riches may, indeed, be philosophic; but to dispense them worthily must, surely, be more beneficial to mankind. Perhaps a few years, or indeed a much shorter time, may make this scheme impracticable: Sir John, tho' yet young, leads a life too dissipated for long duration; and when too late, we may regret that something was not sooner done: for it will be next to impossible, after he is gone, to settle or prove anything with his heirs and executors. Pardon the earnestness with which I write my sense of this affair; but your charming ward has made me so warmly her friend, that I cannot be indifferent upon a subject of such importance to her future life. Adieu, my dear Sir;-send me speedily an answer to this remonstrance, and believe me to be, -c. M. HOWARD. LETTER XXVIII MR VILLARS TO LADY HOWARD Berry Hill, May 2. YOUR letter, Madam, has opened a source of anxiety, to which I look forward with dread, and which, to see closed, I scarcely dare expect. I am unwilling to oppose my opinion to that of your Ladyship; nor, indeed, can I, but by arguments which I believe will rather rank me as a hermit ignorant of the world, and fit only for my cell, than as a proper guardian, in an age such as this, for an accomplished young woman. Yet, thus called upon, it behoves me to explain, and endeavour to vindicate, the reasons by which I have been hitherto guided. The mother of this dear child,-who was led to destruction by her own imprudence, the hardness of heart of Madame Duval, and the villany of Sir John Belmont,-was once, what her daughter is now, the best beloved of my heart: and her memory, so long as my own holds, I shall love, mourn and honour! On the fatal day that her gentle soul left its mansion, and not many hours ere she ceased to breathe, I solemnly plighted my faith, That her child if it lived, should know no father but myself, or her acknowledged husband. You cannot, Madam, suppose that I found much difficulty in adhering to this promise, and forbearing to make any claim upon Sir John Belmont. Could I feel an affection the most paternal for this poor sufferer, and not abominate her destroyer? Could I wish to deliver to him, who had so basely betrayed the mother, the helpless and innocent offspring, who, born in so much sorrow, seemed entitled to all the compassionate tenderness of pity? For many years, the name alone of that man, accidentally spoken in my hearing, almost divested me of my Christianity, and scarce could I forbear to execrate him. Yet I sought not, neither did I desire, to deprive him of his child, had he with any appearance of contrition, or, indeed, of humanity, endeavoured to become less unworthy such a blessing;-but he is a stranger to all parental feelings, and has with a savage insensibility, forborne to enquire even into the existence of this sweet orphan, though the situation of his injured wife was but too well known to him. You wish to be acquainted with my intentions.-I must acknowledge they were such as I now perceive would not be honoured with your Ladyship's approbation; for though I have sometimes thought of presenting Evelina to her father, and demanding the justice which is her due, yet, at other times, I have both disdained and feared the application; disdained lest it should be refused; and feared, lest it should be accepted! Lady Belmont, who was firmly persuaded of her approaching dissolution, frequently and earnestly besought me, that if her infant was a female, I would not abandon her to the direction of a man so wholly unfit to take the charge of her education: but, should she be importunately demanded, that I would retire with her abroad, and carefully conceal her from Sir John, till some apparent change in his sentiments and conduct should announce him less improper for such a trust. And often would she say, "Should the poor babe have any feelings correspondent with its mother's, it will have no want while under your protection." Alas! she had no sooner quitted it herself, than she was plunged into a gulph of misery, that swallowed up her peace, reputation, and life. During the childhood of Evelina, I suggested a thousand plans for the security of her birth-right;-but I as many times rejected them. I was in a perpetual conflict, between the desire that she should have justice done her, and the apprehension that, while I improved her fortune, I should endanger her mind. However, as her character began to be formed, and her disposition to be displayed, my perplexity abated; the road before me seemed less thorny and intricate, and I thought I could perceive the right path from the wrong: for when I observed the artless openness the ingenuous simplicity of her nature; when I saw that her guileless and innocent soul fancied all the world to be pure and disinterested as herself, and that her heart was open to every impression with which love, pity, or art might assail it;-then did I flatter myself, that to follow my own inclination, and to secure her welfare, was the same thing; since, to expose her to the snares and dangers inevitably encircling a house of which the master is dissipated and unprincipled, without the guidance of a mother, or any prudent and sensible female, seemed to me no less than suffering her to stumble into some dreadful pit, when the sun is in its meridian. My plan, therefore, was not merely to educate and to cherish her as my own, but to adopt her the heiress of my small fortune, and to bestow her upon some worthy man, with whom she might spend her days in tranquility, cheerfulness, and good-humour, untainted by vice, folly, or ambition. So much for the time past. Such have been the motives by which I have been governed; and I hope they will be allowed not merely to account for, but also to justify, the conduct which has resulted from them. It now remains to speak of the time to come. And here, indeed, I am sensible of difficulties which I almost despair of surmounting according to my wishes. I pay the highest deference to your Ladyship's opinion, which it is extremely painful to me not to concur with;-yet I am so well acquainted with your goodness, that I presume to hope it would not be absolutely impossible for me to offer such arguments as might lead you to think with me, that this young creature's chance of happiness seems less doubtful in retirement, than it would be in the gay and dissipated world. But why should I perplex your Ladyship with reasoning that can turn to so little account? for, alas! what arguments, what persuasions, can I make use of, with any prospect of success, to such a woman as Madame Duval? Her character and the violence of her disposition, intimidate me from making the attempt: she is too ignorant for instruction, too obstinate for intreaty, and too weak for reason. I will not, therefore, enter into a contest from which I have nothing to expect but altercation and impertinence. As soon would I discuss the effect of sound with the deaf, or the nature of colours with the blind, as aim at illuminating with conviction a mind so warped by prejudice, so much the slave of unruly and illiberal passions. Unused as she is to control, persuasion would but harden, and opposition incense her. I yield, therefore, to the necessity which compels my reluctant acquiescence; and shall now turn all my thoughts upon considering of such methods for the conducting this enterprise, as may be most conducive to the happiness of my child and least liable to wound her sensibility. The law-suit, therefore, I wholly and absolutely disapprove. Will you, my dear Madam, forgive the freedom of an old man, if I own myself greatly surprised, that you could, even for a moment, listen to a plan so violent, so public, so totally repugnant to all female delicacy? I am satisfied your Ladyship has not weighed this project. There was a time, indeed, when to assert the innocence of Lady Belmont, and to blazon to the world the wrongs, not guilt, by which she suffered, I proposed, nay attempted, a similar plan: but then all assistance and encouragement was denied. How cruel to the remembrance I bear of her woes is this tardy resentment of Madame Duval! She was deaf to the voice of Nature, though she has hearkened to that of Ambition. Never can I consent to have this dear and timid girl brought forward to the notice of the world by such a method; a method which will subject her to all the impertinence of curiosity, the sneers of conjecture, and the stings of ridicule. And for what?-the attainment of wealth which she does not want, and the gratification of vanity which she does not feel. A child to appear against a father!-no, Madam, old and infirm as I am, I would even yet sooner convey her myself to some remote part of the world, though I were sure of dying in the expedition. Far different had been the motives which would have stimulated her unhappy mother to such a proceeding; all her felicity in this world was irretrievably lost; her life was become a burthen to her; and her fair fame, which she had early been taught to prize above all other things, had received a mortal wound: therefore, to clear her own honour, and to secure from blemish the birth of her child, was all the good which fortune had reserved herself the power of bestowing. But even this last consolation was withheld from her! Let milder measures be adopted: and-since it must be so-let application be made to Sir John Belmont, but as to a law-suit, I hope, upon this subject, never more to hear it mentioned. With Madame Duval, all pleas of delicacy would be ineffectual; her scheme must be opposed by arguments better suited to her understanding. I will not, therefore, talk of its impropriety, but endeavour to prove its inutility. Have the goodness, then, to tell her, that her own intentions would be frustrated by her plan; since, should the lawsuit be commenced, and even should the cause be gained, Sir John Belmont would still have it in his power, and, if irritated, no doubt in his inclination, to cut off her grand-daughter with a shilling. She cannot do better herself than to remain quiet and inactive in the affair: the long and mutual animosity between her and Sir John will make her interference merely productive of debates and ill-will. Neither would I have Evelina appear till summoned. And as to myself, I must wholly decline acting; though I will, with unwearied zeal, devote all my thoughts to giving counsel: but, in truth, I have neither inclination nor spirits adequate to engaging personally with this man. My opinion is, that he would pay more respect to a letter from your Ladyship upon this subject, than from any other person. I, therefore, advise and hope, that you will yourself take the trouble of writing to him, in order to open the affair. When he shall be inclined to see Evelina, I have for him a posthumous letter, which his much injured lady left to be presented to him, if ever such a meeting should take place. The views of the Branghtons, in suggesting this scheme, are obviously interested. They hope, by securing to Evelina the fortune of her father, to induce Madame Duval to settle her own upon themselves. In this, however, they would probably be mistaken; for little minds have ever a propensity to bestow their wealth upon those who are already in affluence; and, therefore, the less her grandchild requires her assistance, the more gladly she will give it. I have but one thing more to add, from which, however, I can by no means recede: my word so solemnly given to Lady Belmont, that her child should never be owned but with her self, must be inviolably adhered to. I am, dear Madam, with great respect, Your Ladyship's most obedient servant, ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER XXIX MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA Berry Hill, May 2. HOW sincerely do I sympathise in the uneasiness and concern which my beloved Evelina has so much reason to feel! The cruel scheme in agitation is equally repugnant to my judgment and my inclination;-yet to oppose it seems impracticable. To follow the dictates of my own heart, I should instantly recall you to myself, and never more consent to your being separated from me; but the manners and opinion of the world demand a different conduct. Hope, however, for the best, and be satisfied you shall meet with no indignity; if you are not received into your own family as you ought to be, and with the distinction that is your due, you shall leave it for ever; and once again restored to my protection, secure your own tranquillity, and make, as you have hitherto done, all the happiness of my life. ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER XXX EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, May 6. THE die is thrown, and I attend the event in trembling! Lady Howard has written to Paris, and sent her letter to town, to be forwarded in the ambassador's packet; and, in less than a fortnight, therefore, she expects an answer. O, Sir, with what anxious impatience shall I wait its arrival! upon it seems to depend the fate of my future life. My solicitude is so great, and my suspense so painful, that I cannot rest a moment in peace, or turn my thoughts into any other channel. Deeply interested as I now am in the event, most sincerely do I regret that the plan was ever proposed. Methinks it cannot end to my satisfaction: for either I must be torn from the arms of my more than father,-or I must have the misery of being finally convinced, that I am cruelly rejected by him who has the natural claim to that dear title, which to write, mention, or think of, fills my whole soul with filial tenderness. The subject is discussed here eternally. Captain Mirvan and Madame Duval, as usual, quarrel whenever it is started: but I am so wholly engrossed by my own reflections, that I cannot even listen to them. My imagination changes the scene perpetually: one moment, I am embraced by a kind and relenting parent, who takes me to that heart from which I have hitherto been banished, and supplicates, through me, peace and forgiveness from the ashes of my mother!-at another, he regards me with detestation, considers me as the living image of an injured saint, and repulses me with horror!-But I will not afflict you with the melancholy phantasms of my brain; I will endeavour to compose my mind to a more tranquil state, and forbear to write again till I have in some measure succeeded. May Heaven bless you, my dearest Sir! and long, long may it continue you on earth, to bless Your grateful EVELINA LETTER XXXI LADY HOWARD TO SIR JOHN BELMONT, BART Howard Grove, May 5. Sir, YOU will, doubtless, be surprised at receiving a letter from one who had for so short a period the honour of your acquaintance, and that at so great a distance of time; but the motive which has induced me to take this liberty is of so delicate a nature, that were I to commence making apologies for my officiousness, I fear my letter would be too long for your patience. You have, probably, already conjectured the subject upon which I mean to treat. My regard for Mr. Evelyn, and his amiable daughter, was well known to you: nor can I ever cease to be interested in whatever belongs to their memory or family. I must own myself somewhat distressed in what manner to introduce the purport of my writing; yet as I think that, in affairs of this kind, frankness is the first requisite to a good understanding between the parties concerned, I will neither torment you nor myself with punctilious ceremonies, but proceed instantly and openly to the business which occasions my giving you this trouble. I presume, Sir, it would be superfluous to tell you, that your child resides still in Dorsetshire, and is still under the protection of the Reverend Mr. Villars, in whose house she was born: for, though no enquiries concerning her have reached his ears, or mine, I can never suppose it possible you have forborne to make them. It only remains, therefore, to tell you, that your daughter is now grown up; that she has been educated with the utmost care, and the utmost success; and that she is now a most deserving, accomplished, and amiable young woman. Whatever may be your view for her future destination in life, it seems time to declare it. She is greatly admired, and, I doubt not, will be very much sought after: it is proper, therefore, that her future expectations, and your pleasure concerning her, should be made known. Believe me, Sir, she merits your utmost attention and regard. You could not see and know her, and remain unmoved by those sensations of affection which belong to so near and tender a relationship. She is the lovely resemblance of her lovely mother;-pardon, Sir, the liberty I take in mentioning that unfortunate lady; but I think it behoves me, upon this occasion, to shew the esteem I felt for her: allow me, therefore, to say, and be not offended at my freedom, that the memory of that excellent lady has but too long remained under the aspersions of calumny; surely it is time to vindicate her fame;-and how can that be done in a manner more eligible, more grateful to her friends, or more honourable to yourself, than by openly receiving as your child, the daughter of the late Lady Belmont? The venerable man who has had the care of her education, deserves your warmest acknowledgments, for the unremitting pains he has taken, and the attention he has shewn in the discharge of his trust. Indeed she has been peculiarly fortunate in meeting with such a friend and guardian; a more worthy man, or one whose character seems nearer to perfection, does not exist. Permit me to assure you, Sir, she will amply repay whatever regard and favour you may hereafter shew her, by the comfort and happiness you cannot fail to find in her affection and duty. To be owned properly by you is the first wish of her heart; and, I am sure, that to merit your approbation will be the first study of her life. I fear that you will think this address impertinent; but I must rest upon the goodness of my intention to plead my excuse. I am, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, M. HOWARD. LETTER XXXII EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, Kent, May 10. OUR house has been enlivened to-day by the arrival of a London visitor; and the necessity I have been under of concealing the uneasiness of my mind, has made me exert myself so effectually, that I even think it is really diminished; or, at least, my thoughts are not so totally, so very anxiously, occupied by one subject only as they lately were. I was strolling this morning with Miss Mirvan, down a lane about a mile from the Grove, when we heard the trampling of horses; and, fearing the narrowness of the passage, we were turning hastily back, but stopped upon hearing a voice call out, "Pray, Ladies, don't be frightened, for I will walk my horse." We turned again, and then saw Sir Clement Willoughby. He dismounted; and approaching us with the reins in his hand, presently recollected us. "Good Heaven," cried he, with his usual quickness, "do I see Miss Anville ?-and you too, Miss Mirvan?" He immediately ordered his servant to take charge of his horse; and then, advancing to us, took a hand of each, which he pressed to his lips, and said a thousand fine things concerning his good fortune, our improved looks, and the charms of the country, when inhabited by such rural deities. "The town, Ladies, has languished since your absence;-or, at least, I have so much languished myself, as to be absolutely insensible to all it had to offer. One refreshing breeze, such as I now enjoy, awakens me to new vigour, life, and spirit. But I never before had the good luck to see the country in such perfection." "Has not almost every body left town, Sir?" said Miss Mirvan. "I am ashamed to answer you, Madam,-but indeed it is as full as ever, and will continue so till after the birth-day. However, you Ladies were so little seen, that there are but few who know what it has lost. For my own part, I felt it too sensibly, to be able to endure the place any longer." "Is there any body remaining there, that we were acquainted with?" cried I. "O yes, Ma'am." And then he named two or three persons we have seen when with him; but he did not mention Lord Orville, and I would not ask him, lest he should think me curious. Perhaps, if he stays here some time, he may speak of him by accident. He was proceeding in this complimentary style, when we were met by the Captain; who no sooner perceived Sir Clement, than he hastened up to him, gave him a hearty shake of the hand, a cordial slap on the back, and some other equally gentle tokens of satisfaction, assuring him of his great joy at his visit, and declaring he was as glad to see him as if he had been a messenger who brought news that a French ship was sunk. Sir Clement, on the other side, expressed himself with equal warmth; and protested he had been so eager to pay his respects to Captain Mirvan, that he had left London in its full lustre, and a thousand engagements unanswered, merely to give himself that pleasure. "We shall have rare sport," said the Captain; "for, do you know, the old French-woman is among us? 'Fore George, I have scarce made any use of her yet, by reason I have had nobody with me that could enjoy a joke: howsomever, it shall go hard but we'll have some diversion now." Sir Clement very much approved of the proposal; and we then went into the house, where he had a very grave reception from Mrs. Mirvan, who is by no means pleased with his visit, and a look of much discontent from Madame Duval, who said to me in a low voice, "I'd as soon have seen Old Nick as that man, for he's the most impertinentest person in the world, and isn't never of my side." The Captain is now actually occupied in contriving some scheme, which, he says, is to pay the old Dowager off; and so eager and delighted is he at the idea, that he can scarcely restrain his raptures sufficiently to conceal his design even from herself. I wish, however, since I do not dare put Madame Duval upon her guard, that he had the delicacy not to acquaint me with his intention. LETTER XXXIII EVELINA IN CONTINUATION May 13th. THE Captain's operations are begun,-and, I hope, ended; for, indeed, poor Madame Duval has already but too much reason to regret Sir Clement's visit to Howard Grove. Yesterday morning, during breakfast, as the Captain was reading the newspaper, Sir Clement suddenly begged to look at it, saying, he wanted to know if there was any account of a transaction, at which he had been present the evening before his journey hither, concerning a poor Frenchman, who had got into a scrape which might cost him his life. The Captain demanded particulars; and then Sir Clement told a long story of being with a party of country friends at the Tower, and hearing a man call out for mercy in French; and that, when he inquired into the occasion of his distress, he was informed that he had been taken up upon suspicion of treasonable practices against the government. "The poor fellow," continued he, "no sooner found that I spoke French, than he besought me to hear him, protesting that he had no evil designs; that he had been but a short time in England, and only waited the return of a lady from the country to quit it for ever." Madame Duval changed colour, and listened with the utmost attention. "Now, though I by no means approve of so many foreigners continually flocking into our country," added he, addressing himself to the Captain, "yet I could not help pitying the poor wretch, because he did not know enough of English to make his defence; however, I found it impossible to assist him; for the mob would not suffer me to interfere. In truth, I am afraid he was but roughly handled." "Why, did they duck him?" said the Captain. "Something of that sort," answered he. "So much the better! so much the better!" cried the Captain, "an impudent French puppy! I'll bet you what you will he was a rascal. I only wish all his countrymen were served the same." "I wish you had been in his place, with all my soul!" cried Madame Duval, warmly;-"but pray, Sir, did'n't nobody know who this poor gentleman was?" "Why I did hear his name," answered Sir Clement, "but I cannot recollect it." "It wasn't-it wasn't-Du Bois?" stammered out Madame Duval. "The very name!" answered he: "yes, Du Bois, I remember it now." Madame Duval's cup fell from her hand, as she repeated "Du Bois! Monsieur Du Bois, did you say?" "Du Bois! why, that's my friend," cried the Captain, "that's Monseer Slippery, i'n't it?-Why, he's plaguy fond of sousing work; howsomever, I'll be sworn they gave him his fill of it." "And I'll be sworn," cried Madame Duval, "that you're a-but I don't believe nothing about it, so you needn't be so overjoyed, for I dare say it was no more Monsieur Du Bois than I am." "I thought at the time," said Sir Clement, very gravely, "that I had seen the gentleman before; and now I recollect, I think it was in company with you, Madame." "With me, Sir?" cried Madame Duval. "Say you so?" said the Captain; "why then it must be he, as sure as you're alive!-Well, but, my good friend, what will they do with poor Monseer?" "It is difficult to say," answered Sir Clement, very thoughtfully; "but I should suppose, that if he has not good friends to appear for him, he will be in a very unpleasant situation; for these are serious sorts of affairs." "Why, do you think they'll hang him?" demanded the Captain. Sir Clement shook his head, but made no answer. Madame Duval could no longer contain her agitation; she started from her chair, repeating, with a voice half-choked, "Hang him!-they can't,-they sha'n't-let them at their peril!-However, it's all false, and I won't believe a word of it;-but I'll go to town this very moment, and see M. Du Bois myself;-I won't wait for nothing." Mrs. Mirvan begged her not to be alarmed; but she flew out of the room, and up stairs into her own apartment. Lady Howard blamed both the gentlemen for having been so abrupt, and followed her. I would have accompanied her, but the Captain stopped me; and, having first laughed very heartily, said he was going to read his commission to his ship's company. "Now, do you see," said he, "as to Lady Howard, I sha'n't pretend for to enlist her into my service, and so I shall e'en leave her to make it out as well as she can; but as to all you, I expect obedience and submission to orders; I am now upon a hazardous expedition, having undertaken to convoy a crazy vessel to the shore of Mortification; so, d'ye see, if any of you have anything to propose that will forward the enterprise,-why speak and welcome; but if any of you, that are of my chosen crew, capitulate, or enter into any treaty with the enemy,-I shall look upon you as mutinying, and turn you adrift." Having finished this harangue, which was interlarded with many expressions, and sea-phrases, that I cannot recollect, he gave Sir Clement a wink of intelligence, and left us to ourselves. Indeed, notwithstanding the attempts I so frequently make of writing some of the Captain's conversation, I can only give you a faint idea of his language; for almost every other word he utters is accompanied by an oath, which, I am sure, would be as unpleasant for you to read, as for me to write: and, besides, he makes use of a thousand sea-terms, which are to me quite unintelligible. Poor Madame Duval sent to inquire at all probable places, whether she could be conveyed to town in any stage-coach: but the Captain's servant brought her for answer, that no London stage would pass near Howard Grove till to-day. She then sent to order a chaise; but was soon assured, that no horses could be procured. She was so much inflamed by these disappointments, that she threatened to set out for town on foot; and it was with difficulty that Lady Howard dissuaded her from this mad scheme. The whole morning was filled up with these inquiries. But when we were all assembled to dinner, she endeavoured to appear perfectly unconcerned, and repeatedly protested that she gave not any credit to the report, as far as it regarded M. Du Bois, being very certain that he was not the person in question. The Captain used the most provoking efforts to convince her that she deceived herself; while Sir Clement, with more art, though not less malice, affected to be of her opinion; but, at the same time that he pretended to relieve her uneasiness, by saying that he doubted not having mistaken the name, he took care to enlarge upon the danger to which the unknown gentleman was exposed, and expressed great concern at his perilous situation. Dinner was hardly removed, when a letter was delivered to Madam Duval. The moment she had read it, she hastily demanded from whom it came. "A country boy brought it," answered the servant," but he would not wait." "Run after him this instant!" cried she, "and be sure you bring him back. Mon Dieu! quelle aventure! que feraije?" "What's the matter? what's the matter?" said the Captain. "Why nothing-nothing's the matter. O mon Dieu!" And she rose, and walked about the room. "Why, what,-has Monseer sent to you?" continued the Captain: "is that there letter from him?" "No,-it i'n't;-besides, if it is, it's nothing to you." "O then, I'm sure it is! Pray now, Madam, don't be so close; come tell us all about it-what does he say? how did he relish the horse-pond?-which did he find best, sousing single or double? 'Fore George, 'twas plaguy unlucky you was not with him!" "It's no such a thing, Sir," cried she, very angrily; "and if you're so very fond of a horse-pond, I wish you'd put yourself into one, and not be always a thinking about other people's being served so." The man then came in to acquaint her they could not overtake the boy. She scolded violently, and was in such perturbation, that Lady Howard interfered, and begged to know the cause of her uneasiness, and whether she could assist her. Madame Duval cast her eyes upon the Captain and Sir Clement, and said she should be glad to speak to her Ladyship without so many witnesses. "Well, then, Miss Anville," said the Captain, turning to me, "do you and Molly go into another room, and stay there till Mrs. Duval has opened her mind to us." "So you may think, Sir," cried she, "but who's fool then? no, no, you needn't trouble yourself to make a ninny of me neither, for I'm not so easily taken in, I'll assure you." Lady Howard then invited her into the dressing-room, and I was desired to attend her. As soon as we had shut the door, "O my Lady," exclaimed Madam Duval, "here's the most cruelest thing in the world has happened!-but that Captain is such a beast, I can't say nothing before him,-but it's all true! poor M. Du Bois is tooked up!" Lady Howard begged her to be comforted, saying that, as M. Du Bois was certainly innocent, there could be no doubt of his ability to clear himself. "To be sure, my Lady," answered she, "I know he is innocent; and to be sure they'll never be so wicked as to hang him for nothing?" "Certainly not," replied Lady Howard; "you have no reason to be uneasy. This is not a country where punishment is inflicted without proof." "Very true, my Lady: but the worst thing is this; I cannot bear that that fellow the Captain should know about it; for if he does, I sha'n't never hear the last of it;-no more won't poor M. Du Bois." "Well, well," said Lady Howard, "shew me the letter, and I will endeavour to advise you." The letter was then produced. It was signed by the clerk of a country justice; who acquainted her, that a prisoner, then upon trial for suspicion of treasonable practices against the government, was just upon the point of being committed to jail; but having declared that he was known to her, this clerk had been prevailed upon to write, in order to enquire if she really could speak to the character and family of a Frenchman who called himself Pierre Du Bois. When I heard the letter, I was quite amazed at its success. So improbable did it seem, that a foreigner should be taken before a country justice of peace, for a crime of so dangerous a nature, that I cannot imagine how Madame Duval could be alarmed, even for a moment. But, with all her violence of temper, I see that she is easily frightened, and in fact, more cowardly than many who have not half her spirit; and so little does she reflect upon circumstances, or probability, that she is continually the dupe of her own-I ought not to say ignorance, but yet I can think of no other word. I believe that Lady Howard, from the beginning of the transaction, suspected some contrivance of the Captain; and this letter, I am sure, must confirm her suspicion: however, though she is not at all pleased with his frolic, yet she would not hazard the consequence of discovering his designs: her looks, her manner, and her character, made me draw this conclusion from her apparent perplexity; for not a word did she say that implied any doubt of the authenticity of the letter. Indeed there seems to be a sort of tacit agreement between her and the Captain, that she should not appear to be acquainted with his schemes; by which means she at once avoids quarrels, and supports her dignity. While she was considering what to propose, Madame Duval begged to have the use of her Ladyship's chariot, that she might go immediately to the assistance of her friend. Lady Howard politely assured her, that it should be extremely at her service; and then Madame Duval besought her not to own to the Captain what had happened, protesting that she could not endure he should know poor M. Du Bois had met with so unfortunate an accident. Lady Howard could not help smiling, though she readily promised not to inform the Captain of the affair. As to me, she desired my attendance; which I was by no means rejoiced at, as I was certain that she was going upon a fruitless errand. I was then commissioned to order the chariot. At the foot of the stairs I met the Captain, who was most impatiently waiting the result of the conference. In an instant we were joined by Sir Clement. A thousand inquiries were then made concerning Madame Duval's opinion of the letter, and her intentions upon it: and when I would have left them, Sir Clement, pretending equal eagerness with the Captain, caught my hand, and repeatedly detained me, to ask some frivolous question, to the answer of which he must be totally indifferent. At length, however, I broke from them; they retired into the parlour, and I executed my commission. The carriage was soon ready; and Madame Duval, having begged Lady Howard to say she was not well, stole softly down stairs, desiring me to follow her. The chariot was ordered at the garden-door; and, when we were seated, she told the man, according to the clerk's directions, to drive to Mr. Justice Tyrell's, asking at the same time, how many miles off he lived? I expected he would have answered, that he knew of no such person; but, to my great surprise, he said, "Why, 'Squire Tyrell lives about nine miles beyond the park." "Drive fast, then," cried she, "and you sha'n't be no worse for it." During our ride, which was extremely tedious, she tormented herself with a thousand fears for M. Du Bois's safety; and piqued herself very much upon having escaped unseen by the Captain, not only that she avoided his triumph, but because she knew him to be so much M. Du Bois's enemy, that she was sure he would prejudice the justice against him, and endeavour to take away his life. For my part, I was quite ashamed of being engaged in so ridiculous an affair, and could only think of the absurd appearance we should make upon our arrival at Mr. Tyrell's. When we had been out near two hours, and expected every moment to stop at the place of our destination, I observed that Lady Howard's servant, who attended us on horseback, rode on forward till he was out of sight: and soon after returning, came up to the chariot window, and delivering a note to Madame Duval, said he had met a boy who was just coming with it to Howard Grove from the clerk of Mr. Tyrell. While she was reading it, he rode round to the other window, and making a sign for secrecy, put into my hand a slip of paper, on which was written, "Whatever happens, be not alarmed-for you are safe-though you endanger all mankind!" I readily imagined that Sir Clement must be the author of this note, which prepared me to expect some disagreeable adventure: but I had no time to ponder upon it; for Madame Duval had no sooner read her own letter, than, in an angry tone of voice, she exclaimed, "Why, now, what a thing is this! here we're come all this way for nothing!" She gave me the note; which informed her, that she need not trouble herself to go to Mr. Tyrell's, as the prisoner had had the address to escape. I congratulated her upon this fortunate incident; but she was so much concerned at having rode so far in vain, that she seemed to be less pleased than provoked. However, she ordered the man to make what haste he could home, as she hoped, at least, to return before the Captain should suspect what had passed. The carriage turned about; and we journeyed so quietly for near an hour, that I began to flatter myself we should be suffered to proceed to Howard Grove without any molestation, when suddenly, the footman called out, "John, are we going right?" "Why, I a'n't sure," said the coachman, "But I'm afraid we turned wrong." "What do you mean by that, sirrah?" said Madame Duval; "why, if you lose your way, we shall all be in the dark." "I think we should turn to the left," said the footman. "To the left!" answered the other; "No, no, I'm partly sure we should turn to the right." "You had better make some enquiry," said I. "Ma foi!" cried Madame Duval, "we're in a fine hole here!-they neither of them know no more than the post. However, I'll tell my Lady as sure as you're born, you'd better find the way." "Let's try this lane," said the footman. "No," said the coachman, "that's the road to Canterbury; we had best go straight on." "Why, that's the direct London road," returned the footman, "and will lead us twenty miles about." "Pardi," cried Madame Duval, "why, they won't go one way nor t'other! and now we're come all this jaunt for nothing, I suppose we shan't get home to-night!" "Let's go back to the public-house," said the footman, "and ask for a guide." "No, no," said the other, "if we stay here a few minutes, somebody or other will pass by; and the horses are almost knocked up already." "Well, I protest," cried Madame Duval, "I'd give a guinea to see them sots both horse-whipped! As sure as I'm alive they're drunk! Ten to one but they'll overturn us next." After much debating, they at length agreed to go on till we came to some inn, or met with a passenger who could direct us. We soon arrived at a farm-house, and the footman alighted, and went into it. In a few minutes he returned, and told us we might proceed, for that he had procured a direction: "But," added he, "it seems there are some thieves hereabouts; and so the best way will be for you to leave your watches and your purses with the farmer, whom I know very well, and who is an honest man, and a tenant of my Lady's." "Thieves!" cried Madame Duval, looking aghast; "the Lord help us!-I've no doubt but we shall be all murdered!" The farmer came up to us, and we gave him all we were worth, and the servants followed our example. We then proceeded; and Madame Duval's anger so entirely subsided, that, in the mildest manner imaginable, she intreated them to make haste, and promised to tell their Lady how diligent and obliging they had been. She perpetually stopped them, to ask if they apprehended any danger; and was at length so much overpowered by her fears, that she made the footman fasten his horse to the back of the carriage, and then come and seat himself within it. My endeavours to encourage her were fruitless: she sat in the middle, held the man by the arm, and protested that if he did but save her life, she would make his fortune. Her uneasiness gave me much concern, and it was with the utmost difficulty I forbore to acquaint her that she was imposed upon; but the mutual fear of the Captain's resentment to me, and of her own to him, neither of which would have any moderation, deterred me. As to the footman, he was evidently in torture from restraining his laughter; and I observed that he was frequently obliged to make most horrid grimaces, from pretended fear, in order to conceal his risibility. Very soon after, "The robbers are coming!" cried the coachman. The footman opened the door, and jumped out of the chariot. Madame Duval gave a loud scream. I could no longer preserve my silence. "For Heaven's sake, my dear Madame," said I, "don't be alarmed,-you are in no danger,-you are quite safe,-there is nothing but-" Here the chariot was stopped by two men in masks; who at each side put in their hands as if for our purses. Madame Duval sunk to the bottom of the chariot, and implored their mercy. I shrieked involuntarily, although prepared for the attack: one of them held me fast, while the other tore poor Madame Duval out of the carriage, in spite of her cries, threats, and resistance. I was really frightened, and trembled exceedingly. "My angel!" cried the man who held me, "you cannot surely be alarmed,-do you not know me?-I shall hold myself in eternal abhorrence, if I have really terrified you." "Indeed, Sir Clement, you have," cried I:-"but, for Heaven's sake, where is Madame Duval?-why is she forced away?" "She is perfectly safe; the Captain has her in charge: but suffer me now, my adored Miss Anville, to take the only opportunity that is allowed me, to speak upon another, a much dearer, much sweeter subject." And then he hastily came into the chariot, and seated himself next to me. I would fain have disengaged myself from him, but he would not let me: "Deny me not, most charming of women," cried he, "deny me not this only moment that is lent me, to pour forth my soul into your gentle ears,-to tell you how much I suffer from your absence,-how much I dread your displeasure,-and how cruelly I am affected by your coldness!" "O, Sir, this is no time for such language;-pray leave me, pray go to the relief of Madame Duval,-I cannot bear that she should be treated with such indignity." "And will you,-can you command my absence?-When may I speak to you, if not now?-Does the Captain suffer me to breathe a moment out of his sight?-and are not a thousand impertinent people for ever at your elbow?" "Indeed, Sir Clement, you must change your style, or I will not hear you. The impertinent people you mean are among my best friends; and you would not, if you really wished me well, speak of them so disrespectfully." "Wish you well!-O, Miss Anville, point but out to me how, in what manner, I may convince you of the fervour of my passion;-tell me but what services you will accept from me,-and you shall find my life, my fortune, my whole soul at your devotion." "I want nothing, Sir, that you can offer;-I beg you not to talk to me so-so strangely. Pray leave me; and pray assure yourself you cannot take any method so successless to show any regard for me, as entering into schemes so frightful to Madame Duval, and so disagreeable to myself." "The scheme was the Captain's: I even opposed it: though, I own, I could not refuse myself the so-long-wished-for happiness of speaking to you once more, without so many of-your friends to watch me. And I had flattered myself, that the note I charged the footman to give you, would have prevented the alarm you have received." "Well Sir, you have now, I hope, said enough; and, if you will not go yourself to see for Madame Duval, at least suffer me to inquire what is become of her." "And when may I speak to you again?" "No matter when,-I don't know,-perhaps-" "Perhaps what, my angel?" "Perhaps never, Sir,-if you torment me thus." "Never! O, Miss Anville, how cruel, how piercing to my soul is that icy word!-Indeed I cannot endure such displeasure." "Then, Sir, you must not provoke it. Pray leave me directly." "I will Madam: but let me, at least, make a merit of my obedience,-allow me to hope that you will, in future, be less averse to trusting yourself for a few moments alone with me" I was surprised at the freedom of this request: but, while I hesitated how to answer it, the other mask came up to the chariot-door, and, in a voice almost stifled with laughter said, "I've done for her!-the old buck is safe;-but we must sheer off directly, or we shall be all ground." Sir Clement instantly left me, mounted his horse, and rode off. The Captain having given some directions to the servants, followed him. I was both uneasy and impatient to know the fate of Madame Duval, and immediately got out of the chariot to seek her. I desired the footman to show me which way she was gone; he pointed with his finger by way of answer, and I saw that he dared not trust his voice to make any other. I walked on at a very quick pace, and soon, to my great consternation, perceived the poor lady seated upright in a ditch. I flew to her with unfeigned concern at her situation. She was sobbing, nay, almost roaring, and in the utmost agony of rage and terror. As soon as she saw me, she redoubled her cries; but her voice was so broken, I could not understand a word she said. I was so much shocked, that it was with difficulty I forebore exclaiming against the cruelty of the Captain for thus wantonly ill-treating her; and I could not forgive myself for having passively suffered the deception. I used my utmost endeavours to comfort her, assuring her of our present safety, and begging her to rise and return to the chariot. Almost bursting with passion, she pointed to her feet, and with frightful violence she actually tore the ground with her hands. I then saw that her feet were tied together with a strong rope, which was fastened to the upper branch of a tree, even with a hedge which ran along the ditch where she sat. I endeavoured to untie the knot; but soon found it was infinitely beyond my strength. I was, therefore, obliged to apply to the footman; but, being very unwilling to add to his mirth by the sight of Madame Duval's situation. I desired him to lend me a knife: I returned with it, and cut the rope. Her feet were soon disentangled; and then, though with great difficulty, I assisted her to rise. But what was my astonishment, when, the moment she was up, she hit me a violent slap on the face! I retreated from her with precipitation and dread: and she then loaded me with reproaches, which, though almost unintelligible, convinced me that she imagined I had voluntarily deserted her; but she seemed not to have the slightest suspicion that she had not been attacked by real robbers. I was so much surprised and confounded at the blow, that, for some time, I suffered her to rave without making any answer; but her extreme agitation, and real suffering, soon dispelled my anger, which all turned into compassion. I then told her, that I had been forcibly detained from following her, and assured her of my real sorrow of her ill-usage. She began to be somewhat appeased; and I again intreated her to return to the carriage, or give me leave to order that it should draw up to the place where we stood. She made no answer, till I told her, that the longer we remained still, the greater would be the danger of our ride home. Struck with this hint, she suddenly, and with hasty steps, moved forward. Her dress was in such disorder, that I was quite sorry to have her figure exposed to the servants, who all of them, in imitation of her master, hold her in derision: however the disgrace was unavoidable. The ditch, happily, was almost quite dry, or she must have suffered still more seriously; yet so forlorn, so miserable a figure, I never before saw her. Her head-dress had fallen off, her linen was torn, her negligee had not a pin left in it, her petticoats she was obliged to hold on, and her shoes were perpetually slipping off. She was covered with dirt, weeds, and filth, and her face was really horrible; for the pomatum and powder from her head, and the dust from the road, were quite pasted on her skin by her tears, which, with her rouge, made so frightful a mixture, that she hardly looked human. The servants were ready to die with laughter the moment they saw her; but not all my remonstrances could prevail upon her to get into the carriage, till she had most vehemently reproached them both for not rescuing her. The footman, fixing his eyes on the ground, as if fearful of again trusting himself to look at her, protested that the robbers had vowed they would shoot him if he moved an inch, and that one of them had stayed to watch the chariot, while the other carried her off, adding, that the reason of their behaving so barbarously, was to revenge our having secured our purses. Notwithstanding, her anger, she gave immediate credit to what he said; and really imagined that her want of money had irritated the pretended robbers to treat her with such cruelty. I determined, therefore, to be carefully upon my guard not to betray the imposition, which could now answer no other purpose, then occasioning an irreparable breach between her and the Captain. Just as we were seated in the chariot, she discovered the loss which her head had sustained, and called out, "My God! what is become of my hair?-why, the villain has stole all my curls!" She then ordered the man to run and see if he could find any of them in the ditch. He went, and presently returning, produced a great quantity of hair, in such nasty condition, that I was amazed she would take it; and the man, as he delivered it to her, found it impossible to keep his countenance; which she no sooner observed, than all her stormy passions were again raised. She flung the battered curls in his face, saying, "Sirrah, what do you grin for? I wish you'd been served so yourself, and you wouldn't have found it no such joke; you are the impudentest fellow ever I see; and if I find you dare grin at me any more, I shall make no ceremony of boxing your ears." Satisfied with the threat, the man hastily retired, and we drove on. Her anger now subsiding into grief, she began most sorrowfully to lament her case. "I believe," she cried, "never nobody was so unlucky as I am! and so here, because I ha'n't had misfortunes enough already, that puppy has made me lose my curls!-Why, I can't see nobody without them:-only look at me,-I was never so bad off in my life before. Pardi, if I'd know'd as much, I'd have brought two or three sets with me: but I'd never a thought of such a thing as this." Finding her now somewhat pacified, I ventured to ask an account of her adventure, which I will endeavour to write in her own words. "Why, child, all this misfortune comes of that puppy's making us leave our money behind us; for, as soon as the robber see I did put nothing in his hands, he lugged me out of the chariot by main force, and I verily thought he'd have murdered me. He was as strong as a lion; I was no more in his hands than a child. But I believe never nobody was so abused before; for he dragged me down the road, pulling and hauling me all the way, as if'd no more feeling than a horse. I'm sure I wish I could see that man cut up and quartered alive! however, he'll come to the gallows, that's one good thing. So soon as we'd got out of sight of the chariot, though he needn't have been afraid, for if he'd beat me to a mummy, those cowardly fellows wouldn't have said nothing to it-so, when I was got there, what does he do, but all of a sudden he takes me by both the shoulders, and he gives me such a shake!-Mon Dieu I shall never forget it, if I live to be an hundred. I'm sure I dare say I'm out of joint all over. And though I made as much noise as I ever could, he took no more notice of it than nothing at all; there he stood, shaking me in that manner, as if he was doing it for a wager. I'm determined, if it costs me all my fortune, I'll see that villain hanged. He shall be found out, if there's e'er a justice in England. So when he had shook me till he was tired, and I felt all over like a jelly, without saying never a word, he takes and pops me into the ditch! I'm sure, I thought he'd have murdered me, as much as ever I thought any thing in my life; for he kept bumping me about, as if he thought nothing too bad for me. However, I'm resolved I'll never leave my purse behind me again, the longest day I have to live. So when he couldn't stand over me no longer, he holds out his hands again for my money; but he was as cunning as could be, for he wouldn't speak a word, because I shouldn't swear to his voice; however, that sha'n't save him, for I'll swear to him any day in the year, if I can but catch him. So, when I told him I had no money, he fell to jerking me again, just as if he had but that moment begun! And, after that, he got me close by a tree, and out of his pocket he pulls a great cord!-It's a wonder I did not swoon away: for as sure as you're alive, he was going to hang to me that tree. I screamed like any thing mad, and told him if he would but spare my life, I'd never prosecute him, nor tell anybody what he'd done to me: so he stood some time quite in a brown study, a-thinking what he should do. And so, after that, he forced me to sit down in the ditch, and he tied my feet together, just as you see them: and then, as if he had not done enough, he twitched off my cap, and without saying nothing, got on his horse and left me in that condition; thinking, I suppose, that I might lie there and perish." Though this narrative almost compelled me to laugh, yet I was really irritated with the Captain, for carrying his love of tormenting,-sport, he calls it,-to such barbarous and unjustifiable extremes. I consoled and soothed her, as well as I was able: and told her, that since M. Du Bois had escaped, I hoped, when she recovered from her fright, all would end well. "Fright, child!" repeated she,-"why that's not half:-I promise you, I wish it was: but here I'm bruised from top to toe and it's well if ever I have the right use of my limbs again. However, I'm glad the villain got nothing but his trouble for his pains. But here the worst is to come, for I can't go out, because I've got no curls, and so he'll be escaped before I can get to the justice to stop him. I'm resolved I'll tell Lady Howard how her man served me; for if he hadn't made me fling 'em away, I dare say I would have pinned them up well enough for the country." "Perhaps Lady Howard may be able to lend you a cap that will wear without them." "Lady Howard, indeed! why, do you think I'd wear one of her dowdies? No, I'll promise you, I sha'n't put on no such disguisement. It's the unluckiest thing in the world that I did not make the man pick up the curls again; but he put me in such a passion, I could not think of nothing. I know I can't get none at Howard Grove for love nor money: for of all the stupid places ever I see, that Howard Grove is the worst; there's never no getting nothing one wants." This sort of conversation lasted till we arrived at our journey's end; and then a new distress occurred: Madame Duval was eager to speak to Lady Lady Howard and Mrs. Mirvan, and to relate her misfortunes: but she could not endure that Sir Clement or the Captain should see her in such disorder; so she said they were so ill-natured, that instead of pitying her, they would only make a jest of her disasters. She therefore sent me first into the house, to wait for an opportunity of their being out of the way, that she might steal up stairs unobserved. In this I succeeded, as the gentlemen thought it most prudent not to seem watching for her; though they both contrived to divert themselves with peeping at her as she passed. She went immediately to bed, where she had her supper. Lady Howard and Mrs. Mirvan both of them very kindly sat with her, and listened to her tale with compassionate attention: while Miss Mirvan and I retired to our own room, where I was very glad to end the troubles of the day in a comfortable conversation. The Captain's raptures, during supper, at the success of his plan, were boundless. I spoke afterwards to Mrs. Mirvan with the openness which her kindness encourages, and begged her to remonstrate with him upon the cruelty of tormenting Madame Duval so causelessly. She promised to take the first opportunity of starting up the subject: but said he was at present so much elated, that he would not listen to her with any patience. However, should he make any new efforts to molest her, I can by no means consent to be passive. Had I imagined he would have been so violent, I would have risked his anger in her defense much sooner. She had kept her bed all day, and declares she is almost bruised to death. Adieu, my dear Sir. What a long letter have I written! I could almost fancy I sent it to you from London! LETTER XXXIV EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Howard Grove, May 15. THIS insatiable Captain, if left to himself, would not, I believe, rest, till he had tormented Madame Duval into a fever. He seems to have no delight but in terrifying or provoking her; and all his thoughts apparently turn upon inventing such methods as may do it most effectually. She had her breakfast again in bed yesterday morning: but during ours, the Captain, with a very significant look at Sir Clement, gave us to understand, that he thought she had now rested long enough to bear the hardships of a fresh campaign. His meaning was obvious: and, therefore, I resolved to endeavour immediately to put a stop to his intended exploits. When breakfast was over, I followed Mrs. Mirvan out of the parlour, and begged her to lose no time in pleading the cause of Madame Duval with the Captain. "My love," answered she, "I have already expostulated with him; but all I can say is fruitless, while his favourite, Sir Clement, contrives to urge him on." "Then I will go and speak to Sir Clement," said I, "for I know he will desist if I request him." "Have I care, my dear!" said she, smiling: "it is sometimes dangerous to make requests to men who are too desirous of receiving them." "Well, then, my dear Madam, will you give me leave to speak myself to the Captain?" "Willingly: nay, I will accompany you to him." I thanked her, and we went to seek him. He was walking in the garden with Sir Clement. Mrs. Mirvan most obligingly made an opening for my purpose, by saying, "Mr. Mirvan, I have brought a petitioner with me." "Why, what's the matter now?" cried he. I was fearful of making him angry, and stammered very much, when I told him, I hoped he had no new plan for alarming Madame Duval. "New plan!" cried he; "why, you don't suppose the old one would do again, do you? Not but what it was a very good one, only I doubt she wouldn't bite." "Indeed, Sir," said I, "she had already suffered too much; and I hope you will pardon me, if I take the liberty of telling you, that I think it my my duty to do all in my power to prevent her being again so much terrified." A sullen gloominess instantly clouded his face, and, turning short from me, he said, I might do as I pleased, but that I should much sooner repent than repair my officiousness. I was too much disconcerted at this rebuff to attempt making any answer: and finding that Sir Clement warmly espoused my cause, I walked away, and left them to discuss the point together. Mrs. Mirvan, who never speaks to the Captain when he is out of humour, was glad to follow me, and with her usual sweetness made a thousand apologies for her husband's ill-manners. When I left her, I went to Madame Duval, who was just risen, and employed in examining the clothes she had on the day of her ill usage. "Here's a sight!" she cried. "Come, here child,-only look-Pardi, so long as I've lived, I never see so much before! Why, all my things are spoilt; and what's worse, my sacque was as good as new. Here's the second negligee I've used in this manner! - I'm sure I was a fool to put it on in such a lonesome place as this; however if I stay here these ten years, I'll never put on another good gown, that I'm resolved." "Will you let the maid try if she can iron it out, or clean it, Ma'am?" "No, she'll only make bad worse.-But look here, now, here's a cloak! Mon Dieu! why it looks like a dish-clout! Of all the unluckiness that ever I met, this is the worst! for, do you know, I bought it but the day before I left Paris!-Besides, into the bargain, my cap's quite gone: where the villain twitched it, I don't know; but I never see no more of it from that time to this. Now you must know that this was the becomingest cap I had in the world, for I've never another with pink ribbon in it; and, to tell you the truth, if I hadn't thought to have seen M. Du Bois, I'd no more have put it on than I'd have flown; for as to what one wears in such a stupid place as this, it signifies no more than nothing at all." She then told me, that she had been thinking all night of a contrivance to hinder the Captain from finding out her loss of curls; which was having a large gauge handkerchief pinned over her head as a hood, and saying she had the tooth-ache. "To tell you the truth," added she, "I believe that Captain is one of the worst men in the world; he's always making a joke of me; and as to his being a gentleman, he has no more manners than a bear, for he's always upon the grin when one's in distress; and, I declare I'd rather be done anything to than laughed at, for, to my mind, it's one or other the disagreeablest thing in the world." Mrs. Mirvan, I found, had been endeavouring to dissuade her from the design she had formed of having recourse to the law, in order to find out the supposed robbers; for she dreads a discovery of the Captain, during Madam Duval's stay at Howard Grove, as it could not fail being productive of infinite commotion. She has, therefore, taken great pains to show the inutility of applying to justice, unless she were more able to describe the offenders against whom she would appear; and has assured her, that as she neither heard their voices, nor saw their faces, she cannot possibly swear to their persons, or obtain any redress. Madame Duval, in telling me this, extremely lamented her hard fate, that she was thus prevented from revenging her injuries; which, however, she vowed she would not be persuaded to pocket tamely: "because," added she, "if such villains as these are let to have their own way, and nobody takes no notice of their impudence, they'll make no more ado than nothing at all of tying people in ditches, and such things as that: however, I shall consult with M. Du Bois, as soon as I can ferret out where he's hid himself. I'm sure I've a right to his advice, for it's all along of his gaping about at the Tower that I've met with these misfortunes." "M. Du Bois," said I, "will, I am sure, be very sorry when he hears what has happened." "And what good will that do now?-that won't unspoil all my clothes; I can tell him, I a'n't much obliged to him, though it's no fault of his;-yet it i'n't the less provokinger for that. I'm sure, if he had been there, to have seen me served in that manner, and put neck and heels into a ditch, he'd no more have thought it was me than the Pope of Rome. I'll promise you, whatever you may think of it, I sha'n't have no rest, night nor day, till I find out that rogue." "I have no doubt, Madam, but you will soon discover him." "Pardi, if I do, I'll hang him, as sure as fate!-but what's the oddest, is, that he should take such a special spite against me above all the rest! it was as much for nothing as could be; for I don't know what I had done, so particular bad, to be used in that manner: I'm sure, I hadn't given no offence, as I know of, for I never see his face all the time: and as to screaming a little, I think it's very hard if one mustn't do such a thing as that, when one's put in fear of one's life." During this conversation, she endeavoured to adjust her headdress, but could not at all please herself. Indeed, had I not been present, I should have thought it impossible for a woman, at her time of life, to be so very difficult in regard to dress. What she may have in view, I cannot imagine, but the labour of the toilette seems the chief business of her life. When I left her, in my way down stairs, I met Sir Clement; who with great earnestness, said he must not be denied the honour of a moment's conversation with me; and then, without waiting for an answer, he led me to the garden; at the door of which, however, I absolutely insisted upon stopping. He seemed very serious, and said, in a grave tone of voice, "At length, Miss Anville, I flatter myself I have hit upon an expedient that will oblige you; and therefore, though it is death to myself, I will put in practice." I begged him to explain himself. "I saw your desire of saving Madame Duval, and scarce could I refrain giving the brutal Captain my real opinion of his savage conduct; but I am unwilling to quarrel with him, lest I should be denied entrance into a house which you inhabit; I have been endeavouring to prevail with him to give up his absurd new scheme, but I find him impenetrable:-I have therefore determined to make a pretense for suddenly leaving this place, dear as it is to me, and containing all I most admire and adore;-and I will stay in town till the violence of this boobyish humour is abated." He stopped; but I was silent, for I knew not what I ought to say. He took my hand, which he pressed to his lips, saying, "And must I then, Miss Anville, must I quit you-sacrifice voluntarily my greatest felicity:-and yet not be honoured with one word, one look of approbation?" I withdrew my hand, and said with half a laugh, "You know so well, Sir Clement, the value of the favours you confer, that it would be superfluous for me to point it out." "Charming, charming girl! how does your wit, your understanding, rise upon me daily: and must I, can I part with you?-will no other method-" "O, Sir, do you so soon repent the good office you had planned for Madame Duval?" "For Madame Duval!-cruel creature, and will you not even suffer me to place to your account the sacrifice I am about to make?" "You must place it, Sir, to what account you please; but I am too much in haste now to stay here any longer." And then I would have left him; but he held me, and rather impatiently said, "If, then, I cannot be so happy as to oblige you, Miss Anville, you must not be surprised should I seek to oblige myself. If my scheme is not honoured with your approbation, for which alone it was formed, why should I, to my own infinite dissatisfaction, pursue it?" We were then, for a few minutes, both silent; I was really unwilling he should give up a plan which would so effectually break into the Captain's designs, and, at the same time, save me the pain of disobliging him; and I should instantly and thankfully have accepted his offered civility, had not Mrs. Mirvan's caution made me fearful. However, when he pressed me to speak, I said, in an ironical voice, "I had thought, Sir, that the very strong sense you have yourself of the favour you propose to me, would sufficiently have repaid you; but, as I was mistaken, I must thank you myself. And now," making a low courtesy, "I hope, Sir, you are satisfied." "Loveliest of thy sex-" he began; but I forced myself from him and ran upstairs. Soon after Miss Mirvan told me that Sir Clement had just received a letter, which obliged him instantly to leave the Grove, and that he had actually ordered a chaise. I then acquainted her with the real state of the affair. Indeed, I conceal nothing from her; she is so gentle and sweet-tempered, that it gives me great pleasure to place an entire confidence in her. At dinner, I must own, we all missed him; for though the flightiness of his behaviour to me, when we are by ourselves is very distressing; yet, in large companies, and general conversation, he is extremely entertaining and agreeable. As to the Captain, he has been so much chagrined at his departure, that he has scarce spoken a word since he went: but Madame Duval, who made her first public appearance since her accident, was quite in raptures that she escaped seeing him. The money which we left at the farm-house has been returned to us. What pains the Captain must have taken to arrange and manage the adventures which he chose we should meet with! Yet he must certainly be discovered; for Madame Duval is already very much perplexed, at having received a letter this morning from M. Du Bois, in which he makes no mention of his imprisonment. However, she has so little suspicion, that she imputes his silence upon the subject to his fears that the letter might be intercepted. Not one opportunity could I meet with, while Sir Clement was here, to enquire after his friend Lord Orville: but I think it was strange he should never mention him unasked. Indeed, I rather wonder that Mrs. Mirvan herself did not introduce the subject, for she always seemed particularly attentive to him. And now, once more, all my thoughts involuntarily turn upon the letter I so soon expect from Paris. This visit of Sir Clement has, however, somewhat diverted my fears; and, therefore, I am very glad he made it at this time. Adieu, my dear Sir. LETTER XXXV SIR JOHN BELMONT TO LADY HOWARD Paris, May 11. Madam, I HAVE this moment the honour of your Ladyship's Letter, and I will not wait another, before I return an answer. It seldom happens that a man, though extolled as a saint, is really without blemish; or that another, though reviled as a devil, is really without humanity. Perhaps the time is not very distant, when I may have the honour to convince your Ladyship of this truth, in regard to Mr. Villars and myself. As to the young lady, whom Mr. Villars so obligingly proposes presenting to me, I wish her all the happiness to which, by your ladyship's account, she seems entitled; and, if she has a third part of the merit of her to whom you compare her, I doubt not but Mr. Villars will be more successful in every other application he may make for her advantage, that he can ever be in any with which he may be pleased to favour me. I have the honour to be Madam, Your Ladyship's most humble, and most obedient servant, JOHN BELMONT. LETTER XXXVI EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, May 18. WELL, my dear Sir, all is now over! the letter so anxiously expected is at length arrived, and my doom is fixed. The various feelings which oppress me, I have not language to describe; nor need I-you know my heart, you have yourself formed it-and its sensations upon this occasion you may but too readily imagine. Outcast as I am, and rejected for ever by him to whom I of right belong-shall I now implore your continued protection?-No, no;-I will not offend your generous heart, which, open to distress, has no wish but to relieve it, with an application that would seem to imply a doubt. I am more secure than ever of your kindness, since you now know upon that is my sole dependence. I endeavour to bear this stroke with composure, and in such a manner as if I had already received your counsel and consolation. Yet, at times, my emotions are almost too much for me. O, Sir, what a letter for a parent to write! Must I not myself be deaf to the voice of nature, if I could endure to be thus absolutely abandoned without regret? I dare not even to you, nor would I, could I help it, to myself, acknowledge all that I might think; for, indeed, I have sometimes sentiments upon this rejection, which my strongest sense of duty can scarcely correct. Yet, suffer me to ask-might not this answer have been softened?-was it not enough to disclaim me for ever, without treating me with contempt, and wounding me with derision? But while I am thus thinking of myself, I forget how much more he is the object of sorrow than I am! Alas! what amends can he make himself for the anguish he is hoarding up for time to come! My heart bleeds for him, whenever this reflection occurs to me. What is said of you, my protector, my friend, my benefactor! I dare not trust myself to comment upon. Gracious Heaven! what a return for goodness so unparalleled! I would fain endeavour to divert my thoughts from this subject; but even that is not in my power; for, afflicting as this letter is to me, I find that it will not be allowed to conclude the affair, though it does all my expectations; for Madame Duval has determined not to let it rest here. She heard the letter in great wrath, and protested she would not be so easily answered; she regretted her facility in having been prevailed upon to yield the direction of this affair to those who knew not how to manage it, and vowed she would herself undertake and conduct it in future. It is in vain that I have pleaded against her resolution, and besought her to forbear an attack where she has nothing to expect but resentment: especially as there seems to be a hint, that Lady Howard will one day be more openly dealt with. She will not hear me: she is furiously bent upon a project which is terrible to think of;-for she means to go herself to Paris, take me with her, and there, face to face, demand justice! How to appease or to persuade her, I know not; but for the universe would I not be dragged, in such a manner, to an interview so awful, with a parent I have never yet beheld! Lady Howard and Mrs. Mirvan are both of them infinitely shocked at the present state of affairs, and they seem to be even more kind to me than ever; and my dear Maria, who is the friend of my heart, uses her utmost efforts to console me; and, when she fails in her design, with still greater kindness she sympathises in my sorrow. I very much rejoice, however, that Sir Clement Willoughby had left us before this letter arrived. I am sure the general confusion of the house would otherwise have betrayed to him the whole of a tale which I now, more than ever, wish to have buried in oblivion. Lady Howard thinks I ought not to disoblige Madame Duval, yet she acknowledges the impropriety of my accompanying her abroad on such an enterprise. Indeed, I would rather die than force myself into his presence. But so vehement is Madame Duval, that she would instantly have compelled me to attend her to town, in her way to Paris, had not Lady Howard so far exerted herself, as to declare she could by no means consent to my quitting her house, till she gave me up to you, by whose permission I had entered it. She was extremely angry at this denial; and the Captain, by his sneers and raillery, so much increased her rage, that she has positively declared, should your next letter dispute her authority to guide me by her own pleasure, she will, without hesitation, make a journey to Berry Hill, and teach you to know who she is. Should she put this threat in execution, nothing could give me greater uneasiness: for her violence and volubility would almost distract you. Unable as I am to act for myself, or to judge what conduct I ought to pursue, how grateful do I feel myself, that I have such a guide and director to counsel and instruct me as yourself! Adieu, my dearest Sir! Heaven, I trust, will never let me live to be repulsed, and derided by you, to whom I may now sign myself, wholly your EVELINA. LETTER XXXVII MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA Berry Hill, May 21. LET not my Evelina be depressed by a stroke of fortune for which she is not responsible. No breach of duty on your part has incurred the unkindness which has been shown you; nor have you, by any act of imprudence, provoked either censure or reproach. Let me intreat you, therefore, my dearest child, to support yourself with that courage which your innocency ought to inspire: and let all the affliction you allow yourself be for him only who, not having that support, must one day be but too severely sensible how much he wants it. The hint thrown out concerning myself is wholly unintelligible to me: my heart, I dare own, fully acquits me of vice; but without blemish, I have never ventured to pronounce myself. However, it seems his intention to be hereafter more explicit; and then,-should anything appear, that has on my part contributed to those misfortunes we lament, let me at least say, that the most partial of my friends cannot be so much astonished as I shall myself be at such a discovery. The mention, also, of any future applications I may make, is equally beyond my comprehension. But I will not dwell upon a subject, which almost compels from me reflections that cannot but be wounding to a heart so formed for filial tenderness as my Evelina's. There is an air of mystery throughout the letter, the explanation of which I will await in silence. The scheme of Madame Duval is such as might be reasonably expected from a woman so little inured to disappointment, and so totally incapable of considering the delicacy of your situation. Your averseness to her plan gives me pleasure, for it exactly corresponds with my own. Why will she not make the journey she projects by herself? She would not have even the wish of an opposition to encounter. And then, once more, might my child and myself be left to the quiet enjoyment of that peaceful happiness, which she alone has interrupted. As to her coming hither, I could, indeed, dispense with such a visit; but, if she will not be satisfied with my refusal by letter, I must submit to the task of giving it her in person. My impatience for your return is increased by your account of Sir Clement Willoughby's visit to Howard Grove. I am but little surprised at the perseverance of his assiduities to interest you in his favour; but I am very much hurt that you should be exposed to addresses, which, by their privacy, have an air that shocks me. You cannot, my love, be too circumspect; the slightest carelessness on your part will be taken advantage of by a man of his disposition. It is not sufficient for you to be reserved: his conduct even calls for your resentment; and should he again, as will doubtless be his endeavour, contrive to solicit your favour in private, let your disdain and displeasure be so marked, as to constrain a change in his behaviour. Though, indeed, should his visit be repeated while you remain at the Grove, Lady Howard must pardon me if I shorten yours. Adieu, my child. You will always make my respects to the hospitable family to which we are so much obliged. LETTER XXXVIII MR. VILLARS TO LADY HOWARD Berry Hill, May 27. Dear Madam, I BELIEVE your Ladyship will not be surprised at hearing I have had a visit from Madame Duval, as I doubt not her having made known her intention before she left Howard Grove. I would gladly have excused myself this meeting, could I have avoided it decently; but, after so long a journey, it was not possible to refuse her admittance. She told me, that she came to Berry Hill, in consequence of a letter I had sent to her grand-daughter, in which I forbid her going to Paris. Very roughly she then called me to account for the authority which I had assumed; and, had I been disposed to have argued with her, she would very angrily have disputed the right by which I used it. But I declined all debating. I therefore listened very quietly, till she had so much fatigued herself with talking, that she was glad, in her turn, to be silent. And then, I begged to know the purport of her visit. She answered, that she came to make me relinquish the power I had usurped over her grand-daughter; and assured me she would not quit the place till she succeeded. But I will not trouble your Ladyship with the particulars of this disagreeable conversation; nor should I, but on account of the result, have chosen so unpleasant a subject for your perusal. However, I will be as concise as I possibly can, that the better occupations of your Ladyship's time may be less impeded. When she found me inexorable in refusing Evelina's attending her to Paris, she peremptorily insisted that she should at least live with her in London till Sir John Belmont's return. I remonstrated against this scheme with all the energy in my power; but the contest was vain; she lost her patience, and I my time. She declared, that if I was resolute in opposing her, she would instantly make a will, in which she would leave all her fortune to strangers, though, otherwise, she intended her grand-daughter for her sole heiress. To me, I own, this threat seemed of little consequence; I have long accustomed myself to think, that, with a competency, of which she is sure, my child might be as happy as in the possession of millions; but the incertitude of her future fate deters me from following implicitly the dictates of my present judgement. The connections she may hereafter form, the style of life for which she may be destined, and the future family to which she may belong, are considerations which give but too much weight to the menaces of Madame Duval. In short, Madam, after a discourse infinitely tedious, I was obliged, though very reluctantly, to compromise with this ungovernable woman, by consenting that Evelina should pass one month with her. I never made a concession with so bad a grace, or so much regret. The violence and vulgarity of this woman, her total ignorance of propriety, the family to which she is related, and the company she is likely to keep, are objections so forcible to her having the charge of this dear child, that nothing less than my diffidence of the right I have of depriving her of so large a fortune, would have induced me to listen to her proposal. Indeed we parted, at last, equally discontented; she at what I had refused, I at what I had granted. It now only remains for me to return your Ladyship my humble acknowledgments for the kindness which you have so liberally shown to my ward; and to beg you would have the goodness to part with her when Madame Duval thinks proper to claim the promise which she has extorted from me. I am, Dear Madam, &c. ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER XXXIX MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA Berry Hill, May 28. WITH a reluctance which occasions me inexpressible uneasiness, I have been almost compelled to consent that my Evelina should quit the protection of the hospitable and respectable Lady Howard, and accompany Madame Duval to a city which I had hoped she would never again have entered. But alas, my dear child, we are the slaves of custom, the dupes of prejudice, and dare not stem the torrent of an opposing world, even though our judgements condemn our compliance! However, since the die is cast, we must endeavor to make the best of it. You will have the occasion, in the course of the month you are to pass with Madame Duval, for all the circumspection and prudence you can call to your aid. She will not, I know, propose any thing to you which she thinks wrong herself; but you must learn not only to judge but to act for yourself; if any schemes are started, any engagements made, which your understanding represents to you as improper, exert yourself resolutely in avoiding them; and do not, by a too passive facility, risk the censure of the world, or your own future regret. You cannot too assiduously attend to Madame Duval herself; but I would wish you to mix as little as possible with her associates, who are not likely to be among those whose acquaintance would reflect credit upon you. Remember, my dear Evelina, nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman; it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things. Adieu, my beloved child; I shall be but ill at ease till this month is elapsed. A.V. LETTER XL EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS London, June 6. ONCE more, my dearest Sir, I write to you from this great city. Yesterday morning, with the truest concern, I quitted the dear inhabitants of Howard Grove, and most impatiently shall I count the days till I see them again. Lady Howard and Mrs. Mirvan took leave of me with the most flattering kindness; but indeed I knew not how to part with Maria, whose own apparent sorrow redoubled mine. She made me promise to send her a letter every post: and I shall write to her with the same freedom, and almost the same confidence, you allow me to make use of to yourself. The Captain was very civil to me: but he wrangled with poor Madame Duval to the last moment; and, taking me aside, just before we got into the chaise, he said, "Hark'ee, Miss Anville, I've a favour for to ask of you, which is this; that you will write us word how the old gentlewoman finds herself, when she sees it was all a trick; and what the French lubber says to it, and all about it." I answered that I would obey him, though I was very little pleased with the commission, which, to me, was highly improper; but he will either treat me as an informer, or make me a party in his frolic. As soon as we drove away, Madame Duval, with much satisfaction, exclaimed, "Dieu merci, we've got off at last! I'm sure I never desire to see that place again. It's a wonder I've got away alive; for I believe I've had the worst luck ever was known, from the time I set my foot upon the threshold. I know I wish I'd never a gone. Besides, into the bargain, it's the most dullest place in all Christendom: there's never no diversions, nor nothing at all." Then she bewailed M. Du Bois; concerning whose adventures she continued to make various conjectures during the rest of our journey. When I asked her what part of London she should reside in, she told me that Mr. Branghton was to meet us at an inn, and would conduct us to a lodging. Accordingly, we proceeded to a house in Bishopsgate Street, and were led by a waiter into a room where we found Mr. Branghton. He received us very civilly; but seemed rather surprised at seeing me, saying, "Why, I didn't think of your bringing Miss; however, she's very welcome." "I'll tell you how it was," said Madame Duval: "you must know I've a mind to take the girl to Paris, that she may see something of the world, and improve herself a little; besides, I've another reason, that you and I will talk more about. But, do you know, that meddling old parson, as I told you of, would not let her go: however, I'm resolved I'll be even with him; for I shall take her on with me, without saying never a word more to nobody." I started at this intimation, which very much surprised me. But, I am very glad she has discovered her intention, as I shall be carefully upon my guard not to venture from town with her. Mr. Branghton then hoped we had passed our time agreeably in the country. "O Lord, cousin," cried she, "I've been the miserablest creature in the world! I'm sure all the horses in London sha'n't drag me into the country again of one while: why, how do you think I've been served?-only guess." "Indeed, cousin, I can't pretend to do that." "Why then I'll tell you. Do you know I've been robbed!-that is, the villain would have robbed me if he could, only I'd secured all my money." "Why, then cousin, I think your loss can't have been very great." "O Lord, you don't know what you're a saying; you're talking in the unthinkingest manner in the world: why, it was all along of not having no money that I met with that misfortune." "How's that, cousin? I don't see what great misfortune you can have met with, if you'd secured all your money." "That's because you don't know nothing of the matter: for there the villain came to the chaise; and, because we hadn't got nothing to give him, though he'd no more right to our money than the man in the moon, yet, do you know, he fell into the greatest passion ever you see, and abused me in such a manner, and put me in a ditch, and got a rope o'purpose to hang me;-and I'm sure, if that wasn't misfortune enough, why I don't know what is." "This is a hard case, indeed, cousin. But why don't you go to Justice Fielding?" "O as to that, I'm a going to him directly; but only I want first to see M. Du Bois; for the oddest thing of all is, that he has wrote to me, and never said nothing of where he is, nor what's become of him, nor nothing else." "M. Du Bois! why, he's at my house at this very time." "M. Du Bois at your house! well, I declare this is the surprisingest part of all: However, I assure you, I think he might have comed for me, as well as you, considering what I have gone through on his account; for, to tell you the truth, it was all along of him that I met with that accident; so I don't take it very kind of him, I promise you." "Well, but cousin, tell me some of the particulars of this affair." "As to the particulars, I'm sure they'd make your hair stand on end to hear them; however, the beginning of it all was through the fault of M. Du Bois: but, I'll assure you, he may take care of himself in future, since he don't so much as come to see if I'm dead or alive.-But, there, I went for him to a justice of peace, and rode all out of the way, and did every thing in the world, and was used worser than a dog, and all for the sake of serving of him; and now, you see, he don't so much-well, I was a fool for my pains.-However, he may get somebody else to be treated so another time; for, if he's taken up every day in the week, I'll never go after him no more." This occasioned an explanation; in the course of which Madame Duval, to her utter amazement, heard that M. Du Bois had never left London during her absence! nor did Mr. Branghton believe that he had ever been to the Tower, or met with any kind of accident. Almost instantly the whole truth of the transaction seemed to rush upon her mind, and her wrath was inconceivably violent. She asked me a thousand questions in a breath; but, fortunately, was too vehement to attend to my embarrassment, which must otherwise have betrayed my knowledge of the deceit. Revenge was her first wish; and she vowed she would go the next morning to Justice Fielding, and inquire what punishment she might lawfully inflict upon the Captain for his assault. I believe we were an hour at Bishopsgate Street before poor Madame Duval could allow any thing to be mentioned but her own story; at any length, however, Mr. Branghton told her, that M. Du Bois, and all his own family, were waiting for her at his house. A hackney-coach was then called, and we proceeded to Snow Hill. Mr. Branghton's house is small and inconvenient; though his shop, which takes in all the ground floor, is large and commodious. I believe I told you before, that he is a silver-smith. We were conducted up two pairs of stairs: for the dining-room, Mr. Branghton told us, was let. His two daughters, their brother, M. Du Bois, and a young man, were at tea. They had waited some time for Madame Duval, but I found they had not any expectation that I should accompany her; and the young ladies, I believe, were rather more surprised than pleased when I made my appearance; for they seemed hurt that I should see their apartment. Indeed, I would willingly have saved them that pain, had it been in my power. The first person who saw me was M. Du Bois, "Ah, mon Dieu!" exclaimed he, "voila Mademoiselle!" "Goodness," cried young Branghton, "if there isn't Miss!" "Lord, so there is!" said Miss Polly; "well, I'm sure I should never have dreamed of Miss's coming." "Nor I neither, I'm sure," cried Miss Branghton, "or else I would not have been in this room to see her: I'm quite ashamed about it;-only not thinking of seeing any body but my aunt-however, Tom, it's all your fault; for, you know very well I wanted to borrow Mr. Smith's room, only you were so grumpy you would not let me." "Lord, what signifies?" said her brother; "I dare be sworn Miss has been up two pair of stairs before now;-ha'n't you, Miss?" I begged that I might not give them the least disturbance; and assured them that I had not any choice in regard to what room we sat in. "Well," said Miss Polly, "when you come next, Miss, we'll have Mr. Smith's room: and it's a very pretty one, and only up one pair of stairs, and nicely furnished, and every thing." "To say the truth," said Miss Branghton, "I thought that my cousin would not, upon any account, have come to town in the summer-time; for it's not at all the fashion ;-so, to be sure, thinks I, she'll stay till September, when the play-houses open." This was my reception, which I believe you will not call a very cordial one. Madame Duval, who, after having severely reprimanded M. Du Bois for his negligence, was just entering upon the story of her misfortunes, now wholly engaged the company. M. Du Bois listened to her with a look of the utmost horror, repeatedly lifting up his eyes and hands, and exclaiming, "O ciel! quel barbare!" The young ladies gave her the most earnest attention; but their brother, and the young man, kept a broad grin upon their faces during the whole recital. She was, however, too much engaged to observe them; but, when she mentioned having been tied in a ditch, young Branghton, no longer able to contain himself, burst into a loud laugh, declaring that he had never heard any thing so funny in his life! His laugh was heartily re-echoed by his friend; the Miss Branghtons could not resist the example; and poor Madame Duval, to her extreme amazement, was absolutely overpowered and stopped by the violence of their mirth. For some minutes the room seemed quite in an uproar; the rage of Madame Duval, the astonishment of M. Du Bois, and the angry interrogatories of Mr. Branghton, on one side; the convulsive tittering of the sisters, and the loud laughs of the young men, on the other, occasioned such noise, passion and confusion, that had any one stopped an instant on the stairs, he must have concluded himself in Bedlam. At length, however, the father brought them to order; and, half-laughing, half-frightened, they made Madame Duval some very awkward apologies. But she would not be prevailed upon to continue her narrative, till they had protested they were laughing at the Captain, and not at her. Appeased by this, she resumed her story; which by the help of stuffing handkerchiefs into their mouths, the young people heard with tolerable decency. Every body agreed, that the ill-usage the Captain had given her was actionable; and Mr. Branghton said, he was sure she might recover what damages she pleased, since she had been put in fear of her life. She then, with great delight, declared, that she would lose no time in satisfying her revenge, and vowed she would not be contented with less than half his fortune: "For though," she said, "I don't put no value upon the money, because, Dieu merci, I ha'n't no want of it, yet I don't wish for nothing so much as to punish that fellow; for I'm sure, whatever's the cause of it, he owes me a great grudge, and I know no more what it's for than you do; but he's always been doing me one spite or another ever since I knew him." Soon after tea, Miss Branghton took an opportunity to tell me, in a whisper, that the young man I saw was a lover of her sister's, that his name was Brown, and that he was a haberdasher: with many other particulars of his circumstances and family; and then she declared her utter aversion to the thoughts of such a match; but added, that her sister had no manner of spirit or ambition, though, for her part, she would ten times rather die an old maid, than marry any person but a gentleman. "And, for that matter," added she, "I believe Polly herself don't care much for him, only she's in such a hurry, because, I suppose, she's a mind to be married before me; however, she's very welcome; for, I'm sure, I don't care a pin's point whether I ever marry at all;-it's all one to me." Some time after this, Miss Polly contrived to tell her story. She assured me, with much tittering, that her sister was in a great fright lest she should be married first. "So I make her believe that I will," continued she; "for I dearly love to plague her a little; though, I declare, I don't intend to have Mr. Brown in reality;-I'm sure I don't like him half well enough,-do you, Miss?" "It is not possible for me to judge of his merits," said I, "as I am entirely a stranger to him." "But what do you think of him, Miss?" "Why, really, I-I don't know." "But do you think him handsome? Some people reckon him to have a good pretty person;-but I'm sure, for my part, I think he's monstrous ugly:-don't you, Miss?" "I am no judge,-but I think his person is very-very well." "Very well! -Why, pray Miss," in a tone of vexation, "what fault can you find with it?" "O, none at all!" "I'm sure you must be very ill-natured if you could. Now there's Biddy says she thinks nothing of him,-but I know it's all out of spite. You must know, Miss, it makes her as mad as can be that I should have a lover before her; but she's so proud that nobody will court her, and I often tell her she'll die an old maid. But the thing is, she has taken it into her head to have a liking for Mr. Smith, as lodges on the first floor; but, Lord, he'll never have her, for he's quite a fine gentleman; and besides, Mr. Brown heard him say one day, that he'd never marry as long as he lived, for he'd no opinion of matrimony." "And did you tell your sister this?" "O, to be sure, I told her directly; but she did not mind me; however, if she will be a fool she must." This extreme want of affection and good-nature increased the distaste I already felt for these unamiable sisters; and a confidence so entirely unsolicited and unnecessary, manifested equally their folly and their want of decency. I was very glad when the time for our departing arrived. Mr. Branghton said our lodgings were in Holborn, that we might be near his house, and neighbourly. He accompanied us to them himself. Our rooms are large, and not inconvenient; our landlord is an hosier. I am sure I have a thousand reasons to rejoice that I am so little known: for my present situation is, in every respect, very unenviable; and I would not, for the world, be seen by any acquaintance of Mrs. Mirvan. This morning, Madame Duval, attended by all the Branghtons, actually went to a Justice in the neighborhood, to report the Captain's ill usage of her. I had great difficulty in excusing myself from being of the party, which would have given me very serious concern. Indeed, I was extremely anxious, though at home, till I heard the result of the application, for I dread to think of the uneasiness which such an affair would occasion the amiable Mrs. Mirvan. But, fortunately, Madame Duval has received very little encouragement to proceed in her design; for she has been informed, that, as she neither heard the voice, nor saw the face of the person suspected, she will find difficulty to cast him upon conjecture, and will have but little probability of gaining her cause, unless she can procure witnesses of the transaction. Mr. Branghton, therefore, who has considered all the circumstances of the affair, is of the opinion; the lawsuit will not only be expensive, but tedious and hazardous, and has advised against it. Madame Duval, though very unwillingly, has acquiesced in his decision; but vows, that if she ever is so affronted again, she will be revenged, even if she ruins herself. I am extremely glad that this ridiculous adventure seems now likely to end without more serious consequences. Adieu, my dearest Sir. My direction is at Mr. Dawkin's, a hosier in High Holborn. LETTER XLI EVELINA TO MISS MIRVAN June 7th I HAVE no words, my sweet friend, to express the thankfulness I feel for the unbounded kindness which you, your dear mother, and the much-honoured Lady Howard, have shown me; and still less can I find language to tell you with what reluctance I parted from such dear and generous friends, whose goodness reflects, at once, so much honour on their own hearts, and on her to whom it has been so liberally bestowed. But I will not repeat what I have already written to the kind Mrs. Mirvan; I will remember your admonitions, and confine to my own breast that gratitude with which you have filled it, and teach my pen to dwell upon subjects less painful to my generous correspondent. O, Maria! London now seems no longer the same place where I lately enjoyed so much happiness; every thing is new and strange to me; even the town itself has not the same aspect.-My situation so altered!-my home so different!-my companions so changed!-But you well know my averseness to this journey. Indeed, to me, London now seems a desert: that gay and busy appearance it so lately wore, is now succeeded by a look of gloom, fatigue, and lassitude; the air seems stagnant, the heat is intense, the dust intolerable, and the inhabitants illiterate and under-bred; At least, such is the face of things in the part of town where I at present reside. Tell me, my dear Maria, do you never retrace in your memory the time we passed here when together? to mine it recurs for ever! And yet I think I rather recollect a dream, or some visionary fancy, than a reality.-That I should ever have been known to Lord Orville,-that I should have spoken to-have danced with him,-seems now a romantic illusion: and that elegant politeness, that flattering attention, that high-bred delicacy, which so much distinguished him above all other men, and which struck us with so much admiration, I now retrace the remembrance of rather as belonging to an object of ideal perfection, formed by my own imagination, than to a being of the same race and nature as those with whom I at present converse. I have no news for you, my dear Miss Mirvan; for all that I could venture to say of Madame Duval I have already written to your sweet mother; and as to adventures, I have none to record. Situated as I now am, I heartily hope I shall not meet with any; my wish is to remain quiet and unnoticed. Adieu! excuse the gravity of this letter; and believe me, your most sincerely Affectionate and obliged EVELINA ANVILLE. LETTER XLII EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Holborn, June 9. YESTERDAY morning we received an invitation to dine and spend the day at Mr. Branghton's; and M. Du Bois, who was also invited, called to conduct us to Snow Hill. Young Branghton received us at the door; and the first words he spoke were, "Do you know, sisters a'n't dressed yet." Then, hurrying us into the house, he said to me, "Come, Miss, you shall go upstairs and catch 'em,-I dare say they're at the glass." He would have taken my hand; but I declined this civility, and begged to follow Madame Duval. Mr. Branghton then appeared, and led the way himself. We went, as before, up two pairs of stairs; but the moment the father opened the door, the daughters both gave a loud scream. We all stopped; and then Miss Branghton called out, "Lord, Papa, what do you bring the company up here for? why, Polly and I a'n't half dressed." "More shame for you," answered he; "here's your aunt, and cousin, and M. Du Bois, all waiting, and ne'er a room to take them to." "Who'd have thought of their coming so soon?" cried she: "I am sure for my part I thought Miss was used to nothing but quality hours." "Why, I sha'n't be ready this half-hour yet," said Miss Polly; "can't they stay in the shop till we're dressed?" Mr. Branghton was very angry, and scolded them violently: however, we were obliged to descend, and stools were procured for us in the shop, where we found the brother, who was highly delighted, he said, that his sisters had been catched; and he thought proper to entertain me with a long account of their tediousness, and the many quarrels they all had together. When, at length, these ladies were equipped to their satisfaction, they made their appearance; but before any conversation was suffered to pass between them and us, they had a long and most disagreeable dialogue with their father, to whose reprimands, though so justly incurred, they replied with the utmost pertness while their brother all the time laughed aloud. The moment they perceived this, they were so much provoked, that, instead of making any apologies to Madame Duval, they next began to quarrel with him. "Tom, what do you laugh for? I wonder what business you have to be always a laughing when Papa scolds us?" "Then what business have you to be such a while getting on your clothes? You're never ready, you know well enough." "Lord, Sir, I wonder what's that to you! I wish you'd mind your own affairs, and not trouble yourself about ours. How should a boy like you know any thing?" "A boy, indeed! not such a boy, neither: I'll warrant you'll be glad to be as young when you come to be old maids." This sort of dialogue we were amused with till dinner was ready, when we again mounted up two pairs of stairs. In our way, Miss Polly told me that her sister had asked Mr. Smith for his room to dine in, but he had refused to lend it; "because," she said, "one day it happened to be a little greased: however, we shall have it to drink tea in, and then, perhaps, you may see him; and I assure you he's quite like one of the quality, and dresses as fine, and goes to balls and dances, and every thing, quite in taste; and besides, Miss, he keeps a foot-boy of his own too." The dinner was ill-served, ill-cooked, and ill-managed. The maid who waited had so often to go down stairs for something that was forgotten, that the Branghtons were perpetually obliged to rise from table themselves, to get plates, knives, and forks, bread or beer. Had they been without pretensions, all this would have seemed of no consequence; but they aimed at appearing to advantage, and even fancied they succeeded. However, the most disagreeable part of our fare was that the whole family continually disputed whose turn it was to rise, and whose to be allowed to sit still. When this meal was over, Madame Duval, ever eager to discourse upon her travels, entered into an argument with Mr. Branghton, and, in broken English, M. Du Bois, concerning the French nation: and Miss Polly, then addressing herself to me, said "Don't you think, Miss, it's very dull sitting up stairs here? we'd better go down to shop, and then we shall see the people go by." "Lord, Poll," said the brother, "you're always wanting to be staring and gaping; and I'm sure you needn't be so fond of showing yourself, for you're ugly enough to frighten a horse." "Ugly, indeed! I wonder which is best, you or me. But, I tell you what, Tom, you've no need to give yourself such airs; for, if you do, I'll tell Miss of-you know what-" "Who cares if you do? you may tell what you will; I don't mind-" "Indeed," cried I, "I do not desire to hear any secrets." "O, but I'm resolved I'll tell you, because Tom's so very spiteful. You must know, Miss, t'other night-" "Poll," cried the brother, "if you tell of that, Miss shall know all about your meeting young Brown,-you know when!-So I'll be quits with you one way or other." Miss Polly coloured, and again proposed our going down stairs till Mr. Smith's room was ready for our reception. "Aye, so we will," said Miss Branghton; "I'll assure you, cousin, we have some very genteel people pass by our shop sometimes. Polly and I always go and sit there when we've cleaned ourselves." "Yes, Miss," cried the brother, "they do nothing else all day long, when father don't scold them. But the best fun is, when they've got all their dirty things on, and all their hair about their ears, sometimes I send young Brown up stairs to them: and then there's such a fuss!-There, they hide themselves, and run away, and squeal and squall, like any thing mad: and so then I puts the two cats into the room, and I gives them a good whipping, and so that sets them a squalling too; so there's such a noise and such an uproar!-Lord, you can't think, Miss, what fun it is!" This occasioned a fresh quarrel with the sisters; at the end of which, it was at length decided that we should go to the shop. In our way down stairs, Miss Branghton said aloud, "I wonder when Mr. Smith's room will be ready." "So do I," answered Polly; "I'm sure we should not do any harm to it now." This hint had not the desired effect; for we were suffered to proceed very quietly. As we entered the shop, I observed a young man in deep mourning leaning against the wall, with his arms folded, and his eyes fixed on the ground, apparently in profound and melancholy meditation; but the moment he perceived us, he started, and, making a passing bow, very abruptly retired. As I found he was permitted to go quite unnoticed, I could not forbear enquiring who he was. "Lord!" answered Miss Branghton, "he's nothing but a poor Scotch poet." "For my part," said Miss Polly, "I believe he's just starved, for I don't find he has anything to live upon." "Live upon!" cried the brother; "why, he's a poet, you know, so he may live upon learning." "Aye, and good enough for him, too," said Miss Branghton; "for he's as proud as he's poor." "Like enough," replied the brother; "but, for all that, you won't find he will live without meat and drink: no, no, catch a Scotchman at that if you can! why, they only come here for what they can get." "I'm sure," said Miss Branghton, "I wonder Papa'll be such a fool as to let him stay in the house, for I dare say he'll never pay for his lodging." "Why, no more he would, if he could get another lodger. You know the bill has been put up this fortnight. Miss, if you should hear of a person that wants a room, I assure you it is a very good one, for all it's up three pair of stairs." I answered, that as I had no acquaintance in London, I had not any chance of assisting them: but both my compassion and my curiosity were excited for this poor young man; and I asked them some further particulars concerning him. They then acquainted me, that they had only known him three months. When he first lodged with them, he agreed to board also; but had lately told them he would eat by himself, though they all believed he had hardly ever tasted a morsel of meat since he left their table. They said, that he had always appeared very low-spirited; but for the last month he had been duller than ever; and, all of a sudden, he had put himself into mourning, though they knew not for whom, nor for what; but they supposed it was only for convenience, as no person had ever been to see or enquire for him since his residence amongst them: and they were sure he was very poor, as he had not paid for his lodgings the last three weeks: and, finally, they concluded he was a poet, or else half-crazy, because they had, at different times, found scraps of poetry in his room. They then produced some unfinished verses, written on small pieces of paper, unconnected, and of a most melancholy cast. Among them was the fragment of an ode, which, at my request, they lent to me to copy; and as you may perhaps like to see it, I will write it now. O LIFE! thou lingering dream of grief, of pain, And every ill that Nature can sustain, Strange, mutable, and wild! Now flattering with Hope most fair, Depressing now with fell Despair, The nurse of Guilt, the slave of Pride, That, like a wayward child, Who, to himself a foe, Sees joy alone in what's denied, In what is granted, woe! O thou poor, feeble, fleeting, pow'r, By Vice seduc'd, by Folly woo'd, By Mis'ry, Shame, Remorse, pursu'd; And as thy toilsome steps proceed, Seeming to Youth the fairest flow'r, Proving to Age the rankest weed, A gilded but a bitter pill, Of varied, great, and complicated ill! These lines are harsh, but they indicate an internal wretchedness, which I own, affects me. Surely this young man must be involved in misfortunes of no common nature but I cannot imagine what can induce him to remain with this unfeeling family, where he is, most unworthily, despised for being poor, and most illiberally detested for being a Scotchman. He may, indeed, have motives, which he cannot surmount, for submitting to such a situation. Whatever they are, I most heartily pity him, and cannot but wish it were in my power to afford him some relief. During this conversation, Mr. Smith's foot-boy came to Miss Branghton, and informed her, that his master said she might have the room now when she liked it, for that he was presently going out. This very genteel message, though it perfectly satisfied the Miss Branghtons, by no means added to my desire of being introduced to this gentleman; and upon their rising, with intention to accept his offer, I begged they would excuse my attending them, and said I would sit with Madame Duval till the tea was ready. I therefore once more went up two pair of stairs with young Branghton, who insisted upon accompanying me; and there we remained till Mr. Smith's foot-boy summoned us to tea, when I followed Madame Duval into the dining-room. The Miss Branghtons were seated at one window, and Mr. Smith was lolling indolently out of the other. They all approached us at our entrance; and Mr. Smith, probably to show he was master of the department, most officiously handed me to a great chair at the upper end of the room, without taking any notice of Madame Duval, till I rose and offered her my own seat. Leaving the rest of the company to entertain themselves, he very abruptly began to address himself to me, in a style of gallantry equally new and disagreeable to me. It is true, no man can possibly pay me greater compliments, or make more fine speeches, than Sir Clement Willoughby: yet his language, though too flowery, is always that of a gentleman; and his address and manners are so very superior to those of the inhabitants of this house, that, to make any comparison between him and Mr. Smith, would be extremely unjust. This latter seems very desirous of appearing a man of gaiety and spirit; but his vivacity is so low-bred, and his whole behaviour so forward and disagreeable, that I should prefer the company of dullness itself, even as that goddess is described by Pope, to that of this sprightly young man. He made many apologies that he had not lent his room for our dinner, which he said, he should certainly have done, had he seen me first: and he assured me, that when I came again, he should be very glad to oblige me. I told him, and with sincerity, that every part of the house was equally indifferent to me. "Why, Ma'am, the truth is, Miss Biddy and Polly take no care of any thing; else, I'm sure, they should be always welcome to my room; for I'm never so happy as in obliging the ladies,-that's my character, Ma'am:-but, really, the last time they had it, every thing was made so greasy and so nasty, that, upon my word, to a man who wishes to have things a little genteel, it was quite cruel. Now, as to you, Ma'am, it's quite another thing, for I should not mind if every thing I had was spoilt, for the sake of having the pleasure to oblige you; and I assure you, Ma'am, it makes me quite happy that I have a room good enough to receive you." This elegant speech was followed by many others so much in the same style, that to write them would be superfluous; and as he did not allow me a moment to speak to any other person, the rest of the evening was consumed in a painful attention to this irksome young man, who seemed to intend appearing before me to the utmost advantage. Adieu, my dear Sir. I fear you will be sick of reading about this family; yet I must write of them, or not of any, since I mix with no other. Happy I shall be when I quit them all, and again return to Berry Hill. LETTER XLIII EVELINA IN CONTINUATION June 10th THIS morning Mr. Smith called, on purpose, he said, to offer me a ticket for the next Hampstead assembly. I thanked him, but desired to be excused accepting it: he would not, however, be denied, nor answered; and, in a manner both vehement and free, pressed and urged his offer, till I was wearied to death: but, when he found me resolute, he seemed thunderstruck with amazement, and thought proper to desire I would tell him my reasons. Obvious as they must surely have been to any other person, they were such as I knew not how to repeat to him; and, when he found I hesitated, he said, "Indeed, Ma'am, you are too modest; I assure you the ticket is quite at your service, and I shall be very happy to dance with you; so pray don't be so coy." "Indeed, Sir," returned I, "you are mistaken; I never supposed you would offer a ticket without wishing it should be accepted; but it would answer no purpose to mention the reasons which make me decline it, since they cannot possibly be removed." This speech seemed very much to mortify him; which I could not be concerned at, as I did not choose to be treated by him with so much freedom. When he was, at last, convinced that his application to me was ineffectual, he addressed himself to Madame Duval, and begged she would interfere in his favour; offering at the same time to procure another ticket for herself. "Ma foi, Sir," answered she, angrily, "you might as well have had the complaisance to ask me before; for, I assure you, I don't approve of no such rudeness: however, you may keep your tickets to yourself, for we don't want none of 'em." This rebuke almost overset him; he made many apologies, and said that he should certainly have first applied to her, but that he had no notion the young lady would have refused him, and, on the contrary, had concluded that she would have assisted him to persuade Madame Duval herself. This excuse appeased her; and he pleaded his cause so successfully, that, to my great chagrin, he gained it, and Madame Duval promised that she would go herself, and take me to the Hampstead assembly whenever he pleased. Mr. Smith then, approaching me with an air of triumph, said, "Well, Ma'am, now I think you can't possibly keep to your denial." I made no answer; and he soon took leave, tho' not till he had so wonderfully gained the favour of Madame Duval, that she declared, when he was gone, he was the prettiest young man she had seen since she came to England. As soon as I could find an opportunity, I ventured, in the most humble manner, to intreat Madame Duval would not insist upon my attending her to this ball; and represented to her, as well as I was able, the impropriety of my accepting any present from a man so entirely unknown to me: but she laughed at my scruples; called me a foolish, ignorant country-girl; and said she should make it her business to teach me something of the world. This ball is to be next week. I am sure it is not more improper for, than unpleasant to me, and I will use every possible endeavour to avoid it. Perhaps I may apply to Miss Branghton for advice, as I believe she will be willing to assist me, from disliking, equally with myself, that I should dance with Mr. Smith. June 11th O, my dear Sir! I have been shocked to death; and yet at the same time delighted beyond expression, in the hope that I have happily been the instrument of saving a human creature from destruction. This morning Madame Duval said she would invite the Branghton family to return our visit to-morrow; and, not choosing to rise herself,-for she generally spends the morning in bed,-she desired me to wait upon them with her message. M. Du Bois, who just then called, insisted upon attending me. Mr. Branghton was in the shop, and told us that his son and daughter were out; but desired me to step up stairs, as he very soon expected them home. This I did, leaving M. Du Bois below. I went into the room where we had dined the day before; and, by a wonderful chance, I happened to seat myself, that I had a view of the stairs, and yet could not be seen from them. In about ten minutes time, I saw, passing by the door, with a look perturbed and affrighted, the same young man I mentioned in my last letter. Not heeding, as I suppose, how he went, in turning the corner of the stairs, which are narrow and winding, his foot slipped and he fell; but almost instantly rising, I plainly perceived the end of a pistol, which started from his pocket by hitting against the stairs. I was inexpressibly shocked. All that I had heard of his misery occurring to my memory, made me conclude that he was, at that very moment, meditating suicide! Struck with the dreadful idea, all my strength seemed to fail me. He moved on slowly, yet I soon lost sight of him; I sat motionless with terror; all power of action forsook me; and I grew almost stiff with horror; till recollecting that it was yet possible to prevent the fatal deed, all my faculties seemed to return, with the hope of saving him. My first thought was to fly to Mr. Branghton; but I feared, that an instant of time lost might for ever be rued; and, therefore, guided by the impulse of my apprehensions, as well as I was able I followed him up stairs, stepping very softly, and obliged to support myself by the banisters. When I came within a few stairs of the landing-place I stopped; for I could then see into his room, as he had not yet shut the door. He had put the pistol upon a table, and had his hand in his pocket, whence, in a few moments, he took out another: he then emptied something on the table from a small leather bag; after which, taking up both the pistols, one in each hand, he dropt hastily upon his knees, and called out, "O, God!-forgive me!" In a moment strength and courage seemed lent to me as by inspiration: I started, and rushing precipitately into the room, just caught his arm, and then, overcome by my own fears, I fell down at his side breathless and senseless. My recovery, however, was, I believe, almost instantaneous; and then the sight of this unhappy man, regarding me with a look of unutterable astonishment, mixed with concern, presently restored to me my recollection. I arose, though with difficulty; he did the same; the pistols, as I soon saw, were both on the floor. Unwilling to leave them, and, indeed, too weak to move, I leant one hand on the table, and then stood perfectly still; while he, his eyes cast wildly towards me, seemed too infinitely amazed to be capable of either speech or action. I believe we were some minutes in this extraordinary situation; but, as my strength returned, I felt myself both ashamed and awkward, and moved towards the door. Pale and motionless, he suffered me to pass, without changing his posture, or uttering a syllable; and, indeed, He look'd a bloodless image of despair.-POPE. When I reached the door, I turned round; I looked fearfully at the pistols, and, impelled by an emotion I could not repress, I hastily stepped back, with an intention of carrying them away: but their wretched owner, perceiving my design, and recovering from his astonishment, darting suddenly down, seized them both himself. Wild with fright, and scarce knowing what I did, I caught, almost involuntarily, hold of both his arms, and exclaimed, "O, Sir! have mercy on yourself!" The guilty pistols fell from his hands, which, disengaging from me, he fervently clasped, and cried, "Sweet Heaven! is this thy angel?" Encouraged by such gentleness, I again attempted to take the pistols; but, with a look half frantic, he again prevented me, saying "What would you do?" "Awaken you," I cried, with a courage I now wonder at, "to worthier thoughts, and rescue you from perdition." I then seized the pistols; he said not a word,-he made no effort to stop me;-I glided quick by him, and tottered down stairs ere he had recovered from the extremest amazement. The moment I reached again the room I had so fearfully left, I threw away the pistols, and flinging myself on the first chair, gave free vent to the feelings I had most painfully stifled, in a violent burst of tears, which, indeed, proved a happy relief to me. In this situation I remained some time; but when, at length, I lifted up my head, the first object I saw was the poor man who had occasioned my terror, standing, as if petrified, at the door, and gazing at me with eyes of wild wonder. I started from the chair; but trembled so excessively, that I almost instantly sunk again into it. He then, though without advancing, and, in a faultering voice, said, "Whoever, or whatever you are, relieve me, I pray you, from the suspense under which my soul labours-and tell me if indeed I do not dream?" To this address, so singular, and so solemn, I had not then the presence of mind to frame any answer; but as I presently perceived that his eyes turned from me to the pistols, and that he seemed to intend regaining them, I exerted all my strength, and saying, "O, for Heaven's sake forbear!" I rose and took them myself. "Do my sense deceive me!" cried he, "do I live-? And do you?" As he spoke he advanced towards me; and I, still guarding the pistols, retreated, saying, "No, no-you must not-must not have them!" "Why-for what purpose, tell me!-do you withhold them?"- "To give you time to think,-to save you from eternal misery; -and, I hope, to reserve you for mercy and forgiveness." "Wonderful!" cried he, with uplifted hands and eyes, "most wonderful!" For some time he seemed wrapped in deep thought, till a sudden noise of tongues below announcing the approach of the Branghtons, made him start from his reverie: he sprung hastily forward, -dropt on one knee,-caught hold of my gown, which he pressed to his lips; and then, quick as lightning, he rose, and flew up stairs to his own room. There was something in the whole of this extraordinary and shocking adventure, really too affecting to be borne; and so entirely had I spent my spirits, and exhausted my courage, that before the Branghtons reached me, I had sunk on the ground without sense or motion. I believe I must have been a very horrid sight to them on their entrance into the room; for to all appearance, I seemed to have suffered a violent death, either by my own rashness, or the cruelty of some murderer, as the pistols had fallen close by my side. How soon I recovered I know not; but, probably I was more indebted to the loudness of their cries than to their assistance; for they all concluded that I was dead, and, for some time, did not make any effort to revive me. Scarcely could I recollect where, or indeed what, I was, ere they poured upon me such a torrent of questions and enquiries, that I was almost stunned by their vociferation. However, as soon, and as well as I was able, I endeavoured to satisfy their curiosity, by recounting what had happened as clearly as was in my power. They all looked aghast at the recital; but, not being well enough to enter into any discussions, I begged to have a chair called, and to return instantly home. Before I left them, I recommended, with great earnestness, a vigilant observance of their unhappy lodger; and that they would take care to keep from him, if possible, all means of self-destruction. M. Du Bois, who seemed extremely concerned at my indisposition, walked by the side of the chair, and saw me safe to my own apartment. The rashness and the misery of this ill-fated young man engross all my thoughts. If indeed, he is bent upon destroying himself, all efforts to save him will be fruitless. How much do I wish it were in my power to discover the nature of the malady which thus maddens him and to offer or to procure alleviation to his sufferings! I am sure, my dearest Sir, you will be much concerned for this poor man; and, were you here, I doubt not but you would find some method of awakening him from the error which blinds him, and of pouring the balm of peace and comfort into his afflicted soul. LETTER XLIV EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Holborn, June 13th. YESTERDAY all the Branghtons dined here. Our conversation was almost wholly concerning the adventure of the day before. Mr. Branghton said, that his first thought was instantly to turn his lodger out of doors, "Lest," continued he, "his killing himself in my house should bring me into any trouble: but then I was afraid I should never get the money that he owes me; whereas, if he dies in my house, I have a right to all he leaves behind him, if he goes off in my debt. Indeed, I would put him in prison,-but what should I get by that? he could not earn anything there to pay me: so I considered about it some time, and then I determined to ask him, point-blank, for my money out of hand. And so I did; but he told me he'd pay me next week: however, I gave him to understand, that though I was no Scotchman, yet, I did not like to be over-reached any more than he: so he then gave me a ring, which, to my certain knowledge, must be worth ten guineas, and told me he would not part with it for his life, and a good deal more such sort of stuff, but that I might keep it until he could pay me." "It is ten to one, father," said young Branghton, "if he came fairly by it." "Very likely not," answered he; "but that will make no great difference, for I shall be able to prove my right to it all one." What principles! I could hardly stay in the room. "I'm determined," said the son, "I'll take some opportunity to affront him soon, now I know how poor he is, because of the airs he gave himself when he first came." "And pray how was that, child?" said Madame Duval. "Why, you never knew such a fuss in your life as he made, because one day at dinner I only happened to say, that I supposed he had never got such a good meal in his life before he came to England: there, he fell in such a passion as you can't think: but for my part, I took no notice of it: for to be sure, thinks I, he must needs be a gentleman, or he'd never go to be so angry about it. However, he won't put his tricks upon me again in a hurry." "Well," said Miss Polly, "he's grown quite another creature to what he was, and he doesn't run away from us, nor hide himself, nor any thing; and he's as civil as can be, and he's always in the shop, and he saunters about the stairs, and he looks at every body as comes in." "Why, you may see what he's after plain enough," said Mr. Branghton; "he wants to see Miss again." "Ha, ha, ha! Lord, how I should laugh," said the son, "if he should have fell in love with Miss!" "I'm sure," said Miss Branghton, "Miss is welcome; but, for my part, I should be quite ashamed of such a beggarly conquest." Such was the conversation till tea-time, when the appearance of Mr. Smith gave a new turn to the discourse. Miss Branghton desired me to remark with what a smart air he entered the room, and asked me if he had not very much a quality look? "Come," cried he, advancing to us, "you ladies must not sit together; wherever I go I always make it a rule to part the ladies." And then, handing Miss Branghton to the next chair, he seated himself between us. "Well, now, ladies, I think we sit very well. What say you? for my part I think it was a very good motion." "If my cousin likes it," said Miss Branghton, "I'm sure I've no objection." "O," cried he, "I always study what the ladies like,-that's my first thought. And, indeed, it is but natural that you should like best to sit by the gentlemen, for what can you find to say to one another?" "Say!" cried young Branghton; "O, never you think of that, they'll find enough to say, I'll be sworn. You know the women are never tired of talking." "Come, come, Tom," said Mr. Smith, "don't be severe upon the ladies; when I'm by, you know I always take their part." Soon after, when Miss Branghton offered me some cake, this man of gallantry said, "Well, if I was that lady, I'd never take any thing from a woman." "Why not, Sir?" "Because I should be afraid of being poisoned for being so handsome." "Who is severe upon the ladies now?" said I. "Why, really, Ma'am, it was a slip of the tongue; I did not intend to say such a thing; but one can't always be on one's guard." Soon after, the conversation turning upon public places, young Branghton asked if I had ever been to George's at Hampstead? "Indeed, I never heard the place mentioned." "Didn't you, Miss," cried he eagerly; "why, then you've a deal of fun to come, I'll promise you; and, I tell you what, I'll treat you there some Sunday, soon. So now, Bid and Poll, be sure you don't tell Miss about the chairs, and all that, for I've a mind to surprise her; and if I pay, I think I've a right to have it my own way." "George's at Hampstead!" repeated Mr. Smith contemptuously; "how came you to think the young lady would like to go to such a low place as that! But, pray, Ma'am, have you ever been to Don Saltero's at Chelsea?" "No, Sir." "No!-nay, then I must insist on having the pleasure of conducting you there before long. I assure you, Ma'am, many genteel people go, or else, I give you my word, I should not recommend it." "Pray, cousin," said Mr. Branghton, "have you been at Sadler's Wells yet?" "No, Sir." "No! why, then you've seen nothing!" "Pray, Miss," said the son, "how do you like the Tower of London?" "I have never been to it, Sir." "Goodness!" exclaimed he, "not seen the Tower!-why, may be, you ha'n't been o' top of the Monument, neither?" "No, indeed, I have not." "Why, then, you might as well not have come to London for aught I see, for you've been no where." "Pray, Miss," said Polly, "have you been all over Paul's Church yet?" "No, Ma'am." "Well, but, Ma'am," said Mr. Smith, "how do you like Vauxhall and Marybone?" "I never saw either, Sir." "No-God bless me!-you really surprise me,-why Vauxhall is the first pleasure in life!-I know nothing like it.-Well, Ma'am, you must have been with strange people, indeed, not to have taken you to Vauxhall. Why you have seen nothing of London yet. However, we must try if we can't make you amends." In the course of this catechism, many other places were mentioned, of which I have forgotten the names; but the looks of surprise and contempt that my repeated negatives incurred were very diverting. "Come," said Mr. Smith, after tea, "as this lady has been with such a queer set of people, let's show her the difference; suppose we go somewhere to-night!-I love to do things with spirit!-Come, ladies, where shall we go? For my part I should like Foote's-but the ladies must choose; I never speak myself." "Well, Mr. Smith is always in such spirits!" said Miss Branghton. "Why, yes, Ma'am, yes, thank God, pretty good spirits;-I have not yet the cares of the world upon me;-I am not married,-ha, ha, ha!-you'll excuse me, ladies,-but I can't help laughing!" No objection being made, to my great relief we all proceeded to the little theatre in the Haymarket, where I was extremely entertained by the performance of the Minor and the Commissary. They all returned hither to supper. LETTER XLV EVELINA IN CONTINUATION June 15th. YESTERDAY morning Madame Duval again sent me to Mr. Branghton's, attended by M. Du Bois, to make some party for the evening, because she had had the vapours the preceding day from staying at home. As I entered the shop, I perceived the unfortunate North Briton seated in a corner, with a book in his hand. He cast his melancholy eyes up as we came in; and, I believe, immediately recollected my face-for he started, and changed colour. I delivered Madame Duval's message to Mr. Branghton, who told me I should find Polly up stairs, but that the others were gone out. Up stairs, therefore, I went; and, seated on a window, with Mr. Brown at her side, sat Miss Polly. I felt a little awkward at disturbing them, and much more so at their behaviour afterwards; for, as soon as the common enquiries were over, Mr. Brown grew so fond and so foolish, that I was extremely disgusted. Polly, all the time, only rebuked him with, "La, now, Mr. Brown, do be quiet, can't you?-you should not behave so before company.-Why, now, what will Miss think of me?"-While her looks plainly showed not merely the pleasure, but the pride which she took in his caresses. I did not by any means think it necessary to punish myself by witnessing their tenderness; and therefore telling them I would see if Miss Branghton were returned home, I soon left them, and against descended into the shop. "So, Miss, you've come again," said Mr. Branghton; "what, I suppose you've a mind to sit a little in the shop, and see how the world goes, hey, Miss?" I made no answer; and M. Du Bois instantly brought me a chair. The unhappy stranger, who had risen at my entrance, again seated himself; and though his head leant towards his book, I could not help observing, his eyes were most intently and earnestly turned towards me. M. Du Bois, as well as his broken English would allow him, endeavoured to entertain us till the return of Miss Branghton and her brother. "Lord, how tired I am!" cried the former; "I have not a foot to stand upon." And, then, without any ceremony, she flung herself into the chair from which I had risen to receive her. "You tired!" said the brother; "why, then, what must I be, that have walked twice as far?" And, with equal politeness, he paid the same compliment to M. Du Bois which his sister had done to me. Two chairs and three stools completed the furniture of the shop; and Mr. Branghton, who chose to keep his own seat himself, desired M. Du Bois to take another; and then seeing that I was without any, called out to the stranger, "Come, Mr. Macartney, lend us your stool." Shocked at their rudeness, I declined the offer; and, approaching Miss Branghton, said, "If you will be so good as to make room for me on your chair, there will be no occasion to disturb that gentleman." "Lord, what signifies that?" cried the brother; "he has had his share of sitting, I'll be sworn." "And, if he has not," said the sister, "he has a chair up stairs; and the shop is our own, I hope." This grossness so much disgusted me, that I took the stool, and carrying it back to Mr. Macartney myself, I returned him thanks as civilly as I could for his politeness, but said that I had rather stand. He looked at me as if unaccustomed to such attention, bowed very respectfully, but neither spoke nor yet made use of it. I soon found that I was an object of derision to all present, except M. Du Bois; and therefore, I begged Mr. Branghton would give me an answer for Madame Duval, as I was in haste to return. "Well, then, Tom,-Biddy, where have you a mind to go tonight? your aunt and Miss want to be abroad and amongst them." "Why, then, Papa," said Miss Branghton, "we'll go to Don Saltero's. Mr. Smith likes that place, so may be he'll go along with us." "No, no," said the son, "I'm for White-Conduit House; so let's go there." "White-Conduit House, indeed!" cried his sister; "no, Tom, that I won't." "Why, then, let it alone; nobody wants your company;-we shall do as well without you, I'll be sworn, and better too." "I'll tell you what, Tom, if you don't hold your tongue, I'll make you repent it,-that I assure you." Just then Mr. Smith came into the shop, which he seemed to intend passing through; but when he saw me, he stopped, and began a most courteous enquiry after my health, protesting, that, had he known I was there, he should have come down sooner. "But, bless me, Ma'am," added he, "what is the reason you stand?" and then he flew to bring me the seat from which I had just parted. "Mr. Smith, you are come in very good time," said Mr. Branghton, "to end a dispute between my son and daughter, about where they shall all go to-night." "O, fie, Tom,-dispute with a lady!" cried Mr. Smith. "Now, as for me, I'm for where you will, provided this young lady is of the party;-one place is the same as another to me, so that it be but agreeable to the ladies.-I would go any where with you, Ma'am," (to me) "unless, indeed, it were to church; -ha, ha, ha!-You'll excuse me, Ma'am; but, really, I never could conquer my fear of a parson;-ha, ha, ha!-Really, ladies, I beg your pardon for being so rude; but I can't help laughing for my life!" "I was just saying, Mr. Smith," said Miss Branghton, "that I should like to go to Don Saltero's;-now, pray, where should you like to go?" "Why, really, Miss Biddy, you know I always let the ladies decide; I never fix any thing myself; but I should suppose it would be rather hot at the coffee-house:-however, pray, ladies, settle it among yourselves;-I'm agreeable to whatever you choose." It was easy for me to discover, that this man, with all his parade of conformity, objects to every thing that is not proposed by himself: but he is so much admired by this family for his gentility, that he thinks himself a complete fine gentleman! "Come," said Mr. Branghton, "the best way will be to put it to the vote, and then every body will speak their minds. Biddy, call Poll down stairs. We'll start fair." "Lord, Papa," said Miss Branghton, "why can't you as well send Tom?-you're always sending me of the errands." A dispute then ensued, but Miss Branghton was obliged to yield. When Mr. Brown and Miss Polly made their appearance, the latter uttered many complaints of having been called, saying, she did not want to come, and was very well where she was. "Now, ladies, your votes," cried Mr. Smith; "and so, Ma'am (to me), we'll begin with you. What place shall you like best?" and then, in a whisper, he added, "I assure you, I shall say the same as you do, whether I like it or not." I said, that as I was ignorant what choice was in my power, I must beg to hear their decisions first. This was reluctantly assented to; and then Miss Branghton voted for Saltero's Coffee-house; her sister, for a party to Mother Red Cap's; the brother for White-Conduit House; Mr. Brown, for Bagnigge Wells; Mr. Braughton, for Sadler's Wells; and Mr. Smith, for Vauxhall. "Well now, Ma'am," said Mr. Smith, "we have all spoken, and so you must give the casting vote. Come, what will you fix upon?" "Sir," answered I, "I was to speak last." "Well, so you will," said Miss Branghton, "for we've all spoke first." "Pardon me," returned I, "the voting has not yet been quite general." And I turned towards Mr. Macartney, to whom I wished extremely to show that I was not of the same brutal nature with those by whom he was treated so grossly. "Why, pray," said Mr. Branghton, "who have we left out? would you have the cats and dogs vote?" "No, Sir," cried I, with some spirit, "I would have that gentleman vote,-if, indeed, he is not superior to joining our party." They all looked at me, as if they doubted whether or not they had heard me right: but, in a few moments, their surprise gave way to a rude burst of laughter. Very much displeased, I told M. Du Bois that if he was not ready to go, I would have a coach called for myself. O yes, he said, he was always ready to attend me. Mr. Smith then, advancing, attempted to take my hand, and begged me not to leave them till I had settled the evening's plans. "I have nothing, Sir," said I, "to do with it, as it is my intention to stay at home; and therefore Mr. Branghton will be so good as to send Madame Duval word what place is fixed upon, when it is convenient to him." And then, making a slight courtesy, I left them. How much does my disgust for these people increase my pity for poor Mr. Macartney! I will not see them when I can avoid so doing; but I am determined to take every opportunity in my power to show civility to this unhappy man, whose misfortunes with this family, only render him an object of scorn. I was, however, very well pleased with M. Du Bois, who, far from joining in their mirth, expressed himself extremely shocked at their ill-breeding. We had not walked ten yards before we were followed by Mr. Smith, who came to make excuses, and to assure me they were only joking, and hoped I took nothing ill; for if I did, he would make a quarrel of it himself with the Branghtons, rather than I should receive any offense. I begged him not to take any trouble about so immaterial an affair, and assured him I should not myself. He was so officious, that he would not be prevailed upon to return home, till he had walked with us to Mr. Dawkins's. Madame Duval was very much displeased that I brought her so little satisfaction. White-Conduit House was at last fixed upon; and, notwithstanding my great dislike of such parties and such places, I was obliged to accompany them. Very disagreeable, and much according to my expectations, the evening proved. There were many people all smart and gaudy, and so pert and low-bred, that I could hardly endure being amongst them; but the party to which, unfortunately, I belonged, seemed all at home. LETTER XLVI EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Holborn, June 17th. YESTERDAY Mr. Smith carried his point of making a party for Vauxhall, consisting of Madame Duval, M. Du Bois, all the Branghtons, Mr. Brown, himself,-and me!-for I find all endeavours vain to escape any thing which these people desire I should not. There were twenty disputes previous to our setting out; first, as to the time of our going: Mr. Branghton, his son, and young Brown, were for six o'clock; and all the ladies and Mr. Smith were for eight;-the latter, however, conquered. Then, as to the way we should go; some were for a boat, others for a coach, and Mr. Branghton himself was for walking; but the boat at length was decided upon. Indeed this was the only part of the expedition that was agreeable to me; for the Thames was delightfully pleasant. The garden is very pretty, but too formal; I should have been better pleased, had it consisted less of straight walks, where Grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother. The trees, the numerous lights, and the company in the circle round the orchestra make a most brilliant and gay appearance; and had I been with a party less disagreeable to me, I should have thought it a place formed for animation and pleasure. There was a concert; in the course of which a hautbois concerto was so charmingly played, that I could have thought myself upon enchanted ground, had I had spirits more gentle to associate with. The hautbois in the open air is heavenly. Mr. Smith endeavoured to attach himself to me, with such officious assiduity and impertinent freedom, that he quite sickened me. Indeed M. Du Bois was the only man of the party to whom, voluntarily, I ever addressed myself. He is civil and respectful, and I have found nobody else so since I left Howard Grove. His English is very bad; but I prefer it to speaking French myself, which I dare not venture to do. I converse with him frequently, both to disengage myself from others, and to oblige Madame Duval, who is always pleased when he is attended to. As we were walking about the orchestra, I heard a bell ring; and, in a moment, Mr. Smith, flying up to me, caught my hand, and, with a motion too quick to be resisted, ran away with me many yards before I had breath to ask his meaning, though I struggled as well as I could, to get from him. At last, however, I insisted upon stopping: "Stopping, Ma'am!" cried he, "why we must run on or we shall lose the cascade!" And then again he hurried me away, mixing with a crowd of people, all running with so much velocity, that I could not imagine what had raised such an alarm. We were soon followed by the rest of the party; and my surprise and ignorance proved a source of diversion to them all, which was not exhausted the whole evening. Young Branghton, in particular, laughed till he could hardly stand. The scene of the cascade I thought extremely pretty, and the general effect striking and lively. But this was not the only surprise which was to divert them at my expense; for they led me about the garden purposely to enjoy my first sight of various other deceptions. About ten o'clock, Mr. Smith having chosen a box in a very conpicuous place, we all went to supper. Much fault was found with every thing that was ordered, though not a morsel of any thing was left; and the dearness of the provisions, with conjectures upon what profit was made by them, supplied discourse during the whole meal. When wine and cyder were brought, Mr. Smith said, "Now let's enjoy ourselves; now is the time, or never. Well, Ma'am, and how do you like Vauxhall?" "Like it!" cried young Branghton; "why, how can she help liking it? she has never seen such a place before, that I'll answer for." "For my part," said Miss Branghton, "I like it because it is not vulgar." "This must have been a fine treat for you, Miss," said Mr. Branghton; "why, I suppose you was never so happy in all your life before?" I endeavoured to express my satisfaction with some pleasure; yet, I believe, they were much amazed at my coldness. "Miss ought to stay in town till the last night," said young Branghton; "and then, it's my belief, she'd say something to it! Why, Lord, it's the best night of any; there's always a riot,-and there the folks run about,-and then there's such squealing and squalling!-and, there, all the lamps are broke,-and the women run skimper scamper.-I declare I would not take five guineas to miss the last night!" I was very glad when they all grew tired of sitting, and called for the waiter to pay the bill. The Miss Branghtons said they would walk on while the gentlemen settled the account, and asked me to accompany them; which, however, I declined. "You girls may do as you please," said Madame Duval; "but as to me, I promise you, I sha'n't go nowhere without the gentlemen." "No more, I suppose, will my cousin," said Miss Branghton, looking reproachfully towards Mr. Smith. This reflection, which I feared would flatter his vanity, made me most unfortunately request Madame Duval's permission to attend them. She granted it; and away we went, having promised to meet in the room. To the room, therefore, I would immediately have gone: but the sisters agreed that they would first have a little pleasure; and they tittered and talked so loud, that they attracted universal notice. "Lord, Polly," said the eldest, "suppose we were to take a turn in the dark walks!" "Aye, do," answered she; "and then we'll hide ourselves, and then Mr. Brown will think we are lost." I remonstrated very warmly against this plan, telling them it would endanger our missing the rest of the party all the evening. "O dear," cried Miss Branghton, "I thought how uneasy Miss would be without a beau!" This impertinence I did not think worth answering; and, quite by compulsion, I followed them down a long alley, in which there was hardly any light. By the time we came near the end, a large party of gentlemen, apparently very riotous, and who were hallooing, leaning on one another, and laughing immoderately, seemed to rush suddenly from behind some trees, and meeting us face to face, put their arms at their sides, and formed a kind of circle, which first stopped our proceeding, and then our retreating, for we were presently entirely enclosed. The Miss Branghtons screamed aloud, and I was frightened exceedingly; our screams were answered with bursts of laughter, and for some minutes we were kept prisoners, till at last one of them, rudely seizing hold of me, said I was a pretty little creature. Terrified to death, I struggled with such vehemence to disengage myself from him, that I succeeded, in spite of his efforts to detain me; and immediately, and with a swiftness which fear only could have given me, I flew rather than ran up the walk, hoping to secure my safety by returning to the lights and company we had so foolishly left: but before I could possibly accomplish my purpose, I was met by another party of men, one of whom placed himself so directly in my way, calling out, "Whither so fast, my love?"-that I could only have proceeded by running into his arms. In a moment both my hands, by different persons, were caught hold of, and one of them, in a most familiar manner, desired, when I ran next, to accompany me in a race; while the rest of the party stood still and laughed. I was almost distracted with terror, and so breathless with running, that I could not speak; till another, advancing, said, I was as handsome as an angel, and desired to be of the party. I then just articulated, "For Heaven's sake, gentlemen, let me pass!" Another then rushing suddenly forward, exclaimed, "Heaven and earth! What voice is that?-" "The voice of the prettiest little actress I have seen this age," answered one of my persecutors. "No,-no,-no-" I panted out, "I am no actress-pray let me go,-pray let me pass-" "By all that's sacred," cried the same voice, which I then knew for Sir Clement Willoughby's, "'tis herself!" "Sir Clement Willoughby!" cried I. "O, Sir, assist-assist me-or I shall die with terror!" "Gentlemen," cried he, disengaging them all from me in an instant, "pray leave this lady to me." Loud laughs proceeded from every mouth, and two or three said Willoughby has all the luck! But one of them, in a passionate manner, vowed he would not give me up, for that he had the first right to me, and would support it. "You are mistaken," said Sir Clement, "this lady is-I will explain myself to you another time; but, I assure you, you are all mistaken." And then taking my willing hand, he led me off, amidst the loud acclamations, laughter, and gross merriment of his impertinent companions. As soon as we had escaped from them, Sir Clement, with a voice of surprise, exclaimed, "My dearest creature, what wonder, what strange revolution, has brought you to such a place as this?" Ashamed of my situation, and extremely mortified to be thus recognized by him, I was for some time silent; and when he repeated his question, only stammered out, "I have,-I hardly know how,-lost from my party-" He caught my hand, and eagerly pressing it, in a passionate voice said, "O that I had sooner met with thee!" Surprised at a freedom so unexpected, I angrily broke from him, saying, "Is this the protection you give me, Sir Clement?" And then I saw, what the perturbation of my mind had prevented my sooner noticing, that he had led me, though I know not how, into another of the dark alleys, instead of the place whither I meant to go. "Good God!" I cried, "where am I?-What way are you going?" "Where," answered he, "we shall be least observed!" Astonished at this speech, I stopped short, and declared I would go no further. "And why not, my angel?" again endeavouring to take my hand. My heart beat with resentment; I pushed him away from me with all my strength, and demanded how he dared treat me with such insolence? "Insolence!" repeated he. "Yes, Sir Clement, insolence; from you, who know me, I had a claim for protection,-not to such treatment as this." "By Heaven," cried he, with warmth, "you distract me;-why, tell me,-why do I see you here?-Is this a place for Miss Anville?-these dark walks!-no party! no companion!-by all that's good I can scarce believe my senses!" Extremely offended at this speech, I turned angrily from him: and, not deigning to make any answer, walked on towards that part of the garden whence I perceived the lights and company. He followed me; but we were both some time silent. "So you will not explain to me your situation?" said he, at length. "No, Sir," answered I, disdainfully. "Nor yet-suffer me to make my own interpretation?-" I could not bear this strange manner of speaking; it made my very soul shudder,-and I burst into tears. He flew to me, and actually flung himself at my feet, as if regardless who might see him, saying, "O, Miss Anville,-loveliest of women,-forgive my,-my,-I beseech you forgive me;-if I have offended-if I have hurt you-I could kill myself at the thought!-" "No matter, Sir, no matter," cried I; "if I can but find my friends,-I will never speak to-never see you again!" "Good God!-good Heaven! My dearest life, what is it I have done?-what is it I have said?-" "You best know, Sir, what and why: but don't hold me here,-let me be gone; and do you!" "Not till you forgive me!-I cannot part with you in anger." "For shame, for shame, Sir!" cried I, indignantly, "do you suppose I am to be thus compelled?-do you take advantage of the absence of my friends to affront me?" "No, Madam," cried he, rising: "I would sooner forfeit my life than act so mean a part. But you have flung me into amazement unspeakable, and you will not condescend to listen to my request of giving me some explanation." "The manner, Sir," said I, "in which you spoke that request, made, and will make, me scorn to answer it." "Scorn!-I will own to you, I expected not such displeasure from Miss Anville." "Perhaps, Sir, if you had, you would less voluntarily have merited it." "My dearest life, surely it must be known to you, that the man does not breathe who adores you so passionately, so fervently, so tenderly as I do!-Why, then, will you delight in perplexing me?-in keeping me in suspense?-in torturing me with doubt?" "I, Sir, delight in perplexing you!-you are much mistaken.-Your suspense, your doubts, your perplexities,-are of your own creating; and believe me, Sir, they may offend, but they can never delight me:-but as you have yourself raised, you must yourself satisfy them." "Good God!-that such haughtiness and such sweetness can inhabit the same mansion!" I made no answer; but quickening my pace I walked on silently and sullenly, till this most impetuous of men, snatching my hand, which he grasped with violence, besought me to forgive him with such earnestness of supplication, that, merely to escape his importunities, I was forced to speak, and in some measure to grant the pardon he requested; though it was accorded with a very ill grace: but, indeed, I knew not how to resist the humility of his intreaties: yet never shall I recollect the occasion he gave me of displeasure, without feeling it renewed. We now soon arrived in the midst of the general crowd; and, my own safety being then insured, I grew extremely uneasy for the Miss Branghtons, whose danger, however imprudently incurred by their own folly, I too well knew how to tremble for. To this consideration all my pride of heart yielded, and I determined to seek my party with the utmost speed; though not without a sigh did I recollect the fruitless attempt I had made after the opera, of concealing from this man my unfortunate connections, which I was now obliged to make known. I hastened, therefore, to the room, with a view of sending young Branghton to the aid of his sisters. In a very short time I perceived Madame Duval, and the rest, looking at one of the paintings. I must own to you honestly, my dear Sir, that an involuntary repugnance seized me at presenting such a set to Sir Clement,-he who had been used to see me in parties so different!-My pace slackened as I approached them,-but they presently perceived me. "Ah, Mademoiselle!" cried M. Du Bois, "Que je suis charm-e; de vous voir!" "Pray, Miss," cried Mr. Brown, "where's Miss Polly?" "Why, Miss, you've been a long while gone," said Mr. Branghton; "we thought you'd been lost. But what have you done with your cousins?" I hesitated,-for Sir Clement regarded me with a look of wonder. "Pardi," cried Madame Duval, "I shan't let you leave me again in a hurry. Why, here we've been in such a fright!-and all the while, I suppose, you've been thinking nothing about the matter." "Well," said young Branghton," as long as Miss is come back, I don't mind; for as to Bid and Poll, they can take care of themselves. But the best joke is, Mr. Smith is gone all about a looking for you." These speeches were made almost in a breath: but when, at last, they waited for an answer, I told them, that, in walking up one of the long alleys, we had been frightened and separated. "The long alleys!" repeated Mr. Branghton, "and pray, what had you to do in the long alleys? why, to be sure, you must all of you have had a mind to be affronted!" This speech was not more impertinent to me, than surprising to Sir Clement, who regarded all the party with evident astonishment. However, I told young Branghton, no time ought to be lost, for that his sisters might require his immediate protection. "But how will they get it?" cried this brutal brother: "if they've a mind to behave in such a manner as that, they ought to protect themselves; and so they may for me." "Well," said the simple Mr. Brown, "whether you go or not, I think I may as well see after Miss Polly." The father then interfering, insisted that his son should accompany him; and away they went. It was now that Madame Duval first perceived Sir Clement; to whom, turning with a look of great displeasure, she angrily said, "Ma foi, so you are comed here, of all the people in the world!-I wonder, child, you would let such a-such a person as that keep company with you." "I am very sorry, Madam," said Sir Clement, in a tone of surprise, "if I had been so unfortunate as to offend you; but I believe you will not regret the honour I now have of attending Miss Anville, when you hear that I have been so happy as to do her some service." Just as Madame Duval, with her usual Ma foi, was beginning to reply, the attention of Sir Clement was wholly drawn from her, by the appearance of Mr. Smith, who, coming suddenly behind me, and freely putting his hands of my shoulders, cried, "O ho, my little runaway, have I found you at last? I have been scampering all over the gardens for you, for I was determined to find you, if you were above ground.-But how could you be so cruel as to leave us?" I turned round to him, and looked with a degree of contempt that I hoped would have quieted him: but he had not the sense to understand me; and, attempting to take my hand, he added, "Such a demure-looking lady as you are, who'd have thought of your leading one such a dance?-Come, now, don't be so coy; only think what a trouble I have had in running after you!" "The trouble, Sir," said I, "was of your own choice,-not mine." And I walked round to the other side of Madame Duval. Perhaps I was too proud;-but I could not endure that Sir Clement, whose eyes followed him with looks of the most surprised curiosity, should witness his unwelcome familiarity. Upon my removal he came up to me, and, in a low voice, said, "You are not, then, with the Mirvans?" "No, Sir." "And pray,-may I ask you,-have you left them long?" "No, Sir." "How unfortunate I am!-but yesterday I sent to acquaint the Captain I should reach the Grove by to-morrow noon! However, I shall get away as fast as possible. Shall you be long in town?" "I believe not, Sir." "And then, when you leave it-which way-will you allow me to ask, which way you shall travel?" "Indeed,-I don't know." "Not know!-But do you return to the Mirvans any more?" "I-I can't tell, Sir." And then I addressed myself to Madame Duval, with such a pretended earnestness, that he was obliged to be silent. As he cannot but observe the great change in my situation, which he knows not how to account for, there is something in all these questions, and this unrestrained curiosity, that I did not expect from a man who, when he pleases, can be so well-bred as Sir Clement Willoughby. He seems disposed to think that the alteration in my companions authorises an alteration in his manners. It is true, he has always treated me with uncommon freedom, but never before with so disrespectful an abruptness. This observation, which he has given me cause to make, of his changing with the tide, has sunk him more in my opinion than any other part of his conduct. Yet I could almost have laughed when I looked at Mr. Smith, who no sooner saw me addressed by Sir Clement, than, retreating aloof from the company, he seemed to lose at once all his happy self-sufficiency and conceit; looking now at the baronet, now at himself; surveying, with sorrowful eyes, his dress; struck with his air, his gestures, his easy gaiety, he gazed at him with envious admiration, and seemed himself, with conscious inferiority, to shrink into nothing. Soon after, Mr. Brown, running up to us, called out, "La, what, i'n't Miss Polly come yet?" "Come," said Mr. Branghton; "why, I thought you went to fetch her yourself, didn't you?" "Yes, but I couldn't find her;-yet I daresay I've been over half the garden." "Half? but why did not you go over it all?" "Why, so I will: but only I thought I'd just come and see if she was here first." "But where's Tom?" "Why, I don't know; for he would not stay with me, all as ever I could say: for we met some young gentlemen of his acquaintance, and so he bid me go and look by myself; for he said, says he, I can divert myself better another way, says he." This account being given, away again went this silly young man; and Mr. Branghton, extremely incensed, said he would go and see after them himself. "So, now", cried Madame Duval, "he's gone too! why, at this rate, we shall have to wait for one or other of them all night!" Observing that Sir Clement seemed disposed to renew his enquiries, I turned towards one of the paintings, and, pretending to be very much occupied in looking at it, asked M. Du Bois some questions concerning the figures. "O! Mon Dieu!" cried Madame Duval, "don't ask him; your best way is to ask Mr. Smith, for he's been here the oftenest. Come, Mr. Smith, I dare say you can tell us all about them." "Why, yes, Ma'am, yes," said Mr. Smith: who, brightening up at this application, advanced towards us with an air of assumed importance, which, however, sat very uneasily upon him, and begged to know what he should explain first: "For I have attended," said he, "to all these paintings, and know every thing in them perfectly well; for I am rather fond of pictures, Ma'am; and, really, I must say, I think, a pretty pictures is a-a very-is really a very-is something very pretty-" "So do I too," said Madame Duval; "but pray now, Sir, tell us who that is meant for," pointing to a figure of Neptune. "That!-why, that, Ma'am, is,-Lord bless me, I can't think how I come to be so stupid, but really I have forgot his name;-and yet, I know it as well as my own too:-however, he's a General, Ma'am, they are all Generals." I saw Sir Clement bite his lips; and, indeed, so did I mine. "Well," said Madame Duval, "it's the oddest dress for a general ever I see!" "He seems so capital a figure," said Sir Clement, to Mr. Smith, "that I imagine he must be Generalissimo of the whole army." "Yes, Sir, yes," answered Mr. Smith, respectfully bowing, and highly delighted at being thus referred to, "you are perfectly right;-but I cannot for my life think of his name;-perhaps, Sir, you may remember it?" "No, really," replied Sir Clement, "my acquaintance among the generals is not so extensive." The ironical tone of voice in which Sir Clement spoke entirely disconcerted Mr. Smith; who again retiring to an humble distance, seemed sensibly mortified at the failure of his attempt to recover his consequence. Soon after, Mr. Branghton returned with his youngest daughter, who he had rescued from a party of insolent young men; but he had not yet been able to find the eldest. Miss Polly was really frightened, and declared she would never go into the dark walks again. Her father, leaving her with us, went in quest of her sister. While she was relating her adventures, to which nobody listened more attentively than Sir Clement, we saw Mr. Brown enter the room. "O, la!" cried Miss Polly, "let me hide myself, and don't tell him I'm come." She then placed herself behind Madame Duval, in such a manner that she could not be seen. "So Miss Polly is not come yet!" said the simple swain: "well, I can't think where she can be! I've been looking, and looking, and looking all about, and can't find her all I can do." "Well, but, Mr. Brown," said Mr. Smith, "sha'n't you go and look for the lady again?" "Yes, Sir," said he, sitting down; "but I must rest me a little bit first. You can't think how tired I am." "O fie, Mr. Brown, fie," cried Mr. Smith, winking at us, "tired of looking for a lady! Go, go, for shame!" "So I will, Sir, presently; but you'd be tired too, if you had walked so far: besides, I think she's gone out of the garden, or else I must have seen something or other of her." A he, he he! of the tittering Polly, now betrayed her, and so ended this ingenious little artifice. At last appeared Mr. Branghton and Miss Biddy, who, with a face of mixed anger and confusion, addressing herself to me, said, "So, Miss, so you ran away from me! Well, see if I don't do as much by you some day or other! But I thought how it would be; you'd no mind to leave the gentlemen, though you run away from me." I was so much surprised at this attack, that I could not answer her for very amazement; and she proceeded to tell us how ill she had been used, and that two young men had been making her walk up and down the dark walks by absolute force, and as fast as ever they could tear her along; and many other particulars, which I will not tire you with relating. In conclusion, looking at Mr. Smith, she said, "But to be sure, thought I, at least all the company will be looking for me; so I little expected to find you all here, talking as comfortably as ever you can. However, I know I may thank my cousin for it!" "If you mean me, Madam," said I, very much shocked, "I am quite ignorant in what manner I can have been accessary to your distress." "Why, by running away so. If you'd stayed with us, I'll answer for it Mr. Smith and M. Du Bois would have come to look for us; but I suppose they could not leave your ladyship." The folly and unreasonableness of this speech would admit of no answer. But what a scene was this for Sir Clement! his surprise was evident; and I must acknowledge my confusion was equally great. We had now to wait for young Branghton, who did not appear for some time; and during this interval it was with difficulty that I avoided Sir Clement, who was on the rack of curiosity, and dying to speak to me. When, at last, the hopeful youth returned, a long and frightful quarrel ensued between him and his father, in which his sisters occasionally joined, concerning his neglect; and he defended himself only by a brutal mirth, which he indulged at their expense. Every one now seemed inclined to depart,-when, as usual, a dispute arose upon the way of our going, whether in a coach or a boat. After much debating, it was determined that we should make two parties, one by the water and the other by land; for Madame Duval declared she would not, upon any account, go into a boat at night. Sir Clement then said, that if she had no carriage in waiting, he should be happy to see her and me safe home, as his was in readiness. Fury started into her eyes, and passion inflamed every feature, as she answered, "Pardi, no-you may take care of yourself, if you please; but as to me, I promise you I sha'n't trust myself with no such person." He pretended not to comprehend her meaning; yet, to waive a discussion, acquiesced in her refusal. The coach-party fixed upon, consisted of Madame Duval, M. Du Bois, Miss Branghton, and myself. I now began to rejoice, in private, that at least our lodgings would be neither seen nor known by Sir Clement. We soon met with a hackney-coach, into which he handed me, and then took leave. Madame Duval having already given the coachman her direction, he mounted the box, and we were just driving off, when Sir Clement exclaimed, "By Heaven, this is the very coach I had in waiting for myself!" "This coach, your honour!" said the man; "no, that it i'n't." Sir Clement, however, swore that it was; and presently, the man, begging his pardon, said he had really forgotten that he was engaged. I have no doubt but that this scheme occurred to him at the moment, and that he made some sign to the coachman, which induced him to support it; for there is not the least probability that the accident really happened, as it is most likely his own chariot was in waiting. The man then opened the coach-door, and Sir Clement, advancing to it, said "I don't believe there is another carriage to be had, or I would not incommode you; but, as it may be disagreeable to you to wait here any longer, I beg you will not get out, for you shall be set down before I am carried home, if you will be so good as to make a little room." And so saying, in he jumped, and seated himself between M. Du Bois and me, while our astonishment at the whole transaction was too great for speech. He then ordered the coachman to drive on, according to the directions he had already received. For the first ten minutes no one uttered a word; and then, Madame Duval, no longer able to contain herself, exclaimed, "Ma foi, if this isn't one of the most impudentest things ever I see!" Sir Clement, regardless of this rebuke, attended only to me; however I answered nothing he said, when I could possibly avoid so doing. Miss Branghton made several attempts to attract his notice, but in vain, for he would not take the trouble of paying her any regard. Madame Duval, during the rest of the ride, addressed herself to M. Du Bois in French, and in that language exclaimed, with great vehemence, against boldness and assurance. I was extremely glad when I thought our journey must be nearly at an end, for my situation was very uneasy to me, as Sir Clement perpetually endeavoured to take my hand. I looked out of the coach-window, to see if we were near home: Sir Clement, stooping over me, did the same; and then, in a voice of infinite wonder, called out, "Where the d-l is the man driving to?-Why we are in Broad Street, St. Giles's!" "O, he's very right," cried Madame Duval, "so never trouble your head about that; for I sha'n't go by no directions of your's, I promise you." When, at last, we stopped at an hosier's in High Holborn,-Sir Clement said nothing, but his eyes, I saw, were very busily employed in viewing the place, and the situation of the house. The coach, he said, belong to him, and therefore he insisted upon paying for it; and then he took leave. M. Du Bois walked home with Miss Branghton, and Madame Duval and I retired to our apartments. How disagreeable an evening's adventure! not one of the party seemed satisfied, except Sir Clement, who was in high spirits: but Madame Duval was enraged at meeting with him; Mr. Branghton, angry with his children; the frolic of the Miss Branghtons had exceeded their plan, and ended in their own distress; their brother was provoked that there had been no riot; Mr. Brown was tired, and Mr. Smith mortified. As to myself, I must acknowledge, nothing could be more disagreeable to me, than being seen by Sir Clement Willoughby with a party at once so vulgar in themselves, and so familiar to me. And you, too, my dear Sir, will, I know, be sorry that I have met him; however, there is no apprehension of his visiting here, as Madame Duval is far too angry to admit him. LETTER XLVII. EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS. Holborn, June 18th. MADAME DUVAL rose very late this morning, and, at one o'clock, we had but just breakfasted, when Miss Branghton, her brother, Mr. Smith, and Monsieur Du Bois, called to enquire after our healths. The civility in young Branghton, I much suspect, was merely the result of his father's commands; but his sister and Mr. Smith, I soon found, had motives of their own. Scarce had they spoken to Madame Duval, when, advancing eagerly to me, "Pray, Ma'am," said Mr. Smith, "who was that gentleman?" "Pray, cousin," cried Miss Branghton, "was not he the same gentleman you ran away with that night at the opera?" "Goodness! that he was," said young Branghton, "and, I declare, as soon as ever I saw him, I thought I knew his face." "I'm sure, I'll defy you to forget him," answered his sister, "if once you had seen him: he is the finest gentleman I ever saw in my life, don't you think so, Mr. Smith?" "Why, you won't give the lady time to speak," said Mr. Smith.-"Pray, Ma'am, what is the gentleman's name?" "Willoughby, Sir." "Willoughby! I think I have heard the name. Pray, Ma'am, is he married?" "Lord, no, that he is not," cried Miss Branghton; "he looks too smart by a great deal for a married man. Pray, cousin, how did you get acquainted with him?" "Pray, Miss," said young Branghton, in the same breath, "what's his business?" "Indeed I don't know," answered I. "Something very genteel, I dare say," added Miss Branghton, "because he dresses so fine." "It ought to be something that brings in a good income" said Mr. Smith; "for I'm sure that he did not get that suit of clothes he had on under thirty or forty pounds; for I know the price of clothes pretty well.-Pray, Ma'am, can you tell me what he has a-year?" "Don't talk no more about him," cried Madame Duval, "for I don't like to hear his name: I believe he's one of the worst persons in the world; for though I never did him no manner of harm, nor so much as hurt a hair of his head, I know he was an accomplice with the fellow, Captain Mirvan, to take away my life." Everybody, but myself, now crowding around her for an explanation, a violent rapping at the street-door was unheard; and, without any previous notice, in the midst of her narration, Sir Clement Willoughby entered the room. They all started; and, with looks of guilty confusion, as if they feared his resentment for having listened to Madame Duval, they scrambled for chairs, and in a moment were all formally seated. Sir Clement, after a general bow, singling out Madame Duval, said with his usual easiness, "I have done myself the honour of waiting on you, Madame, to enquire if you have any commands to Howard Grove, whither I am going to-morrow morning." Then, seeing the storm that gathered in her eyes, before he allowed her time to answer, he addressed himself to me;-"And if you, Madam, have any with which you will honour me, I shall be happy to execute them." "None at all, Sir." "None! -not to Miss Mirvan!-no message! no letter!" "I wrote to Miss Mirvan yesterday by the post." "My application should have been earlier, had I sooner known your address." "Ma foi," cried Madame Duval, recovering from her surprise, "I believe never nobody saw the like of this!" "Of what, Madam?" cried the undaunted Sir Clement, turning quick towards her; "I hope no one has offended you!" "You don't hope no such a thing!" cried she, half choked with passion, and rising from her chair. This motion was followed by the rest; and in a moment, every body stood up. Still Sir Clement was not abashed; affecting to make a bow of acknowledgment to the company in general, he said, "Pray-I beg-Ladies,-Gentlemen,-pray don't let me disturb you, pray keep your seats." "Pray, Sir," said Miss Branghton, moving a chair towards him, "won't you sit down yourself?" "You are extremely good, Ma'am:-rather than make any disturbance-" And so saying, this strange man seated himself, as did, in an instant every body else, even Madame Duval herself, who, overpowered by his boldness, seemed too full for utterance. He then, and with as much composure as if he had been an expected guest, began to discourse on the weather,-its uncertainty,-the heat of the public places in summer,-the emptiness of the town,-and other such common topics. Nobody, however, answered him; Mr. Smith seemed afraid, young Branghton ashamed, M. Du Bois amazed, Madame Duval enraged, and myself determined not to interfere. All that he could obtain, was the notice of Miss Branghton, whose nods, smiles, and attention, had some appearance of entering into conversation with him. At length, growing tired, I suppose, of engaging every body's eyes, and nobody's tongue, addressing himself to Madame Duval and to me, the said, "I regard myself as peculiarly unfortunate, Ladies, in having fixed upon a time for my visit to Howard Grove, when you are absent from it." "So I suppose, Sir, so I suppose," cried Madame Duval, hastily rising, and the next moment as hastily seating herself;-"you'll be wanting of somebody to make your game of, and so you may think to get me there again;-but, I promise you, Sir, you won't find it so easy a matter to make me a fool; and besides that," raising her voice, "I've found you out, I assure you; so if ever you go to play your tricks upon me again, I'll make no more ado, but go directly to a justice of peace; so, Sir, if you can't think of nothing but making people ride about the country at all hours of the night, just for your diversion, why, you'll find I know some justices as well as Justice Tyrrell." Sir Clement was evidently embarrassed at this attack; yet he affected a look of surprise, and protested he did not understand her meaning. "Well," cried she, "if I don't wonder where people can get such impudence! if you'll say that, you'll say anything: however, if you swear till you're black in the face, I sha'n't believe you; for nobody sha'n't persuade me out of my senses, that I'm resolved." "Doubtless not, Madam," answered he with some hesitation; "and I hope you do not suspect I ever had such an intention; my respect for you-" "O, Sir, you're vastly polite all of a sudden! but I know what it's all for! it's only for what you can get!-You could treat me like nobody at Howard Grove; but now you see I've a house of my own, you're mind to wheedle yourself into it; but I sees your design, so you needn't trouble yourself to take no more trouble about that, for you shall never get nothing at my house,-not so much as a dish of tea:-so now, Sir, you see I can play you trick for trick." There was something so extremely gross in this speech, that it even disconcerted Sir Clement, who was too much confounded to make any answer. It was curious to observe the effect which his embarrassment, added to the freedom with which Madame Duval addressed him, had upon the rest of the company. Every one, who before seemed at a loss how or if at all, to occupy a chair, how filled it with the most easy composure: and Mr. Smith, whose countenance had exhibited the most striking picture of mortified envy, now began to recover his usual expression of satisfied conceit. Young Branghton, too, who had been apparently awed by the presence of so fine a gentleman, was again himself, rude and familiar: while his mouth was wide distended into a broad grin, at hearing his aunt give the beau such a trimming. Madame Duval, encouraged by this success, looked around her with an air of triumph, and continued her harangue. "And so, Sir, I suppose you thought to have had it all your own way, and to have comed here as often as you pleased, and to have got me to Howard Grove again, on purpose to have served me as you did before; but you shall see I'm as cunning as you; so you may go and find somebody else to use in that manner, and to put your mask on, and to make a fool of; for as to me, if you go to tell me your stories about the Tower again, for a month together, I'll never believe 'm no more: and I'll promise you, Sir, if you think I like such jokes, you'll find I'm no such person." "I assure you, Ma'am,-upon my honour,-I really don't comprehend-I fancy there is some misunderstanding-" "What, I suppose you'll tell me next you don't know nothing of the matter?" "Not a word, upon my honour." O, Sir Clement, thought I, is it thus you prize your honour! "Pardi," cried Madame Duval, "this is the most provokingest part of all! why, you might as well tell me I don't know my own name." "Here is certainly some mistake; for I assure you, Ma'am-" "Don't assure me nothing," cried Madame Duval, raising her voice; "I know what I'm saying, and so do you too; for did not you tell me all that about the Tower, and about M. Du Bois?-why M. Du Bois wasn't never there, nor nigh it, and so it was all your own invention." "May there not be two persons of the same name? the mistake was but natural-" "Don't tell me of no mistake, for it was all on purpose: besides, did not you come, all in a mask, to the chariot-door, and help to get me put in that ditch?-I'll promise you, I've had the greatest mind in the world to take the law of you ever since; and if ever you do as much again, so I will, I assure you!" Here Miss Branghton tittered, Mr. Smith smiled contemptously, and young Branghton thrust his handkerchief into his mouth to stop his laughter. The situation of Sir Clement, who saw all that passed, became now very awkward even to himself, and he stammered very much in saying, "Surely, Madam-surely you-you cannot do me the-the injustice to think-that I had any share in the-the-the misfortune which-" "Ma foi, Sir," cried Madame Duval, with increasing passion, "you'd best not stand talking to me at that rate: I know it was you; and if you stay there, a provoking me in such a manner, I'll send for a constable this minute." Young Branghton, at these words, in spite of all his efforts, burst into a loud laugh; nor could either his sister or Mr. Smith, though with more moderation, forbear joining in his mirth. Sir Clement darted his eyes towards them with looks of the most angry contempt; and then told Madame Duval, that he would not now detain her to make his vindication, but would wait on her some time when she was alone. "O Pardi, Sir," cried she, "I don't desire none of your company; and if you wasn't the most boldest person in the world, you would not dare look me in the face." The ha, ha ha's! and he, he, he's! grew more and more uncontrollable, as if the restraint, from which they had burst, had added to their violence. Sir Clement could no longer endure being the object who excited them; and, having no answer ready for Madame Duval, he hastily stalked towards Mr. Smith and young Branghton, and sternly demanded what they laughed at? Struck by the air of importance which he assumed, and alarmed at the angry tone of his voice, their merriment ceased as instantaneously as if it had been directed by clock-work; and they stared foolishly, now at him, now at each other, without making any answer but a simple "Nothing, Sir." "O pour le coup," cried Madame Duval, "this is too much! Pray, Sir, what business have you to come here a ordering people that comes to see me? I suppose next nobody must laugh but yourself!" "With me, Madam," said Sir Clement, bowing, "a lady may do any thing, and consequently there is no liberty in which I shall not be happy to indulge you: -but it has never been my custom to give the same licence to gentlemen." Then, advancing to me, who had sat very quietly on a window during this scene, he said, "Miss Anville, I may at least acquaint our friends at Howard Grove that I had the honour of leaving you in good health." And then, lowering his voice, he added, "For Heaven's sake, my dearest creature, who are these people? and how came you so strangely situated?" "I beg my respects to all the family, Sir," answered I, aloud; "and I hope you will find them well." He looked at me reproachfully, but kissed my hand; and then, bowing to Madame Duval and Miss Branghton, passed hastily by the men, and made his exit. I fancy he will not be very eager to repeat his visit; for I should imagine he has rarely, if ever, been before in a situation so awkward and disagreeable. Madame Duval has been all spirits and exultation ever since he went, and only wishes Captain Mirvan would call, that she might do the same by him. Mr. Smith, upon hearing that he was a baronet, and seeing him drive off in a very beautiful chariot, declared that he would not have laughed upon any account, had he known his rank; and regretted extremely having missed such an opportunity of making so genteel an acquaintance. Young Branghton vowed, that if he had known as much, he would have asked for his custom: and his sister has sung his praises ever since, protesting she thought all along he was a man of quality by his look. LETTER XLVIII. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. June 21st. THE last three evenings have passed tolerably quiet, for the Vauxhall adventures had given Madame Duval a surfeit of public places: home, however, soon growing tiresome, she determined to-night, she said, to relieve her ennui by some amusement; and it was therefore settled, that we should call upon the Branghtons at their house, and thence proceed to Marybone Gardens. But, before we reached Snow Hill, we were caught in a shower of rain: we hurried into the shop, where the first object I saw was Mr. Macartney, with a book in his hand, seated in the same corner where I saw him last; but his looks were still more wretched than before, his face yet thinner, and his eyes sunk almost hollow into his head. He lifted them up as we entered, and I even thought that they emitted a gleam of joy: involuntarily I made to him my first courtesy; he rose and bowed with a precipitation that manifested surprise and confusion. In a few minutes were joined by all the family, except Mr. Smith, who fortunately was engaged. Had all the future prosperity of our lives depended upon the good or bad weather of this evening, it could not have been treated as a subject of greater importance. "Sure, never anything was so unlucky!"-"Lord, how provoking!"-"It might rain for ever, if it would hold up now."-These, and such expressions, with many anxious observations upon the kennels, filled up all the conversation till the shower was over. And then a very warm debate arose, whether we should pursue our plan, or defer it to some finer evening. The Miss Branghtons were for the former; their father was sure it would rain again; Madame Duval, though she detested returning home, yet dreaded the dampness of the gardens. M. Du Bois then proposed going to the top of the house, to examine whether the clouds looked threatening or peaceable: Miss Branghton, starting at this proposal, said they might go to Mr. Macartney's room, if they would, but not to her's. This was enough for the brother; who, with a loud laugh, declared he would have some fun; and immediately led the way, calling to us all to follow. His sisters both ran after, but no one else moved. In a few minutes young Branghton, coming half-way down stairs, called out, "Lord, why don't you all come? why, here's Poll's things all about the room!" Mr. Branghton then went; and Madame Duval, who cannot bear to be excluded from whatever is going forward, was handed up stairs by M. Du Bois. I hesitated a few moments whether or not to join them; but, soon perceiving that Mr. Macartney had dropped his book, and that I engrossed his whole attention, I prepared, from mere embarrassment, to follow them. As I went, I heard him move from his chair, and walk slowly after me. Believing that he wished to speak to me, and earnestly desiring myself to know if, by your means, I could possibly be of any service to him, I first slackened my pace, and then turned back. But, though I thus met him half-way, he seemed to want courage or resolution to address me; for, when he saw me returning, with a look extremely disordered, he retreated hastily from me. Not knowing what I ought to do, I went to the street-door, where I stood some time, hoping he would be able to recover himself; but, on the contrary, his agitation increased every moment; he walked up and down the room in a quick but unsteady pace, seeming equally distressed and irresolute; and, at length, with a deep sigh, he flung himself into a chair. I was so much affected by the appearance of such extreme anguish, that I could remain no longer in the room: I therefore glided by him and went up stairs; but, ere I had gone five steps, he precipitately followed me, and, in a broken voice, called out "Madam!-for Heaven's sake-" He stopped; but I instantly descended, restraining, as well as I was able, the fulness of my own concern. I waited some time, in painful expectation, for his speaking: all that I had heard of his poverty occurring to me, I was upon the point of presenting him my purse; but the fear of mistaking or offending him deterred me. Finding, however, that he continued silent, I ventured to say, "Did you,-Sir, wish to speak to me?" "I did," cried he with quickness, "but now-I cannot!-" "Perhaps, Sir, another time,-perhaps if you recollect yourself-" "Another time?" repeated he mournfully; "alas! I look not forward but to misery and despair!" "O, Sir," cried I, extremely shocked, "you must not talk thus!-If you forsake yourself, how can you expect-" I stopped. "Tell me, tell me," cried he, with eagerness, "who you are?-whence you come?-and by what strange means you seem to be arbitress and ruler of the destiny of such a wretch as I am?" "Would to Heaven," cried I, "I could serve you!" "You can!" "And how? Pray tell me how?" "To tell you-is death to me! yet I will tell you.-I have a right to your assistance,-you have deprived me of the only resource to which I could apply,-and therefore-" "Pray, pray speak," cried I, putting my hand into my pocket; "they will be down stairs in a moment!" "I will, Madam.-Can you-will you-I think you will!-may I then-" he stopped and paused; "say, will you"-then, suddenly turning from me, "Great Heaven, I cannot speak!" and he went back to the shop. I now put my purse in my hand, and following him, said, "If, indeed, Sir, I can assist you, why should you deny me so great a satisfaction? Will you permit me to-" I dared not go on; but with a countenance very much softened, he approached me and said, "Your voice, Madam, is the voice of compassion!-such a voice as these ears have long been strangers to!" Just then young Branghton called out vehemently to me to come up stairs. I seized the opportunity of hastening away: and therefore saying, "Heaven, Sir, protect and comfort you!" I let fall my purse upon the ground, not daring to present it to him, and ran up stairs with the utmost swiftness. Too well do I know you, my ever honoured Sir, to fear your displeasure for this action: I must, however, assure you, I shall need no fresh supply during my stay in town, as I am at little expense, and hope soon to return to Howard Grove. Soon, did I say! when not a fortnight is yet expired of the long and tedious month I must linger out here! I had many witticisms to endure from the Branghtons, upon account of my staying so long with the Scotch mope, as they call him; but I attended to them very little, for my whole heart was filled with pity and concern. I was very glad to find the Marybone scheme was deferred, another shower of rain having put a stop to the dissension upon this subject; the rest of the evening was employed in most violent quarrelling between Miss Polly and her brother, on account of the discovery made by the latter of the state of her apartment. We came home early; and I have stolen from Madame Duval and M. Du Bois, who is here for ever, to write to my best friend. I am most sincerely rejoiced, that this opportunity has offered for my contributing what little relief was in my power to this unhappy man; and I hope it will be sufficient to enable him to pay his debts to this pitiless family. LETTER XLIX. MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA. Berry Hill. DISPLEASURE? my Evelina!-you have but done your duty; you have but shown that humanity without which I should blush to own my child. It is mine, however, to see that your generosity be not repressed by your suffering from indulging it; I remit to you, therefore, not merely a token of my approbation, but an acknowledgment of my desire to participate in your charity. O my child, were my fortune equal to my confidence in thy benevolence, with what transport should I, through thy means, devote it to the relief of indigent virtue! yet let us not repine at the limitation of our power; for while our bounty is proportioned to our ability, the difference of the greater or less donation can weigh but little in the scale of justice. In reading your account of the misguided man, whose misery has so largely excited your compassion, I am led to apprehend that his unhappy situation is less the effect of misfortune than of misconduct. If he is reduced to that state of poverty represented by the Branghtons, he should endeavour, by activity and industry, to retrieve his affairs, and not pass his time in idle reading in the very shop of his creditor. The pistol scene made me shudder; the courage with which you pursued this desperate man, at once delighted and terrified me. Be ever thus, my dearest Evelina, dauntless in the cause of distress! let no weak fears, no timid doubts, deter you from the exertion of your duty, according to the fullest sense of it that Nature has implanted in your mind. Though gentleness and modesty are the peculiar attributes of your sex, yet fortitude and firmness, when occasion demands them, are virtues as noble and as becoming in women as in men: the right line of conduct is the same for both sexes, though the manner in which it is pursued may somewhat vary, and be accommodated to the strength or weakness of the different travellers. There is, however, something so mysterious in all you have seen or heard of this wretched man, that I am unwilling to stamp a bad impression of his character upon so slight and partial a knowledge of it. Where any thing is doubtful, the ties of society, and the laws of humanity, claim a favourable interpretation; but remember, my dear child, that those of discretion have an equal claim to your regard. As to Sir Clement Willoughby, I know not how to express my indignation at his conduct. Insolence so insufferable, and the implication of suspicions so shocking, irritate me to a degree of wrath, which I hardly thought my almost worn-out passions were capable of again experiencing. You must converse with him no more: he imagines, from the pliability of your temper, that he may offend you with impunity; but his behaviour justifies, nay, calls for your avowed resentment; do not, therefore, hesitate in forbidding him your sight. The Branghtons, Mr. Smith, and young Brown, however ill-bred and disagreeable, are objects too contemptible for serious displeasure; yet I grieve much that my Evelina should be exposed to their rudeness and impertinence. The very day that this tedious month expires, I shall send Mrs. Clinton to town, who will accompany you to Howard Grove. Your stay there will, I hope, be short; for I feel daily an increasing impatience to fold my beloved child to my bosom! ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER L. EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS. Holborn, June 27th. I HAVE just received, my dearest Sir, your kind present, and still kinder letter. Surely, never had orphan so little to regret as your grateful Evelina! Though motherless, though worse than fatherless, bereft from infancy of the two first and greatest blessings of life, never has she had cause to deplore their loss; never has she felt the omission of a parent's tenderness, care, or indulgence; never, but from sorrow for them, had reason to grieve at the separation! Most thankfully do I receive the token of your approbation, and most studiously will I endeavour so to dispose of it, as may merit your generous confidence in my conduct. Your doubts concerning Mr. Macartney give me some uneasiness. Indeed, Sir, he has not the appearance of a man whose sorrows are the effect of guilt. But I hope, before I leave town, to be better acquainted with his situation, and enabled, with more certainty of his worth, to recommend him to your favour. I am very willing to relinquish all acquaintance with Sir Clement Willoughby, as far as it may depend upon myself so to do; but, indeed I know not how I should be able to absolutely forbid him my sight. Miss Mirvan, in her last letter, informs me that he is now at Howard Grove, where he continues in high favour with the Captain, and is the life and spirit of the house. My time, since I wrote last, has passed very quietly, Madame Duval having been kept at home by a bad cold, and the Branghtons by bad weather. The young man, indeed, has called two or three times; and his behavior, though equally absurd, is more unaccountable than ever: he speaks very little, takes hardly any notice of Madame Duval, and never looks at me without a broad grin. Sometimes he approaches me, as if with intention to communicate intelligence of importance; and then, suddenly stopping short, laughs rudely in my face. O how happy shall I be, when the worthy Mrs. Clinton arrives! June 29th. Yesterday morning, Mr. Smith called to acquaint us that the Hampstead assembly was to be held that evening; and then he presented Madame Duval with one ticket, and brought another to me. I thanked him for his intended civility, but told him I was surprised he had so soon forgotten my having already declined going to the ball. "Lord, Ma'am," cried he, "how should I suppose you was in earnest? come, come, don't be cross; here's your Grandmama ready to take care of you, so you can have no fair objection, for she'll see that I don't run away with you. Besides, Ma'am, I got the tickets on purpose." "If you were determined, Sir," said I, "in making me this offer, to allow me no choice of refusal or acceptance, I must think myself less obliged to your intention than I was willing to do." "Dear Ma'am," cried he, "you're so smart, there is no speaking to you;-indeed you are monstrous smart, Ma'am! but come, your Grandmama shall ask you, and then I know you'll not be so cruel." Madame Duval was very ready to interfere; she desired me to make no further opposition, said she should go herself, and insisted upon my accompanying her. It was in vain that I remonstrated; I only incurred her anger: and Mr. Smith having given both the tickets to Madame Duval with an air of triumph, said he should call early in the evening, and took leave. I was much chagrined at being thus compelled to owe even the shadow of an obligation to so forward a young man; but I determined that nothing should prevail upon me to dance with him, however my refusal might give offence. In the afternoon, when he returned, it was evident that he purposed to both charm and astonish me by his appearance: he was dressed in a very showy manner, but without any taste; and the inelegant smartness of his air and deportment, his visible struggle against education to put on the fine gentleman, added to his frequent conscious glances at a dress to which he was but little accustomed, very effectually destroyed his aim of figuring, and rendered all his efforts useless. During tea entered Miss Branghton and her brother. I was sorry to observe the consternation of the former, when she perceived Mr. Smith. I had intended applying to her for advice upon this occasion, but had been always deterred by her disagreeable abruptness. Having cast her eyes several times from Mr. Smith to me, with manifest displeasure, she seated herself sullenly in the window, scarce answering Madame Duval's enquiries; and when I spoke to her, turning absolutely away from me. Mr. Smith, delighted at this mark of his importance, sat indolently quiet on his chair, endeavouring by his looks rather to display, than to conceal, his inward satisfaction. "Good gracious!" cried young Branghton, "why, you're all as fine as a five-pence! Why, where are you going?" "To the Hampstead ball," answered Mr. Smith. "To a ball!" cried he. "Why, what, is aunt going to a ball? Ha, ha, ha!" "Yes, to be sure," cried Madame Duval; "I don't know nothing need hinder me." "And pray, aunt, will you dance too?" "Perhaps I may; but I suppose, Sir, that's none of your business, whether I do or not." "Lord! well, I should like to go! I should like to see aunt dance of all things! But the joke is, I don't believe she'll get ever a partner." "You're the most rudest boy ever I see," cried Madame Duval, angrily: "but, I promise you, I'll tell your father what you say, for I've no notion of such vulgarness." "Why, Lord, aunt, what are you so angry for? there's no speaking a word, but you fly into a passion: you're as bad as Biddy, or Poll, for that, for you're always a-scolding." "I desire, Tom," cried Miss Branghton, "you'd speak for yourself, and not make so free with my name." "There, now, she's up! There's nothing but quarrelling with the women; it's my belief they like it better than victuals and drink." "Fie, Tom," cried Mr. Smith, "you never remember your manners before the ladies: I'm sure you never heard me speak so rude to them." "Why, Lord, you are a beau; but that's nothing to me. So, if you've a mind, you may be so polite as to dance with aunt yourself." Then, with a loud laugh, he declared it would be good fun to see them. "Let it be never so good, or never so bad," cried Madame Duval, "you won't see nothing of it, I promise you; so pray don't let me hear no more of such vulgar pieces of fun; for, I assure you, I don't like it. And as to my dancing with Mr. Smith, you may see wonderfuller things than that any day in the week." "Why, as to that, Ma'am," said Mr. Smith, looking much surprised, "I always thought you intended to play at cards, and so I thought to dance with the young lady." I gladly seized this opportunity to make my declaration, that I should not dance at all. "Not dance at all!" repeated Miss Branghton; "yes, that's a likely matter truly, when people go to balls." "I wish she mayn't," said the brother; "'cause then Mr. Smith will have nobody but aunt for a partner. Lord, how mad he'll be!" "O, as to that," said Mr. Smith, "I don't at all fear of prevailing with the young lady, if once I get her to the room." "Indeed, Sir," cried I, much offended by his conceit, "you are mistaken; and therefore I beg leave to undeceive you, as you may be assured my resolution will not alter." "Then, pray, Miss, if it is not impertinent," cried Miss Branghton, sneeringly, "what do you go for?" "Merely and solely," answered I, "to comply with the request of Madame Duval." "Miss," cried young Branghton, "Bid only wishes it was she, for she has cast a sheep's eye at Mr. Smith this long while." "Tom," cried the sister, rising, "I've the greatest mind in the world to box your ears! How dare you say such a thing of me!" "No, hang it, Tom, no, that's wrong," said Mr. Smith, simpering; "it is indeed, to tell the lady's secrets.-But never mind him, Miss Biddy, for I won't believe him." "Why, I know Bid would give her ears to go," returned the brother; "but only Mr. Smith likes Miss best,-so does every body else." While the sister gave him a very angry answer, Mr. Smith said to me in a low voice, "Why now, Ma'am, how can you be so cruel as to be so much handsomer than your cousins? Nobody can look at them when you are by." "Miss," cried young Branghton, "whatever he says to you don't mind him for he means no good; I'll give you my word for it, he'll never marry you; for he has told me again and again, he'll never marry as long as he lives; besides, if he'd any mind to be married, there's Bid would have had him long ago, and thanked him too." "Come, come, Tom, don't tell secrets; you'll make the ladies afraid of me: but I assure you," lowering his voice, "if I did marry, it should be your cousin." Should be!-did you ever, my dear Sir, hear such unauthorised freedom? I looked at him with a contempt I did not wish to repress, and walked to the other end of the room. Very soon after Mr. Smith sent for a hackney-coach. When I would have taken leave of Miss Branghton, she turned angrily from me, without making any answer. She supposes, perhaps, that I have rather sought, than endeavoured to avoid, the notice and civilities of this conceited young man. The ball was at the long room at Hampstead. This room seems very well named, for I believe it would be difficult to find any other epithet which might with propriety distinguish it, as it is without ornament, elegance, or any sort of singularity, and merely to be marked by its length. I was saved from the importunities of Mr. Smith, the beginning of the evening, by Madame Duval's declaring her intention to dance the first two dances with him herself. Mr. Smith's chagrin was very evident; but as she paid no regard to it, he was necessitated to lead her out. I was, however, by no means pleased, when she said she was determined to dance a minuet. Indeed, I was quite astonished, not having had the least idea she would have consented to, much less proposed, such an exhibition of her person. She had some trouble to make her intentions known, as Mr. Smith was rather averse to speaking to the master of the ceremonies. During this minuet, how much did I rejoice in being surrounded only with strangers! She danced in a style so uncommon; her age, her showy dress, and an unusual quantity of rouge, drew upon her the eyes, and I fear the derision, of the whole company. Whom she danced with, I know not; but Mr. Smith was so ill-bred as to laugh at her very openly, and to speak of her with as much ridicule as was in his power. But I would neither look at, nor listen to him, nor would I suffer him to proceed with any speech which he began, expressive to his vexation at being forced to dance with her. I told him, very gravely, that complaints upon such a subject might, with less impropriety, be made to every person in the room than to me. When she returned to us, she distressed me very much, by asking what I thought of her minuet. I spoke as civilly as I could; but the coldness of my compliment evidently disappointed her. She then called upon Mr. Smith to secure a good place among the country dancers; and away they went, though not before he had taken the liberty to say to me in a low voice, "I protest to you, Ma'am, I shall be quite out of countenance, if any of my acquaintance should see me dancing with the old lady!" For a few moments I very much rejoiced at being relieved from this troublesome man; but scarce had I time to congratulate myself, before I was accosted by another, who begged the favour of hopping a dance with me. I told him that I should not dance at all; but he thought proper to importune me, very freely, not to be so cruel; and I was obliged to assume no little haughtiness before I could satisfy him I was serious. After this, I was addressed much in the same manner, by several other young men; of whom the appearance and language were equally inelegant and low-bred; so that I soon found my situation was both disagreeable and improper, since, as I was quite alone, I fear I must seem rather to invite than to forbid the offers and notice I received; and yet, so great was my apprehension of this interpretation, that I am sure, my dear Sir, you would have laughed had you seen how proudly grave I appeared. I knew not whether to be glad or sorry, when Madame Duval and Mr. Smith returned. The latter instantly renewed his tiresome intreaties, and Madame Duval said she would go to the card-table; and as soon as she was accommodated, she desired us to join the dancers. I will not trouble you with the arguments which followed. Mr. Smith teased me till I was weary of resistance; and I should at last have been obliged to submit, had I not fortunately recollected the affair of Mr. Lovel, and told my persecutor, that it was impossible I should dance with him, even if I wished it, as I had refused several persons in his absence. He was not contented with being extremely chagrined; but took the liberty, openly and warmly, to expostulate with me upon not having said I was engaged. The total disregard with which, involuntarily, I heard him, made him soon change the subject. In truth, I had no power to attend to him; for all my thoughts were occupied in re-tracing the transactions of the two former balls, at which I had been present. The party-the conversation-the company-O how great the contrast! In a short time, however, he contrived to draw my attention to himself, by his extreme impertinence; for he chose to express what he called his admiration of me, in terms so open and familiar, that he forced me to express my displeasure with equal plainness. But how was I surprised, when I found he had the temerity-what else can I call it?-to impute my resentment to doubts of his honour: for he said, "My dear Ma'am, you must be a little patient; I assure you I have no bad designs, I have not upon my word; but, really, there is no resolving upon such a thing as matrimony all at once; what with the loss of one's liberty, and what with the ridicule of all one's acquaintance,-I assure you Ma'am you are the first lady who ever made me even demur upon this subject; for, after all, my dear Ma'am, marriage is the devil." "Your opinion, Sir," answered I, "of either the married or the single life, can be of no manner of consequence to me; and therefore I would by no means trouble you to discuss their different merits." "Why, really, Ma'am, as to your being a little out of sorts, I must own I can't wonder at it; for, to be sure, marriage is all in all with the ladies; but with us gentlemen it's quite another thing! Now only put yourself in my place;-suppose you had such a large acquaintance of gentlemen as I have,-and that you had always been used to appear a little-a little smart among them-why, now could you like to let your self down all at once into a married man?" I could not tell what to answer; so much conceit, and so much ignorance, both astonished and silenced me. "I assure you, Ma'am," added he, "there is not only Miss Biddy,-though I should have scored to mention her, if her brother had not blab'd, for I'm quite particular in keeping ladies' secrets,-but there are a great many other ladies that have been proposed to me;-but I never thought twice of any of them, that is, not in a serious way:-so you may very well be proud," offering to take my hand; "for I assure you, there is nobody so likely to catch me at last as yourself." "Sir, "cried I, drawing myself back as haughtily as I could, "you are totally mistaken, if you imagine you have given me any pride I felt not before, by this conversation; on the contrary, you must allow me to tell you, I find it too humiliating to bear with it any longer." I then placed myself behind the chair of Madame Duval: who, when she heard of the partners I had refused, pitied my ignorance of the world, but no longer insisted upon my dancing. Indeed, the extreme vanity of this man, makes me exert a spirit which I did not, till now, know that I possessed: but I cannot endure that he should think me at his disposal. The rest of the evening passed very quietly, as Mr. Smith did not again attempt speaking to me; except, indeed, after we had left the room and while Madam Duval was seating herself in the coach, he said, in a voice of pique, "Next time I take the trouble to get any tickets for a young lady, I'll make a bargain before-hand, that she shan't turn me over to her grandmother." We came home very safe; and thus ended this so long projected and most disagreeable affair. LETTER LI. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. I HAVE just received a most affecting letter from Mr. Macartney. I will inclose it, my dear Sir, for your perusal. More than ever have I cause to rejoice that I was able to assist him. Mr. Macartney to Miss Anville. Madam, IMPRESSED with deepest, the most heartfelt sense of the exalted humanity with which you have rescued from destruction an unhappy stranger, allow me, with humblest gratitude, to offer you my fervent acknowledgments, and to implore your pardon for the terror I have caused you. You bid me, Madam, live: I have now, indeed, a motive for life, since I should not willingly quit the world, while I withhold from the needy and distressed any share of that charity which a disposition so noble would otherwise bestow upon them. The benevolence with which you have interested yourself in my affairs, induces me to suppose you would wish to be acquainted with the cause of that desperation from which you snatched me, and the particulars of that misery of which you have so wonderfully been a witness. Yet, as this explanation will require that I should divulge secrets of a nature the most delicate, I must intreat you to regard them as sacred, even though I forbear to mention the names of the parties concerned. I was brought up in Scotland, though my mother, who had the sole care of me, was an English-woman, and had not one relation in that country. She devoted to me her whole time. The retirement in which we lived, and the distance from our natural friends, she often told me, were the effect of an unconquerable melancholy with which she was seized upon the sudden loss of my father, some time before I was born. At Aberdeen, where I finished my education, I formed a friendship with a young man of fortune, which I considered as the chief happiness of my life:-but, when he quitted his studies, I considered it as my chief misfortune; for he immediately prepared, by direction of his friends, to make the tour of Europe. As I was designed for the church, and had no prospect even of maintenance but from my own industry, I scarce dared permit even a wish of accompanying him. It is true, he would joyfully have borne my expenses: but my affection was as free from meanness as his own; and I made a determination the most solemn, never to lessen its dignity by submitting to pecuniary obligations. We corresponded with great regularity, and the most unbounded confidence, for the space of two years, when he arrived at Lyons in his way home. He wrote me thence the most pressing invitation to meet him at Paris, where he intended to remain some time. My desire to comply with his request, and shorten our absence, was so earnest, that my mother, too indulgent to control me lent me what assistance was in her power, and, in an ill-fated moment, I set out for that capital. My meeting with this dear friend was the happiest event of my life: he introduced me to all his acquaintance; and so quickly did time seem to pass at that delightful period, that the six weeks I had allotted for my stay were gone, ere I was sensible I had missed so many days. But I must now own, that the company of my friend was not the sole subject of my felicity: I became acquainted with a young lady, daughter of an Englishman of distinction, with whom I formed an attachment, which I have a thousand times vowed, a thousand times sincerely thought, would be lasting as my life. She had but just quitted a convent in which she had been placed when a child, and though English by birth, she could scarcely speak her native language. Her person and disposition were equally engaging; but chiefly I adored her for the greatness of the expectation, which, for my sake, she was willing to resign. When the time for my residence in Paris expired, I was almost distracted at the idea of quitting her; yet I had not the courage to make our attachment known to her father, who might reasonably form for her such views as would make him reflect, with a contempt which I could not bear to think of, such an offer as mine. Yet I had free access to the house, where she seemed to be left almost wholly to the guidance of an old servant, who was my fast friend. But, to be brief, the sudden and unexpected return of her father, one fatal afternoon, proved the beginning of the misery which has ever since devoured me. I doubt not but he had listened to our conversation; for he darted into the room with the rage of a madman. Heavens! what a scene followed!-what abusive language did the shame of a clandestine affair, and the consciousness of acting ill, induce me to brook! At length, however, his fury exceeded my patience, he called me a beggarly, cowardly Scotchman. Fired at the words, I drew my sword; he, with equal alertness, drew his; for he was not an old man, but, on the contrary, strong and able as myself. In vain his daughter pleaded;-in vain did I, repentant of my anger retreat-his reproaches continued; myself, my country, were loaded with infamy, till no longer constraining my rage,-we fought,-and he fell! At that moment I could almost have destroyed myself! The young lady fainted with terror; the old servant, drawn to us by the noise of the scuffle, entreated me to escape, and promised to bring intelligence of what should pass to my apartments. The disturbance which I heard raised in the house obliged me to comply; and, in a state of mind inconceivable wretched, I tore myself away. My friend, whom I found at home, soon discovered the whole affair. It was near midnight before the woman came. She told me that her master was living, and her young mistress restored to her senses. The absolute necessity for my leaving Paris, while any danger remained, was forcibly argued by my friend: the servant promised to acquaint him of whatever passed, and he to transmit to me her information. Thus circumstanced, with the assistance of this dear friend, I effected my departure from Paris, and, not long after, I returned to Scotland. I would fain have stopped by the way, that I might have been nearer the scene of all my concerns; but the low state of my finances denied me that satisfaction. The miserable situation of my mind was soon discovered by my mother; nor would she rest till I communicated the cause. She heard my whole story with an agitation which astonished me:-the name of the parties concerned seemed to strike her with horror:-but when I said, We fought, and he fell; -"My son," cried she, "you have then murdered your father!" and she sunk breathless at my feet. Comments, Madam, upon such a scene as this, would to you be superfluous, and to me agonizing: I cannot, for both our sakes, be too concise. When she recovered, she confessed all the particulars of a tale which she had hoped never to have revealed.-Alas! the loss she had sustained of my father was not by death!-bound to her by no ties but those of honour, he had voluntarily deserted her!-Her settling in Scotland was not the effect of choice,-she was banished thither by a family but too justly incensed.-Pardon, Madam, that I cannot be more explicit! My senses, in the greatness of my misery, actually forsook me, and, for more than a week, I was wholly delirious. My unfortunate mother was yet more to pitied; for she pined with unmitigated sorrow, eternally reproaching herself for the danger to which her too strict silence had exposed me. When I recovered my reason, my impatience to hear from Paris almost deprived me of it again; and though the length of time I waited for letters might justly be attributed to contrary winds, I could not bear the delay, and was twenty times upon the point of returning thither at all hazards. At length, however, several letters arrived at once, and from the most insupportable of my afflictions I was then relieved; for they acquainted me that the horrors of parricide were not in reserve for me. They informed me also, that as soon as the wound was healed, a journey would be made to England, where my unhappy sister was to be received by an aunt, with whom she was to live. This intelligence somewhat quieted the violence of my sorrows. I instantly formed a plan of meeting them in London, and, by revealing the whole dreadful story, convincing this irritated parent that he had nothing more to apprehend from his daughter's unfortunate choice. My mother consented, and gave me a letter to prove the truth of my assertions. As I could but ill afford to make this journey, I travelled in the cheapest way that was possible. I took an obscure lodging,-I need not, Madam, tell you where,-and boarded with the people of the house. Here I languished, week after week, vainly hoping for the arrival of my family; but my impetuosity had blinded me to the imprudence of which I was guilty in quitting Scotland so hastily. My wounded father, after his recovery, relapsed, and when I had waited in the most comfortless situation for six weeks, my friend wrote me word that the journey was yet deferred for some time longer. My finances were then nearly exhausted; and I was obliged, though most unwillingly, to beg further assistance from my mother, that I might return to Scotland. Oh, Madam!-my answer was not from herself;-it was written by a lady who had long been her companion, and aquainted me that she had been taken suddenly ill of a fever,-and was no more! The compassionate nature of which you have given such noble proofs, assures me I need not, if I could, paint to you the anguish of a mind overwhelmed with such accumulated sorrows. Inclosed was a letter to a near relation, which she had, during her illness, with much difficulty, written; and in which, with the strongest maternal tenderness, she described my deplorable situation, and intreated his interest to procure me some preferment. Yet so sunk was I by misfortune, that a fortnight elapsed before I had the courage or spirit to attempt delivering this letter. I was then compelled to it by want. To make my appearance with some decency, I was necessitated myself to the melancholy task of changing my coloured clothes for a suit of mourning;- and then I proceeded to seek my relation. I was informed he was not in town. In this desperate situation, the pride of my heart, which hitherto had not bowed to adversity, gave way; and I determined to intreat the assistance of my friend, whose offered services I had a thousand times rejected. Yet, Madam, so hard is it to root from the mind its favourite principles or prejudices, call them which you please, that I lingered another week ere I had the resolution to send away a letter, which I regarded as the death of my independence. At length, reduced to my last shilling, shunned insolently by the people of the house, and almost famished, I sealed this fatal letter; and, with a heavy heart, determined to take it to the post office. But Mr. Branghton and his son suffered me not to pass through their shop with impunity; they insulted me grossly, and threatened me with imprisonment, if I did not immediately satisfy their demands. Stung to the soul, I bid them have but a day's patience, and flung from them in a state of mind too terrible for description. My letter which I now found would be received too late to save me from disgrace, I tore into a thousand pieces; and scarce could I refrain from putting an instantaneous, an unlicensed, a period to my existence. In this disorder of my senses, I formed the horrible plan of turning foot-pad; for which purpose I returned to my lodging, and collected whatever of my apparel I could part with; which I immediately sold, and with the produce purchased a brace of pistols, powder and shot. I hope, however, you will believe me, when I most solemnly assure you, my sole intention was to frighten the passengers I should assault with these dangerous weapons; which I had not loaded but from a resolution,-a dreadful one, I own,-to save myself from an ignominious death if seized. And, indeed, I thought, that if I could but procure money sufficient to pay Mr. Branghton, and make a journey to Scotland, I should soon be able to, by the public papers, to discover whom I had injured, and to make private retribution. But, Madam, new to every species of villainy, my perturbation was so great, that I could with difficulty support myself, yet the Branghtons observed it not as I passed through the shop. Here I stop:-what followed is better known to yourself. But no time can ever efface from my memory that moment, when, in the very action of preparing for my own destruction, or the lawless seizure of the property of others, you rushed into the room and arrested my arm!-It was indeed an awful moment!-the hand of Providence seemed to intervene between me and eternity: I beheld you as an angel!-I thought you dropt from the clouds!-The earth, indeed, had never presented to my view a form so celestial!-What wonder, then, that a spectacle so astonishing should, to a man disordered as I was, appear too beautiful to be human? And now, Madam, that I have performed this painful task, the more grateful one remains of rewarding, as far as is in my power, your generous goodness, by assuring you it shall not be thrown away. You have awakened me to a sense of the false pride by which I have been actuated;-a pride which, while it scorned assistance from a friend, scrupled not to compel it from a stranger, though at the hazard of reducing that stranger to a situation as destitute as my own. Yet, oh! how violent was the struggle which tore my conflicting soul ere I could persuade myself to profit by the benevolence which you were so evidently disposed to exert in my favour! By means of a ring, the gift of my much-regretted mother, I have for the present satisfied Mr. Branghton; and, by means of your compassion, I hope to support myself either till I hear from my friend, to whom at length I have written, or till the relation of my mother returns to town. To talk to you, Madam, of paying my debt, would be vain; I never can! the service you have done me exceeds all power of return: you have restored me to my senses; you have taught me to curb those passions which bereft me of them; and, since I cannot avoid calamity, to bear it as a man! An interposition so wonderfully circumstanced can never be recollected without benefit. Yet allow me to say, the pecuniary part of my obligation must be settled by my first ability. I am, Madam, with the most profound respect, and heartfelt gratitude, Your obedient, and devoted humble servant, J. MACARTNEY. LETTER LII. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Holborn, July 1.-5 o'clock in the morning. O SIR, what and adventure have I to write!-all night it has occupied my thoughts, and I am now risen thus early to write it to you. Yesterday it was settled that we should spend the evening in Marybone Gardens, where M. Torre, a celebrated foreigner, was to exhibit some fire-works. The party consisted of Madame Duval, all the Branghtons, M. Du Bois, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Brown. We were almost the first persons who entered the Gardens, Mr. Branghton having declared he would have all he could get for his money, which, at best, was only fooled away at such silly and idle places. We walked in parties, and very much detached from one another. Mr. Brown and Miss Polly led the way by themselves; Miss Branghton and Mr. Smith followed; and the latter seemed determined to be revenged for my behaviour at the ball, by transferring all his former attention for me to Miss Branghton, who received it with an air of exultation; and very frequently they each of them, though from different motives, looked back, to discover whether I observed their good intelligence. Madame Duval walked with M. Du Bois, and Mr. Branghton by himself; but his son would willingly have attached himself wholly to me; saying frequently, "come, Miss, let's you and I have a little fun together: you see they have all left us, so now let's leave them." But I begged to be excused, and went to the other side of Madame Duval. This Garden, as it is called, is neither striking for magnificence nor for beauty; and we were all so dull and languid, that I was extremely glad when we were summoned to the orchestra, upon the opening of a concert; in the course of which I had the pleasure of hearing a concerto on the violin by Mr. Barthelemon, who to me seems a player of exquisite fancy, feeling and variety. When notice was given us that the fire-works were preparing we hurried along to secure good places for the sight; but very soon we were so encircled and incommoded by the crowd, that Mr. Smith proposed the ladies should make interest for a form to stand upon: this was soon effected: and the men then left us to accommodate themselves better; saying, they would return the moment the exhibition was over. The fire-work was really beautiful; and told, with wonderful ingenuity, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice: but, at the moment of the fatal look which separated them for ever, there was such an explosion of fire, and so horrible a noise, that we all, as of one accord, jumpt hastily from the form, and ran away some paces, fearing that we were in danger of mischief, from the innumerable sparks of fire which glittered in the air. For a moment or two I neither knew nor considered whither I had run; but my recollection was soon awakened by a stranger's addressing me with, "Come along with me, my dear, and I'll take care of you." I started; and then, to my great terror, perceived that I had outrun all my companions, and saw not one human being I knew! With all the speed in my power, and forgetful of my first fright, I hastened back to the place I had left;-but found the form occupied by a new set of people. In vain, from side to side, I looked for some face I knew; I found myself in the midst of a crowd, yet without party, friend, or acquaintance. I walked in disordered haste from place to place, without knowing which way to turn, or whither I went. Every other moment I was spoken to by some bold and unfeeling man; to whom my distress, which I think must be very apparent, only furnished a pretence for impertinent witticisms, or free gallantry. At last a young officer, marching fiercely up to me, said, "You are a sweet pretty creature, and I enlist you in my service;" and then, with great violence, he seized my hand. I screamed aloud with fear; and forcibly snatching it away, I ran hastily up to two ladies, and cried, "for Heaven's sake, dear ladies, afford me some protection!" They heard me with a loud laugh, but very readily said, "Ay, let her walk between us;" and each of them took hold of an arm. Then, in a drawling, ironical tone of voice, they asked what had frightened my little Ladyship? I told them my adventure very simply, and intreated they would have the goodness to assist me in finding my friends. O yes, to be sure, they said, I should not want for friends, whilst I was with them. Mine, I said, would be very grateful for any civilities with which they might favour me. But imagine, my dear Sir, how I must have been confounded, when I observed, that every other word I spoke produced a loud laugh! However, I will not dwell upon a conversation, which soon, to my inexpressible horror, convinced me I had sought protection from insult, of those who were themselves most likely to offer it! You, my dearest Sir, I well know, will both feel for and pity my terror, which I have no words to describe. Had I been at liberty, I should have instantly run away from them when I made the shocking discovery: but, as they held me fast, that was utterly impossible: and such was my dread of their resentment or abuse that I did not dare make any open attempt to escape. They asked me a thousand questions, accompanied by as many halloos, of who I was, what I was, and whence I came? My answers were very incoherent;-but what, good Heaven, were my emotions, when, a few moments afterwards, I perceived advancing our way-Lord Orville! Never shall I forget what I felt at that instant: had I, indeed, been sunk to the guilty state which such companions might lead him to suspect, I could scarce have had feelings more cruelly depressing. However, to my infinite joy, he passed us without distinguishing me; though I saw that in a careless manner, his eyes surveyed the party. As soon as he was gone, one of these unhappy women said, "Do you know that young fellow?" Not thinking it possible she should mean Lord Orville by such a term, I readily answered, "No, Madam." "Why then," answered she, "you have a monstrous good stare, for a little county Miss." I now found I had mistaken her, but was glad to avoid an explanation. A few minutes after, what was my delight to hear the voice of Mr. Brown, who called out," Lord, i'n't that Miss what's her name?" "Thank God," cried I, suddenly springing from them both, "thank God, I have found my party." Mr. Brown was, however, alone; and, without knowing what I did, I took hold of his arm. "Lord, Miss," cried he, "we've had such a hunt you can't think! some of them thought you was gone home: but I says, says I, I don't think, says I, that she's like to go home all alone, says I." "So that gentleman belongs to you, Miss, does he?" said one of the women. "Yes, Madam," answered I, "and I now thank you for your civility; but as I am safe, will not give you any further trouble." I courtsied slightly, and would gave walked away; but, most unfortunately, Madame Duval and the two Miss Branghtons just then joined us. They all began to make a thousand enquiries; to which I briefly answered, that I had been obliged to these two ladies for walking with me, and would tell them more another time: for, though I felt great comparative courage, I was yet too much intimidated by their presence, to dare be explicit. Nevertheless, I ventured once more to wish them a goodnight, and proposed seeking Mr. Branghton. These unhappy women listened to all that was said with a kind of callous curiosity, and seemed determined not to take any hint. But my vexation was terribly augmented when, after having whispered something to each other, they very cavalierly declared, that they intended joining our party! and then, one of them very boldly took hold of my arm, while the other, going round, seized that of Mr. Brown; and thus, almost forcibly, we were moved on between them, and followed by Madame Duval and the Miss Branghton. It would be very difficult to say which was greatest, my fright, or Mr. Brown's consternation; who ventured not to make the least resistance, though his uneasiness made him tremble almost as much as myself. I would instantly have withdrawn my arm: but it was held so tight I could not move it; and poor Mr. Brown was circumstanced in the same manner on the other side; for I heard him say, "Lord, Ma'am, there's no need to squeeze one's arm so!" And this was our situation,-for we had not taken three steps, when,-O sir,-we again met Lord Orville!-but not again did he pass quietly by us:-unhappily I caught his eye;-both mine immediately were bent to the ground; but he approached me, and we all stopped. I then looked up. He bowed. Good God, with what expressive eyes did he regard me! Never were surprise and concern so strongly marked:-yes, my dear Sir, he looked greatly concerned: and that, the remembrance of that, is the only consolation I feel for an evening the most painful of my life. What he said I know not; for indeed, I seemed to have neither ears nor understanding; but I recollect that I only courtsied in silence. He paused for an instant, as if-I believe so,-as if unwilling to pass on; and then, finding the whole party detained, he again bowed, and took leave. Indeed, my dear Sir, I thought I should have fainted; so great was my emotion, from shame, vexation, and a thousand other feelings, for which I have no expressions. I absolutely tore myself from the woman's arms; and then, disengaging myself from that of Mr. Brown, I went to Madame Duval, and besought that she would not suffer me to be again parted from her. I fancy-that Lord Orville saw what passed; for scarcely was I at liberty, ere he returned. Methought, my dear Sir, the pleasure, the surprise of that moment, recompensed me for all the chagrin I had before felt: for do you not think, that his return manifests, for a character so quiet, so reserved as Lord Orville's, something like solicitude in my concerns? such at least was the interpretation I involuntarily made upon again seeing him. With a politeness to which I have been sometime very little used, he apologized for returning; and then inquired after the health of Mrs. Mirvan, and the rest of the Howard Grove family. The flattering conjecture which I have just acknowledged, had so wonderfully restored my spirits, that I believe I never answered him so readily, and with so little constraint. Very short, however, was the duration of this conversation; for we were soon most disagreeably interrupted. The Miss Branghtons, though they saw almost immediately the characters of the women to whom I had so unfortunately applied, were, nevertheless, so weak and foolish, as merely to titter at their behaviour. As to Madame Duval, she was for some time so strangely imposed upon, that she thought they were two real fine ladies. Indeed, it is wonderful to see how easily and how frequently she is deceived. Our disturbance, however, arose from young Brown, who was now between the two women, by whom his arms were absolutely pinioned to his sides: for a few minutes his complaints had been only murmured: but he now called out aloud, "Goodness, Ladies, you hurt me like any thing! why, I can't walk at all, if you keep pinching my arms so!" This speech raised a loud laugh in the women, and redoubled the tittering of the Miss Branghtons. For my own part, I was most cruelly confused: while the countenance of Lord Orville manifested a sort of indignant astonishment; and, from that moment, he spoke to me no more till he took leave. Madame Duval, who now began to suspect her company, proposed our taking the first box we saw empty, bespeaking a supper, and waiting till Mr. Branghton should find us. Miss Polly mentioned one she had remarked, to which we all turned. Madame Duval instantly seated herself; and the two bold women, forcing the frightened Mr. Brown to go between them, followed her example. Lord Orville, with an air of gravity that wounded my very soul, then wished me good night. I said not a word; but my face, if it had any connection with my heart, must have looked melancholy indeed: and so I have some reason to believe it did; for he added with much more softness, though no less dignity, "Will Miss Anville allow me to ask her address, and to pay my respects to her before I leave town?" O how I changed colour at this unexpected request!-yet, what was the mortification I suffered in answering, "My Lord, I am-in Holborn!" He then bowed and left us. What, what can he think of this adventure! how strangely how cruelly have all appearances turned against me! Had I been blessed with any presence of mind, I should instantly have explained to him the accident which occasioned my being in such terrible company:-but I have none! As to the rest of the evening, I cannot relate the particulars of what passed; for, to you, I only write of what I think; and I can think of nothing but this unfortunate, this disgraceful meeting. These two wretched women continued to torment us all, but especially poor Mr. Brown, who seemed to afford them uncommon diversion, till we were discovered by Mr. Branghton, who very soon found means to release us from their persecutions, by frightening them away. We stayed but a short time after they left us, which was all employed in explanation. Whatever may be the construction which Lord Orville may put upon this affair, to me it cannot fail of being unfavourable; to be seen-gracious Heaven! to be seen in company with two women of such character!-How vainly, how proudly have I wished to avoid meeting him when only with the Branghtons and Madame Duval;-but now, how joyful should I be had he seen me to no greater disadvantage!-Holborn, too! what a direction! he who had always-but I will not torment you, my dearest Sir, with any more of my mortifying conjectures and apprehensions: perhaps he may call,-and then I shall have an opportunity of explaining to him all the most shocking part of the adventure. And yet, as I did not tell him at whose house I lived, he may not be able to discover me; I merely said in Holborn; and he, who I suppose saw my embarrassment, forbore to ask any other direction. Well, I must take my chance! Yet let me, in the justice to Lord Orville, and in justice to the high opinion I have always entertained of his honour and delicacy,-let me observe the difference of his behaviour, when nearly in the same situation, to that of Sir Clement Willoughby. He had, at least, equal cause to depreciate me in his opinion, and to mortify and sink me in my own; but far different was his conduct:-perplexed, indeed, he looked, and much surprised:-but it was benevolently, not with insolence. I am even inclined to think, that he could not see a young creature whom he had so lately known in a higher sphere, appear so suddenly, so strangely, so disgracefully altered in her situation, without some pity and concern. But whatever might be his doubts and suspicions, far from suffering them to influence his behaviour, he spoke, he looked with the same politeness and attention with which he had always honoured me when countenanced by Mrs. Mirvan. Once again, let me drop this subject. In every mortification, every disturbance, how grateful to my heart, how sweet to my recollection, is the certainty of your never-failing tenderness, sympathy and protection! Oh, Sir, could I upon this subject, could I write as I feel,-how animated would be the language of your devoted EVELINA. LETTER LIII. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Holborn, July 1st. LISTLESS, uneasy, and without either spirit or courage to employ myself, from the time I had finished my last letter, I indolently seated myself at the window, where, while I waited Madame Duval's summons to breakfast, I perceived, among the carriages which passed by, a coronet-coach, and in a few minutes, from the window of it, Lord Orville! I instantly retreated, but not I believe, unseen; for the coach immediately drove up to our door. Indeed, my dear Sir, I must own I was greatly agitated; the idea of receiving Lord Orville by myself,-the knowledge that his visit was entirely to me,-the wish of explaining the unfortunate adventure of yesterday,-and the mortification of my present circumstances,-all these thoughts, occurring to me nearly at the same time, occasioned me more anxiety, confusion, and perplexity, than I can possibly express. I believe he meant to sent up his name; but the maid, unused to such a ceremony, forgot it by the way, and only told me, that a great Lord was below, and desired to see me; and, the next moment, he appeared himself. If, formerly, when in the circle of high life, and accustomed to its manners, I so much admired and distinguished the grace, the elegance of Lord Orville, think Sir, how they must strike me now,-now, when far removed from that splendid circle, I live with those to whom even civility is unknown, and decorum a stranger! I am sure I received him very awkwardly: depressed by a situation so disagreeable-could I do otherwise? When his first enquiries were made, "I think myself very fortunate," he said, "in meeting with Miss Anville at home, and still more so in finding her disengaged." I only courtsied. He then talked of Mrs. Mirvan, asked how long I had been in town, and other such general questions, which happily gave me time to recover from my embarrassment. After which he said, "If Miss Anville will allow me the honour of sitting by her a few minutes (for we were both standing) I will venture to tell her the motive which, next to enquiring after her health, has prompted me to wait on her thus early." We were then both seated; and, after a short pause, he said, "How to apologize for so great a liberty as I am upon the point of taking, I know not;-shall I, therefore, rely wholly upon your goodness, and not apologize at all?" I only bowed. "I should be extremely sorry to appear impertinent,-yet hardly know how to avoid it." "Impertinent! O, my Lord," cried I, eagerly, "that, I am sure, is impossible!" "You are very good," answered he, "and encourage me to be ingenuous-" Again he stopped: but my expectation was too great for speech. At last, without looking at me, in a low voice, and hesitating manner, he said, "Were those ladies with whom I saw you last night ever in your company before?" "No, my Lord," cried I, rising and colouring violently, "nor will they ever be again." He rose too; and, with an air of the most condescending concern, said, "Pardon, Madam, the abruptness of a question which I knew not how to introduce as I ought, and for which I have no excuse to offer but my respect for Mrs. Mirvan, joined to the sincerest wishes for your happiness: yet I fear I have gone too far!" "I am very sensible of the honour of your lordship's attention," said I; "but-" "Permit me to assure you," cried he, finding I hesitated, "that officiousness is not my characteristic; and that I would by no means have risked your displeasure, had I not been fully satisfied you were too generous to be offended without a real cause of offence." "Offended!" cried I, "no, my Lord, I am only grieved-grieved, indeed! to find myself in a situation so unfortunate as to be obliged to make explanations, which cannot but mortify and shock me." "It is I alone," cried he, with some eagerness, "who am shocked, as it is I who deserve to be mortified. I seek no explanation, for I have no doubt; but in mistaking me, Miss Anville injures herself: allow me therefore, frankly and openly, to tell you the intention of my visit." I bowed, and we both returned to our seats. "I will own myself to have been greatly surprised," continued he, "when I met you yesterday evening, in company with two persons who I was sensible merited not the honour of your notice: nor was it easy for me to conjecture the cause of your being so situated; yet, believe me, my incertitude did not for a moment do you injury. I was satisfied that their characters must be unknown to you; and I thought, with concern, of the shock you would sustain when you discovered their unworthiness. I should not, however, upon so short an acquaintance, have usurped the privilege of intimacy, in giving my unasked sentiments upon so delicate a subject, had I not known that credulity is the sister of innocence, and therefore feared you might be deceived. A something which I could not resist, urged me to the freedom I have taken to caution you; but I shall not easily forgive myself if I have been so unfortunate as to give you pain." The pride which his first question had excited, now subsided into delight and gratitude; and I instantly related to him, as well as I could, the accident which had occasioned my joining the unhappy women with whom he had met me. He listened with an attention so flattering, seemed so much interested during the recital, and, when I had done, thanked me in terms so polite, for what he was pleased to call my condescension, that I was almost ashamed either to look at or hear him. Soon after the maid came to tell me, that Madame Duval desired to have breakfast made in her own room. "I fear," cried Lord Orville, instantly rising, "that I have intruded upon your time;-yet who, so situated, could do otherwise?" Then, taking my hand, "Will Miss Anville allow me thus to seal my peace?" he pressed it to his lips, and took leave. Generous, noble Lord Orville! how disinterested his conduct! how delicate his whole behaviour! Willing to advise, yet afraid to wound me!-Can I ever, in future, regret the adventure I met with at Marybone, since it has been productive of a visit so flattering? Had my mortifications been still more humiliating, my terrors still more alarming, such a mark of esteem-may I not call it so?-from Lord Orville, would have made me ample amends. And indeed, my dear Sir, I require some consolation in my present very disagreeable situation; for, since he went, two incidents have happened, that, had not my spirits been particularly elated, would greatly have disconcerted me. During breakfast, Madame Duval, very abruptly, asked, if I should like to be married? and added, that Mr. Branghton had been proposing a match for me with his son. Surprised, and, I must own, provoked, I assured her that in thinking of me, Mr. Branghton would very vainly lose his time. "Why," cried she, "I have had grander views for you myself, if once I could get you to Paris, and make you be owned; but if I can't do that, and you can do no better, why, as you are both my relations, I think to leave my fortune between you; and then, if you marry, you never need want for nothing." I begged her not to pursue the subject, as, I assured her, Mr. Branghton was totally disagreeable to me; but she continued her admonitions and reflections, with her usual disregard of whatever I could answer. She charged me, very peremptorily, neither wholly to discourage, nor yet to accept Mr. Branghton's offer, till she saw what could be done for me: the young man, she added, had often intended to speak to me himself, but, not well knowing how to introduce the subject, he had desired her to pave the way for him. I scrupled not, warmly and freely, to declare my aversion to this proposal; but it was to no effect; she concluded, just as she had begun, by saying, that I should not have him, if I could do better. Nothing, however, shall persuade me to listen to any other person concerning this odious affair. My second cause of uneasiness arises, very unexpectedly, from M. Du Bois; who, to my infinite surprise, upon Madame Duval's quitting the room after dinner, put into my hand a note, and immediately left the house. This note contains an open declaration of an attachment to me; which, he says, he should never have presumed to have acknowledged, had he not been informed that Madame Duval destined my hand to young Branghton,-a match which he cannot endure to think of. He beseeches me earnestly to pardon his temerity; professes the most inviolable respect; and commits his fate to time, patience, and pity. This conduct in M. du Bois gives me real concern, as I was disposed to think very well of him. It will not, however, be difficult to discourage him; and therefore, I shall not acquaint Madame Duval of his letter, as I have reason to believe it would greatly displease her. LETTER LIV. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. July 3rd. O SIR, how much uneasiness must I suffer, to counterbalance one short morning of happiness! Yesterday the Branghtons proposed a party to Kensington Gardens; and, as usual, Madame Duval insisted upon my attendance. We went in a hackney-coach to Piccadilly, and then had a walk through Hyde Park; which in any other company would have been delightful. I was much pleased with Kensington Gardens, and think them infinitely preferable to those of Vauxhall. Young Branghton was extremely troublesome; he insisted upon walking by my side, and talked with me almost by compulsion; however, my reserve and coldness prevented his entering upon the hateful subject which Madame Duval had prepared me to apprehend. Once, indeed, when I was accidentally a few yards before the rest, he said, "I suppose, Miss, aunt has told you about-you know what?-ha'n't she, Miss?"-But I turned from him without making any answer. Neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Brown were of the party; and poor M. Du Bois, when he found that I avoided him, looked so melancholy, that I was really sorry for him. While we were strolling round the garden, I perceived, walking with a party of ladies at some distance, Lord Orville! I instantly retreated behind Miss Branghton, and kept out of sight till we had passed him; for I dreaded being seen by him again in a public walk with a party of which I was ashamed. Happily I succeeded in my design, and saw no more of him; for a sudden and violent shower of rain made us all hasten out of the gardens. We ran till we came to a small green-shop, where we begged shelter. Here we found ourselves in company with two footmen, whom the rain had driven into the shop. Their livery I thought I had before seen; and, upon looking from the window, I perceived the same upon a coachman belonging to a carriage, which I immediately recollected to be Lord Orville's. Fearing to be know, I whispered Miss Branghton not to speak my name. Had I considered but a moment, I should have been sensible of the inutility of such a caution, since not one of the party call me by any other appellation than that of Cousin or of Miss; but I am perpetually involved in some distress or dilemma from my own heedlessness. This request excited very strongly her curiosity: and she attacked me with such eagerness and bluntness of enquiry, that I could not avoid telling her the reason of my making it, and, consequently, that I was known to Lord Orville: an acknowledgment which proved the most unfortunate in the world; for she would not rest till she had drawn from me the circumstances attending my first making the acquaintance. Then, calling to her sister, she said, "Lord, Polly, only think! Miss has danced with a Lord!" "Well," cried Polly, "that's a thing I should never have thought of! And pray, Miss, what did he say to you?" This question was much sooner asked than answered; and they both became so very inquisitive and earnest, that they soon drew the attention of Madame Duval and the rest of the party; to whom, in a very short time, they repeated all they had gathered from me. "Goodness, then," cried young Branghton, "if I was Miss, if I would not make free with his Lordship's coach, to take me to town." "Why, ay," said the father, "there would be some sense in that; that would be making some use of a Lord's acquaintance, for it would save us coach-hire." "Lord, Miss," cried Polly, "I wish you would; for I should like of all things to ride in a coronet-coach." "I promise you," said Madame Duval, "I'm glad you've thought of it, for I don't see no objection;-so let's have the coachman called." "Not for the world," cried I, very much alarmed: "indeed it is utterly impossible." "Why so?" demanded Mr. Branghton: "pray, where's the good of your knowing a Lord, if your never the better for him?" "Ma foi, child," said Madame Duval, "you don't know no more of the world that if you was a baby. Pray, Sir, (to one of the footmen) tell that coachman to draw up, for I wants to speak to him." The man stared, but did not move. "Pray, pray, Madame," said I, "pray, Mr. Branghton, have the goodness to give up this plan; I know but very little of his Lordship, and cannot, upon any account, take so great a liberty." "Don't say nothing about it," said Madam Duval, "for I shall have it my own way: so, if you won't call the coachman, Sir, I'll promise you I'll call him myself." The footman, very impertinently, laughed and turned upon his heel. Madame Duval, extremely irritated, ran out in the rain, and beckoned the coachman, who instantly obeyed her summons. Shocked beyond all expression, I flew after her, and entreated her, with the utmost earnestness, to let us return in a hackney coach:-but, oh!-she is impenetrable to persuasion! She told the man she wanted him to carry her directly to town, and that she would answer for him to Lord Orville. The man, with a sneer, thanked her, but said he should answer for himself; and was driving off; when another footman came up to him, with information that his Lord was gone into Kensington Palace, and would not want him for an hour or two. "Why, then, friend," said Mr. Branghton (for we were followed by all the party), "where will be the great harm of your taking us to town?" "Besides," said the son, "I'll promise you a pot of beer for my own share." These speeches had no other answer from the coachman than a loud laugh, which was echoed by the insolent footmen. I rejoiced at their resistance; though I was certain that, if their Lord had witnessed their impertinence, they would have been instantly dismissed his service. "Pardi," cried Madame Duval, "if I don't think all the footmen are the most impudentest fellows in the kingdom! But I'll promise you I'll have your master told of your airs; so you'll get no good by 'em." "Why, pray," said the coachman, rather alarmed, "did my Lord give you leave to use the coach?" "It's no matter for that," answered she; "I'm sure if he's a gentleman, he'd let us have it sooner than we should be wet to the skin; but I'll promise you he shall know how saucy you've been, for this young lady knows him very well." "Ay, that she does," said Miss Polly; "and she's danced with him too." Oh, how I repented my foolish mismanagement! The men bit their lips, and looked at one another in some confusion. This was perceived by our party; who, taking advantage of it, protested they would write Lord Orville word of their ill behaviour without delay. This quite startled them; and one of the footmen offered to run to the palace, and ask his Lord's permission for our having the carriage. This proposal really made me tremble, and the Branghtons all hung back upon it; but Madame Duval is never to be dissuaded from a scheme she has once formed. "Do so," cried she; "and give this child's compliments to your master; and tell him, as we ha'n't no coach here, we should be glad to go just as far as Holborn in his." "No, no, no!" cried I; "don't go,-I know nothing of his Lordship,-I send no message,-I have nothing to say to him!" The men, very much perplexed, could with difficulty restrain themselves from resuming their impertinent mirth. Madame Duval scolded me vary angrily, and then desired them to go directly. "Pray, then," said the coachman, "what name is to be given to my Lord?" "Anville," answered Madame Duval; "tell him Miss Anville wants the coach; the young lady he danced with once." I was really in an agony; but the winds could not have been more deaf to me, than those to whom I pleaded! and therefore the footman, urged by the repeated threats of Madame Duval, and perhaps recollecting the name himself, actually went to the palace with this strange message! He returned in a few minutes; and, bowing to me with the greatest respect, said, "My Lord desires his compliments, and his carriage will be always at Miss Anville's service." I was so much affected by this politeness, and chagrined at the whole affair, that I could scarce refrain from tears. Madame Duval, and the Miss Branghtons eagerly jumped into the coach, and desired me to follow. I would rather have submitted to the severest punishment; but all resistance was vain. During the whole ride I said not a word: however, the rest of the party were so talkative, that my silence was very immaterial. We stopped at our lodgings; but, when Madame Duval and I alighted, the Branghtons asked if they could not be carried on to Snow-Hill? The servants, now all civility, made no objection. Remonstrances from me would, I too well knew, be fruitless; and therefore, with a heavy heart, I retired to my room, and left them to their own direction. Seldom have I passed a night in greater uneasiness.-So lately to have cleared myself in the good opinion of Lord Orville,-so soon to forfeit it!-to give him reason to suppose I presumed to boast of his acquaintance!-to publish his having danced with me!-to take with him a liberty I should have blushed to have taken with the most intimate of my friends!-to treat with such impertinent freedom, one who has honoured me with such distinguished respect!-Indeed, Sir, I could have met with no accident that would so cruelly have tormented me! If such were, then, my feelings, imagine,-for I cannot describe, what I suffered during the scene I am now going to write. This morning, while I was alone in the dining-room, young Branghton called. He entered with a most important air; and, strutting up to me, said, "Miss, Lord Orville sends his compliments to you." "Lord Orville!" repeated I, much amazed. "Yes, Miss, Lord Orville; for I know his Lordship now, as well as you.-And a very civil gentleman he is, for all he's a Lord." "For Heaven's sake," cried I, "explain yourself." "Why, you must know, Miss, after we left you, we met with a little misfortune; but I don't mind it now, for it's all turned out for the best: but, just as we were a-going up Snow-Hill, plump we comes against a cart, with such a jogg it almost pulled the coach-wheel off. However, that i'n't the worst; for, as I went to open the door in a hurry, a-thinking the coach would be broke down, as ill-luck would have it, I never minded that the glass was up, and so I poked my head fairly through it.-Only see, Miss, how I've cut my forehead!" A much worse accident to himself would not, I believe, at that moment have given me any concern for him: however, he proceeded with his account, for I was too much confounded to interrupt him. "Goodness, Miss, we were in such a stew, us, and the servants, and all, as you can't think; for, besides the glass being broke, the coachman said how the coach wouldn't be safe to go back to Kensington. So we didn't know what to do; however, the footmen said they'd go and tell his Lordship what had happened. So then father grew quite uneasy like, for fear of his Lordship's taking offence, and prejudicing us in our business; so he said I should go this morning and ask his pardon, cause of having broke the glass. So then I asked the footmen the direction, and they told me he lived in Berkeley-square; so this morning I went,-and I soon found out the house." "You did!" cried I, quite out of breath with apprehension. "Yes, Miss, and a very fine house it is.-Did you ever see it?" "No." "No!-why, then, Miss, I know more of his Lordship than you do, for all you knew him first. So, when I came to the door, I was in a peck of troubles, a-thinking what I should say to him: however, the servants had no mind I should see him; for they told me he was busy, but I might leave my message. So I was just a-coming away, when I bethought myself to say I came from you." "From me!" "Yes, Miss, for you know, why should I have such a long walk as that for nothing? So I says to the porter, says I, tell his Lordship, says I, one wants to speak to him as comes from one Miss Anville, says I." "Good God," cried I, "and by what authority did you take such a liberty?" "Goodness, Miss don't be in such a hurry, for you'll be as glad as me, when you hear how well it all turned out. So then they made way for me, and said his Lordship would see me directly: and there I was led through such a heap of servants, and so many rooms, that my heart quite misgave me; for I thought, thinks I, he'll be so proud he'll hardly let me speak; but he's no more proud than I am, and he was as civil as if I'd been a lord myself. So then I said, I hoped he wouldn't take it amiss about the glass, for it was quite an accident; but he bid me not mention it, for it did not signify. And then he said he hoped you got safe home, and wasn't frightened so I said yes, and I gave your duty to him." "My duty to him!" exclaimed I,-"and who gave you leave?-who desired you?" "O, I did it out of my own head, just to make him think I came from you. But I should have told you before, how the footman said he was going out of town to-morrow evening, and that his sister was soon to be married, and that he was a-ordering a heap of things for that; so it come into my head, as he was so affable, that I'd ask him for his custom. So I says, says I, my Lord, says I, if your Lordship i'n't engaged particularly, my father is a silversmith, and he'll be very proud to serve you, says I; and Miss Anville, as danced with you, is his cousin, and she's my cousin too, and she'd be very much obligated to you, I'm sure." "You'll drive me wild," cried I, starting from my seat, "you have done me an irreparable injury;-but I will hear no more!"-and then I ran into my own room. I was half frantic, I really raved; the good opinion of Lord Orville seemed now irretrievable lost: a faint hope, which in the morning I had vainly encouraged, that I might see him again, and explain the transaction, wholly vanished, now I found he was so soon to leave town: and I could not but conclude, that, for the rest of my life, he would regard me as an object of utter contempt. The very idea was a dagger to my heart!-I could not support it, and-but I blush to proceed-I fear your disapprobation; yet I should not be conscious of having merited it, but that the repugnance I feel to relate to you what I have done, makes me suspect I must have erred. Will you forgive me, if I won that I first wrote an account of this transaction to Miss Mirvan?-and that I even thought of concealing it from you?-Short-lived, however, was the ungrateful idea, and sooner will I risk the justice of your displeasure, than unworthily betray your generous confidence. You are now probably prepared for what follows-which is a letter-a hasty letter, that, in the height of my agitation, I wrote to Lord Orville. "My Lord, "I am so infinitely ashamed of the application made yesterday for your Lordship's carriage in my name, and so greatly shocked at hearing how much it was injured, that I cannot forbear writing a few lines, to clear myself from the imputation of an impertinence which I blush to be suspected of, and to acquaint you, that the request for your carriage was made against my consent, and the visit with which you were importuned this morning without my knowledge. "I am inexpressibly concerned at having been the instrument, however innocently, of so much trouble to your Lordship; but I beg you to believe, that the reading these lines is the only part of it which I have given voluntarily. I am, my Lord, "Your Lordship's most Humble servant, "EVELINA ANVILLE." I applied to the maid of the house to get this note conveyed to Berkley-square; but scarce had I parted with it, before I regretted having written at all; and I was flying down stairs to recover it, when the voice of Sir Clement Willoughby stopped me. As Madame Duval had ordered we should be denied to him, I was obliged to return up stairs; and after he was gone, my application was too late, as the maid had given it to a porter. My time did not pass very serenely while he was gone; however, he brought me no answer, but that Lord Orville was not at home. Whether or not he will take the trouble to send any,-or whether he will condescend to call,-or whether the affair will rest as it is, I know not;-but, in being ignorant, am most cruelly anxious. LETTER LV. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. July 4th. YOU may now, my dear Sir, send Mrs. Clinton for your Evelina with as much speed as she can conveniently make the journey, for no further opposition will be made to her leaving this town: happy had it perhaps been for her had she never entered it! This morning Madame Duval desired me to go to Snow-Hill, with an invitation to the Branghtons and Mr. Smith to spend the evening with her; and she desired M. Du Bois, who breakfasted with us, to accompany me. I was very unwilling to obey her, as I neither wished to walk with M. Du Bois, nor yet to meet young Branghton. And, indeed, another, a yet more powerful reason, added to my reluctance;-for I thought it possible that Lord Orville might send some answer, or perhaps might call, during my absence; however, I did not dare dispute her commands. Poor M. Du Bois spoke not a word during our walk, which was, I believe, equally unpleasant to us both. We found all the family assembled in the shop. Mr. Smith, the moment he perceived me, addressed himself to Miss Branghton, whom he entertained with all the gallantry in his power. I rejoice to find that my conduct at the Hampstead ball has had so good an effect. But young Branghton was extremely troublesome; he repeatedly laughed in my face, and looked so impertinently significant, that I was obliged to give up my reserve to M. Du Bois, and enter into conversation with him merely to avoid such boldness. "Miss," said Mr. Branghton, "I'm sorry to hear from my son that you wasn't pleased with what we did about that Lord Orville: but I should like to know what it was you found fault with, for we did all for the best." "Goodness!" cried the son, "why, if you'd seen Miss, you'd have been surprised-she went out of the room quite in a huff, like-" "It is too late, now," said I, "to reason upon this subject; but, for the future, I must take the liberty to request, that my name may never be made use of without my knowledge. May I tell Madame Duval that you will do her the favour to accept her invitation?" "As to me, Ma'am," said Mr. Smith, "I am much obliged to the old lady, but I have no mind to be taken in by her again; you'll excuse me, Ma'am." All the rest promised to come, and I then took leave; but, as I left the shop, I heard Mr. Branghton say, "Take courage, Tom, she's only coy." And, before I had walked ten yards, the youth followed. I was so much offended that I would not look at him, but began to converse with M. Du Bois, who was now more lively than I had ever before seen him; for, most unfortunately, he misinterpreted the reason of my attention to him. The first intelligence I received when I came home, was, that two gentlemen had called, and left cards. I eagerly enquired for them, and read the names of Lord Orville and Sir Clement Willoughby. I by no means regretted that I missed seeing the latter, but perhaps I may all my life regret that I missed the former; for probably he has now left town,-and I may see him no more! "My goodness," cried young Branghton, rudely looking over me, "only think of that Lord's coming all this way! It's my belief he'd got some order ready for father, and so he'd a mind to call and ask you if I'd told him the truth." "Pray, Betty," cried I, "how long has he been gone?" "Not two minutes, Ma'am." "Why then, I'll lay you any wager, "said young Branghton, "he saw you and I a-walking up Holborn Hill." "God forbid!" cried I, impatiently; and, too much chagrined to bear with any more of his remarks, I ran up stairs; but I heard him say to M. Du Bois, "Miss is so uppish this morning, that I think I had better not speak to her again." I wish M. Du Bois had taken the same resolution; but he chose to follow me into the dining-room, which he found empty. "Vous ne l'aimez donc pas, ce garcon, Mademoiselle!" cried he. "Me!" cried I, "no, I detest him!" for I was sick at heart. "Ah, tu me rends la vie!" cried he; and, flinging himself at my feet, he had just caught my hand as the door was opened by Madame Duval. Hastily, and with marks of guilty confusion in his face, he arose; but the rage of that lady quite amazed me! Advancing to the retreating M. Du Bois, she began, in French, an attack, which her extreme wrath and wonderful volubility almost rendered unintelligible; yet I understood but too much, since her reproaches convinced me she had herself proposed being the object of his affection. He defended himself in a weak and evasive manner; and, upon her commanding him from her sight, very readily withdrew: and then, with yet greater violence, she upbraided me with having seduced his heart, called me an ungrateful, designing girl, and protested she would neither take me to Paris, nor any more interest herself in my affairs, unless I would instantly agree to marry young Branghton. Frightened as I had been at her vehemence, this proposal restored all my courage; and I frankly told her, that in this point I never could obey her. More irritated than ever, she ordered me to quit the room. Such is the present situation of affairs. I shall excuse myself from seeing the Branghtons this afternoon: indeed, I never wish to see them again. I am sorry, however innocently, that I have displeased Madame Duval; yet I shall be very glad to quit this town, for I believe it does not now contain one person I ever wish to again meet. Had I but seen Lord Orville, I should regret nothing: I could then have more fully explained what I so hastily wrote; yet it will always be a pleasure to me to recollect that he called, since I flatter myself it was in consequence of his being satisfied with my letter. Adieu, my dear Sir; the time now approaches when I hope once more to receive your blessing, and to owe all my joy, all my happiness, to your kindness. LETTER LVI. MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA. Berry Hill, July 7th. WELCOME, thrice welcome, my darling Evelina, to the arms of the truest, the fondest of your friends! Mrs. Clinton, who shall hasten to you with these lines, will conduct you directly hither; for I can consent no longer to be parted from the child of my bosom!-the comfort of my age!-the sweet solace of all my infirmities! Your worthy friends at Howard Grove must pardon me that I rob them of the visit you proposed to make them before your return to Berry Hill, for I find my fortitude unequal to a longer separation. I have much to say to you, many comments to make upon your late letters, some parts of which give me no little uneasiness; but I will reserve my remarks for our future conversations. Hasten, then, to the spot of thy nativity, the abode of thy youth, where never yet care or sorrow had power to annoy thee.-O that they might ever be banished this peaceful dwelling! Adieu, my dearest Evelina! I pray but that thy satisfaction at our approaching meeting may bear any comparison with mine! ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER LVII. EVELINA TO MISS MIRVAN. Berry Hill, July 14th. MY Sweet Maria will be much surprised, and I am willing to flatter myself, concerned, when, instead of her friend, she receives this letter;-this cold, this inanimate letter, which will but ill express the feelings of the heart which indites it. When I wrote to you last Friday, I was in hourly expectation of seeing Mrs. Clinton, with whom I intended to have set out for Howard Grove. Mrs. Clinton came; but my plan was necessarily altered, for she brought me a letter,-the sweetest that ever was penned, from the best and kindest friend that ever orphan was blessed with, requiring my immediate attendance at Berry Hill. I obeyed,-and pardon me if I own I obeyed without reluctance: after so long a separation, should I not else have been the most ungrateful of mortals?-And yet,-oh, Maria! though I wished to leave London, the gratification of my wish afforded me no happiness! and though I felt an impatience inexpressible to return hither, no words, no language, can explain the heaviness of heart with which I made the journey. I believe you would hardly have known me;-indeed, I hardly know myself. Perhaps, had I first seen you, in your kind and sympathizing bosom I might have ventured to have reposed every secret of my soul;-and then-but let me pursue my journal. Mrs. Clinton delivered Madame Duval a letter from Mr. Villars, which requested her leave for my return; and, indeed, it was very readily accorded: yet, when she found, by my willingness to quit town that M. Du Bois was really indifferent to me, she somewhat softened in my favour; and declared, that, but for punishing his folly in thinking of such a child, she would not have consented to my being again buried in the country. All the Branghtons called to take leave of me; but I will not write a word more about them: indeed I cannot, with any patience, think of that family, to whose forwardness and impertinence is owing all the uneasiness I at this moment suffer! So great was the depression of my spirits upon the road, that it was with great difficulty I could persuade the worthy Mrs. Clinton I was not ill; but, alas! the situation of my mind was such as would have rendered any mere bodily pain, by comparison, even enviable! And yet, when we arrived at Berry Hill,-when the chaise stopped at this place,-how did my heart throb with joy!-and when, through the window, I beheld the dearest, the most venerable of men, with uplifted hands, returning, as I doubt not, thanks for my safe arrival,-good God! I thought it would have burst my bosom!-I opened the chaise-door myself; I flew,-for my feet did not seem to touch the ground,-into the parlour: he had risen to meet me; but the moment I appeared he sunk into his chair, uttering, with a deep sigh, though his face beamed with delight, "My God, I thank thee!" I sprung forward; and, with a pleasure that bordered upon agony, I embraced his knees, I kissed his hands, I wept over them, but could not speak: while he, now raising his eyes in thankfulness towards heaven, now bowing down his reverend head, and folding me in his arms, could scarce articulate the blessings with which his kind and benevolent heart overflowed. O, Miss Mirvan, to be so beloved by the best of men,-should I not be happy?-Should I have one wish save that of meriting his goodness?-Yet think me not ungrateful; indeed I am not, although the internal sadness of my mind unfits me, at present, for enjoying as I ought the bounties of Providence. I cannot journalize, cannot arrange my ideas into order. How little has situation to do with happiness! I had flattered myself, that, when restored to Berry Hill, I should be restored to tranquillity: far otherwise have I found it, for never yet had tranquillity and Evelina so little intercourse. I blush for what I have written. Can you, Maria, forgive my gravity? but I restrain it so much, and so painfully, in the presence of Mr. Villars, that I know not how to deny myself the consolation of indulging it to you. Adieu, my dear Miss Mirvan. Yet one thing I must add: do not let the seriousness of this letter deceive you; do not impute to a wrong cause the melancholy I confess, by supposing that the heart of your friend mourns a too great susceptibility: no, indeed! believe me it never was, never can be, more assuredly her own than at this moment. So witness in all truth, Your affectionate, EVELINA. You will make my excuses to the honoured Lady Howard, and to your dear mother. LETTER LVIII. EVELINA TO MISS MIRVAN. Berry Hill, July 21st. YOU accuse me of mystery, and charge me with reserve: I cannot doubt but I must have merited the accusation; yet, to clear myself,-you know not how painful will be the task. But I cannot resist your kind entreaties;-indeed I do not wish to resist them; for your friendship and affection will soothe my chagrin. Had it arisen from any other cause, not a moment would I have deferred the communication you ask;-but as it is, I would, were it possible, not only conceal it from all the world, but endeavour to disbelieve it myself. Yet since I must tell you, why trifle with your impatience? I know not how to come to the point; twenty times have I attempted it in vain;-but I will force myself to proceed. Oh, Miss Mirvan, could you ever have believed, that one who seemed formed as a pattern for his fellow-creatures, as a model of perfection,-one whose elegance surpassed all description,-whose sweetness of manners disgraced all comparison;-oh, Miss Mirvan, could you ever have believed that Lord Orville, would have treated me with indignity? Never, never again will I trust to appearances;-never confide in my own weak judgment;-never believe that person to be good who seems to be amiable! What cruel maxims are we taught by a knowledge of the world!-But while my own reflections absorb me, I forget you are still in suspense. I had just finished the last letter which I wrote to you from London, when the maid of the house brought me a note. It was given to her, she said, by a footman, who told her he would call the next day for an answer. This note,-but let it speak for itself. "To Miss Anville. "With transport, most charming of thy sex, did I read the letter with which you yesterday morning favoured me. I am sorry the affair of the carriage should have given you any concern, but I am highly flattered by the anxiety you express so kindly. Believe me, my lovely girl, I am truly sensible to the honour of your good opinion, and feel myself deeply penetrated with love and gratitude. The correspondence you have so sweetly commenced, I shall be proud of continuing; and I hope the strong sense I have of the favour you do me will prevent your withdrawing it. Assure yourself, that I desire nothing more ardently than to pour forth my thanks at your feet, and to offer those vows which are so justly the tribute of your charms and accomplishments. In your next I intreat you to acquaint me how long you shall remain in town. The servant, whom I shall commission to call for an answer, has orders to ride post with it to me. My impatience for his arrival will be very great, though inferior to that with which I burn to tell you, in person, how much I am, my sweet girl, your grateful admirer, "ORVILLE." What a letter! how has my proud heart swelled every line I have copied! What I wrote to him you know; tell me, then, my dear friend, do you think it merited such an answer?-and that I have deservedly incurred the liberty he has taken? I meant nothing but a simple apology, which I thought as much due to my own character as to his; yet by the construction he seems to have put upon it, should you not have imagined it contained the avowal of sentiments which might indeed have provoked his contempt? The moment the letter was delivered to me, I retired to my own room to read it; and so eager was my first perusal, that,-I am ashamed to own,-it gave me no sensation but of delight. Unsuspicious of any impropriety from Lord Orville, I perceived not immediately the impertinence it implied,-I only marked the expressions of his own regard; and I was so much surprised, that I was unable for some time to compose myself, or read it again:-I could only walk up and down the room, repeating to myself, "Good God, is it possible?-am I then loved by Lord Orville?" But this dream was soon over, and I awoke to far different feelings. Upon a second reading I thought every word changed,-it did not seem the same letter,-I could not find one sentence that I could look at without blushing: my astonishment was extreme, and it was succeeded by the utmost indignation. If, as I am very ready to acknowledge, I erred in writing to Lord Orville, was it for him to punish the error? If he was offended, could he not have been silent? If he thought my letter ill-judged, should he not have pitied my ignorance? have considered my youth, and allowed for my inexperience? Oh, Maria! how have I been deceived in this man! Words have no power to tell the high opinion I had of him; to that was owing the unfortunate solicitude which prompted my writing; a solicitude I must for ever repent! Yet perhaps I have rather reason to rejoice than to grieve, since this affair has shown me his real disposition, and removed that partiality which, covering his every imperfection, left only his virtues and good qualities exposed to view. Had the deception continued much longer, had my mind received any additional prejudice in his favour, who knows whither my mistaken ideas might have led me? Indeed I fear I was in greater danger than I apprehended, or can now think of without trembling;-for, oh, if this weak heart of mine had been penetrated with too deep an impression of his merit,-my peace and happiness had been lost for ever. I would fain encourage more cheerful thoughts, fain drive from my mind the melancholy that has taken possession of it; but I cannot succeed: for, added to the humiliating feelings which so powerfully oppress me, I have yet another cause of concern;-alas, my dear Maria, I have broken the tranquillity of the best of men! I have never had the courage to show him this cruel letter; I could not bear so greatly to depreciate in his opinion, one whom I had, with infinite anxiety, raised in it myself. Indeed, my first determination was to confine my chagrin totally to my own bosom; but your friendly enquiries have drawn it from me: and now I wish I had made no concealment from the beginning, since I know not how to account for a gravity, which not all my endeavours can entirely hide or repress. My greatest apprehension is, lest he should imagine that my residence in London has given me a distaste to the country. Every body I see takes notice of my being altered, and looking pale and ill. I should be very indifferent to all such observations, did I not perceive that they draw upon me the eyes of Mr. Villars, which glisten with affectionate concern. This morning, in speaking of my London expedition he mentioned Lord Orville. I felt so much disturbed, that I would instantly have changed the subject; but he would not allow me, and, very unexpectedly, he began his panegyric; extolling in strong terms, his manly and honourable behaviour in regard to the Marybone adventure. My cheeks glowed with indignation every word he spoke;-so lately as I had myself fancied him the noblest of his sex, now that I was so well convinced of my mistake, I could not bear to hear his undeserved praises uttered by one so really good, so unsuspecting, so pure of heart. What he thought of my silence and uneasiness I fear to know; but I hope he will mention the subject no more. I will not, however, with ungrateful indolence, give way to a sadness which I find infectious to him who merits the most cheerful exertion of my spirits. I am thankful that he has forborne to probe my wound; and I will endeavour to heal it by the consciousness that I have not deserved the indignity I have received. Yet I cannot but lament to find myself in a world so deceitful, where we must suspect what we see, distrust what we hear, and doubt even what we feel! LETTER LIX. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Berry Hill, July 29th. I MUST own myself somewhat distressed how to answer your raillery: yet, believe me, my dear Maria, your suggestions are those of fancy, not of truth. I am unconscious of the weakness you suspect; yet, to dispel your doubts, I will animate myself more than ever to conquer my chagrin, and to recover my spirits. You wonder, you say, since my heart takes no part in this affair, why it should make me so unhappy? And can you, acquainted as you are with the high opinion I entertained of Lord Orville, can you wonder that so great a disappointment in his character should affect me? Indeed, had so strange a letter been sent to me from any body, it could not have failed shocking me; how much more sensibly, then, must I feel such an affront, when received from the man in the world I had imagined least capable of giving it? You are glad I made no reply; assure yourself, my dear friend, had this letter been the most respectful that could be written, the clandestine air given to it, by his proposal of sending his servant for my answer, instead of having it directed to his house, would effectually have prevented my writing. Indeed, I have an aversion the most sincere to all mysteries, all private actions; however foolishly and blameably, in regard to this letter, I have deviated from the open path which, from my earliest infancy, I was taught to tread. He talks of my having commenced a correspondence with him: and could Lord Orville indeed believe I had such a design? believe me so forward, so bold, so strangely ridiculous? I know not if his man called or not; but I rejoice that I quitted London before he came, and without leaving any message for him. What, indeed, could I have said? it would have been a condescension very unmerited to have taken any, the least notice of such a letter. Never shall I cease to wonder how he could write it. Oh, Maria! what, what could induce him so causelessly to wound and affront one who would sooner have died than wilfully offended him? -How mortifying a freedom of style! how cruel an implication conveyed by his thanks and expressions of gratitude! Is it not astonishing, that any man can appear so modest, who is so vain? Every hour I regret the secrecy I have observed with my beloved Mr. Villars; I know not what bewitched me, but I felt at first a repugnance to publishing this affair that I could not surmount;-and now, I am ashamed of confessing that I have any thing to confess! Yet I deserve to be punished for the false delicacy which occasioned my silence, since, if Lord Orville himself was contented to forfeit his character, was it for me, almost at the expense of my own, to support it? Yet I believe I should be very easy, now the first shock is over, and now that I see the whole affair with the resentment it merits, did not all my good friends in this neighbourhood, who think me extremely altered, tease me about my gravity, and torment Mr. Villars with observations upon my dejection and falling away. The subject is no sooner started, than a deep gloom overspreads his venerable countenance, and he looks at me with a tenderness so melancholy, that I know not how to endure the consciousness of exciting it. Mrs. Selwyn, a lady of large fortune, who lives about three miles from Berry Hill, and who has always honoured me with very distinguishing marks of regard, is going, in a short time, to Bristol, and has proposed to Mr. Villars to take me with her for the recovery of my health. He seemed very much distressed whether to consent or refuse; but I, without any hesitation, warmly opposed the scheme, protesting my health could no where be better than in this pure air. He had the goodness to thank me for this readiness to stay with him; but he is all goodness! Oh, that it were in my power to be indeed what, in the kindness of his heart, he has called me, the comfort of his age, and solace of his infirmities! Never do I wish to be again separated from him. If here I am grave, elsewhere I should be unhappy. In his presence, with a very little exertion, all the cheerfulness of my disposition seems ready to return; the benevolence of his countenance reanimates, the harmony of his temper composes, the purity of his character edifies me! I owe to him every thing! and, far from finding my debt of gratitude a weight, the first pride, the first pleasure of my life, is the recollection of the obligations conferred upon me by a goodness so unequalled. Once, indeed, I thought there existed another,-who, when time had wintered o'er his locks, would have shone forth among his fellow-creatures with the same brightness of worth which dignifies my honoured Mr. Villars; a brightness how superior in value to that which results from mere quickness of parts, wit, or imagination! a brightness, which, not contented with merely diffusing smiles, and gaining admiration from the sallies of the spirits, reflects a real and a glorious lustre upon all mankind! Oh, how great was my error! how ill did I judge! how cruelly have I been deceived! I will not go to Bristol, though Mrs. Selwyn is very urgent with me;-but I desire not to see any more of the world! the few months I have already passed in it, have sufficed to give me a disgust even to its name. I hope, too, I shall see Lord Orville no more: accustomed, from my first knowledge of him, to regard him as a being superior to his race, his presence, perhaps, might banish my resentment, and I might forget his ill conduct; for oh, Maria!-I should not know how to see Lord Orville -and to think of displeasure! As a sister I loved him;-I could have entrusted him with every thought of my heart, had he deigned to wish my confidence: so steady did I think his honour, so feminine his delicacy, and so amiable his nature! I have a thousand times imagined that the whole study of his life, and whole purport of his reflections, tended solely to the good and happiness of others: but I will talk,-write,-think of him no more! Adieu, my dear friend! LETTER LX. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Berry Hill, August 10th. YOU complain of my silence, my dear Miss Mirvan;-but what have I to write? Narrative does not offer, nor does a lively imagination supply the deficiency. I have, however, at present, sufficient matter for a letter, in relating a conversation I had yesterday with Mr. Villars. Our breakfast had been the most cheerful we have had since my return hither; and when it was over, he did not, as usual, retire to his study, but continued to converse with me while I worked. We might, probably, have passed all the morning thus sociably, but for the entrance of a farmer, who came to solicit advice concerning some domestic affairs. They withdrew together into the study. The moment I was alone my spirits failed me; the exertion with which I had supported them had fatigued my mind; I flung away my work, and, leaning my arms on the table, gave way to a train of disagreeable reflections, which, bursting from the restraint that had smothered them, filled me with unusual sadness. This was my situation, when, looking towards the door, which was open, I perceived Mr. Villars, who was earnestly regarding me. "Is Farmer Smith gone, Sir?" cried I, hastily rising, and snatching up my work. "Don't let me disturb you," said he, gravely; "I will go again to my study." "Will you, Sir?-I was in hopes you were coming to sit here." "In hopes!-and why, Evelina, should you hope it?" This question was so unexpected, that I knew not how to answer it; but, as I saw he was moving away, I followed, and begged him to return. "No, my dear, no," said he, with a forced smile, "I only interrupt your meditations." Again I knew not what to say; and while I hesitated, he retired. My heart was with him, but I had not the courage to follow. The idea of an explanation, brought on in so serious a manner, frightened me. I recollected the inference you had drawn from my uneasiness, and I feared that he might make a similar interpretation. Solitary and thoughtful, I passed the rest of the morning in my own room. At dinner I again attempted to be cheerful; but Mr. Villars himself was grave, and I had not sufficient spirits to support a conversation merely by my own efforts. As soon as dinner was over, he took a book, and I walked to the window. I believe I remained near an hour in this situation. All my thoughts were directed to considering how I might dispel the doubts which I apprehended Mr. Villars had formed, without acknowledging a circumstance which I had suffered so much pain merely to conceal. But while I was thus planning for the future, I forgot the present; and so intent was I upon the subject which occupied me, that the strange appearance of my unusual inactivity and extreme thoughtfulness never occurred to me. But when, at last, I recollected myself, and turned round, I saw that Mr. Villars, who had parted with his book, was wholly engrossed in attending to me. I started from my reverie, and, hardly knowing what I said, asked if he had been reading? He paused a moment, and then replied, "Yes, my child;-a book that both afflicts and perplexes me." He means me, thought I; and therefore I made no answer. "What if we read it together?" continued he, "will you assist me to clear its obscurity?" I knew not what to say; but I sighed involuntarily from the bottom of my heart. He rose, and approaching me, said, with emotion, "My child, I can no longer be a silent witness of thy sorrow,-is not thy sorrow my sorrow?-and ought I to be a stranger to the cause, when I so deeply sympathize in the effect?" "Cause, Sir!" cried I, greatly alarmed, "what cause?-I don't know,-I can't tell-I-" "Fear not," said he, kindly, "to unbosom thyself to me, my dearest Evelina; open to me thy whole heart,-it can have no feelings for which I will not make allowance. Tell me, therefore, what it is that thus afflicts us both; and who knows but I may suggest some means of relief?" "You are too, too good," cried I, greatly embarrassed; "but indeed I know not what you mean." "I see," said he, "it is painful to you to speak: suppose, then, I endeavour to save you by guessing?" "Impossible! impossible!" cried I, eagerly; "no one living could ever guess, ever suppose-" I stopped abruptly; for I then recollected I was acknowledging something was to be guessed: however, he noticed not my mistake. "At least let me try," answered he, mildly; "perhaps I may be a better diviner than you imagine: if I guess every thing that is probable, surely I must approach near the real reason. Be honest, then, my love, and speak without reserve;-does not the country, after so much gaiety, so much variety, does it not appear insipid and tiresome?" "No, indeed! I love it more than ever, and more than ever do I wish I had never, never quitted it!" "Oh, my child! that I had not permitted the journey! My judgment always opposed it, but my resolution was not proof against persuasion." "I blush, indeed," cried I, "to recollect my earnestness;-but I have been my own punisher!" "It is too late now," answered he, "to reflect upon this subject; let us endeavour to avoid repentance for the time to come, and we shall not have erred without reaping some instruction." Then, seating himself, and making me sit by him, he continued, "I must now guess again: perhaps you regret the loss of those friends you knew in town;-perhaps you miss their society, and fear you may see them no more?-perhaps Lord Orville-" I could not keep my seat; but, rising hastily, said, "Dear Sir, ask me nothing more!-for I have nothing to own,-nothing to say;-my gravity has been merely accidental, and I can give no reason for it at all.-Shall I fetch you another book?-or will you have this again?" For some minutes he was totally silent, and I pretended to employ myself in looking for a book. At last, with a deep sigh, "I see," said he, "I see but too plainly, that though Evelina is returned,-I have lost my child!" "No, Sir, no," cried I, inexpressibly shocked, "she is more your's than ever! Without you, the world would be a desert to her, and life a burthen:-forgive her, then, and,-if you can,-condescend to be, once more, the confidant of all her thoughts." "How highly I value, how greatly I wish for her confidence," returned he, "she cannot but know;-yet to extort, to tear it from her,-my justice, my affection both revolt at the idea. I am sorry that I was so earnest with you;-leave me, my dear, leave me, and compose yourself; we will meet again at tea." "Do you then refuse to hear me?" "No, but I abhor to compel you. I have long seen that your mind has been ill at ease, and mine has largely partaken of your concern: I forbore to question you; for I hoped that time and absence, from whatever excited your uneasiness, might best operate in silence: but, alas! your affliction seems only to augment,-your health declines,-your look alters!-Oh, Evelina, my aged heart bleeds to see the change!-bleeds to behold the darling it had cherished, the prop it had reared for its support, when bowed down by years and infirmities, sinking itself under the pressure of internal grief!-struggling to hide what it should seek to participate!-But go, my dear, go to your own room; we both want composure, and we will talk of this matter some other time." "Oh, Sir," cried I, penetrated to the soul, "bid me not leave you!-think me not so lost to feeling, to gratitude-" "Not a word of that," interrupted he: "it pains me you should think upon that subject; pains me you should ever remember that you have not a natural, an hereditary right to every thing within my power. I meant not to affect you thus,-I hoped to have soothed you!-but my anxiety betrayed me to an urgency that has distressed you. Comfort yourself, my love; and doubt not but that time will stand your friend, and all will end well." I burst into tears: with difficulty had I so long restrained them; for my heart, while it glowed with tenderness and gratitude, was oppressed with a sense of its own unworthiness. "You are all, all goodness!" cried I, in a voice scarce audible; "little as I deserve,-unable as I am to repay, such kindness,-yet my whole soul feels,-thanks you for it!" "My dearest child," cried he, "I cannot bear to see thy tears;-for my sake dry them: such a sight is too much for me: think of that, Evelina, and take comfort, I charge thee!" "Say then," cried I, kneeling at his feet, "say then that you forgive me! that you pardon my reserve,-that you will again suffer me to tell you my most secret thoughts, and rely upon my promise never more to forfeit your confidence!-my father!-my protector!-my ever-honoured,-ever-loved-my best and only friend!-say you forgive your Evelina, and she will study better to deserve your goodness!" He raised, he embraced me: he called me his sole joy, his only earthly hope, and the child of his bosom! He folded me to his heart; and, while I wept from the fulness of mine, with words of sweetest kindness and consolation, he soothed and tranquillised me. Dear to my remembrance will ever be that moment when, banishing the reserve I had so foolishly planned, and so painfully supported, I was restored to the confidence of the best of men! When at length we were again quietly and composedly seated by each other, and Mr. Villars waited for the explanation I had begged him to hear, I found myself extremely embarrassed how to introduce the subject which must lead to it. He saw my distress; and with a kind of benevolent pleasantry, asked me if I would let him guess any more? I assented in silence. "Shall I, then, go back to where I left off?" "If-if you please;-I believe so,-" said I, stammering. "Well, then, my love, I think I was speaking of the regret it was natural you should feel upon quitting those from whom you had received civility and kindness, with so little certainty of ever seeing them again, or being able to return their good offices. These are circumstances that afford but melancholy reflections to young minds; and the affectionate disposition of my Evelina, open to all social feelings, must be hurt more than usual by such considerations.-You are silent, my dear. Shall I name those whom I think most worthy the regret I speak of? We shall then see if our opinions coincide." Still I said nothing, and he continued. "In your London journal, nobody appears in a more amiable, a more respectable light than Lord Orville; and perhaps-" "I knew what you would say," cried I, hastily, "and I have long feared where your suspicions would fall; but indeed, Sir, you are mistaken: I hate Lord Orville,-he is the last man in the world in whose favour I should be prejudiced." I stopped; for Mr. Villars looked at me with such infinite surprise, that my own warmth made me blush. "You hate Lord Orville!" repeated he. I could make no answer; but took from my pocket-book the letter, and giving it to him, "See, Sir," said I, "how differently the same man can talk and write!" He read it three times before he spoke; and then said, "I am so much astonished, that I know not what I read. When had you this letter?" I told him. Again he read it, and, after considering its contents some time, said, "I can form but one conjecture concerning this most extraordinary performance: he must certainly have been intoxicated when he wrote it." "Lord Orville intoxicated!" repeated I: "once I thought him a stranger to all intemperance;-but it is very possible, for I can believe any thing now." "That a man who had behaved with so strict a regard to delicacy," continued Mr. Villars, "and who, as far as occasion had allowed, manifested sentiments the most honourable, should thus insolently, thus wantonly, insult a modest young woman, in his perfect senses, I cannot think possible. But, my dear, you should have inclosed this letter in an empty cover, and have returned it to him again: such a resentment would at once have become your character, and have given him an opportunity, in some measure, of clearing his own. He could not well have read this letter the next morning without being sensible of the impropriety of having written it." Oh, Maria! why had I not this thought? I might then have received some apology; the mortification would then have been his, not mine. It is true, he could not have reinstated himself so highly in my opinion as I had once ignorantly placed him, since the conviction of such intemperance would have levelled him with the rest of his imperfect race; yet my humbled pride might have been consoled by his acknowledgments. But why should I allow myself to be humbled by a man who can suffer his reason to be thus abjectly debased, when I am exalted by one who knows no vice, and scarcely a failing, but by hearsay? To think of his kindness, and reflect upon his praises, might animate and comfort me even in the midst of affliction. "Your indignation," said he, "is the result of virtue; you fancied Lord Orville was without fault-he had the appearance of infinite worthiness, and you supposed his character accorded with appearance: guileless yourself, how could you prepare against the duplicity of another? Your disappointment has but been proportioned to your expectations, and you have chiefly owed its severity to the innocence which hid its approach." I will bid these words dwell ever in my memory, and they shall cheer, comfort, and enliven me! This conversation, though extremely affecting to me at the time it passed, has relieved my mind from much anxiety. Concealment, my dear Maria, is the foe of tranquillity: however I may err in future, I will never be disingenuous in acknowledging my errors. To you and to Mr. Villars I vow an unremitting confidence. And yet, though I am more at ease, I am far from well: I have been some time writing this letter; but I hope I shall send you soon a more cheerful one. Adieu, my sweet friend. I intreat you not to acquaint even your dear mother with this affair; Lord Orville is a favourite with her, and why should I publish that he deserves not that honour? LETTER LXI. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Bristol Hotwells, August 28th. YOU will be again surprised, my dear Maria, at seeing whence I date my letter: but I have been very ill, and Mr. Villars was so much alarmed, that he not only insisted upon my accompanying Mrs. Selwyn hither, but earnestly desired she would hasten her intended journey. We travelled very slowly, and I did not find myself so much fatigued as I expected. We are situated upon a most delightful spot; the prospect is beautiful, the air pure, and the weather very favourable to invalids. I am already better, and I doubt not but I shall soon be well; as well, in regard to mere health, as I wish to be. I cannot express the reluctance with which I parted from my revered Mr. Villars: it was not like that parting which, last April, preceded my journey to Howard Grove, when, all expectation and hope, though I wept, I rejoiced, and, though I sincerely grieved to leave him, I yet wished to be gone: the sorrow I now felt was unmixed with any livelier sensation; expectation was vanished, and hope I had none! All that I held most dear upon earth I quitted; and that upon an errand, to the success of which I was totally indifferent, the re-establishment of my health. Had it been to have seen my sweet Maria, or her dear mother, I should not have repined. Mrs. Selwyn is very kind and attentive to me. She is extremely clever: her understanding, indeed, may be called masculine: but, unfortunately, her manners deserve the same epithet; for, in studying to acquire the knowledge of the other sex, she has lost all the softness of her own. In regard to myself, however, as I have neither courage nor inclination to argue with her, I have never been personally hurt at her want of gentleness; a virtue which, nevertheless, seems so essential a part of the female character, that I find myself more awkward, and less at ease, with a woman who wants it, than I do with a man. She is not a favourite with Mr. Villars, who has often been disgusted at her unmerciful propensity to satire: but his anxiety that I should try the effect of the Bristol waters, overcame his dislike of committing me to her care. Mrs. Clinton is also here; so that I shall be as well attended as his utmost partiality could desire. I will continue to write to you, my dear Miss Mirvan, with as much constancy as if I had no other correspondent; though, during my absence from Berry Hill, my letters may, perhaps, be shortened on account of the minuteness of the journal which I must write to my beloved Mr. Villars: but you, who know his expectations, and how many ties bind me to fulfil them, will I am sure, rather excuse any omission to yourself, than any negligence to him. LETTER LXII. EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS. Bristol Hotwells, Sept. 12th. THE first fortnight that I passed here was so quiet, so serene, that it gave me reason to expect a settled calm during my stay; but if I may now judge of the time to come, by the present state of my mind, the calm will be succeeded by a storm, of which I dread the violence! This morning, in my way to the pump-room with Mrs. Selwyn, we were both very much incommoded by three gentlemen, who were sauntering by the side of the Avon, laughing and talking very loud, and lounging so disagreeably, that we knew not how to pass them. They all three fixed their eyes very boldly upon me, alternately looking under my hat, and whispering one another. Mrs. Selwyn assumed an air of uncommon sternness, and said, "You will please, gentlemen, either to proceed yourselves, or to suffer us." "Oh! Ma'am," cried one of them, "we will suffer you with the greatest pleasure in life." "You will suffer us both," answered she, "or I am much mistaken: you had better, therefore, make way quietly; for I should be sorry to give my servant the trouble of teaching you better manners." Her commanding air struck them, yet they all chose to laugh; and one of them wished the fellow would begin his lesson, that he might have the pleasure of rolling him into the Avon; while another, advancing to me with a freedom which made me start, said, "By my soul, I did not know you!-but I am sure I cannot be mistaken;-had not I the honour of seeing you once at the Pantheon?" I then recollected the nobleman, who, at that place, had so much embarrassed me. I courtsied without speaking. They all bowed, and making, though in a very easy manner, an apology to Mrs. Selwyn, they suffered us to pass on, but chose to accompany us. "And where," continued this Lord, "can you so long have hid yourself? do you know I have been in search of you this age? I could neither find you out, nor hear of you: not a creature could inform me what was become of you. I cannot imagine where you could be immured. I was at two or three public places every night, in hopes of meeting you. Pray, did you leave town?" "Yes, my Lord." "So early in the season!-what could possibly induce you to go before the birth-day?" "I had nothing, my Lord, to do with the birth-day." "By my soul, all the women who had, may rejoice you were away. Have you been here any time?" "Not above a fortnight, my Lord." "A fortnight!-how unlucky that I did not meet you sooner! but I have had a run of ill luck ever since I came. How long shall you stay?" "Indeed, my Lord, I don't know." "Six weeks, I hope; for I shall wish the place at the devil when you go." "Do you, then, flatter yourself, my Lord," said Mrs. Selwyn, who had hitherto listened in silent contempt, "that you shall see such a beautiful spot as this, when you visit the dominions of the devil?" "Ha, ha, ha! Faith, my Lord," said one of his companions, who still walked with us, though the other had taken leave, "the lady is rather hard upon you." "Not at all," answered Mrs. Selwyn; "for as I cannot doubt but his Lordship's rank and interest will secure him a place there, it would be reflecting on his understanding, to suppose he should not wish to enlarge and beautify his dwelling." Much as I was disgusted with this Lord, I must own Mrs. Selwyn's severity rather surprised me: but you, who have so often observed it, will not wonder she took so fair an opportunity of indulging her humour. "As to places," returned he, totally unmoved, "I am so indifferent to them, that the devil take me if I care which way I go! objects, indeed, I am not so easy about; and, therefore, I expect, that those angels with whose beauty I am so much enraptured in this world, will have the goodness to afford me some little consolation in the other." "What, my Lord!" cried Mrs. Selwyn, "would you wish to degrade the habitation of your friend, by admitting into it the insipid company of the upper regions?" "What do you do with yourself this evening?" said his Lordship, turning to me. "I shall be at home, my Lord." "O, -e;-propos,-where are you?" "Young ladies, my Lord," said Mrs. Selwyn, "are no where." "Prithee," whispered his Lordship, "is that queer woman your mother?" Good Heavens, Sir, what words for such a question! "No, my Lord." "Your maiden aunt then?" "No." "Whoever she is, I wish she would mind her own affairs: I don't know what the devil a woman lives for after thirty: she is only in other folk's way. Shall you be at the assembly?" "I believe not, my Lord." "No!-why then, how in the world can you contrive to pass your time?" "In a manner which your Lordship will think very extraordinary," cried Mrs. Selwyn, "for the young lady reads." "Ha, ha, ha! Egad, my Lord," cried the facetious companion, "you are got into bad hands." "You had better, Ma'am," answered he, "attack Jack Coverley here, for you will make nothing of me." "Of you, my Lord," cried she, "Heaven forbid I should ever entertain so idle an expectation! I only talk, like a silly woman, for the sake of talking; but I have by no means so low an opinion of your Lordship, as to suppose you vulnerable to censure." "Do, pray, Ma'am," cried he, "turn to Jack Coverley; he's the very man for you;-he'd be a wit himself if he was not too modest." "Prithee, my Lord, be quiet," returned the other; "if the lady is contented to bestow all her favours upon you, why should you make such a point of my going snacks?" "Don't be apprehensive, gentlemen," said Mrs. Selwyn, drily, "I am not romantic;-I have not the least design of doing good to either of you." "Have not you been ill since I saw you?" said his Lordship, again addressing himself to me. "Yes, my Lord." "I thought so; you are paler than you was, and I suppose that's the reason I did not recollect you sooner." "Has not your Lordship too much gallantry," cried Mrs. Selwyn, "to discover a young lady's illness by her looks?" "The devil a word can I speak for that woman," said he, in a low voice; "do, prithee, Jack, take her in hand." "Excuse me, my Lord," answered Mr. Coverley. "When shall I see you again?" continued his Lordship; "do you go to the pump-room every morning?" "No, my Lord." "Do you ride out?" "No, my Lord." Just then we arrived at the pump-room, and an end was put to our conversation, if it is not an abuse of words to give such a term to a string of rude questions and free compliments. He had not opportunity to say much more to me, as Mrs. Selwyn joined a large party, and I walked home between two ladies. He had, however, the curiosity to see us to the door. Mrs. Selwyn was very eager to know how I had made acquaintance with this nobleman, whose manners so evidently announced the character of a confirmed libertine. I could give her very little satisfaction, as I was ignorant even of his name: but, in the afternoon, Mr. Ridgeway, the apothecary, gave us very ample information. As his person was easily described, for he is remarkably tall, Mr. Ridgeway told us he was Lord Merton, a nobleman who is but lately come to his title, though he has already dissipated more than half his fortune; a professed admirer of beauty, but a man of most licentious character; that among men, his companions consisted chiefly of gamblers and jockeys, and among women he was rarely admitted. "Well, Miss Anville," said Mrs. Selwyn, "I am glad I was not more civil to him. You may depend upon me for keeping him at a distance." "O, Madam," said Mr. Ridgeway, "he may now be admitted any where, for he is going to reform." "Has he, under that notion, persuaded any fool to marry him?" "Not yet, Madam, but a marriage is expected to take place shortly: it has been some time in agitation; but the friends of the lady have obliged her to wait till she is of age: however, her brother, who has chiefly opposed the match, now that she is near being at her own disposal, is tolerably quiet. She is very pretty, and will have a large fortune. We expect her at the Wells every day." "What is her name?" said Mrs. Selwyn. "Larpent," answered he: "Lady Louisa Larpent, sister of Lord Orville." "Lord Orville!" repeated I, all amazement. "Yes, Ma'am; his Lordship is coming with her. I have had certain information. They are to be at the Honourable Mrs. Beaumont's. She is a relation of my Lord's, and has a very fine house upon Clifton Hill." His Lordship is coming with her! -Good God, what an emotion did those words give me! How strange, my dear Sir, that, just at this time, he should visit Bristol! It will be impossible for me to avoid seeing him, as Mrs. Selwyn is very well acquainted with Mrs. Beaumont. Indeed, I have had an escape in not being under the same roof with him, for Mrs. Beaumont invited us to her house immediately upon our arrival; but the inconvenience of being so distant from the pump-room made Mrs. Selwyn decline her civility. Oh that the first meeting were over!-or that I could quit Bristol without seeing him!-inexpressibly do I dread an interview! Should the same impertinent freedom be expressed by his looks, which dictated this cruel letter, I shall not know how to endure either him or myself. Had I but returned it, I should be easier, because my sentiments of it would then be known to him; but now, he can only gather them from my behaviour; and I tremble lest he should mistake my indignation for confusion!-lest he should misconstrue my reserve into embarrassment!-for how, my dearest Sir, how shall I be able totally to divest myself of the respect with which I have been used to think of him?-the pleasure with which I have been used to see him? Surely he, as well as I, must recollect the letter at the moment of our meeting; and he will, probably, mean to gather my thoughts of it from my looks;-oh that they could but convey to him my real detestation of impertinence and vanity! then would he see how much he had mistaken my disposition when he imagined them my due. There was a time when the very idea that such a man as Lord Merton should ever be connected with Lord Orville would have both surprised and shocked me; and even yet I am pleased to hear of his repugnance to the marriage. But how strange, that a man of so abandoned a character should be the choice of a sister of Lord Orville! and how strange, that, almost at the moment of the union, he should be so importunate in gallantry to another woman! What a world is this we live in! how corrupt! how degenerate! well might I be contented to see no more of it! If I find that the eyes of Lord Orville agree with his pen,-I shall then think, that of all mankind, the only virtuous individual resides at Berry Hill. LETTER LXIII. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Bristol Hotwells, Sept. 16th. OH, Sir, Lord Orville is still himself! still what, from the moment I beheld, I believed him to be-all that is amiable in man! and your happy Evelina, restored at once to spirits and tranquillity, is no longer sunk in her own opinion, nor discontented with the world;-no longer, with dejected eyes, sees the prospect of passing her future days in sadness, doubt, and suspicion!-with revived courage she now looks forward, and expects to meet with goodness, even among mankind:-though still she feels, as strongly as ever, the folly of hoping, in any second instance, to meet with perfection. Your conjecture was certainly right; Lord Orville, when he wrote that letter, could not be in his senses. Oh that intemperance should have power to degrade so low, a man so noble! This morning I accompanied Mrs. Selwyn to Clifton Hill, where, beautifully situated, is the house of Mrs. Beaumont. Most uncomfortable were my feelings during our walk, which was very slow; for the agitation of my mind made me more than usually sensible how weak I still continue. As we entered the house, I summoned all my resolution to my aid, determined rather to die than give Lord Orville reason to attribute my weakness to a wrong cause. I was happily relieved from my perturbation, when I saw Mrs. Beaumont was alone. We sat with her for, I believe, an hour without interruption; and then we saw a phaeton drive up to the gate, and a lady and gentleman alight from it. They entered the parlour with the ease of people who were at home. The gentleman, I soon saw, was Lord Merton: he came shuffling into the room with his boots on, and his whip in his hand; and having made something like a bow to Mrs. Beaumont, he turned towards me. His surprise was very evident; but he took no manner of notice of me. He waited, I believe, to discover, first, what chance had brought me to that house, where he did not look much rejoiced at meeting me. He seated himself very quietly at the window, without speaking to any body. Mean time the lady, who seemed very young, hobbling rather than walking into the room, made a passing courtsy to Mrs. Beaumont, saying, "How are you, Ma'am?" and then, without noticing any body else, with an air of languor she flung herself upon a sofa, protesting, in a most affected voice, and speaking so softly she could hardly be heard, that she was fatigued to death. "Really, Ma'am, the roads are so monstrous dusty,-you can't imagine how troublesome the dust is to one's eyes!-and the sun, too, is monstrous disagreeable!-I dare say I shall be so tanned: I shan't be fit to be seen this age. Indeed, my Lord, I won't go out with you any more, for you don't care where you take one." "Upon my honour," said Lord Merton, "I took you the pleasantest ride in England, the fault was in the sun, not me." "Your Lordship is in the right," said Mrs. Selwyn, "to transfer the fault to the sun, because it has so many excellencies to counterbalance partial inconveniences that a little blame will not injure that in our estimation." Lord Merton looked by no means delighted at this attack; which I believe she would not so readily have made, but to revenge his neglect of us. "Did you meet your brother, Lady Louisa?" said Mrs. Beaumont. "No, Ma'am. Is he rode out this morning?" I then found, what I had before suspected, that this lady was Lord Orville's sister: how strange, that such near relations should be so different to each other! There is, indeed, some resemblance in their features; but, in their manners, not the least. "Yes," answered Mrs. Beaumont, "and I believe he wished to see you." "My Lord drove so monstrous fast," said Lady Louisa, "that perhaps we passed him. He frightened me out of my senses; I declare my head is quite giddy. Do you know, Ma'am, we have done nothing but quarrel all the morning?-You can't think how I've scolded; have not I, my Lord?" and she smiled expressively at Lord Merton. "You have been, as you always are," said he, twisting his whip with his fingers, "all sweetness." "O fie, my Lord," cried she, "I know you don't think so; I know you think me very ill-natured;-don't you, my Lord?" "No, upon my honour;-how can your Ladyship ask such a question? Pray how goes time? my watch stands." "It is almost three," answered Mrs. Beaumont. "Lord, Ma'am, you frighten me!" cried Lady Louisa; and then, turning to Lord Merton, "why now, you wicked creature you, did you not tell me it was but one?" Mrs. Selwyn then rose to take leave; but Mrs. Beaumont asked if she would look at the shrubbery. "I should like it much," answered she, "but that I fear to fatigue Miss Anville." Lady Louisa, then, raising her head from her hand, on which it had leant, turned round to look at me; and having fully satisfied her curiosity, without any regard to the confusion it gave me, turned about, and, again leaning on her hand, took no further notice of me. I declared myself very able to walk, and begged that I might accompany them. "What say you, Lady Louisa," cried Mrs. Beaumont, "to a stroll in the garden?" "Me, Ma'am!-I declare I can't stir a step; the heat is so excessive, it would kill me. I'm half dead with it already; besides, I shall have no time to dress. Will any body be here to-day, Ma'am?" "I believe not, unless Lord Merton will favour us with his company." "With great pleasure, Madam." "Well, I declare you don't deserve to be asked," cried Lady Louisa, "you wicked creature you!-I must tell you one thing, Ma'am,-you can't think how abominable he was! do you know we met Mr. Lovel in his new phaeton, and my Lord was so cruel as to drive against it?-we really flew. I declare I could not breathe. Upon my word, my Lord, I'll never trust myself with you again,-I won't indeed." We then went into the garden, leaving them to discuss the point at their leisure. Do you remember a pretty but affected young lady I mentioned to have seen, in Lord Orville's party, at the Pantheon? How little did I then imagine her to be his sister! yet Lady Louisa Larpent is the very person. I can now account for the piqued manner of her speaking to Lord Merton that evening, and I can now account for the air of displeasure with which Lord Orville marked the undue attention of his future brother-in-law to me. We had not walked long, ere, at a distance, I perceived Lord Orville, who seemed just dismounted from his horse, enter the garden. All my perturbation returned at the sight of him!-yet I endeavoured to repress every feeling but resentment. As he approached us, he bowed to the whole party; but I turned away my head to avoid taking any share in his civility. Addressing himself immediately to Mrs. Beaumont, he was beginning to enquire after his sister: but, upon seeing my face, he suddenly exclaimed, "Miss Anville!-" and then he advanced, and made his compliments to me,-not with an air of vanity or impertinence, nor yet with a look of consciousness or shame;-but with a countenance open, manly, and charming!-with a smile that indicated pleasure, and eyes that sparkled with delight!-on my side was all that consciousness; for by him, I really believe, the letter was, at that moment, entirely forgotten. With what politeness did he address me! with what sweetness did he look at me! the very tone of his voice seemed flattering! he congratulated himself upon his good fortune in meeting with me;-hoped I should spend some time in Bristol, and enquired, even with anxiety enquired, if my health was the cause of my journey; in which case his satisfaction would be converted into apprehension. Yet, struck as I was with his manner, and charmed to find him such as he was wont to be, imagine not, my dear Sir, that I forgot the resentment I owe him, or the cause he has given me of displeasure; no, my behaviour was such, as I hope, had you seen, you would not have disapproved: I was grave and distant; I scarce looked at him when he spoke, or answered him when he was silent. As he must certainly observe this alteration in my conduct, I think it could not fail making him both recollect and repent the provocation he had so causelessly given me; for surely he was not so wholly lost to reason, as to be now ignorant he had ever offended me. The moment that, without absolute rudeness, I was able, I turned entirely from him, and asked Mrs. Selwyn if we should not be late home? How Lord Orville looked I know not, for I avoided meeting his eyes; but he did not speak another word as we proceeded to the garden gate. Indeed, I believe, my abruptness surprised him, for he did not seem to expect I had so much spirit. And, to own the truth, convinced as I was of the propriety, nay, necessity, of showing my displeasure, I yet almost hated myself for receiving his politeness so ungraciously. When we were taking leave, my eyes accidentally meeting his, I could not but observe that his gravity equalled my own; for it had entirely taken place of the smiles and good humour with which he had met me. "I am afraid this young lady," said Mrs. Beaumont, "is too weak for another long walk till she is again rested." "If the ladies will trust to my driving," said Lord Orville, "and are not afraid of a phaeton, mine shall be ready in a moment." "You are very good, my Lord, "said Mrs. Selwyn, "but my will is yet unsigned, and I don't choose to venture in a phaeton with a young man while that is the case." "O," cried Mrs. Beaumont, "you need not be afraid of my Lord Orville, for he is remarkably careful." "Well, Miss Anville," answered she, "what say you?" "Indeed," cried I, "I had much rather walk-." But then, looking at Lord Orville, I perceived in his face a surprise so serious at my abrupt refusal, that I could not forbear adding, "for I should be sorry to occasion so much trouble." Lord Orville, brightening at these words, came forward, and pressed his offer in a manner not to be denied;-so the phaeton was ordered! And indeed, my dear Sir,-I know not how it was;-but, from that moment, my coldness and reserve insensibly wore away! You must not be angry,-it was my intention, nay, my endeavour, to support them with firmness: but when I formed the plan, I thought only of the letter,-not of Lord Orville!-and how is it possible for resentmen to subsist without provocation? yet, believe me, my dearest Sir, had he sustained the part he began to act when he wrote this ever-to-be-regretted letter, your Evelina would have not forfeited her title to your esteem, by contentedly submitting to be treated with indignity. We continued in the garden till the phaeton was ready. When we parted from Mrs. Beaumont, she repeated her invitation to Mrs. Selwyn to accept an apartment in her house; but the reason I have already mentioned made it be again declined. Lord Orville drove very slow, and so cautiously, that, notwithstanding the height of the phaeton, fear would have been ridiculous. I supported no part in the conversation; but Mrs. Selwyn extremely well supplied the place of two. Lord Orville himself did not speak much; but the excellent sense and refined good-breeding which accompany every word he utters, give value and weight to whatever he says. "I suppose, my Lord," said Mrs. Selwyn, when we stopped at our lodgings, "you would have been extremely confused had we met any gentlemen who have the honour of knowing you." "If I had," answered he, gallantly, "it would have been from mere compassion at their envy." "No, my Lord," answered she, "it would have been from mere shame, that, in an age so daring, you alone should be such a coward as to forbear to frighten women." "O," cried he, laughing, "when a man is in a fright for himself, the ladies cannot but be in security; for you have not had half the apprehension for the safety of your persons, that I have for that of my heart." He then alighted, handed us out, took leave, and again mounting the phaeton, was out of sight in a minute. "Certainly," said Mrs. Selwyn, when he was gone, "there must have been some mistake in the birth of that young man; he was, undoubtedly, designed for the last age; for he is really polite!" And now, my dear Sir, do not you think, according to the present situation of affairs, I may give up my resentment, without imprudence or impropriety? I hope you will not blame me. Indeed, had you, like me, seen his respectful behaviour, you would have been convinced of the impracticability of supporting any further indignation. LETTER LXIV. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Bristol Hotwells, Sept. 19th. YESTERDAY morning Mrs. Selwyn received a card from Mrs. Beaumont, to ask her to dine with her to-day: and another, to the same purpose, came to me. The invitation was accepted, and we are but just arrived from Clifton Hill. We found Mrs. Beaumont alone in the parlour. I will write you the character of that lady, in the words of our satirical friend Mrs. Selwyn. "She is an absolute Court Calendar bigot; for, chancing herself to be born of a noble and ancient family, she thinks proper to be of opinion, that birth and virtue are one and the same thing. She has some good qualities; but they rather originate from pride than principle, as she piques herself upon being too high-born to be capable of an unworthy action, and thinks it incumbent upon her to support the dignity of her ancestry. Fortunately for the world in general, she has taken it into her head, that condescension is the most distinguishing virtue of high life; so that the same pride of family which renders others imperious, is with her the motive of affability. But her civility is too formal to be comfortable, and too mechanical to be flattering. That she does me the honour of so much notice, is merely owing to an accident, which, I am sure, is very painful to her remembrance; for it so happened, that I once did her some service, in regard to an apartment at Southampton; and I have since been informed, that, at the time she accepted my assistance, she thought I was a woman of quality; and I make no doubt but she was miserable when she discovered me to be a mere country gentlewoman: however, her nice notions of decorum have made her load me with favours ever since. But I am not much flattered by her civilities, as I am convinced I owe them neither to attachment nor gratitude; but solely to a desire of cancelling an obligation, which she cannot brook being under, to one whose name is no where to be found in the Court Calendar." You well know, my dear Sir, the delight this lady takes in giving way to her satirical humour. Mrs. Beaumont received us very graciously, though she some what distressed me by the questions she asked concerning my family;-such as, Whether I was related to the Anvilles in the North?-Whether some of my name did not live in Lincolnshire? and many other inquiries, which much embarrassed me. The conversation next turned upon the intended marriage in her family. She treated the subject with reserve; but it was evident she disapproved Lady Louisa's choice. She spoke in terms of the highest esteem of Lord Orville, calling him, in Marmontel's words, "Un jeune homme comme il y en a peu." I did not think this conversation very agreeably interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Lovel. Indeed I am heartily sorry he is now at the Hot Wells. He made his compliments with the most obsequious respect to Mrs. Beaumont, but took no sort of notice of any other person. In a few minutes Lady Louisa Larpent made her appearance. The same manners prevailed; for, courtsying, with "I hope you are well, Ma'am," to Mrs. Beaumont, she passed straight forward to her seat on the sofa; where, leaning her head on her hand, she cast her languishing eyes round the room, with a vacant stare, as if determined, though she looked, not to see who was in it. Mr. Lovel, presently approaching her, with reverence the most profound, hoped her Ladyship was not indisposed. "Mr. Lovel!" cried she, raising her head, "I declare I did not see you: have you been here long?" "By my watch, Madam," said he, "only five minutes,-but by your Ladyship's absence as many hours." "O! now I think of it," cried she, "I am very angry with you;-so go along, do; for I sha'n't speak to you all day." "Heaven forbid your La'ship's displeasure should last so long! in such cruel circumstances, a day would seem an age. But in what have I been so unfortunate as to offend?" "O, you half killed me the other morning, with terror! I have not yet recovered from my fright. How could you be so cruel as to drive your phaeton against my Lord Merton's?" "'Pon honour, Ma'am, your La'ship does me wrong;-it was all owing to the horses,-there was no curbing them. I protest I suffered more than your Ladyship, from the terror of alarming you." Just then entered Lord Merton; stalking up to Mrs. Beaumont, to whom alone he bowed, he hoped he had not made her wait; and then, advancing to Lady Louisa, said, in a careless manner, "How is your Ladyship this morning?" "Not well at all," answered she; "I have been dying with the head-ache ever since I got up." "Indeed!" cried he, with a countenance wholly unmoved, "I am very unhappy to hear it. But should not your Ladyship have some advice?" "I am quite sick of advice," answered she, "Mr. Ridgeway has but just left me,-but he has done me no good. Nobody here knows what is the matter with me, yet they all see how indifferent I am." "Your Ladyship's constitution," said Mr. Lovel, "is infinitely delicate." "Indeed it is," cried she, in a low voice, "I am nerve all over!" "I am glad, however," said Lord Merton, "that you did not take the air this morning, for Coverley has been driving against me as if he was mad: he has got two of the finest spirited horses I ever saw." "Pray my Lord," cried she, "why did not you bring Mr. Coverley with you? he's a droll creature; I like him monstrously." "Why, he promised to be here as soon as me. I suppose he'll come before dinner's over." In the midst of this trifling conversation Lord Orville made his appearance. O how different was his address! how superior did he look and move, to all about him! Having paid his respects to Mrs. Beaumont, and then to Mrs. Selwyn, he came up to me, and said, "I hope Miss Anville has not suffered from the fatigue of Monday morning?" Then, turning to Lady Louisa, who seemed rather surprised at his speaking to me, he added, "Give me leave, sister, to introduce Miss Anville to you." Lady Louisa, half-rising, said, very coldly, that she should be glad of the honour of knowing me; and then, abruptly turning to Lord Merton and Mr. Lovel, continued, in a half-whisper, her conversation. For my part, I had risen and courtsied, and now, feeling very foolish, I seated myself again: first I blushed at the unexpected politeness of Lord Orville, and immediately afterwards at the contemptuous failure of it in his sister. How can that young lady see her brother so universally admired for his manners and deportment, and yet be so unamiably opposite to him in hers! but while his mind, enlarged and noble, rises superior to the little prejudices of rank, hers, feeble and unsteady, sinks beneath their influence. Lord Orville, I am sure, was hurt and displeased: he bit his lips, and, turning from her, addressed himself wholly to me, till we were summoned to dinner. Do you think I was not grateful for his attention? yes, indeed, and every angry idea I had entertained was totally obliterated. As we were seating ourselves at the table, Mr. Coverley came into the room; he made a thousand apologies in a breath for being so late, but said he had been retarded by a little accident, for that he had overturned his phaeton, and broke it all to pieces. Lady Louisa screamed at this intelligence, and, looking at Lord Merton, declared she would never go into a phaeton again. "O," cried he, "never mind Jack Coverley; for he does not know how to drive." "My Lord," cried Mr. Coverley, "I'll drive against you for a thousand pounds." "Done!" returned the other; "name your day, and we'll each choose a judge." "The sooner the better," cried Mr. Coverley; "to-morrow, if the carriage can be repaired." "These enterprises," said Mrs. Selwyn, "are very proper for men of rank, since 'tis a million to one but both parties will be incapacitated for any better employment." "For Heaven's sake," cried Lady Louisa, changing colour, "don't talk so shockingly! Pray, my Lord, pray, Mr. Coverley, don't alarm me in this manner." "Compose yourself, Lady Louisa," said Mrs. Beaumont, "the gentlemen will think better of the scheme; they are neither of them in earnest." "The very mention of such a scheme," said Lady Louisa, taking out her salts, "makes me tremble all over! Indeed, my Lord, you have frightened me to death! I sha'n't eat a morsel of dinner." "Permit me," said Lord Orville, "to propose some other subject for the present, and we will discuss this matter another time." "Pray, brother, excuse me; my Lord must give me his word to drop the project,-for I declare it has made me sick as death." "To compromise the matter," said Lord Orville, "suppose, if both parties are unwilling to give up the bet, that, to make the ladies easy, we change its object to something less dangerous?" This proposal was so strongly seconded by all the party, that both Lord Merton and Mr. Coverley were obliged to comply with it; and it was then agreed that the affair should be finally settled in the afternoon. "I shall now be entirely out of conceit with phaetons again," said Mrs. Selwyn, "though Lord Orville had almost reconciled me to them." "My Lord Orville!" cried the witty Mr. Coverley, "why, my Lord Orville is as careful,-egad, as careful as an old woman! Why, I'd drive a one-horse cart against my Lord's phaeton for a hundred guineas!" This sally occasioned much laughter; for Mr. Coverley, I find, is regarded as a man of infinite humour. "Perhaps, Sir," said Mrs. Selwyn, "you have not discovered the reason my Lord Orville is so careful?" "Why, no, Ma'am; I must own I never heard any particular reason for it." "Why, then, Sir, I'll tell it you; and I believe you will confess it to be very particular; his Lordship's friends are not yet tired of him." Lord Orville laughed and bowed. Mr. Coverley, a little confused, turned to Lord Merton, and said, "No foul play, my Lord! I remember your Lordship recommended me to the notice of this lady the other morning, and, egad, I believe you have been doing me the same office to-day." "Give you joy, Jack!" cried Lord Merton, with a loud laugh. After this the conversation turned wholly upon eating, a subject which was discussed with the utmost delight; and, had I not known they were men of rank and fashion, I should have imagined that Lord Merton, Mr. Lovel, and Mr. Coverley, had all been professed cooks; for they displayed so much knowledge of sauces and made-dishes, and of the various methods of dressing the same things, that I am persuaded they must have given much time, and much study, to make themselves such adepts in this art. It would be very difficult to determine, whether they were most to be distinguished as gluttons or epicures; for they were, at once, dainty and voracious, understood the right and the wrong of every dish, and alike emptied the one and the other. I should have been quite sick of their remarks, had I not been entertained by seeing that Lord Orville, who, I am sure, was equally disgusted, not only read my sentiments, but, by his countenance, communicated to me his own. When dinner was over, Mrs. Beaumont recommended the gentlemen to the care of Lord Orville, and then attended the ladies to the drawing-room. The conversation, till tea-time, was extremely insipid; Mrs. Selwyn reserved herself for the gentlemen, Mrs. Beaumont was grave, and Lady Louisa languid. But, at tea, every body revived; we were joined by the gentlemen, and gaiety took the place of dullness. Since I, as Mr. Lovel says, am Nobody, I seated myself quietly at a window, and not very near to any body: Lord Merton, Mr. Coverley, and Mr. Lovel, severally passed me without notice, and surrounded the chair of Lady Louisa Larpent. I must own, I was rather piqued at the behaviour of Mr. Lovel, as he had formerly known me. It is true, I most sincerely despise his foppery; yet I should be grieved to meet with contempt from any body. But I was by no means sorry to find, that Lord Merton was determined not to know me before Lady Louisa, as his neglect relieved me from much embarrassment. As to Mr. Coverley, his attention or disregard were equally indifferent to me. Yet, altogether, I feel extremely uncomfortable in finding myself considered in a light very inferior to the rest of the company. But when Lord Orville appeared, the scene changed: he came up stairs last; and, seeing me sit alone, not only spoke to me directly, but drew a chair next mine, and honoured me with his entire attention. He enquired very particularly after my health, and hoped I had already found benefit from the Bristol air. "How little did I imagine," added he, "when I had last the pleasure of seeing you in town, that ill health would in so short a time have brought you hither! I am ashamed of myself for the satisfaction I feel at seeing you,-yet, how can I help it?" He then enquired after the Mirvan family, and spoke of Mrs. Mirvan in terms of most just praise. "She is gentle and amiable," said he, "a true feminine character." "Yes, indeed," answered I: "and her sweet daughter, to say every thing of her at once, is just the daughter such a mother deserves." "I am glad of it," said he, "for both their sakes, as such near relations must always reflect credit or disgrace on each other." After this he began to speak of the beauties of Clifton; but, in a few moments, he was interrupted by a call from the company, to discuss the affair of the wager. Lord Merton and Mr. Coverley, though they had been discoursing upon the subject some time, could not fix upon the thing that satisfied them both. When they asked the assistance of Lord Orville, he proposed that every body present should vote something; and that the two gentlemen should draw lots which, from the several votes, should decide the bet. "We must then begin with the ladies," said Lord Orville; and applied to Mrs. Selwyn. "With all my heart," answered she, with her usual readiness; "and, since the gentlemen are not allowed to risk their necks, suppose we decide the bet by their heads?" "By our heads?" cried Mr. Coverley. "Egad, I don't understand you." "I will then explain myself more fully. As I doubt not but you are both excellent classics, suppose, for the good of your own memories, and the entertainment and surprise of the company, the thousand pounds should fall to the share of him who can repeat by heart the longest ode of Horace?" Nobody could help laughing, the two gentlemen applied to excepted; who seemed, each of them, rather at a loss in what manner to receive this unexpected proposal. At length Mr. Coverley, bowing low, said, "Will your Lordship please to begin?" "Devil take me if I do!" answered he, turning on his heel, and stalking to the window. "Come, gentlemen," said Mrs. Selwyn, "why do you hesitate? I am sure you cannot be afraid of a weak woman? Besides, if you should chance to be out, Mr. Lovel, I dare say, will have the goodness to assist you." The laugh now turned against Mr. Lovel, whose change of countenance manifested no great pleasure at the transition. "Me, Madam!" said he, colouring; "no, really I must beg to be excused." "Why so, Sir?" "Why so, Ma'am!-Why, really-as to that,-'pon honour, Ma'am, you are rather-a little severe;-for how is it possible for a man who is in the house, to study the classics? I assure you, Ma'am, (with an affected shrug) I find quite business enough for my poor head in studying politics." "But, did you study politics at school, and at the university?" "At the university!" repeated he, with an embarrassed look; "why, as to that, Ma'am,-no, I can't say I did; but then, what with riding,-and -and-and so forth,-really, one has not much time, even at the university, for mere reading." "But, to be sure, Sir, you have read the classics?" "O dear, yes, Ma'am!-very often,-but not very-not very lately." "Which of the Odes do you recommend to these gentlemen to begin with?" "Which of the Odes!-Really, Ma'am, as to that, I have no very particular choice;-for, to own the truth, that Horace was never a very great favourite with me." "In truth I believe you!" said Mrs. Selwyn, very drily. Lord Merton, again advancing into the circle, with a nod and a laugh, said, "Give you joy, Lovel!" Lord Orville next applied to Mrs. Beaumont for her vote. "It would very agreeably remind me of past times," said she, "when bowing was in fashion, if the bet was to depend upon the best made bow." "Egad, my Lord," cried Mr. Coverley, "there I should beat you hollow, for your Lordship never bows at all." "And pray, Sir, do you?" said Mrs. Selwyn. "Do I, Ma'am?" cried he; "why, only see!" "I protest," cried she, "I should have taken that for a shrug, if you had not told me 'twas a bow." "My lord," cried Mr. Coverley, "let's practise;" and then, most ridiculously, they pranced about the room, making bows. "We must now," said Lord Orville, turning to me, "call upon Miss Anville." "O no, my Lord," cried I; "indeed I have nothing to propose." He would not, however, be refused; but urged me so much to say something, that at last, not to make him wait any longer, I ventured to propose an extempore couplet upon some given subject. Mr. Coverley instantly made me a bow, or, according to Mrs. Selwyn, a shrug, crying, "Thank you, Ma'am; egad, that's my forte!-why, my Lord, the Fates seem against you." Lady Louisa was then applied to; and every body seemed eager to hear her opinion. "I don't know what to say, I declare," cried she, affectedly; "can't you pass me?" "By no means," said Lord Merton. "Is it possible your Ladyship can make so cruel a request?" said Mr. Lovel. "Egad," cried Mr. Coverley, "if your Ladyship does not help us in this dilemma, we shall be forced to return to our phaetons." "Oh!" cried Lady Louisa, screaming; "you frightful creature, you, how can you be so abominable?" I believe this trifling lasted near half an hour; when at length, every body being tired, it was given up, and she said she would consider against another time. Lord Orville now called upon Mr. Lovel; who, after about ten minutes' deliberation, proposed, with a most important face, to determine the wager by who should draw the longest straw! I had much difficulty to forbear laughing at this unmeaning scheme; but saw, to my great surprise, not the least change of countenance in any other person: and, since we came home, Mrs. Selwyn has informed me, that to draw straws is a fashion of betting by no means uncommon. Good God! my dear Sir, does it not seem as if money were of no value or service, since those who possess, squander it away in a manner so infinitely absurd? It now only remained for Lord Orville to speak; and the attention of the company showed the expectations he had raised; yet, I believe, they by no means prevented his proposal from being heard with amazement; for it was no other, than that the money should be his due, who, according to the opinion of the judges, should bring the worthiest object with whom to share it! They all stared, without speaking. Indeed, I believe every one, for a moment at least, experienced something like shame, from having either proposed or countenanced an extravagance so useless and frivolous. For my part, I was so much struck and affected by a rebuke so noble to these spendthrifts, that I felt my eyes filled with tears. The short silence and momentary reflection into which the company was surprised, Mr. Coverley was the first to dispel, by saying, "Egad, my Lord, your Lordship has a most remarkable odd way of taking things." "Faith," said the incorrigible Lord Merton, "if this scheme takes, I shall fix upon my Swiss to share with me; for I don't know a worthier fellow breathing." After a few more of these attempts at wit, the two gentlemen agreed that they would settle the affair the next morning. The conversation then took a different turn; but I did not give it sufficient attention to write any account of it. Not long after, Lord Orville, resuming his seat near mine, said, "Why is Miss Anville so thoughtful?" "I am sorry, my Lord," said I, "to consider myself among those who have so justly incurred your censure." "My censure!-you amaze me!" "Indeed, my Lord, you have made me quite ashamed of myself for having given my vote so foolishly, when an opportunity offered, if, like your Lordship, I had had the sense to use it, of showing some humanity." "You treat this too seriously," said he, smiling; "and I hardly know if you do not now mean a rebuke to me." "To you, my Lord!" "Nay, who are most deserving of it; those who adapt their conversation to the company, or those who affect to be superior to it?" "O, my Lord, who else would do you so little justice?" "I flatter myself," answered he, "that, in fact, your opinion and mine, in this point, are the same, though you condescended to comply with the humour of the company. It is for me, therefore, to apologize for so unseasonable a gravity, which, but for the particular interest that I now take in the affairs of Lord Merton, I should not have been so officious to display." Such a compliment as this could not fail to reconcile me to myself; and with revived spirits, I entered into a conversation, which he supported with me till Mrs. Selwyn's carriage was announced; and we returned home. During our ride, Mrs. Selwyn very much surprised me, by asking, if I thought my health would now permit me to give up my morning walks to the pump-room, for the purpose of spending a week at Clifton? "for this poor Mrs. Beaumont," added she, "is so eager to have a discharge in full of her debt to me, that out of mere compassion, I am induced to listen to her. Besides, she has always a house full of people; and, though they are chiefly fools and cox-combs, yet there is some pleasure in cutting them up." I begged I might not, by any means, prevent her following her inclination, as my health was now very well established. And so, my dear Sir, to-morrow we are to be actually the guests of Mrs. Beaumont. I am not much delighted at this scheme; for, greatly as I am flattered by the attention of Lord Orville, it is not very comfortable to be neglected by every body else. Besides, as I am sure I owe the particularity of his civility to a generous feeling for my situation, I cannot expect him to support it so long as a week. How often do I wish, since I am absent from you, that I was under the protection of Mrs. Mirvan! It is true, Mrs. Selwyn is very obliging, and, in every respect, treats me as an equal; but she is contented with behaving well herself, and does not, with a distinguishing politeness, raise and support me with others. Yet I mean not to blame her, for I know she is sincerely my friend; but the fact is, she is herself so much occupied in conversation, when in company, that she has neither leisure nor thought to attend to the silent. Well, I must take my chance! But I knew not, till now, how requisite are birth and fortune to the attainment of respect and civility. LETTER LXV. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Clifton, Sept. 20th. HERE I am, my dear Sir, under the same roof, and an inmate of the same house as Lord Orville! Indeed, if this were not the case, my situation would be very disagreeable, as you will easily believe, when I tell you the light in which I am generally considered. "My dear," said Mrs. Selwyn, "did you ever before meet with that egregious fop, Lovel?" I very readily satisfied her as to my acquaintance with him. "O, then," said she, "I am the less surprised at his ill-nature, since he has already injured you." I begged her to explain herself; and then she told me, that while Lord Orville was speaking to me, Lady Louisa said to Mr. Lovel, "Do you know who that is?" "Why, Ma'am, no, 'pon honour," answered he, "I can't absolutely say I do; I only know she is a kind of a toad-eater. She made her first appearance in that capacity last spring, when she attended Miss Mirvan, a young lady of Kent." How cruel is it, my dear Sir, to be thus exposed to the impertinent suggestions of a man who is determined to do me ill offices! Lady Louisa may well despise a toad-eater; but, thank Heaven, her brother has not heard, or does not credit, the mortifying appellation. Mrs. Selwyn said, she would advise me to pay my court to this Mr. Lovel; "for," said she, "though he is malicious, he is fashionable, and may do you some harm in the great world." But I should disdain myself as much as I do him, were I capable of such duplicity as to flatter a man whom I scorn and despise. We were received by Mrs. Beaumont with great civility, and by Lord Orville with something more. As to Lady Louisa, she scarcely perceived that we were in the room. There has been company here all day, part of which I have spent most happily: for after tea, when the ladies played at cards, Lord Orville, who does not, and I, who cannot play, were consequently at our own disposal; and then his Lordship entered into a conversation with me, which lasted till supper-time. Almost insensibly, I find the constraint, the reserve, I have been wont to feel in his presence, wear away; the politeness, the sweetness, with which he speaks to me, restore all my natural cheerfulness, and make me almost as easy as he is himself;-and the more so, as, if I may judge by his looks, I am rather raised, than sunk of late in his opinion. I asked him how the bet was, at last, to be decided? He told me that, to his great satisfaction, the parties had been prevailed upon to lower the sum from one thousand to one hundred pounds; and that they had agreed it should be determined by a race between two old women, one of whom was to be chosen by each side, and both were to be proved more than eighty years of age, though, in other respects strong and healthy as possible. When I expressed my surprise at this extraordinary method of spending so much money, "I am charmed," said he, "at the novelty of meeting with one so unhackneyed in the world, as not to be yet influenced by custom to forget the use of reason: for certain it is, that the prevalence of fashion makes the greatest absurdities pass uncensured, and the mind naturally accommodates itself even to the most ridiculous improprieties, if they occur frequently." "I should have hoped," said I, "that the humane proposal made yesterday by your Lordship, would have had more effect." "O," cried he, laughing, "I was so far from expecting any success, that I shall think myself very fortunate if I escape the wit of Mr. Coverley in a lampoon! yet I spoke openly, because I do not wish to conceal that I am no friend to gaming." After this, he took up the New Bath Guide, and read it with me till supper-time. In our way down stairs, Lady Louisa said, "I thought, brother, you were engaged this evening?" "Yes, sister," answered he, "and I have been engaged." And he bowed to me with an air of gallantry that rather confused me. Sept. 23rd. Almost insensibly have three days glided on since I wrote last, and so serenely, that, but for your absence, I could not have formed a wish. My residence here is much happier than I had dared expect. The attention with which Lord Orville honours me, is as uniform as it is flattering, and seems to result from a benevolence of heart that proves him as much a stranger to caprice as to pride; for, as his particular civilities arose from a generous resentment at seeing me neglected, so will they, I trust, continue, as long as I shall, in any degree, deserve them. I am now not merely easy, but even gay in his presence: such is the effect of true politeness, that it banishes all restraint and embarrassment. When we walk out, he condescends to be my companion, and keeps by my side all the way we go. When we read, he marks the passages most worthy to be noticed, draws out my sentiments, and favours me with his own. At table, where he always sits next to me, he obliges me by a thousand nameless attentions; while the distinguishing good-breeding with which he treats me, prevents my repining at the visibly-felt superiority of the rest of the company. A thousand occasional meetings could not have brought us to that degree of social freedom, which four days spent under the same roof have, insensibly, been productive of: and, as my only friend in this house, Mrs. Selwyn, is too much engrossed in perpetual conversation to attend much to me, Lord Orville seems to regard me as a helpless stranger, and, as such, to think me entitled to his good offices and protection. Indeed, my dear Sir, I have reason to hope, that the depreciating opinion he formerly entertained of me is succeeded by one infinitely more partial.-It may be that I flatter myself; but yet his looks, his attentions, his desire of drawing me into conversation, and his solicitude to oblige me, all conspire to make me hope I do not. In short, my dearest Sir, these last four happy days would repay me for months of sorrow and pain! LETTER LXVI. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Clifton, Sept. 24th. THIS morning I came down stairs very early; and supposing that the family would not assemble for some time, I strolled out, purposing to take a long walk, in the manner I was wont to do at Berry Hill, before breakfast: but I had scarce shut the garden-gate, before I was met by a gentleman, who, immediately bowing to me, I recollected to be the unhappy Mr. Macartney. Very much surprised, I courtsied, and stopped till he came up to me. He was still in mourning, but looked better than when I saw him last, though he had the same air of melancholy which so much struck me at first sight of him. Addressing me with the utmost respect, "I am happy, Madam," said he, "to have met with you so soon. I came to Bristol but yesterday, and have had no small difficulty in tracing you to Clifton." "Did you know, then, of my being here?" "I did, Madam; the sole motive of my journey was to see you. I have been to Berry Hill, and there I had my intelligence, and, at the same time, the unwelcome information of your ill health." "Good God! Sir,-and can you possibly have taken so much trouble?" "Trouble! O, Madam, could there be any, to return you, the moment I had the power, my personal acknowledgments for your goodness?" I then enquired after Madame Duval and the Snow-Hill family. He told me they were all well, and that Madame Duval proposed soon returning to Paris. When I congratulated him on looking better, "It is yourself, Madam," said he, "you should congratulate; for to your humanity alone it may now be owing that I exist at all." He then told me, that his affairs were now in a less desperate situation; and that he hoped, by the assistance of time and reason, to accommodate his mind to a more cheerful submission to his fate. "The interest you so generously took in my affliction," added he, "assures me you will not be displeased to hear of my better fortune; I was therefore eager to acquaint you with it." He then told me that his friend, the moment he had received his letter, quitted Paris, and flew to give him his personal assistance and consolation. With a heavy heart, he acknowledged, he accepted it; "but yet," he added, "I have accepted it; and therefore, as bound equally by duty and honour, my first step was to hasten to the benefactress of my distress, and to return" (presenting me something in a paper) "the only part of my obligations that can be returned; for the rest, I have nothing but my gratitude to offer, and must always be contented to consider myself her debtor." I congratulated him most sincerely upon his dawning prosperity, but begged he would not deprive me of the pleasure of being his friend; and declined receiving the money, till his affairs were more settled. While this point was in agitation, I heard Lord Orville's voice inquiring of the gardener if he had seen me? I immediately opened the garden gate; and his Lordship, advancing to me with quickness, said, "Good God! Miss Anville, have you been out alone? Breakfast has been ready some time, and I have been round the garden in search of you." "Your Lordship has been very good," said I; "but I hope you have not waited." "Not waited!" repeated he, smiling: "Do you think we could sit down quietly to breakfast, with the idea that you had run away from us? But come," (offering to hand me) "if we do not return, they will suppose I am run away too; and they very naturally may, as they know the attraction of the magnet that draws me." "I will come, my Lord," said I, rather embarrassed, "in two minutes." Then, turning to Mr. Macartney, with yet more embarrassment, I wished him good morning. He advanced towards the garden, with the paper still in his hand. "No, no," cried I, "some other time." "May I then, Madam, have the honour of seeing you again?" I did not dare take the liberty of inviting any body to the house of Mrs. Beaumont, nor yet had I the presence of mind to make an excuse; and, therefore, not knowing how to refuse him, I said, "Perhaps you may be this way again to-morrow morning,-and I believe I shall walk out before breakfast." He bowed, and went away; while I, turning again to Lord Orville, saw his countenance so much altered, that I was frightened at what I had so hastily said. He did not again offer me his hand; but walked, silent and slow, by my side. Good Heaven! thought I, what may he not suppose from this adventure? May he not, by my desire of meeting Mr. Macartney to-morrow, imagine it was by design I walked out to meet him to-day? Tormented by this apprehension, I determined to avail myself of the freedom which his behaviour, since I came hither, has encouraged; and, since he would not ask any questions, begin an explanation myself. I therefore slackened my pace to gain time; and then said, "Was not your Lordship surprised to see me speaking with a stranger?" "A stranger?" repeated he; "is it possible that gentleman can be a stranger to you?" "No, my Lord," said I, stammering, "not to me -but only it might look-he might seem-" "No, believe me," said he, with a forced smile, "I could never suppose Miss Anville would make an appointment with a stranger." "An appointment, my Lord?" repeated I, colouring violently. "Pardon me, Madam," answered he, "but I thought I had heard one." I was so much confounded that I could not speak: yet, finding he walked quietly on, I could not endure he should make his own interpretation of my silence: and therefore, as soon as I recovered from my surprise, I said, "Indeed, my Lord, you are much mistaken, Mr. Macartney had particular business with me-and I could not-I knew not, how to refuse seeing him;-but indeed, my Lord-I had not,-he had not,-" I stammered so terribly that I could not go on. "I am very sorry," said he, gravely, "that I have been so unfortunate as to distress you; but I should not have followed you had I not imagined you were merely walked out for the air." "And so I was!" cried I, eagerly, "indeed, my Lord, I was! My meeting with Mr. Macartney was quite accidental; and, if your Lordship thinks there is any impropriety in my seeing him to-morrow, I am ready to give up that intention." "If I think!" said he, in a tone of surprise; "surely Miss Anville cannot leave the arbitration of a point so delicate to one who is ignorant of all the circumstances which attend it?" "If," said I, "it was worth your Lordship's time to hear them,-you should not be ignorant of the circumstances which attend it." "The sweetness of Miss Anville's disposition," said he, in a softened voice, "I have long admired; and the offer of a communication, which does me so much honour, is too grateful to me not to be eagerly caught at." Just then Mrs. Selwyn opened the parlour window, and our conversation ended. I was rallied upon my passion for solitary walking; but no questions were asked me. When breakfast was over, I hoped to have had some opportunity of speaking with Lord Orville; but Lord Merton and Mr. Coverley came in, and insisted up his opinion of the spot they had fixed upon for the old women's race. The ladies declared they would be of the party; and accordingly we all went. The race is to be run in Mrs. Beaumont's garden; the two gentlemen are as anxious, as if their joint lives depended upon it. They have at length fixed upon objects; but have found great difficulty in persuading them to practise running, in order to try their strength. This grand affair is to be decided next Thursday. When we returned to the house, the entrance of more company still prevented my having any conversation with Lord Orville. I was very much chagrined, as I knew he was engaged at the Hotwells in the afternoon. Seeing, therefore, no probability of speaking to him before the time of my meeting Mr. Macartney arrived, I determined that, rather than risk his ill opinion, I would leave Mr. Macartney to his own suggestions. Yet, when I reflected upon his peculiar situation, his poverty, his sadness, and, more than all the rest, the idea I knew he entertained of what he calls his obligations to me, I could not resolve upon a breach of promise, which might be attributed to causes, of all the others the most offensive to one whom misfortune has made extremely suspicious of slights and contempt. After the most uneasy consideration, I at length determined upon writing an excuse, which would, at once, save me from either meeting or affronting him. I therefore begged Mrs. Selwyn's leave to send her man to the Hotwells, which she instantly granted; and then I wrote the following note: "To Mr. Macartney. "SIR, "As it will not be in my power to walk out to-morrow morning, I would by no means give you the trouble of coming to Clifton. I hope, however, to have the pleasure of seeing you before you quit Bristol. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, "EVELINA ANVILLE." I desired the servant to enquire at the pump-room where Mr. Macartney lived, and returned to the parlour. As soon as the company dispersed, the ladies retired to dress. I then, unexpectedly, found myself alone with Lord Orville; who, the moment I rose to follow Mrs. Selwyn, advanced to me, and said, "Will Miss Anville pardon my impatience, if I remind her of the promise she was so good as to make me this morning?" I stopped, and would have returned to my seat; but before I had time, the servants came to lay the cloth. He retreated, and went towards the window; and, while I was considering in what manner to begin, I could not help asking myself what right I had to communicate the affairs of Mr. Macartney: and I doubted whether, to clear myself from one act of imprudence, I had not committed another. Distressed by this reflection, I thought it best to quit the room, and give myself some time for consideration before I spoke; and therefore, only saying I must hasten to dress, I ran up stairs, rather abruptly I own; and so, I fear, Lord Orville must think. Yet what could I do? Unused to the situations in which I find myself, and embarrassed by the slightest difficulties, I seldom, till too late, discover how I ought to act. Just as we were all assembled to dinner, Mrs. Selwyn's man, coming into the parlour, presented to me a letter, and said, "I can't find out Mr. Macartney, Madam; but the post-office people will let you know if they hear of him." I was extremely ashamed of this public message; and, meeting the eyes of Lord Orville, which were earnestly fixed on me, my confusion redoubled, and I knew not which way to look. All dinner-time he was as silent as myself; and the moment it was in my power I left the table, and went to my own room. Mrs. Selwyn presently followed me; and her questions obliged me to own almost all the particulars of my acquaintance with Mr. Macartney, in order to excuse my writing to him. She said it was a most romantic affair, and spoke her sentiments with great severity; declaring that she had no doubt but he was an adventurer and an impostor. And now, my dear Sir, I am totally at a loss what I ought to do; the more I reflect, the more sensible I am of the utter impropriety, nay, treachery, of revealing the story, and publishing the misfortunes and poverty of Mr. Macartney; who has an undoubted right to my secrecy and discretion, and whose letter charges me to regard his communication as sacred.-And yet, the appearance of mystery,-perhaps something worse, which this affair must have to Lord Orville,-his seriousness,-and the promise I have made him, are inducements scarce to be resisted for trusting him with the openness he has reason to expect from me. I am equally distressed, too, whether or not I should see Mr. Macartney to-morrow morning. Oh, Sir, could I now be enlightened by your counsel, from what anxiety and perplexity should I be relieved! But now,-I ought not to betray Mr. Macartney, and I will not forfeit a confidence which would never have been reposed in me, but from a reliance upon my honour, which I should blush to find myself unworthy of. Desirous as I am of the good opinion of Lord Orville, I will endeavour to act as if I was guided by your advice; and, making it my sole aim to deserve it, leave to time and to fate my success or disappointment. Since I have formed this resolution, my mind is more at ease. But I will not finish my letter till the affair is decided. Sept. 25th. I rose very early this morning; and, after a thousand different plans, not being able to resolve upon giving poor Mr. Macartney leave to suppose I neglected him, I thought it incumbent upon me to keep my word, since he had not received my letter; I therefore determined to make my own apologies, not to stay with him two minutes, and to excuse myself from meeting him any more. Yet, uncertain whether I was wrong or right, it was with fear and trembling that I opened the garden-gate;-judge then, of my feelings, when the first object I saw was Lord Orville!-he, too, looked extremely disconcerted, and said, in a hesitating manner, "Pardon me, Madam,-I did not intend,-I did not imagine you would have been here so soon-or-or I would not have come."-And then, with a hasty bow, he passed me, and proceeded to the garden. I was scarce able to stand, so greatly did I feel myself shocked; but, upon my saying, almost involuntarily, "Oh, my Lord!"-he turned back, and, after a short pause, said, "Did you speak to me, Madam?" I could not immediately answer; I seemed choaked, and was even forced to support myself by the garden-gate. Lord Orville, soon recovering his dignity, said, "I know not how to apologize for being, just now, at this place;-and I cannot, immediately-if ever -clear myself from the imputation of impertinent curiosity, to which I fear you will attribute it: however, at present, I will only intreat your pardon, without detaining you any longer." Again he bowed, and left me. For some moments I remained fixed to the same spot, and in the same position, immoveable, as if I had been transformed to a stone. My first impulse was to call him back, and instantly tell him the whole affair; but I checked this desire, though I would have given the world to have indulged it; something like pride aided what I thought due to Mr. Macartney, and I determined not only to keep his secret, but to delay any sort of explanation till Lord Orville should condescend to request it. Slowly he walked; and, before he entered the house, he looked back, but hastily withdrew his eyes, upon finding I observed him. Indeed, my dear Sir, you cannot easily imagine a situation more uncomfortable than mine was at that time; to be suspected by Lord Orville of any clandestine actions wounded my soul; I was too much discomposed to wait for Mr. Macartney, nor in truth, could I endure to have the design of my staying so well known. Yet I was so extremely agitated, that I could hardly move; and I have reason to believe Lord Orville, from the parlour-window, saw me tottering along; for, before I had taken five steps, he came out, and, hastening to meet me, said, "I fear you are not well; pray, allow me (offering his arm) to assist you." "No, my Lord," said I, with all the resolution I could assume; yet I was affected by an attention, at that time so little expected, and forced to turn away my head to conceal my emotion. "You must," said he, with earnestness, "indeed you must,-I am sure you are not well;-refuse me not the honour of assisting you;" and, almost forcibly, he took my hand, and, drawing it under his arm, obliged me to lean upon him. That I submitted was partly the effect of surprise, at an earnestness so uncommon in Lord Orville, and, partly, that I did not just then dare trust my voice to make any objection. When we came to the house, he led me into the parlour, and to a chair, and begged to know if I would not have a glass of water. "No, my Lord, I thank you," said I, "I am perfectly recovered;" and, rising, I walked to the window, where, for some time, I pretended to be occupied in looking at the garden. Determined as I was to act honourably by Mr. Macartney, I yet most anxiously wished to be restored to the good opinion of Lord Orville; but his silence, and the thoughtfulness of his air, discouraged me from speaking. My situation soon grew disagreeable and embarrassing, and I resolved to return to my chamber till breakfast was ready. To remain longer I feared might seem asking for his enquiries; and I was sure it would ill become me to be more eager to speak, than he was to hear. Just as I reached the door, turning to me hastily, he said, "Are you going, Miss Anville?" "I am, my Lord," answered I; yet I stopped. "Perhaps to return to-but I beg your pardon!" He spoke with a degree of agitation that made me readily comprehend he meant to the garden; and I instantly said, "To my own room, my Lord." And again I would have gone; but, convinced by my answer that I understood him, I believe he was sorry for the insinuation: he approached me with a very serious air, though at the same time he forced a smile, and said, "I know not what evil genius pursues me this morning, but I seem destined to do or to say something I ought not: I am so much ashamed of myself, that I can scarce solicit your forgiveness." "My forgiveness! my Lord?" cried I, abashed, rather than elated by his condescension; "surely you cannot-you are not serious?" "Indeed, never more so! yet, if I may be my own interpreter, Miss Anville's countenance pronounces my pardon." "I know not, my Lord, how any one can pardon, who never has been offended." "You are very good; yet I could expect no less from a sweetness of disposition which baffles all comparison: you will not think I am an encroacher, and that I take advantage of your goodness, should I once more remind you of the promise you vouchsafed me yesterday?" "No, indeed; on the contrary I shall be very happy to acquit myself in your Lordship's opinion." "Acquittal you need not," said he, leading me again to the window; "yet I own my curiosity is strongly excited." When I was seated, I found myself much at a loss what to say; yet, after a short silence, assuming all the courage in my power, "Will you not, my Lord," said I, "think me trifling and capricious, should I own I have repented the promise I made, and should I entreat your Lordship not to insist upon my strict performance of it?"-I spoke so hastily, that I did not, at the time, consider the impropriety of what I said. As he was entirely silent, and profoundly attentive, I continued to speak without interruption. "If your Lordship, by any other means, knew the circumstances attending my acquaintance with Mr. Macartney, I am most sure you would yourself disapprove my relating them. He is a gentleman, and has been very unfortunate;-but I am not-I think,-at liberty to say more: yet I am sure, if he knew your Lordship wished to hear any particulars of his affairs, he would readily consent to my acknowledging them;-shall I, my Lord, ask his permission?" "His affairs!" repeated Lord Orville; "by no means, I have not the least curiosity about them." "I beg your Lordship's pardon,-but indeed I had understood the contrary." "Is it possible, Madam, you could suppose the affairs of an utter stranger can excite my curiosity?" The gravity and coldness with which he asked this question very much abashed me. But Lord Orville is the most delicate of men! and, presently recollecting himself, he added, "I mean not to speak with indifference of any friend of yours,-far from it; any such will always command my good wishes: yet I own I am rather disappointed; and though I doubt not the justice of your reason, to which I implicitly submit, you must not wonder, that, when upon the point of being honoured with your confidence, I should feel the greatest regret at finding it withdrawn." Do you think, my dear sir, I did not, at that moment, require all my resolution to guard me from frankly telling him whatever he wished to hear? yet I rejoice that I did not; for, added to the actual wrong I should have done, Lord Orville himself, when he had heard, would, I am sure, have blamed me. Fortunately, this thought occurred to me; an I said, "Your Lordship shall yourself be my judge; the promise I made, though voluntary, was rash and inconsiderate; yet, had it concerned myself, I would not have hesitated in fulfilling it; but the gentleman, whose affairs I should be obliged to relate-" "Pardon me," cried he, "for interrupting you; yet allow me to assure you, I have not the slightest desire to be acquainted with his affairs, further than what belongs to the motives which induced you yesterday morning-" He stopped; but there was no occasion to say more. "That, my Lord," cried I, "I will tell you honestly. Mr. Macartney had some particular business with me, and I could not take the liberty to ask him hither." "And why not?-Mr. Beaumont, I am sure-" "I could not, my Lord, think of intruding upon Mrs. Beaumont's complaisance; and so, with the same hasty folly I promised your Lordship, I much more rashly promised to meet him." "And did you?" "No, my Lord," said I, colouring, "I returned before he came." Again, for some time, we were both silent; yet, unwilling to leave him to reflections which could not but be to my disadvantage, I summoned sufficient courage to say, "There is no young creature, my Lord, who so greatly wants, or so earnestly wishes for, the advice and assistance of her friends, as I do: I am new to the world, and unused to acting for myself;-my intentions are never willfully blameable, yet I err perpetually!-I have hitherto been blessed with the most affectionate of friends, and, indeed, the ablest of men, to guide and instruct me upon every occasion:-but he is too distant, now, to be applied to at the moment I want his aid:-and here,-there is not a human being whose counsel I can ask." "Would to Heaven," cried he, with a countenance from which all coldness and gravity were banished, and succeeded by the mildest benevolence, "that I were worthy,-and capable,-of supplying the place of such a friend to Miss Anville!" "You do me but too much honour," said I, "yet I hope your Lordship's candour,-perhaps I ought to say indulgence,-will make some allowance, on account of my inexperience, for behaviour so inconsiderate:-May I, my Lord, hope that you will?" "May I," cried he, "hope that you will pardon the ill-grace with which I have submitted to my disappointment? And that you will permit me (kissing my hand) thus to seal my peace?" "Our peace, my Lord!" said I, with revived spirits. "This, then," said he, again pressing it to his lips, "for our peace: and now,-are we not friends?" Just then the door opened, and I had only time to withdraw my hand, before the ladies came in to breakfast. I have been, all day, the happiest of human beings!-to be thus reconciled to Lord Orville, and yet to adhere to my resolution,-what could I wish for more?-he too has been very cheerful, and more attentive, more obliging to me than ever. Yet Heaven forbid I should again be in a similar situation, for I cannot express how much uneasiness I have suffered from the fear of incurring his ill opinion. But what will poor Mr. Macartney think of me? Happy as I am, I much regret the necessity I have been under of disappointing him. Adieu, my dearest Sir. LETTER LXVII. MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA. Berry Hill, Sept. 28th. DEAD to the world, and equally insensible to its pleasures or its pains, I long since bad adieu to all joy, and defiance to all sorrow, but what should spring from my Evelina,-sole source, to me, of all earthly felicity. How strange, then, is it, that the letter in which she tells me she is the happiest of human beings, should give me most mortal inquietude! Alas, my child!-that innocence, the first, best gift of Heaven, should, of all others, be the blindest to its own danger,-the most exposed to treachery,-and the least able to defend itself, in a world where it is little known, less valued, and perpetually deceived! Would to Heaven you were here!-then, by degrees, and with gentleness, I might enter upon a subject too delicate for distant discussion. Yet is it too interesting, and the situation too critical, to allow of delay.-Oh, my Evelina, your situation is critical indeed!-your peace of mind is at stake, and every chance for your future happiness may depend upon the conduct of the present moment. Hitherto I have forborne to speak with you upon the most important of all concerns, the state of your heart:-alas, I need no information! I have been silent, indeed, but I have not been blind. Long, and with the deepest regret, have I perceived the ascendancy which Lord Orville has gained upon your mind.-You will start at the mention of his name,-you will tremble every word you read;-I grieve to give pain to my gentle Evelina, but I dare not any longer spare her. Your first meeting with Lord Orville was decisive. Lively, fearless, free from all other impressions, such a man as you describe him could not fail of exciting your admiration; and the more dangerously, because he seemed as unconscious of his power as you of your weakness; and therefore you had no alarm, either from his vanity of your own prudence. Young, animated, entirely off your guard, and thoughtless of consequences, Imagination took the reins; and Reason, slow-paced, though sure-footed, was unequal to the race of so eccentric and flighty a companion. How rapid was then my Evelina's progress through those regions of fancy and passion whither her new guide conducted her!-She saw Lord Orville at a ball,-and he was the most amiable of men! -She met him again at another,-and he had every virtue under Heaven! I mean not to depreciate the merit of Lord Orville, who, one mysterious instance alone excepted, seems to have deserved the idea you formed of his character; but it was not time, it was not the knowledge of his worth, obtained your regard: your new comrade had not patience to wait any trial; her glowing pencil, dipt in the vivid colours of her creative ideas, painted to you, at the moment of your first acquaintance, all the excellencies, all the good and rare qualities, which a great length of time and intimacy could alone have really discovered. You flattered yourself that your partiality was the effect of esteem, founded upon a general love of merit, and a principle of justice; and your heart, which fell the sacrifice of your error, was totally gone ere you expected it was in danger. A thousand times have I been upon the point of showing you the perils of your situation; but the same inexperience which occasioned your mistake, I hoped, with the assistance of time and absence, would effect a cure: I was, indeed, most unwilling to destroy your illusion, while I dared hope it might itself contribute to the restoration of your tranquillity; since your ignorance of the danger, and force of your attachment, might possibly prevent that despondency with which young people, in similar circumstances, are apt to persuade themselves, that what is only difficult, is absolutely impossible. But, now, since you have again met, and have become more intimate than ever, all my hope from silence and seeming ignorance is at an end. Awake then, my dear, my deluded child, awake to the sense of your danger, and exert yourself to avoid the evils with which it threatens you:-evils which, to a mind like yours, are most to be dreaded; secret repining, and concealed, yet consuming regret! Make a noble effort for the recovery of your peace, which now, with sorrow I see it, depends wholly upon the presence of Lord Orville. This effort may indeed be painful; but trust to my experience, when I assure you it is requisite. You must quit him!-his sight is baneful to your repose, his society is death to your future tranquillity! Believe me, my beloved child, my heart aches for your suffering, while it dictates its necessity. Could I flatter myself that Lord Orville would, indeed, be sensible of your worth, and act with a nobleness of mind which should prove it congenial to your own, then would I leave my Evelina to the unmolested enjoyment of the cheerful society, and increasing regard, of a man she so greatly admires: but this is not an age in which we may trust to appearances; and imprudence is much sooner regretted than repaired. Your health, you tell me, is much mended:-Can you then consent to leave Bristol?-not abruptly, that I do not desire, but in a few days from the time you receive this? I will write to Mrs. Selwyn, and tell her how much I wish your return; and Mrs. Clinton can take sufficient care of you. I have meditated upon every possible expedient that might tend to your happiness, ere I fixed upon exacting from you a compliance which I am convinced will be most painful to you; but I can satisfy myself in none. This will at least be safe; and as to success,-we must leave it to time. I am very glad to hear of Mr. Macartney's welfare. Adieu, my dearest child! Heaven preserve and strengthen you! A.V. LETTER LXVIII. EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS. Clifton, Sept. 28th. SWEETLY, most sweetly, have two days more passed since I wrote: but I have been too much engaged to be exact in my journal. To-day has been less tranquil. It was destined for the decision of the important bet, and has been productive of general confusion throughout the house. It was settled that the race should be run at five o'clock in the afternoon. Lord Merton breakfasted here, and staid till noon. He wanted to engage the ladies to bet on his side, in the true spirit of gaming, without seeing the racers. But he could only prevail on Lady Louisa, as Mrs. Selwyn said she never laid a wager against her own wishes, and Mrs. Beaumont would not take sides. As for me, I was not applied to. It is impossible for negligence to be more pointed than that of Lord Merton to me, in the presence of Lady Louisa. But, just before dinner, I happened to be alone in the drawing-room, when his Lordship suddenly returned; and, coming in with his usual familiarity, he was beginning, "You see, Lady Louisa,-" but stopping short, "Pray, where's every body gone?" "Indeed I don't know, my Lord." He then shut the door; and, with a great alteration in his face and manner, advanced eagerly towards me, and said, "How glad I am, my sweet girl, to meet you, at last, alone! By my soul I began to think there was a plot against me, for I've never been able to have you a minute to myself." And very freely he seized my hand. I was so much surprised at this address, after having been so long totally neglected, that I could make no other answer, than staring at him with unfeigned astonishment. "Why now," continued he, "if you was not the cruellest little angel in the world, you would have helped me to some expedient: for you see how I am watched here; Lady Louisa's eyes are never off me. She gives me a charming foretaste of the pleasures of a wife! However, it won't last long." Disgusted to the greatest degree, I attempted to draw away my hand; but I believe I should not have succeeded if Mrs. Beaumont had not made her appearance. He turned from me with the greatest assurance, and said, "How are you, Ma'am?-how is Lady Louisa?-you see I can't live a moment out of the house." Could you, my dearest Sir, have believed it possible for such effrontery to be in man? Before dinner came Mr. Coverley, and, before five o'clock, Mr. Lovel and some other company. The place marked out for the race, was a gravel-walk in Mrs. Beaumont's garden, and the length of the ground twenty yards. When we were summoned to the course, the two poor old women made their appearance. Though they seemed very healthy for their time of life, they yet looked so weak, so infirm, so feeble, that I could feel no sensation but that of pity at the sight. However, this was not the general sense of the company; for they no sooner came forward, than they were greeted with a laugh from every beholder, Lord Orville excepted, who looked very grave during the whole transaction. Doubtless he must be greatly discontented at the dissipated conduct and extravagance of a man, with whom he is soon to be so nearly connected. For some time, the scene was truly ridiculous: the agitation of the parties concerned, and the bets that were laid upon the old women, were absurd beyond measure. Who are you for? and whose side are you of? was echoed from mouth to mouth by the whole company. Lord Merton and Mr. Coverley were both so excessively gay and noisy, that I soon found they had been free in drinking to their success. They handed, with loud shouts, the old women to the race-ground, and encouraged them by liberal promises to exert themselves. When the signal was given for them to set off, the poor creatures, feeble and frightened, ran against each other: and, neither of them able to support the shock, they both fell on the ground. Lord Merton and Mr. Coverley flew to their assistance. Seats were brought for them; and they each drank a glass of wine. They complained of being much bruised; for, heavy and helpless, they had not been able to save themselves, but fell with their whole weight upon the gravel. However, as they seemed equal sufferers, both parties were too eager to have the affair deferred. Again therefore they set off, and hobbled along, nearly even with each other, for some time; yet frequently, to the inexpressible diversion of the company, they stumbled and tottered; and the confused hallooing of "Now, Coverley!" "Now, Merton!" run from side to side during the whole affair. Not long after, a foot of one of the poor women slipt, and with great force she came again to the ground. Involuntarily, I sprung forward to assist her; but Lord Merton, to whom she did not belong, stopped me, calling out, "No foul play! No foul play!" Mr. Coverley then, repeating the same words, went himself to help her, and insisted that the other should stop. A debate ensued; but the poor creature was too much hurt to move, and declared her utter inability to make another attempt. Mr. Coverley was quite brutal: he swore at her with unmanly rage, and seemed scarce able to refrain even from striking her. Lord Merton then, in great rapture, said it was a hollow thing; but Mr. Coverley contended, that the fall was accidental, and time should be allowed for the woman to recover. However, all the company being against him, he was pronounced the loser. We then went to the drawing-room, to tea. After which, the evening being remarkably warm, we all walked in the garden. Lord Merton was quite riotous, and Lady Louisa in high spirits; but Mr. Coverley endeavoured, in vain, to conceal his chagrin. As Lord Orville was thoughtful, and walked by himself, I expected that, as usual, I should pass unnoticed, and be left to my own meditations: but this was not the case; for Lord Merton, entirely off his guard, giddy equally from wine and success, was very troublesome to me; and, regardless of the presence of Lady Louisa, which hitherto has restrained him even from common civility, he attached himself to me, during the walk, with a freedom of gallantry that put me extremely out of countenance. He paid me the most high-flown compliments; and frequently and forcibly seized my hand, though I repeatedly, and with undissembled anger, drew it back. Lord Orville, I saw, watched us with earnestness; and Lady Louisa's smiles were converted into looks of disdain. I could not bear to be thus situated; and complaining I was tired, I quickened my pace, with intention to return to the house; but Lord Merton, hastily following, caught my hand, and saying the day was his own, vowed he would not let me go. "You must, my Lord," cried I, extremely flurried. "You are the most charming girl in the world," said he, "and never looked better than at this moment." "My Lord," cried Mrs. Selwyn, advancing to us, "you don't consider, that the better Miss Anville looks the more striking is the contrast with your Lordship; therefore, for your own sake, I would advise you not to hold her." "Egad, my Lord," cried Mr. Coverley, "I don't see what right you have to the best old, and the best young woman too, in the same day." "Best young woman!" repeated Mr. Lovel; "'pon honour, Jack, you have made a most unfortunate speech; however, if Lady Louisa can pardon you,-and her Ladyship is all goodness,-I am sure nobody else can; for you have committed an outrageous solecism in good manners." "And pray, Sir," said Mrs. Selwyn, "under what denomination may your own speech pass?" Mr. Lovel, turning another way, affected not to hear her: and Mr. Coverley, bowing to Lady Louisa, said, "Her Ladyship is well acquainted with my devotion;-but, egad, I don't know how it is,-I had always an unlucky turn at an epigram, and never could resist a smart play upon words in my life." "Pray, my Lord," cried I, "let go my hand! Pray, Mrs. Selwyn, speak for me." "My Lord," said Mrs. Selwyn, "in detaining Miss Anville any longer you only lose time; for we are already as well convinced of your valour and your strength, as if you were to hold her an age." "My Lord," said Mrs. Beaumont, "I must beg leave to interfere: I know not if Lady Louisa can pardon you; but as this young lady is at my house, I do not choose to have her made uneasy." "I pardon him!" cried Lady Louisa; "I declare I am monstrous glad to get rid of him." "Egad, my Lord," cried Mr. Coverley, "while you are grasping at a shadow, you'll lose a substance; you'd best make your peace while you can." "Pray, Mr. Coverley, be quiet," said Lady Louisa, peevishly; "for I declare I won't speak to him. Brother," taking hold of Lord Orville's arm, "will you walk in with me?" "Would to Heaven," cried I, frightened to see how much Lord Merton was in liquor, "that I too had a brother!-and then I should not be exposed to such treatment." Lord Orville, instantly quitting Lady Louisa, said, "Will Miss Anville allow me the honour of taking that title?" and then, without waiting for any answer, he disengaged me from Lord Merton; and, handing me to Lady Louisa, "Let me," added he, "take equal care of both my sisters;" and then, desiring her, to take hold of one arm, and begging me to make use of the other, we reached the house in a moment. Lord Merton, disordered as he was, attempted not to stop us. As soon as we entered the house, I withdrew my arm, and courtsied my thanks, for my heart was too full for speech. Lady Louisa, evidently hurt at her brother's condescension, and piqued extremely by Lord Merton's behaviour, silently drew away hers; and biting her lips, with a look of infinite vexation, walked sullenly up the hall. Lord Orville asked her if she would not go into the parlour? "No," answered she, haughtily, "I leave you and your new sister together:" and then she walked up stairs. I was quite confounded at the pride and rudeness of this speech. Lord Orville himself seemed thunderstruck: I turned from him, and went into the parlour: he followed me, saying, "Must I now apologize to Miss Anville for the liberty of my interference?-or ought I to apologize, that I did not, as I wished, interfere sooner?" "O, my Lord," cried I, with an emotion I could not repress, "it is from you alone I meet with any respect;-all others treat me with impertinence, or contempt!" I am sorry I had not more command of myself, as he had reason just then to suppose I particularly meant his sister; which, I am sure, must very much hurt him. "Good Heaven," cried he, "that so much sweetness and merit can fail to excite the love and admiration so justly their due! I cannot,-I dare not express to you half the indignation I feel at this moment!" "I am sorry, my Lord," said I, more calmly, "to have raised it; but yet,-in a situation that calls for protection, to meet only with mortifications,-indeed, but I am ill formed to bear them!" "My dear Miss Anville," cried he, warmly, "allow me to be your friend; think of me as if I were indeed your brother; and let me intreat you to accept my best services, if there is any thing in which I can be so happy as to show my regard,-my respect for you!" Before I had time to speak, the rest of the party entered the parlour; and, as I did not wish to see anything more of Lord Merton, at least before he had slept, I determined to leave it. Lord Orville, seeing my design, said, as I passed him, "Will you go?" "Had not I best, my Lord?" said I. "I am afraid," said he, smiling, "since I must now speak as your brother, I am afraid you had; -you see you may trust me, since I can advise against my own interest." I then left the room, and have been writing ever since. And, methinks, I can never lament the rudeness of Lord Merton, as it has more than ever confirmed to me the esteem of Lord Orville. LETTER LXIX. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Sept. 30th. OH, Sir, what a strange incident have I to recite! what a field of conjecture to open! Yesterday evening we all went to an assembly. Lord Orville presented tickets to the whole family; and did me the honour, to the no small surprise of all here, I believe, to dance with me. But every day abounds in fresh instances of his condescending politeness; and he now takes every opportunity of calling me his friend and his sister. Lord Merton offered a ticket to Lady Louisa; but she was so much incensed against him, that she refused it with the utmost disdain: neither could he prevail upon her to dance with him; she sat still the whole evening, and deigned not to look at or speak to him. To me her behaviour is almost the same: for she is cold, distant, and haughty, and her eyes express the greatest contempt. But for Lord Orville, how miserable would my residence here make me! We were joined in the ball-room by Mr. Coverley, Mr. Lovel, and Lord Merton, who looked as if he was doing penance, and sat all the evening next to Lady Louisa, vainly endeavouring to appease her anger. Lord Orville began the minuets: he danced with a young lady who seemed to engage the general attention, as she had not been seen here before. She is pretty, and looks mild and good-humoured. "Pray, Mr. Lovel," said Lady Louisa, "who is that?" "Miss Belmont," answered he, "the young heiress: she came to the Wells yesterday." Struck with the name, I involuntarily repeated it; but nobody heard me. "What is her family?" said Mrs. Beaumont. "Have you not heard of her, Ma'am?" cried he; "she is only daughter and heiress of Sir John Belmont." Good Heaven, how did I start! the name struck my ear like a thunderbolt. Mrs. Selwyn, who immediately looked at me, said, "Be calm, my dear, and we will learn the truth of all this." Till then I had never imagined her to be acquainted with my story; but she has since told me, that she knew my unhappy mother, and was well informed of the whole affair. She asked Mr. Lovel a multitude of questions; and I gathered from his answers, that this young lady was just come from abroad with Sir John Belmont, who was now in London; that she was under the care of his sister, Mrs. Paterson; and that she would inherit a considerable estate. I cannot express the strange feelings with which I was agitated during this recital. What, my dearest Sir, can it possibly mean? Did you ever hear of any after-marriage?-or must I suppose, that, while the lawful child is rejected, another is adopted?-I know not what to think! I am bewildered with a contrariety of ideas! When we came home, Mrs. Selwyn passed more than an hour in my room conversing upon this subject. She says, that I ought instantly to go to town, find out my father, and have the affair cleared up. She assures me I have too strong a resemblance to my dear, though unknown, mother, to allow of the least hesitation in my being owned, when once I am seen. For my part, I have no wish but to act by your direction. I cannot give any account of the evening; so disturbed, so occupied am I by this subject, that I can think of no other. I have entreated Mrs. Selwyn to observe the strictest secrecy, and she has promised that she will. Indeed, she has too much sense to be idly communicative. Lord Orville took notice of my being absent and silent; but I ventured not to intrust him with the cause. Fortunately, he was not of the party at the time Mr. Lovel made the discovery. Mrs. Selwyn says, that if you approve my going to town, she will herself accompany me. I had a thousand times rather ask the protection of Mrs. Mirvan, but, after this offer that will not be possible. Adieu, my dearest Sir. I am sure you will write immediately, and I shall be all impatience till your letter arrives. LETTER LXX. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Oct. 1st. GOOD God, my dear Sir, what a wonderful tale have I again to relate! even yet, I am not recovered from my extreme surprise. Yesterday morning, as soon as I had finished my hasty letter, I was summoned to attend a walking party to the Hot Wells. It consisted only of Mrs. Selwyn and Lord Orville. The latter walked by my side all the way; and his conversation dissipated my uneasiness, and insensibly restored my serenity. At the pump-room I saw Mr. Macartney; I courtsied to him twice ere he would speak to me. When he did, I began to apologize for having disappointed him; but I did not find it very easy to excuse myself, as Lord Orville's eyes, with an expression of anxiety that distressed me, turned from him to me, and me to him, every word I spoke. Convinced, however, that I had really trifled with Mr. Macartney, I scrupled not to beg his pardon. He was then not merely appeased, but even grateful. He requested me to see him to-morrow; but I had not the folly to be again guilty of an indiscretion; which had already caused me so much uneasiness; and therefore I told him frankly, that it was not in my power at present to see him but by accident; and, to prevent his being offended, I hinted to him the reason I could not receive him as I wished to do. When I had satisfied both him and myself upon this subject, I turned to Lord Orville, and saw, with concern, the gravity of his countenance. I would have spoken to him, but knew not how; I believe, however, he read my thoughts; for, in a little time, with a sort of serious smile, he said, "Does not Mr. Macartney complain of his disappointment?" "Not much, my Lord." "And how have you appeased him?" Finding I hesitated what to answer, "Am I not your brother?" continued he, "and must I not enquire into your affairs?" "Certainly, my Lord," said I, laughing. "I only wish it were better worth your Lordship's while." "Let me, then, make immediate use of my privilege. When shall you see Mr. Macartney again?" "Indeed, my Lord, I can't tell." "But,-do you know that I shall not suffer my sister to make a private appointment?" "Pray, my Lord," cried I earnestly, "use that word no more! Indeed you shock me extremely." "That would I not do for the world," cried he, "yet you know not how warmly, how deeply I am interested, not only in all your concerns, but in all your actions." This speech-the most particular one Lord Orville had ever made to me, ended our conversation at that time; for I was too much struck by it to make any answer. Soon after, Mr. Macartney, in a low voice, intreated me not to deny him the gratification of returning the money. While he was speaking, the young lady I saw yesterday at the assembly, with the large party, entered the pump-room. Mr. Macartney turned as pale as death, his voice faultered, and he seemed not to know what he said. I was myself almost equally disturbed, by the crowd of confused ideas that occurred to me. Good Heaven! thought I, why should he be thus agitated?-is it possible this can be the young lady he loved?- In a few minutes we quitted the pump-room; and, though I twice wished Mr. Macartney good morning, he was so absent he did not hear me. We did not immediately return to Clifton, as Mrs. Selwyn had business at a pamphlet shop. While she was looking at some new poems, Lord Orville again asked me when I should see Mr. Macartney? "Indeed, my Lord," cried I, "I know not, but I would give the universe for a few moments' conversation with him!" I spoke this with a simple sincerity, and was not aware of the force of my own words. "The universe!" repeated he, "Good God, Miss Anville, do you say this to me?" "I would say it," returned I, "to any body, my Lord." "I beg your pardon," said he, in a voice that showed him ill pleased, "I am answered." "My Lord," cried I, "you must not judge hardly of me. I spoke inadvertently; but if you knew the painful suspense I suffer at this moment, you would not be surprised at what I have said." "And would a meeting with Mr. Macartney relieve you from that suspense?" "Yes, my Lord, two words might be sufficient." "Would to Heaven," cried he, after a short pause, "that I were worthy to know their import!" "Worthy, my Lord!-O, if that were all, your Lordship could ask nothing I should not be ready to answer! If I were but at liberty to speak, I should be proud of your Lordship's enquiries: but, indeed, I am not-I have not any right to communicate the affairs of Mr. Macartney;-your Lordship cannot suppose I have." "I will own to you," answered he, "I know not what to suppose; yet there seems a frankness even in your mystery-and such an air of openness in your countenance, that I am willing to hope,-" He stopped a moment, and then added, "This meeting, you say, is essential to your repose?" "I did not say that, my Lord; but yet I have the most important reasons for wishing to speak to him." He paused a few minutes; and then said, with warmth, "Yes, you shall speak to him!-I will myself assist you!-Miss Anville, I am sure, cannot form a wish against propriety: I will ask no questions, I will rely upon her own purity, and, uninformed, blindfold as I am, I will serve her with all my power!" And then he went into the shop, leaving me so strangely affected by his generous behaviour, that I almost wished to follow him with my thanks. When Mrs. Selwyn had transacted her affairs, we returned home. The moment dinner was over, Lord Orville went out, and did not come back till just as we were summoned to supper. This is the longest time he has spent from the house since I have been at Clifton; and you cannot imagine, my dear Sir, how much I missed him. I scarce knew before how infinitely I am indebted to him alone for the happiness I have enjoyed since I have been at Mrs. Beaumont's. As I generally go down stairs last, he came to me, the moment the ladies had passed by, and said, "Shall you be at home tomorrow morning?" "I believe so, my Lord." "And will you then receive a visitor for me?" "For you, my Lord?" "Yes:-I have made acquaintance with Mr. Macartney, and he has promised to call upon me to-morrow about three o'clock." And then, taking my hand, he led me down stairs. O, Sir!-was there ever such another man as Lord Orville?-Yes, one other now resides at Berry Hill! This morning there has been a great deal of company here; but at the time appointed by Lord Orville, doubtless with that consideration, the parlour is almost always empty, as every body is dressing. Mrs. Beaumont, however, was not gone up stairs when Mr. Macartney sent in his name. Lord Orville immediately said, "Beg the favour of him to walk in. You see, Madam, that I consider myself as at home." "I hope so," answered Mrs. Beaumont, "or I should be very uneasy." Mr. Macartney then entered. I believe we both felt very conscious to whom the visit was paid: but Lord Orville received him as his own guest; and not merely entertained him as such while Mrs. Beaumont remained in the room, but for some time after she had left it, a delicacy that saved me from the embarrassment I should have felt, had he immediately quitted us. In a few minutes, however, he gave Mr. Macartney a book,-for I, too, by way of pretence for continuing in the room, pretended to be reading,-and begged he would be so good as to look it over, while he answered a note, which he would dispatch in a few minutes, and return to him. When he was gone, we both parted with our books; and Mr. Macartney, again producing the paper with the money, besought me to accept it. "Pray," said I, still declining it, "did you know the young lady who came into the pump-room yesterday morning?" "Know her!" repeated he, changing colour, "Oh, but too well!" "Indeed!" "Why, Madam, do you ask?" "I must beseech you to satisfy me further upon this subject; pray tell me who she is." "Inviolably as I meant to keep my secret, I can refuse you, Madam, nothing;-that lady-is the daughter of Sir John Belmont!-of my father!" "Gracious Heaven!" cried I, involuntarily laying my hand on his arm, "you are then-" my brother, I would have said, but my voice failed me, and I burst into tears. "Oh, Madam," cried he, "what does this mean?-what can thus distress you?" I could not answer, but held out my hand to him. He seemed greatly surprised, and talked in high terms of my condescension. "Spare yourself," cried I, wiping my eyes, "spare yourself this mistake,-you have a right to all I can do for you; the similarity of our circumstances-" We were then interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Selwyn; and Mr. Macartney, finding no probability of our being left alone, was obliged to take leave, though, I believe, very reluctantly, while in such suspense. Mrs. Selwyn, then, by dint of interrogatories, drew from me the state of this affair. She is so penetrating, that there is no possibility of evading to give her satisfaction. Is not this a strange event? Good Heaven! how little did I think that the visits I so unwillingly paid at Mr. Branghton's would have introduced me to so near a relation! I will never again regret the time I spent in town this summer: a circumstance so fortunate will always make me think of it with pleasure. * * * * * * I have just received your letter,-and it has almost broken my heart!-Oh, Sir! the illusion is over, indeed! how vainly have I flattered, how miserably deceived myself! Long since, doubtful of the situation of my heart, I dreaded a scrutiny;-but now, now that I have so long escaped, I began, indeed, to think my safety insured, to hope that my fears were causeless, and to believe that my good opinion and esteem of Lord Orville might be owned without suspicion, and felt without danger;-miserably deceived, indeed! His sight is baneful to my repose;-his society is death to my future tranquillity! Oh, Lord Orville! could I have believed that a friendship so grateful to my heart, so soothing to my distresses, a friendship, which, in every respect, did me so much honour, would only serve to embitter all my future moments!-What a strange, what an unhappy circumstance, that my gratitude, though so justly excited, should be so fatal to my peace! Yes, Sir, I will quit him;-would to Heaven I could at this moment! without seeing him again,-without trusting to my now conscious emotion!-Oh, Lord Orville, how little do you know the evils I owe to you! how little suppose that, when most dignified by your attention, I was most to be pitied,-and when most exalted by your notice, you were most my enemy! You, Sir, relied upon my ignorance;-I, alas, upon your experience; and, whenever I doubted the weakness of my heart, the idea that you did not suspect it, reassured me,-restored my courage, and confirmed my error!-Yet am I most sensible of the kindness of your silence. Oh, Sir! why have I ever quitted you? why been exposed to dangers to which I am so unequal? But I will leave this place, leave Lord Orville,-leave him, perhaps, for ever!-no matter; your counsel, your goodness, may teach me how to recover the peace and the serenity of which my unguarded folly has beguiled me. To you alone do I trust,-in you alone confide, for every future hope I may form. The more I consider the parting with Lord Orville, the less fortitude do I feel to bear the separation;-the friendship he has shown me,-his politeness,-his sweetness of manners,-his concern in my affairs,-his solicitude to oblige me,-all, all to be given up!- No, I cannot tell him I am going,-I dare not trust myself to take leave of him,-I will run away without seeing him:-implicitly will I follow your advice, avoid his sight, and shun his society! To-morrow morning I will set off for Berry Hill. Mrs. Selwyn and Mrs. Beaumont shall alone know my intention. And to-day-I will spend in my own room. The readiness of my obedience is the only atonement I can offer for the weakness which calls for its exertion. Can you, will you, most honoured, most dear Sir! sole prop by which the poor Evelina is supported,-can you, without reproach, without displeasure, receive the child you have so carefully reared,-from whose education better fruit might have been expected, and who, blushing for her unworthiness, fears to meet the eye by which she has been cherished?-Oh, yes, I am sure you will! Your Evelina's errors are those of the judgment; and you, I well know, pardon all but those of the heart! LETTER LXXI. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Clifton, October 1st. I HAVE only time, my dearest Sir, for three words, to overtake my last letter, and prevent your expecting me immediately; for, when I communicated my intention to Mrs. Selwyn, she would not hear of it, and declared it would be highly ridiculous for me to go before I received an answer to my intelligence concerning the journey from Paris. She has, therefore, insisted upon my waiting till your next letter arrives. I hope you will not be displeased at my compliance, though it is rather against my own judgment: but Mrs. Selwyn quite overpowered me with the force of her arguments. I will, however, see very little of Lord Orville; I will never come down stairs before breakfast; give up all my walks in the garden; seat myself next to Mrs. Selwyn; and not merely avoid his conversation, but shun his presence. I will exert all the prudence and all the resolution in my power, to prevent this short delay from giving you any further uneasiness. Adieu, my dearest Sir. I shall not now leave Clifton till I have your directions. LETTER LXXII. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. October 2nd. YESTERDAY, from the time I received your kind, though heart-piercing letter, I kept my room,-for I was equally unable and unwilling to see Lord Orville; but this morning, finding I seemed destined to pass a few days longer here, I endeavoured to calm my spirits, and to appear as usual; though I determined to avoid him to the utmost of my power. Indeed, as I entered the parlour, when called to breakfast, my thoughts were so much occupied with your letter, that I felt as much confusion at his sight, as if he had himself been informed of its contents. Mrs. Beaumont made me a slight compliment upon my recovery, for I had pleaded illness to excuse keeping my room: Lady Louisa spoke not a word; but Lord Orville, little imagining himself the cause of my indisposition, enquired concerning my health with the most distinguishing politeness. I hardly made any answer; and, for the first time since I have been here, contrived to sit at some distance from him. I could not help observing that my reserve surprised him; yet he persisted in his civilities, and seemed to wish to remove it. But I paid him very little attention; and the moment breakfast was over, instead of taking a book, or walking in the garden, I retired to my own room. Soon after, Mrs. Selwyn came to tell me, that Lord Orville had been proposing I should take an airing, and persuading her to let him drive us both in his phaeton. She delivered the message with an archness that made me blush; and added, that an airing, in my Lord Orville's carriage, could not fail to revive my spirits. There is no possibility of escaping her discernment; she has frequently rallied me upon his Lordship's attention,-and, alas!-upon the pleasure with which I have received it! However, I absolutely refused the offer. "Well," said she, laughing, "I cannot just now indulge you with any solicitation; for, to tell you the truth, I have business to transact at the Wells, and am glad to be excused myself. I would ask you to walk with me; -but since Lord Orville is refused, I have not the presumption to hope for success." "Indeed," cried I, "you are mistaken; I will attend you with pleasure." "O rare coquetry!" cried she, "surely it must be inherent in our sex, or it could not have been imbibed at Berry Hill." I had not spirits to answer her, and therefore put on my hat and cloak in silence. "I presume," continued she, drily, "his Lordship may walk with us." "If so, Madam," said I, "you will have a companion, and I will stay at home." "My dear child," cried she, "did you bring the certificate of your birth with you?" "Dear Madam, no!" "Why then, we shall never be known again at Berry Hill." I felt too conscious to enjoy her pleasantry; but I believe she was determined to torment me, for she asked if she should inform Lord Orville that I desired him not to be of the party? "By no means, Madam; but, indeed, I had rather not walk myself." "My dear," cried she, "I really do not know you this morning,-you have certainly been taking a lesson of Lady Louisa." She then went down stairs; but presently returning, told me she had acquainted Lord Orville that I did not choose to go out in the phaeton, but preferred a walk, tete-e-tete with her, by way of variety. I said nothing, but was really vexed. She bad me go down stairs, and said she would follow me immediately. Lord Orville met me in the hall. "I fear," said he, "Miss Anville is not yet quite well?" and he would have taken my hand, but I turned from him, and courtsying slightly, went into the parlour. Mrs. Beaumont and Lady Louisa were at work: Lord Merton was talking with the latter; for he has now made his peace, and is again received into favour. I seated myself, as usual, by the window. Lord Orville, in a few minutes, came to me, and said, "Why is Miss Anville so grave?" "Not grave, my Lord," said I, "only stupid;" and I took up a book. "You will go," said he, after a short pause, "to the assembly to-night?" "No, my Lord, certainly not." "Neither then will I; for I should be sorry to sully the remembrance I have of the happiness I enjoyed at the last." Mrs. Selwyn then coming in, general enquiries were made to all but me, of who would go to the assembly? Lord Orville instantly declared he had letters to write at home; but every one else settled to go. I then hastened Mrs. Selwyn away, though not before she had said to Lord Orville, "Pray, has your Lordship obtained Miss Anville's leave to favour us with your company?" "I have not, Madam," answered he, "had the vanity to ask it." During our walk, Mrs. Selvyn tormented me unmercifully. She told me, that since I declined any addition to our party, I must, doubtless, be conscious of my own powers of entertainment; and begged me, therefore, to exert them freely. I repented a thousand times having consented to walk alone with her; for though I made the most painful efforts to appear in spirits, her raillery quite overpowered me. We went first to the pump-room. It was full of company; and the moment we entered, I heard a murmuring of, "That's she!" and, to my great confusion, I saw every eye turned towards me. I pulled my hat over my face, and, by the assistance of Mrs. Selwyn, endeavoured to screen myself from observation, nevertheless, I found I was so much the object of general attention, that I entreated her to hasten away. But unfortunately she had entered into conversation, very earnestly, with a gentleman of her acquaintance, and would not listen to me; but said, that if I was tired of waiting, I might walk on to the milliner's with the Miss Watkins, two young ladies I had seen at Mrs. Beaumont's, who were going thither. I accepted the offer very readily, and away we went. But we had not gone three yards, before we were followed by a party of young men, who took every possible opportunity of looking at us, and, as they walked behind, talked aloud, in a manner at once unintelligible and absurd. "Yes," cried one," 'tis certainly she!-mark but her blushing cheek!" "And then her eye -her downcast eye!"-cried another. "True, oh most true," said a third, "every beauty is her own!" "But then," said the first, "her mind,-now the difficulty is, to find out the truth of that, for she will not say a word." "She is timid," answered another; "mark but her timid air." During this conversation, we walked on silent and quick; as we knew not to whom it was particularly addressed, we were all equally ashamed, and equally desirous to avoid such unaccountable observations. Soon after we were caught in a shower of rain. We hurried on; and these gentlemen, following us, offered their services in the most pressing manner, begging us to make use of their arms; and, while I almost ran, in order to avoid their impertinence, I was suddenly met by Sir Clement Willoughby! We both started; "Good God!" he exclaimed, "Miss Anville!" and then, regarding my tormentors with an air of displeasure, he earnestly enquired, if any thing had alarmed me? "No, no;" cried I, for I found no difficulty now to disengage myself from these youths, who, probably, concluding from the commanding air of Sir Clement, that he had a right to protect me, quietly gave way to him, and entirely quitted us. With his usual impetuosity, he then began a thousand enquiries, accompanied with as many compliments; and he told me, that he arrived at Bristol but this morning, which he had entirely devoted to endeavours to discover where I lodged. "Did you know, then," said I, "that I was at Bristol?" "Would to Heaven," cried he, "that I could remain in ignorance of your proceedings with the same contentment you do of mine! then should I not for ever journey upon the wings of Hope, to meet my own despair! You cannot even judge of the cruelty of my fate; for the ease and serenity of your mind incapacitates you from feeling for the agitation of mine!" The ease and serenity of my mind! alas, how little do I merit those words! "But," added he, "had accident brought me hither, had I not known of your journey, the voice of fame would have proclaimed it to me instantly upon my arrival." "The voice of fame!" repeated I. "Yes, for yours was the first name I heard at the pump-room. But had I not heard your name, such a description could have painted no one else." "Indeed," said I, "I do not understand you." But just then arriving at the milliner's our conversation ended; for Miss Watkins called me to look at caps and ribbons. Sir Clement, however, has the art of being always at home; he was very soon engaged, as busily as ourselves, in looking at lace ruffles; yet he took an opportunity of saying to me, in a low voice, "How charmed I am to see you look so well! I was told you were ill;-but I never saw you in better health,-never more infinitely lovely!" I turned away to examine the ribbons, and soon after Mrs. Selwyn made her appearance. I found that she was acquainted with Sir Clement; and her manner of speaking to him convinced me that he was a favourite with her. When their mutual compliments were over, she turned to me, and said, "Pray, Miss Anville, how long can you live without nourishment?" "Indeed, Ma'am," said I, laughing, "I have never tried." "Because so long, and no longer," answered she, "you may remain at Bristol." "Why, what is the matter, Ma'am?" "The matter!-why, all the ladies are at open war with you,-the whole pump-room is in confusion; and you, innocent as you pretend to look, are the cause. However, if you take my advice, you will be very careful how you eat and drink during your stay." I begged her to explain herself: and she then told me, that a copy of verses had been dropped in the pump-room, and read there aloud: "The beauties of the Wells," said she, "are all mentioned, but you are the Venus to whom the prize is given." "Is it then possible," cried Sir Clement, "that you have not seen these verses?" "I hardly know," answered I, "whether any body has." "I assure you," said Mrs. Selwyn, "if you give me the invention of them, you do me an honour I by no means deserve." "I wrote down in my tablets," said Sir Clement, "the stanzas which concern Miss Anville this morning at the pump-room; and I will do myself the honour of copying them for her this evening." "But why the part that concerns Miss Anville?" said Mrs. Selwyn; "Did you ever see her before this morning?" "O yes," answered he, "I have had that happiness frequently at Captain Mirvan's. Too, too frequently!" added he, in a low voice, as Mrs. Selwyn turned to the milliner: and as soon as she was occupied in examining some trimmings, he came to me, and almost whether I would or not, entered into conversation with me. "I have a thousand things," cried he, "to say to you. Pray where are you?" "With Mrs. Selwyn, Sir." "Indeed!-then, for once, chance is my friend. And how long have you been here?" "About three weeks." "Good Heaven! what an anxious search have I had, to discover your abode, since you so suddenly left town! The termagant, Madame Duval, refused me all intelligence. Oh, Miss Anville, did you know what I have endured! the sleepless, restless state of suspense I have been tortured with, you could not, all cruel as you are, you could not have received me with such frigid indifference?" "Received you, Sir!" "Why, is not my visit to you?" Do you think I should have made this journey, but for the happiness of again seeing you?" "Indeed it is possible I might,-since so many others do." "Cruel, cruel girl! you know that I adore you! you know you are the mistress of my soul, and arbitress of my fate!" Mrs. Selwyn then advancing to us, he assumed a more disengaged air, and asked, if he should not have the pleasure of seeing her in the evening at the assembly? "Oh, yes," cried she, "we shall certainly be there; so you may bring the verses with you, if Miss Anville can wait for them so long." "I hope then," returned he, "that you will do me the honour to dance with me?" I thanked him, but said I should not be at the assembly. "Not be at the assembly?" cried Mrs. Selwyn, "Why, have you, too, letters to write?" She looked at me with a significant archness, that made me colour; and I hastily answered, "No, indeed, Ma'am!" "You have not!" cried she, yet more drily; "then pray, my dear, do you stay at home to help,-or to hinder others?" "To do neither, Ma'am," answered I, in much confusion; "so, if you please, I will not stay at home." "You allow me, then," said Sir Clement, "to hope for the honour of your hand?" I only bowed,-for the dread of Mrs. Selwyn's raillery made me not dare refuse him. Soon after this we walked home: Sir Clement accompanied us; and the conversation that passed between Mrs. Selwyn and him was supported in so lively a manner, that I should have been much entertained, had my mind been more at ease: but, alas! I could think of nothing but the capricious, the unmeaning appearance which the alteration in my conduct must make in the eyes of the Lord Orville! And much as I wished to avoid him, greatly as I desire to save myself from having my weakness known to him,-yet I cannot endure to incur his ill opinion,-and, unacquainted as he is with the reasons by which I am actuated, how can he fail contemning a change to him so unaccountable? As we entered the garden, he was the first object we saw. He advanced to meet us; and I could not help observing, that at sight of each other both he and Sir Clement changed colour. We went into the parlour, where we found the same party we had left. Mrs. Selwyn presented Sir Clement to Mrs. Beaumont; Lady Louisa and Lord Merton he seemed well acquainted with already. The conversation was upon the general subjects, of the weather, the company at the Wells, and the news of the day. But Sir Clement, drawing his chair next to mine, took every opportunity of addressing himself to me in particular. I could not but remark the striking difference of his attention, and that of Lord Orville: the latter has such gentleness of manners, such delicacy of conduct, and an air so respectful, that, when he flatters most, he never distresses; and when he most confers honour, appears to receive it! The former obtrudes his attention, and forces mine; it is so pointed, that it always confuses me, and so public, that it attracts general notice. Indeed I have sometimes thought that he would rather wish, than dislike to have his partiality for me known, as he takes great care to prevent my being spoken to by any but himself. When at length he went away, Lord Orville took his seat, and said, with a half smile, "Shall I call Sir Clement,-or will you call me an usurper for taking this place?-You make me no answer?-Must I then suppose that Sir Clement-" "It is little worth your Lordship's while," said I, "to suppose any thing upon so insignificant an occasion." "Pardon me," cried he;-"to me nothing is insignificant in which you are concerned." To this I made no answer; neither did he say any thing more, till the ladies retired to dress: and then, when I would have followed them, he stopped me, saying, "One moment, I entreat you!" I turned back, and he went on, "I greatly fear that I have been so unfortunate as to offend you; yet so repugnant to my very soul is the idea, that I know not how to suppose it possible I can unwittingly have done the thing in the world that, designedly, I would wish to avoid." "No, indeed, my Lord, you have not," said I. "You sigh!" cried he, taking my hand, "would to Heaven I were the sharer of your uneasiness, whencesoever it springs! with what earnestness would I not struggle to alleviate it!-Tell me, my dear Miss Anville,-my new-adopted sister, my sweet and most amiable friend!-tell me, I beseech you, if I can afford you any assistance?" "None, none, my Lord!" cried I, withdrawing my hand, and moving towards the door. "Is it then impossible I can serve you?-Perhaps you wish to see Mr. Macartney again?" "No, my Lord." And I held the door open. "I am not, I own, sorry for that. Yet, oh! Miss Anville, there is a question,-there is a conjecture,-I know not how to mention, because I dread the result!-But I see you are in haste;-perhaps in the evening I may have the honour of a longer conversation.-Yet one thing, will you have the goodness to allow me to ask?-Did you, this morning, when you went to the Wells,-did you know whom you should meet there?" "Who, my Lord?" "I beg your pardon a thousand times for a curiosity so unlicensed;-but I will say no more at present." He bowed, expecting me to go;-and then, with quick steps, but a heavy heart, I came to my own room. His question, I am sure, meant Sir Clement Willoughby; and had I not imposed upon myself the severe task of avoiding, flying Lord Orville, with all my power, I would instantly have satisfied him of my ignorance of Sir Clement's journey. And yet more did I long to say something of the assembly, since I found he depended upon my spending the evening at home. I did not go down stairs again till the family was assembled to dinner. My dress, I saw, struck Lord Orville with astonishment; and I was myself so much ashamed of appearing whimsical and unsteady, that I could not look up. "I understood," said Mrs. Beaumont, "that Miss Anville did not go out this evening." "Her intention in the morning," said Mrs. Selwyn, "was to stay at home; but there is a fascinating power in an assembly, which, upon second thoughts, is not to be resisted." "The assembly!" cried Lord Orville; "are you then going to the assembly?" I made no answer; and we all took our places at table. It was not without difficulty that I contrived to give up my usual seat; but I was determined to adhere to the promise in my yesterday's letter, though I saw that Lord Orville seemed quite confounded at my visible endeavours to avoid him. After dinner, we all went into the drawing-room together, as there were no gentlemen to detain his Lordship; and then, before I could place myself out of his way, he said, "You are then really going to the assembly?-May I ask if you shall dance?" "I believe not,-my Lord." "If I did not fear," continued he, "that you would be tired of the same partner at two following assemblies, I would give up my letter-writing till to-morrow evening, and solicit the honour of your hand." "If I do dance," said I, in great confusion, "I believe I am engaged." "Engaged!" cried he, with earnestness, "May I ask to whom?" "To-Sir Clement Willoughby, my Lord." He said nothing, but looked very little pleased, and did not address himself to me any more all the afternoon. Oh, Sir!-thus situated, how comfortless were the feelings of your Evelina! Early in the evening, with his accustomed assiduity, Sir Clement came to conduct us to the assembly. He soon contrived to seat himself next me, and, in a low voice, paid me so many compliments, that I knew not which way to look. Lord Orville hardly spoke a word, and his countenance was grave and thoughtful; yet, whenever I raised my eyes, his, I perceived, were directed towards me, though instantly, upon meeting mine, he looked another way. In a short time, Sir Clement, taking from his pocket a folded paper, said, almost in a whisper, "Here, loveliest of women, you will see a faint, an unsuccessful attempt to paint the object of all my adoration! yet, weak as are the lines for the purpose, I envy beyond expression the happy mortal who has dared make the effort." "I will look at them," said I, "some other time." For, conscious that I was observed by Lord Orville, I could not bear he should see me take a written paper, so privately offered, from Sir Clement. But Sir Clement is an impracticable man, and I never succeeded in any attempt to frustrate whatever he had planned. "No," said he, still in a whisper, "you must take them now, while Lady Louisa is away;" for she and Mrs. Selwyn were gone up stairs to finish their dress, "as she must by no means see them." "Indeed," said I, "I have no intention to show them." "But the only way," answered he, "to avoid suspicion, is to take them in her absence. I would have read them aloud myself, but that they are not proper to be seen by any body in this house, yourself and Mrs. Selwyn excepted." Then again he presented me the paper, which I now was obliged to take, as I found declining it was vain. But I was sorry that this action should be seen, and the whispering remarked, though the purport of the conversation was left to conjecture. As I held it in my hand, Sir Clement teazed me to look at it immediately; and told me, the reason he could not produce the lines publicly was, that among the ladies who were mentioned, and supposed to be rejected, was Lady Louisa Larpent. I am much concerned at this circumstance, as I cannot doubt but that it will render me more disagreeable to her than ever, if she should hear of it. I will now copy the verses, which Sir Clement would not let me rest till I had read. See last advance, with bashful grace, Downcast eye, and blushing cheek, Timid air, and beauteous face, Anville,-whom the Graces seek. Though ev'ry beauty is her own, And though her mind each virtue fills, Anville,-to her power unknown, Artless strikes,-unconscious kills. I am sure, my dear Sir, you will not wonder that a panegyric such as this should, in reading, give me the greatest confusion; and, unfortunately, before I had finished it, the ladies returned. "What have you there, my dear?" said Mrs. Selwyn. "Nothing, Ma'am," said I, hastily folding, and putting it in my pocket. "And has nothing," cried she, "the power of rouge?" I made no answer; a deep sigh, which escaped Lord Orville at that moment, reached my ears, and gave me sensations-which I dare not mention! Lord Merton then handed Lady Louisa and Mrs. Beaumont to the latter's carriage. Mrs. Selwyn led the way to Sir Clement's, who handed me in after her. During the ride I did not once speak; but when I came to the assembly room, Sir Clement took care that I should not preserve my silence. He asked me immediately to dance; I begged him to excuse me, and seek some other partner. But on the contrary, he told me, he was very glad I would sit still, as he had a million of things to say to me. He then began to tell me, how much he had suffered from absence; how greatly he was alarmed when he heard I had left town; and how cruelly difficult he had found it to trace me; which, at last, he could only do by sacrificing another week to Captain Mirvan. "And Howard Grove," continued he, "which, at my first visit, I thought the most delightful spot upon earth, now appeared to me the most dismal: the face of the country seemed altered; the walks, which I had thought most pleasant, were now most stupid: Lady Howard, who had appeared a cheerful and respectable old lady, now appeared in the common John Trot style of other aged dames: Mrs. Mirvan, whom I had esteemed as an amiable piece of still-life, now became so insipid, that I could hardly keep awake in her company: the daughter, too, whom I had regarded as a good-humoured, pretty sort of a girl, now seemed too insignificant for notice: and as to the Captain, I had always thought him a booby,-but now he appeared a savage!" "Indeed, Sir Clement," cried I, angrily, "I will not hear you speak thus of my best friends." "I beg your pardon," said he, "but the contrast of my two visits was too striking not to be mentioned." He then asked what I thought of the verses? "Either," said I, "they are written ironically, or by some madman." Such a profusion of compliments ensued, that I was obliged to propose dancing, in my own defence. When we stood up, "I intended," said he, "to have discovered the author by his looks; but I find you so much the general loadstone of attention, that my suspicions change their object every moment. Surely you must yourself have some knowledge who he is?" I told him no. Yet, my dear Sir, I must own to you, I have no doubt but that Mr. Macartney must be the author; no one else would speak of me so partially; and, indeed, his poetical turn puts it, with me, beyond dispute. He asked me a thousand questions concerning Lord Orville; how long he had been at Bristol?-what time I had spent at Clifton?-whether he rode out every morning?-whether I ever trusted myself in a phaeton? and a multitude of other enquiries, all tending to discover if I was honoured with much of his Lordship's attention, and all made with his usual freedom and impetuosity. Fortunately, as I much wished to retire early, Lady Louisa makes a point of being the first who quit the rooms, and therefore we got home in very tolerable time. Lord Orville's reception of us was grave and cold: far from distinguishing me, as usual, by particular civilities, Lady Louisa herself could not have seen me enter the room with more frigid unconcern, nor have more scrupulously avoided honouring me with any notice. But chiefly I was struck to see, that he suffered Sir Clement, who stayed supper, to sit between us, without any effort to prevent him, though till then, he had seemed to be even tenacious of a seat next mine. This little circumstance affected me more than I can express; yet I endeavoured to rejoice at it, since neglect and indifference from him may be my best friends.-But, alas!-so suddenly, so abruptly to forfeit his attention!-to lose his friendship!-Oh, Sir, these thoughts pierced my soul!-scarce could I keep my seat; for not all my efforts could restrain the tears from trickling down my cheeks: however, as Lord Orville saw them not, for Sir Clement's head was constantly between us, I tried to collect my spirits, and succeeded so far as to keep my place with decency, till Sir Clement took leave; and then, not daring to trust my eyes to meet those of Lord Orville, I retired. I have been writing ever since; for, certain that I could not sleep, I would not go to bed. Tell me, my dearest Sir, if you possibly can, tell me that you approve my change of conduct,-tell me that my altered behaviour to Lord Orville is right,-that my flying his society, and avoiding his civilities, are actions which you would have dictated.-Tell me this, and the sacrifices I have made will comfort me in the midst of my regret,-for never, never can I cease to regret that I have lost the friendship of Lord Orville!-Oh, Sir, I have slighted,-have rejected,-have thrown it away!-No matter, it was an honour I merited not to preserve; and now I see,-that my mind was unequal to sustaining it without danger. Yet so strong is the desire you have implanted in me to act with uprightness and propriety, that, however the weakness of my heart may distress and afflict me, it will never, I humbly trust, render me wilfully culpable. The wish of doing well governs every other, as far as concerns my conduct,-for am I not your child?-the creature of your own forming!-Yet, Oh Sir, friend, parent, of my heart!-my feelings are all at war with my duties! and, while I most struggle to acquire self-approbation, my peace, my happiness, my hopes,-are lost! 'Tis you alone can compose a mind so cruelly agitated: you, I well know, can feel pity for the weakness to which you are a stranger; and, though you blame the affliction, soothe and comfort the afflicted. LETTER LXXIII. MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA. Berry Hill, Oct. 3rd. YOUR last communication, my dearest child, is indeed astonishing; that an acknowledged daughter and heiress of Sir John Belmont should be at Bristol, and still my Evelina bear the name of Anville, is to me inexplicable; yet the mystery of the letter to Lady Howard prepared me to expect something extraordinary upon Sir John Belmont's return to England. Whoever this young lady may be, it is certain she now takes a place to which you have a right indisputable. An after-marriage I never heard of; yet, supposing such a one to have happened, Miss Evelyn was certainly the first wife, and therefore her daughter must, at least, be entitled to the name of Belmont. Either there are circumstances in this affair at present utterly incomprehensible, or else some strange and most atrocious fraud has been practiced; which of these two is the case it now behoves us to enquire. My reluctance to this step gives way to my conviction of its propriety, since the reputation of your dear and much-injured mother must now either be fully cleared from blemish, or receive its final and indelible wound. The public appearance of a daughter of Sir John Belmont will revive the remembrance of Miss Evelyn's story in all who have heard it,-who the mother was, will be universally demanded,-and if any other Lady Belmont should be named, the birth of my Evelina will receive a stigma, against which, honour, truth, and innocence may appeal in vain!-a stigma, which will eternally blast the fair fame of her virtuous mother, and cast upon her blameless self the odium of a title, which not all her purity can rescue from established shame and dishonour! No, my dear child, no; I will not quietly suffer the ashes of your mother to be treated with ignominy! her spotless character shall be justified to the world-her marriage shall be acknowledged, and her child shall bear the name to which she is lawfully entitled. It is true, that Mrs. Mirvan would conduct this affair with more delicacy than Mrs. Selwyn; yet, perhaps, to save time, is of all considerations the most important, since the longer this mystery is suffered to continue, the more difficult may be rendered its explanation. The sooner, therefore, you can set out for town, the less formidable will be your task. Let not your timidity, my dear love, depress your spirits: I shall, indeed, tremble for you at a meeting so singular and so affecting, yet there can be no doubt of the success of your application: I enclose a letter from your unhappy mother, written, and reserved purposely for this occasion: Mrs. Clinton too, who attended her in her last illness, must accompany you to town.-But, without any other certificate of your birth, that which you carry in your countenance, as it could not be affected by artifice, so it cannot admit of a doubt. And now, my Evelina, committed at length to the care of your real parent, receive the fervent prayers, wishes, and blessings, of him who so fondly adopted you! May'st thou, O child of my bosom! may'st thou, in this change of situation, experience no change of disposition! but receive with humility, and support with meekness the elevation to which thou art rising! May thy manners, language, and deportment, all evince that modest equanimity, and cheerful gratitude, which not merely deserve, but dignify prosperity! May'st thou, to the last moments of an unblemished life, retain thy genuine simplicity, thy singleness of heart, thy guileless sincerity! And may'st thou, stranger to ostentation, and superior to insolence, with true greatness of soul shine forth conspicuous only in beneficence! ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER LXXIV. [Inclosed in the preceding Letter.] LADY BELMONT TO SIR JOHN BELMONT. IN the firm hope that the moment of anguish which approaches will prove the period of my sufferings, once more I address myself to Sir John Belmont, in behalf of the child, who, if it survives its mother, will hereafter be the bearer of this letter. Yet, in what terms,-Oh, most cruel of men!-can the lost Caroline address you, and not address you in vain? Oh, deaf to the voice of compassion-deaf to the sting of truth-deaf to every tie of honour-say, in what terms may the lost Caroline address you, and not address you in vain! Shall I call you by the loved, the respected title of husband?-No, you disclaim it!-the father of my infant?-No, you doom it to infamy!-the lover who rescued me from a forced marriage?-No, you have yourself betrayed me!-the friend from whom I hoped succour and protection?-No, you have consigned me to misery and destruction! Oh, hardened against every plea of justice, remorse, or pity! how, and in what manner, may I hope to move thee? Is there one method I have left untried? remains there one resource unessayed? No! I have exhausted all the bitterness of reproach, and drained every sluice of compassion! Hopeless, and almost desperate, twenty times have I flung away my pen;-but the feelings of a mother, a mother agonizing for the fate of her child, again animating my courage, as often I have resumed it. Perhaps when I am no more, when the measure of my woes is completed, and the still, silent, unreproaching dust has received my sad remains,-then, perhaps, when accusation is no longer to be feared, nor detection to be dreaded, the voice of equity and the cry of nature may be heard. Listen, Oh Belmont, to their dictates! reprobate not your child, though you have reprobated its mother. The evils that are past, perhaps, when too late, you may wish to recal; the young creature you have persecuted, perhaps, when too late, you may regret that you have destroyed;-you may think with horror of the deceptions you have practised, and the pangs of remorse may follow me to the tomb:-Oh, Belmont, all my resentment softens into pity at the thought! what will become of thee, good Heaven, when, with the eye of penitence, thou reviewest thy past conduct! Hear, then, the solemn, the last address, with which the unhappy Caoline will importune thee. If when the time of thy contrition arrives,-for arrive it must!-when the sense of thy treachery shall rob thee of almost every other, if then thy tortured heart shall sigh to expiate thy guilt,-mark the conditions upon which I leave thee my forgiveness. Thou knowest I am thy wife!-clear, then, to the world the reputation thou hast sullied, and receive, as thy lawful successor, the child who will present thee this, my dying request! The worthiest, the most benevolent, the best of men, to whose consoling kindness I owe the little tranquillity I have been able to preserve, has plighted me his faith, that, upon no other conditions, he will part with his helpless charge. Should'st thou, in the features of this deserted innocent, trace the resemblance of the wretched Caroline,-should its face bear the marks of its birth, and revive in thy memory the image of its mother, wilt thou not, Belmont, wilt thou not therefore renounce it?-Oh, babe of my fondest affection! for whom already I experience all the tenderness of maternal pity! look not like thy unfortunate mother,-lest the parent, whom the hand of death may spare, shall be snatched from thee by the more cruel means of unnatural antipathy! I can write no more. The small share of serenity I have painfully acquired, will not bear the shock of the dreadful ideas that crowd upon me. Adieu,-for ever!- Yet, Oh!-shall I not, in this last farewell, which thou wilt not read till every stormy passion is extinct, and the kind grave has embosomed all my sorrows,-shall I not offer to the man, once so dear to me, a ray of consolation to those afflictions he has in reserve? Suffer me, then, to tell thee, that my pity far exceeds my indignation,-that I will pray for thee in my last moments, and that the recollection of the love I once bore thee, shall swallow up every other! Once more, adieu! CAROLINE BELMONT. LETTER LXXV. EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS. Clifton, Oct. 3rd. THIS morning I saw from my window, that Lord Orville was walking in the garden; but I would not go down stairs till breakfast was ready: and then, he paid me his compliments almost as coldly as Lady Louisa paid hers. I took my usual place, and Mrs. Belmont, Lady Louisa, and Mrs. Selwyn, entered into their usual conversation.-Not so your Evelina: disregarded, silent, and melancholy, she sat like a cypher, whom, to nobody belonging, by nobody was noticed. Ill brooking such a situation, and unable to suport the neglect of Lord Orville, the moment breakfast was over I left the room, and was going up stairs; when, very unpleasantly, I was stopped by Sir Clement Willoughby, who, flying into the hall, prevented my proceeding. He enquired very particularly after my health, and entreated me to return into the parlour. Unwillingly, I consented, but thought any thing preferable to continuing alone with him; and he would neither leave me, nor suffer me to pass on. Yet, in returning, I felt not a little ashamed at appearing thus to take the visit of Sir Clement to myself. And, indeed, he endeavoured, by his manner of addressing me, to give it that air. He stayed, I believe, an hour; nor would he, perhaps, even then have gone, had not Mrs. Beaumont broken up the party, by proposing an airing in her coach. Lady Louisa consented to accompany her; but Mrs. Selwyn, when applied to, said, "If my Lord, or Sir Clement, will join us, I shall be happy to make one;-but really a trio of females will be nervous to the last degree." Sir Clement readily agreed to attend them; indeed, he makes it his evident study to court the favour of Mrs. Beaumont. Lord Orville excused himself from going out; and I retired to my own room. What he did with himself I know not, for I would not go down stairs till dinner was ready: his coldness, though my own change of behaviour had occasioned it, so cruelly depresses my spirits, that I know not how to support myself in his presence. At dinner, I found Sir Clement again of the party. Indeed, he manages every thing his own way; for Mrs. Beaumont, though by no means easy to please, seems quite at his disposal. The dinner, the afternoon, and the evening, were to me the most irksome imaginable: I was tormented by the assiduity of Sir Clement, who not only took, but made opportunities of speaking to me,-and I was hurt,-Oh, how inexpressibly hurt!-that Lord Orville not only forebore, as hitherto, seeking, he even neglected all occasions of talking with me! I begin to think, my dear Sir, that the sudden alteration in my behaviour was ill-judged and improper; for, as I had received no offence, as the cause of the change was upon my account, not his, I should not have assumed, so abruptly, a reserve for which I dared assign no reason,-nor have shunned his presence so obviously, without considering the strange appearance of such a conduct. Alas, my dearest Sir, that my reflections should always be too late to serve me! dearly, indeed, do I purchase experience! and much, I fear, I shall suffer yet more severely, from the heedless indiscretion of my temper, ere I attain that prudence and consideration, which, by foreseeing distant consequences, may rule and direct in present exigencies. Oct. 4th. Yesterday morning every body rode out, except Mrs. Selwyn and myself; and we two sat for some time together in her room; but, as soon as I could, I quitted her, to saunter in the garden; for she diverts herself so unmercifully with rallying me, either upon my gravity, or concerning Lord Orville,-that I dread having any conversation with her. Here I believe I spent an hour by myself; when, hearing the garden-gate open, I went into an arbour at the end of a long walk, where, ruminating, very unpleasantly, upon my future prospects, I remained quietly seated but a few minutes, before I was interrupted by the appearance of Sir Clement Willoughby. I started; and would have left the arbour, but he prevented me. Indeed, I am almost certain he had heard in the house where I was, as it is not, otherwise, probable he would have strolled down the garden alone. "Stop, stop," cried he, "loveliest and most beloved of women, stop and hear me!" Then, making me keep my place, he sat down by me, and would have taken my hand; but I drew it back, and said I could not stay. "Can you, then," cried he, "refuse me the smallest gratification, though, but yesterday, I almost suffered martyrdom for the pleasure of seeing you?" "Martyrdom! Sir Clement." "Yes, beauteous insensible! martyrdom: for did I not compel myself to be immured in a carriage, the tedious length of a whole morning, with the three most fatiguing women in England?" "Upon my word, the ladies are extremely obliged to you." "Oh," returned he, "they have, every one of them, so copious a share of their own personal esteem, that they have no right to repine at the failure of it in the world; and, indeed, they will themselves be the last to discover it." "How little," cried I, "are those ladies aware of such severity from you!" "They are guarded," answered he, "so happily and so securely by their own conceit, that they are not aware of it from any body. Oh, Miss Anville, to be torn away from you, in order to be shut up with them,-is there a human being, except your cruel self, could forbear to pity me?" "I believe, Sir Clement, however hardly you may choose to judge of them, your situation, by the world in general, would rather have been envied than pitied." "The world in general," answered he, "has the same opinion of them that I have myself: Mrs. Beaumont is every where laughed at, Lady Louisa ridiculed, and Mrs. Selwyn hated." "Good God, Sir Clement, what cruel strength of words do you use!" "It is you, my angel, are to blame, since your perfections have rendered their faults so glaring. I protest to you, during our whole ride, I thought the carriage drawn by snails. The absurd pride of Mrs. Beaumont, and the respect she exacts, are at once insufferable and stupifying; had I never before been in her company, I should have concluded that this had been her first airing from the herald's office,-and wished her nothing worse, than that it might also be the last. I assure you, that but for gaining the freedom of her house, I would fly her as I would plague, pestilence, and famine. Mrs. Selwyn, indeed, afforded some relief from this formality, but the unbounded license of her tongue-" "O, Sir Clement, do you object to that?" "Yes, my sweet reproacher, in a woman I do; in a woman I think it intolerable. She has wit, I acknowledge, and more understanding than half her sex put together; but she keeps alive a perpetual expectation of satire, that spreads a general uneasiness among all who are in her presence; and she talks so much, that even the best things she says weary the attention. As to the little Louisa, 'tis such a pretty piece of languor, that 'tis almost cruel to speak rationally about her,-else I should say, she is a mere compound of affectation, impertinence, and airs." "I am quite amazed," said I, "that, with such opinions, you can behave to them all with so much attention and civility." "Civility! my angel,-why I could worship, could adore them, only to procure myself a moment of your conversation! Have you not seen me pay my court to the gross Captain Mirvan, and the virago Madame Duval? Were it possible that a creature so horrid could be formed, as to partake of the worst qualities of all these characters,-a creature who should have the haughtiness of Mrs. Beaumont, the brutality of Captain Mirvan, the self-conceit of Mrs. Selwyn, the affectation of Lady Louisa, and the vulgarity of Madame Duval,-even to such a monster as that I would pay homage, and pour forth adulation, only to obtain one word, one look from my adored Miss Anville!" "Sir Clement," said I, "you are greatly mistaken if you suppose this duplicity of character recommends you to my good opinion. But I must take this opportunity of begging you never more to talk to me in this strain." "Oh, Miss Anville, your reproofs, your coldness, pierce me to the soul! look upon me with less rigour, and make me what you please;-you shall govern and direct all my actions,-you shall new-form, new-model me:-I will not have even a wish but of your suggestion; only deign to look upon me with pity-if not with favour!" "Suffer me, Sir," said I, very gravely, "to make use of this occasion to put a final conclusion to such expressions. I entreat you never again to address me in a language so flighty and so unwelcome. You have already given me great uneasiness; and I must frankly assure you, that if you do not desire to banish me from wherever you are, you will adopt a very different style and conduct in future." I then rose, and was going, but he flung himself at my feet to prevent me, exclaiming, in a most passionate manner, "Good God! Miss Anville, what do you say?-is it, can it be possible, that, so unmoved, that, with such petrifying indifference, you can tear from me even the remotest hope!" "I know not, Sir," said I, endeavouring to disengage myself from him, "what hope you mean, but I am sure that I never intended to give you any." "You distract me," cried he, "I cannot endure such scorn;-I beseech you to have some moderation in your cruelty, lest you make me desperate:-say, then, that you pity me,-O fairest inexorable! loveliest tyrant!-say, tell me, at least, that you pity me!" Just then, who should come in sight, as if intending to pass by the arbour, but Lord Orville! Good Heaven, how did I start! and he, the moment he saw me, turned pale, and was hastily retiring;-but I called out "Lord Orville!-Sir Clement, release me,-let go my hand!" Sir Clement, in some confusion, suddenly rose, but still grasped my hand. Lord Orville, who had turned back, was again walking away; but, still struggling to disengage myself, I called out "Pray, pray, my Lord, don't go!-Sir Clement, I insist upon your releasing me!" Lord Orville then, hastily approaching us, said, with great spirit, "Sir Clement, you cannot wish to detain Miss Anville by force!" "Neither, my Lord," cried Sir Clement, proudly, "do I request the honour of your Lordship's interference." However, he let go my hand, and I immediately ran into the house. I was now frightened to death, lest Sir Clement's mortified pride should provoke him to affront Lord Orville: I therefore ran hastily to Mrs. Selwyn, and entreated her, in a manner hardly to be understood, to walk towards the arbour. She asked no questions, for she is quick as lightening in taking a hint, but instantly hastened into the garden. Imagine, my dear Sir, how wretched I must be till I saw her return! scarce could I restrain myself from running back: however, I checked my impatience, and waited, though in agonies, till she came. And now, my dear Sir, I have a conversation to write, the most interesting to me that I ever heard. The comments and questions with which Mrs. Selwyn interrupted her account I shall not mention; for they are such as you may very easily suppose. Lord Orville and Sir Clement were both seated very quietly in the arbour: and Mrs. Selwyn, standing still, as soon as she was within a few yards of them, heard Sir Clement say, "Your question, my Lord, alarms me, and I can by no means answer it, unless you will allow me to propose another." "Undoubtedly, Sir." "You ask me, my Lord, what are my intentions?-I should be very happy to be satisfied as to your Lordship's." "I have never, Sir, professed any." Here they were both, for a few moments, silent; and then Sir Clement said, "To what, my Lord, must I then impute your desire of knowing mine?" "To an unaffected interest in Miss Anville's welfare." "Such an interest," said Sir Clement, drily, "is indeed very generous; but, except in a father,-a brother,-or a lover-" "Sir Clement," interrupted his Lordship, "I know your inference; and I acknowledge I have not the right of enquiry which any of those three titles bestow; and yet I confess the warmest wishes to serve her and to see her happy. Will you, then, excuse me, if I take the liberty to repeat my question?" "Yes, if your Lordship will excuse my repeating, that I think it a rather extraordinary one." "It may be so," said Lord Orville; "but this young lady seems to be peculiarly situated; she is very young, very inexperienced, yet appears to be left totally to her own direction. She does not, I believe, see the dangers to which she is exposed, and I will own to you, I feel a strong desire to point them out." "I don't rightly understand your Lordship,-but I think you cannot mean to prejudice her against me?" "Her sentiments of you, Sir, are as much unknown to me, as your intentions towards her. Perhaps, were I acquainted with either, my officiousness might be at an end: but I presume not to ask upon what terms-" Here he stopped; and Sir Clement said, "You know, my Lord, I am not given to despair; I am by no means such a puppy as to tell you I am upon sure ground; however, perseverance-" "You are, then, determined to perservere?" "I am, my Lord." "Pardon me, then, Sir Clement, if I speak to you with freedom. This young lady, though she seems alone, and, in some measure, unprotected, is not entirely without friends; she has been extremely well educated, and accustomed to good company; she has a natural love of virtue, and a mind that might adorn any station, however exalted: is such a young lady, Sir Clement, a proper object to trifle with?-for your principles, excuse me, Sir, are well known." "As to that, my Lord, let Miss Anville look to herself; she has an excellent understanding, and needs no counsellor." "Her understanding is indeed excellent; but she is too young for suspicion, and has an artlessness of disposition I never saw equalled." "My Lord," cried Sir Clement, warmly, "your praises make me doubt your disinterestedness, and there exists not the man, whom I would so unwillingly have for a rival as yourself. But you must give me leave to say, you have greatly deceived me in regard to this affair." "How so, Sir?" cried Lord Orville, with equal warmth. "You were pleased, my Lord," answered Sir Clement, "upon our first conversation concerning this young lady, to speak to her in terms by no means suited to your present encomiums; you said she was a poor, weak, ignorant girl, and I had great reason to believe you had a most contemptuous opinion of her." "It is very true," said Lord Orville, "that I did not, at our first acquaintance, do justice to the merits of Miss Anville; but I knew not then how new she was to the world; at present, however, I am convinced, that whatever might appear strange in her behaviour, was simply the effect of inexperience, timidity, and a retired education; for I find her informed, sensible, and intelligent. She is not, indeed, like most modern young ladies, to be known in half an hour: her modest worth, and fearful excellence, require both time and encouragement to show themselves. She does not, beautiful as she is, seize the soul by surprise, but, with more dangerous fascination, she steals it almost imperceptibly." "Enough, my Lord," cried Sir Clement, "your solicitude for her welfare is now sufficiently explained." "My friendship and esteem," returned Lord Orville, "I do not wish to disguise; but assure yourself, Sir Clement, I should not have troubled you upon this subject, had Miss Anville and I ever conversed but as friends. However, since you do not choose to avow your intentions, we must drop the subject." "My intentions," cried he, "I will frankly own, are hardly known to myself. I think Miss Anville the loveliest of her sex; and, were I a marrying man, she, of all the women I have seen, I would fix upon for a wife: but I believe that not even the philosophy of your Lordship would recommend me to a connection of that sort, with a girl of obscure birth, whose only dowry is her beauty, and who is evidently in a state of dependency." "Sir Clement," cried Lord Orville, with some heat, "we will discuss this point no further; we are both free agents, and must act for ourselves." Here Mrs. Selwyn, fearing a surprise, and finding my apprehensions of danger were groundless, retired hastily into another walk, and soon after came to give me this account. Good Heaven, what a man is this Sir Clement! So designing, though so easy; so deliberately artful, though so flighty! Greatly, however, is he mistaken, all confident as he seems; for the girl, obscure, poor, dependent as she is, far from wishing the honour of his alliance, would not only now, but always have rejected it. As to Lord Orville,-but I will not trust my pen to mention him,-tell me, my dear sir, what you think of him?-tell me if he is not the noblest of men?-and if you can either wonder at, or blame my admiration? The idea of being seen immediately by either party, after so singular a conversation, was both awkward and distressing to me; but I was obliged to appear at dinner. Sir Clement, I saw, was absent and uneasy; he watched me, he watched Lord Orville, and was evidently disturbed in his mind. Whenever he spoke to me, I turned from him with undisguised disdain, for I am too much irritated against him, to bear with his ill-meant assiduities any longer. But, not once,-not a moment, did I dare meet the eyes of Lord Orville! All consciousness myself, I dreaded his penetration, and directed mine every way-but towards his. The rest of the day I never quitted Mrs. Selwyn. Adieu, my dear Sir: to-morrow I expect your directions, whether I am to return to Berry Hill, or once more to visit London. LETTER LXXVI. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Oct. 6th. AND now, my dearest Sir, if the perturbation of my spirits will allow me, I will finish my last letter from Clifton Hill. This morning, though I did not go down stairs early, Lord Orville was the only person in the parlour when I entered it. I felt no small confusion at seeing him alone, after having so long and successfully avoided such a meeting. As soon as the usual compliments were over, I would have left the room, but he stopped me by saying, "If I disturb you Miss Anville, I am gone." "My Lord," said I, rather embarrassed, "I did not mean to stay." "I flattered myself," cried he, "I should have had a moment's conversation with you." I then turned back; and he seemed himself in some perplexity: but, after a short pause, "You are very good," said he, "to indulge my request; I have, indeed, for some time past, most ardently desired an opportunity of speaking to you." Again he paused; but I said nothing, so he went on. "You allowed me, Madam, a few days since, you allowed me to lay claim to your friendship,-to interest myself in your affairs,-to call you by the affectionate title of sister;-and the honour you did me, no man could have been more sensible of; I am ignorant, therefore, how I have been so unfortunate as to forfeit it:-but, at present, all is changed! you fly me,-your averted eye shuns to meet mine, and you sedulously avoid my conversation." I was extremely disconcerted at this grave, and but too just accusation, and I am sure I must look very simple;-but I made no answer. "You will not, I hope," continued he, "condemn me unheard; if there is any thing I have done,-or any thing I have neglected, tell me, I beseech you, what, and it shall be the whole study of my thoughts how to deserve your pardon." "Oh, my Lord," cried I, penetrated at once with shame and gratitude, "your too, too great politeness oppresses me!-you have done nothing,-I have never dreamt of offence-if there is any pardon to be asked it is rather for me, than for you to ask it." "You are all sweetness and condescension!" cried he, "and I flatter myself you will again allow me to claim those titles which I find myself so unable to forego. Yet, occupied as I am, with an idea that gives me the greatest uneasiness, I hope you will not think me impertinent, if I still solicit, still intreat, nay implore, you to tell me, to what cause your late sudden, and to me most painful, reserve was owing?" "Indeed, my Lord," said I, stammering, "I don't,-I can't,-indeed, my Lord,-" "I am sorry to distress you," said he, "and ashamed to be so urgent,-yet I know not how to be satisfied while in ignorance,-and the time when the change happened, makes me apprehend,-may I, Miss Anville, tell you what it makes me apprehend?" "Certainly, my Lord." "Tell me, then,-and pardon a question most essentially important to me;-Had, or had not, Sir Clement Willoughby any share in causing your inquietude?" "No, my Lord," answered I, with firmness, "none in the world." "A thousand, thousand thanks!" cried he: "you have relieved me from a weight of conjecture which I supported very painfully. But one thing more; is it, in any measure, to Sir Clement that I may attribute the alteration in your behaviour to myself, which, I could not but observe, began the very day after his arrival at the Hot Wells?" "To Sir Clement, my Lord," said I, "attribute nothing. He is the last man in the world who would have any influence over my conduct." "And will you, then, restore to me that share of confidence and favour with which you honoured me before he came?" Just then, to my great relief,-for I knew not what to say,-Mrs. Beaumont opened the door, and in a few minutes we went to breakfast. Lord Orville was all gaiety; never did I see him more lively or more agreeable. Very soon after, Sir Clement Willoughby called, to pay his respects, he said, to Mrs. Beaumont. I then came to my own room, where, indulging my reflections, which, now soothed, and now alarmed me, I remained very quietly, till I received your most kind letter. Oh, Sir, how sweet are the prayers you offer for your Evelina! how grateful to her are the blessings you pour upon her head!-You commit me to my real parent,-Ah, Guardian, Friend, Protector of my youth,-by whom my helpless infancy was cherished, my mind formed, my very life preserved,-you are the Parent my heart acknowledges, and to you do I vow eternal duty, gratitude, and affection! I look forward to the approaching interview with more fear than hope; but, important as is this subject, I am just now wholly engrossed with another, which I must hasten to communicate. I immediately acquainted Mrs. Selwyn with the purport of your letter. She was charmed to find your opinion agreed with her own, and settled that we should go to town to-morrow morning: and a chaise is actually ordered to be here by one o'clock. She then desired me to pack up my clothes; and said she must go herself to make speeches and tell lies to Mrs. Beaumont. When I went down stairs to dinner, Lord Orville, who was still in excellent spirits, reproached me for secluding myself so much from the company. He sat next me,-he would sit next me,-at table; and he might, I am sure, repeat what he once said of me before, that he almost exhausted himself in fruitless endeavours to entertain me; -for, indeed, I was not to be entertained: I was totally spiritless and dejected; the idea of the approaching meeting,-and Oh, Sir, the idea of the approaching parting,-gave a heaviness to my heart that I could neither conquer nor repress. I even regretted the half explanation that had passed, and wished Lord Orville had supported his own reserve, and suffered me to support mine. However, when, during dinner, Mrs. Beaumont spoke of our journey, my gravity was no longer singular; a cloud instantly overspread the countenance of Lord Orville, and he became nearly as thoughtful and as silent as myself. We all went together to the drawing-room. After a short and unentertaining conversation, Mrs. Selwyn said she must prepare for her journey, and begged me to see for some books she had left in the parlour. And here, while I was looking for them, I was followed by Lord Orville. He shut the door after he came in, and, approaching me with a look of anxiety, said, "Is this true, Miss Anville, are you going?" "I believe so, my Lord," said I, still looking for the books. "So suddenly, so unexpectedly must I lose you?" "No great loss, my Lord," cried I, endeavouring to speak cheerfully. "Is it possible," said he gravely, "Miss Anville can doubt my sincerity?" "I can't imagine," cried I, "what Mrs. Selwyn has done with these books." "Would to Heaven," continued he, "I might flatter myself you would allow me to prove it!" "I must run up stairs," cried I, greatly confused, "and ask what she has done with them." "You are going, then," cried he, taking my hand, "and you give me not the smallest hope of your return!-will you not, then, my too lovely friend!-will you not, at least, teach me, with fortitude like your own, to support your absence?" "My Lord," cried I, endeavouring to disengage my hand, "pray let me go!" "I will," cried he, to my inexpressible confusion, dropping on one knee, "if you wish to leave me!" "O, my Lord," exclaimed I, "rise, I beseech you, rise!-such a posture to me!-surely your Lordship is not so cruel as to mock me!" "Mock you!" repeated he earnestly, "no I revere you! I esteem and I admire you above all human beings! you are the friend to whom my soul is attached as to its better half! you are the most amiable, the most perfect of women! and you are dearer to me than language has the power of telling." I attempt not to describe my sensations at that moment; I scarce breathed; I doubted if I existed,-the blood forsook my cheeks, and my feet refused to sustain me: Lord Orville, hastily rising, supported me to a chair, upon which I sunk, almost lifeless. For a few minutes, we neither of us spoke; and then, seeing me recover, Lord Orville, though in terms hardly articulate, intreated my pardon for his abruptness. The moment my strength returned, I attempted to rise, but he would not permit me. I cannot write the scene that followed, though every word is engraven on my heart; but his protestations, his expressions, were too flattering for repetition: nor would he, in spite of my repeated efforts to leave him, suffer me to escape:-in short, my dear Sir, I was not proof against his solicitations-and he drew from me the most sacred secret of my heart! I know not how long we were together; but Lord Orville was upon his knees, when the door was opened by Mrs. Selwyn!-To tell you, Sir, the shame with which I overwhelmed, would be impossible;-I snatched my hand from Lord Orville,-he, too, started and rose, and Mrs. Selwyn, for some instants, stood facing us both in silence. At last, "My Lord" said she, sarcastically, "have you been so good as to help Miss Anville to look for my books?" "Yes, Madam," answered he, attempting to rally, "and I hope we shall soon be able to find them." "Your Lordship is extremely kind," said she, drily, "but I can by no means consent to take up any more of your time." Then looking on the window-seat, she presently found the books, and added, "Come, here are just three, and so like the servants in the Drummer, this important affair may give employment to us all." She then presented one of them to Lord Orville, another to me, and taking a third herself, with a most provoking look, she left the room. I would instantly have followed her; but Lord Orville, who could not help laughing, begged me to stay a minute, as he had many important matters to discuss. "No, indeed, my Lord, I cannot,-perhaps I have already stayed too long." "Does Miss Anville so soon repent her goodness?" "I scarce know what I do, my Lord,-I am quite bewildered!" "One hour's conversation," cried he, "will, I hope, compose your spirits, and confirm my happiness. When, then, may I hope to see you alone?-shall you walk in the garden to-morrow before breakfast?" "No, no, my Lord; you must not, a second time, reproach me with making an appointment." "Do you then," said he, laughing, "reserve that honour only for Mr. Macartney?" "Mr. Mccartney," said I, "is poor, and thinks himself obliged to me; otherwise-" "Poverty," cried he, "I will not plead; but, if being obliged to you has any weight, who shall dispute my title to an appointment?" "My Lord, I can stay no longer,-Mrs. Selwyn will lose all patience." "Deprive her not of the pleasure of her conjectures,-but tell me, are you under Mrs. Selwyn's care?" "Only for the present, my Lord." "Not a few are the questions I have to ask Miss Anville: among them, the most important is, whether she depends wholly on herself, or whether there is any other person for whose interest I must solicit?" "I hardly know, my Lord, I hardly know myself to whom I most belong." "Suffer, suffer me, then," cried he, with warmth, "to hasten the time when that shall no longer admit a doubt!-when your grateful Orville may call you all his own!" At length, but with difficulty, I broke from him. I went, however, to my own room, for I was too much agitated to follow Mrs. Selwyn. Good God, my dear Sir, what a scene! surely the meeting for which I shall prepare to-morrow cannot so greatly affect me! To be loved by Lord Orville,-to be the honoured choice of his noble heart,-my happiness seemed too infinite to be borne, and I wept, even bitterly I wept, from the excess of joy which overpowered me. In this state of almost painful felicity I continued till I was summoned to tea. When I re-entered the drawing room, I rejoiced much to find it full of company, as the confusion with which I met Lord Orville was rendered the less observable. Immediately after tea, most of the company played at cards,-and then-till supper time, Lord Orville devoted himself wholly to me. He saw that my eyes were red, and would not let me rest till he made me confess the cause; and when, though most reluctantly, I had acknowledged my weakness, I could with difficulty refrain from weeping again at the gratitude he expressed. He earnestly desired to know if my journey could not be postponed! and when I no, entreated permission to attend me to town. "Oh, my Lord," cried I, "what a request!" "The sooner," answered he, "I make my devotion to you in public, the sooner I may expect, from your delicacy, you will convince the world you encourage no mere danglers." "You teach me, then, my Lord, the inference I might expect, if I complied." "And can you wonder I should seek to hasten the happy time, when no scruples, no discretion will demand our separation? and the most punctilious delicacy will rather promote, than oppose, my happiness in attending you?" To this I was silent, and he re-urged his request. "My Lord," said I, "you ask what I have no power to grant. This journey will deprive me of all right to act for myself." "What does Miss Anville mean?" "I cannot now explain myself; indeed, if I could, the task would be both painful and tedious." "O, Miss Anville," cried he, "when may I hope to date the period of this mystery? when flatter myself that my promised friend will indeed honour me with her confidence?" "My Lord," said I, "I mean not to affect any mystery,-but my affairs are so circumstanced, that a long and most unhappy story can alone explain them. However, if a short suspense will give your Lordship any uneasiness,-" "My beloved Miss Anville," cried he, eagerly, "pardon my impatience!-You shall tell me nothing you would wish to conceal,-I will wait your own time for information, and trust to your goodness for its speed." "There is nothing, my Lord, I wish to conceal,-to postpone an explanation is all I desire." He then requested, that, since I would not allow him to accompany me to town, I would permit him to write to me, and promise to answer his letters. A sudden recollection of the two letters which had already passed between us occurring to me, I hastily answered, "No, indeed, my Lord!-" "I am extremely sorry," said he, gravely, "that you think me too presumptuous. I must own I had flattered myself, that, to soften the inquietude of an absence, which seems attended by so many inexplicable circumstances, would not have been to incur your displeasure." This seriousness hurt me; and I could not forbear saying, "Can you indeed desire, my Lord, that I should, a second time, expose myself, by an unguarded readiness, to write to you?" "A second time! unguarded readiness!" repeated he; "you amaze me!" "Has your Lordship then quite forgot the foolish letter I was so imprudent as to send you when in town?" "I have not the least idea," cried he, "of what you mean." "Why then, my Lord," said I, "we had better let the subject drop." "Impossible!" cried he, "I cannot rest without an explanation!" And then, he obliged me to speak very openly of both the letters: but, my dear Sir, imagine my surprise, when he assured me, in the most solemn manner, that, far from having ever written me a single line, he had never received, seen, or heard of my letter! This subject, which caused mutual astonishment and perplexity to us both, entirely engrossed us for the rest of the evening; and he made me promise to show him the letter I had received in his name to-morrow morning, that he might endeavour to discover the author. After supper, the conversation became general. And now, my dearest Sir, may I not call for your congratulations upon the events of this day? a day never to be recollected by me but with the most grateful joy! I know how much you are inclined to think well of Lord Orville; I cannot, therefore, apprehend that my frankness to him will displease you. Perhaps the time is not very distant, when your Evelina's choice may receive the sanction of her best friend's judgment and approbation,-which seems now all she has to wish! In regard to the change in my situation which must first take place, surely I cannot be blamed for what has passed! the partiality of Lord Orville must not only reflect honour upon me, but upon all to whom I do, or may belong. Adieu, most dear Sir, I will write again when I arrive at London. LETTER LXXVII. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Clifton, Oct. 7th. YOU will see, my dear Sir, that I was mistaken in supposing I should write no more from this place, where my residence now seems more uncertain than ever. This morning, during breakfast, Lord Orville took an opportunity to beg me, in a low voice, to allow him a moment's conversation before I left Clifton; "May I hope," added he, "that you will stroll into the garden after breakfast?" I made no answer, but I believe my looks gave no denial; for, indeed, I much wished to be satisfied concerning the letter. The moment, therefore, that I could quit the parlour, I ran up stairs for my calash; but, before I reached my room, Mrs. Selwyn called after me, "If you are going to walk, Miss Anville, be so good as to bid Jenny bring down my hat, and I'll accompany you." Very much disconcerted, I turned into the drawing-room, without making any answer, and there I hoped to wait unseen, till she had otherwise disposed of herself. But, in a few minutes, the door opened, and Sir Clement Willoughby entered. Starting at the sight of him, in rising hastily, I let drop the letter which I had brought for Lord Orville's inspection, and, before I could recover it, Sir Clement, springing forward, had it in his hand. He was just presenting it to me, and, at the same time, enquiring after my health, when the signature caught his eye, and he read aloud, "Orville." I endeavoured, eagerly, to snatch it from him, but he would not permit me; and, holding it fast, in a passionate manner exclaimed, "Good God, Miss Anville, is it possible you can value such a letter as this?" The question surprised and confounded me, and I was too much ashamed to answer him; but, finding he made an attempt to secure it, I prevented him, and vehemently demanded him to return it. "Tell me first," said he, holding it above my reach, "tell me if you have since received any more letters from the same person?" "No, indeed," cried I, "never!" "And will you also, sweetest of women, promise that you never will receive any more? Say that, and you will make me the happiest of men." "Sir Clement," cried I, greatly confused, "pray give me the letter." "And will you not first satisfy my doubts?-will you not relieve me from the torture of the most distracting suspense?-tell me but that the detested Orville has written to you no more!" "Sir Clement," cried I, angrily, "you have no right to make any conditions,-so pray give me the letter directly." "Why such solicitude about this hateful letter? can it possibly deserve your eagerness? tell me, with truth, with sincerity tell me, does it really merit the least anxiety?" "No matter, Sir," cried I, in great perplexity, "the letter is mine, and therefore-" "I must conclude, then," said he, "that the letter deserves your utmost contempt,-but that the name of Orville is sufficient to make you prize it." "Sir Clement," cried I, colouring, "you are quite-you are very much-the letter is not-" "O, Miss Anville," cried he, "you blush!-you stammer!-Great Heaven! it is then all as I feared!" "I know not," cried I, half-frightened, "what you mean; but I beseech you to give me the letter, and to compose yourself." "The letter," cried he, gnashing his teeth, "you shall never see more! You ought to have burnt it the moment you had read it!" And in an instant he tore it into a thousand pieces. Alarmed at a fury so indecently outrageous, I would have run out of the room; but he caught hold of my gown, and cried, "Not yet, not yet must you go! I am but half-mad yet, and you must stay to finish your work. Tell me, therefore, does Orville know your fatal partiality?-Say yes," added he, trembling with passion, "and I will fly you for ever!" "For Heaven's sake, Sir Clement," cried I, "release me!-if you do not, you will force me to call for help." "Call then," cried he, "inexorable and most unfeeling girl; call, if you please, and bid all the world witness your triumph;-but could ten worlds obey your call, I would not part from you till you had answered me. Tell me, then, does Orville know you love him?" At any other time, an enquiry so gross would have given me inexpressible confusion; but now, the wildness of his manner terrified me, and I only said, "Whatever you wish to know, Sir Clement, I will tell you another time; but, for the present, I entreat you to let me go!" "Enough," cried he, "I understand you!-the art of Orville has prevailed;-cold, inanimate, phlegmatic as he is, you have rendered him the most envied of men!-One thing more, and I have done:-Will he marry you?" What a question! my cheeks glowed with indignation, and I felt too proud to make any answer. "I see, I see how it is," cried he, after a short pause, "and I find I am undone for ever!" Then, letting loose my gown, he put his hand to his forehead, and walked up and down the room in a hasty and agitated manner. Though now at liberty to go, I had not the courage to leave him: for his evident distress excited all my compassion. And this was our situation, when Lady Louisa, Mr Coverley, and Mrs. Beaumont entered the room. "Sir Clement Willoughby," said the latter, "I beg your pardon for making you wait so long, but-" She had not time for another word; Sir Clement, too much disordered to know or care what he did, snatched up his hat, and, brushing hastily past her, flew down stairs, and out of the house. And with him went my sincerest pity, though I earnestly hope I shall see him no more. But what, my dear Sir, am I to conclude from his strange speeches concerning the letter? Does it not seem as if he was himself the author of it? How else should he be so well acquainted with the contempt it merits? Neither do I know another human being who could serve any interest by such a deception. I remember, too, that just as I had given my own letter to the maid, Sir Clement came into the shop: probably he prevailed upon her, by some bribery, to give it to him; and afterwards, by the same means, to deliver to me an answer of his own writing. Indeed I can in no other manner account for this affair. Oh, Sir Clement, were you not yourself unhappy, I know not how I could pardon an artifice that has caused me so much uneasiness! His abrupt departure occasioned a kind of general consternation. "Very extraordinary behavior this!" cried Mrs. Beaumont. "Egad," said Mr. Coverley, "the baronet has a mind to tip us a touch of the heroics this morning!" "I declare," cried Miss Louisa, "I never saw any thing so monstrous in my life! it's quite abominable;-I fancy the man's mad;-I'm sure he has given me a shocking fright!" Soon after, Mrs. Selwyn came up stairs with Lord Merton. The former, advancing hastily to me, said, "Miss Anville, have you an almanack?" "Me?-no, Madam." "Who has one, then?" "Egad," cried Mr. Coverley, "I never bought one in my life; it would make me quite melancholy to have such a time-keeper in my pocket. I would as soon walk all day before an hour-glass." "You are in the right," said Mrs. Selwyn, "not to watch time, lest you should be betrayed, unawares, into reflecting how you employ it." "Egad, Ma'am," cried he, "if Time thought no more of me than I do of Time, I believe I should bid defiance, for one while, to old age and wrinkles; for deuce take me, if ever I think about it at all." "Pray, Mr. Coverley," said Mrs. Selwyn, "why do you think it necessary to tell me this so often?" "Often!" repeated he; "Egad, Madam, I don't know why I said it now;-but I'm sure I can't recollect that ever I owned as much before." "Owned it before!" cried she, "why, my dear Sir, you own it all day long; for every word, every look, every action proclaims it." I now not if he understood the full severity of her satire, but he only turned off with a laugh: and she then applied to Mr. Lovel, and asked if he had an almanack? Mr. Lovel, who always looks alarmed when she addresses him, with some hesitation answered, "I assure you, Ma'am, I have no manner of antipathy to an almanack,-none in the least,-I assure you;-I dare say I have four or five." "Four or five!-pray, may I ask what use you make of so many?" "Use!-really, Ma'am, as to that,-I don't make any particular use of them; but one must have them, to tell one the day of the month:-I'm sure, else I should never keep it in my head." "And does your time pass so smoothly unmarked, that, without an almanack, you could not distinguish one day from another?" "Really, Ma'am," cried he, colouring, "I don't see anything so very particular in having a few almanacks; other people have them, I believe, as well as me." "Don't be offended," cried she, "I have but made a little digression. All I want to know is, the state of the moon;-for if it is at the full, I shall be saved a world of conjectures, and know at once to what cause to attribute the inconsistencies I have witnessed this morning. In the first place, I heard Lord Orville excuse himself from going out, because he had business of importance to transact at home;-yet have I seen him sauntering alone in the garden this half hour. Miss Anville, on the other hand, I invited to walk out with me; and, after seeking her every where round the house, I find her quietly seated in the drawing-room. And, but a few minutes since, Sir Clement Willoughby, with even more than his usual politeness, told me he was come to spend the morning here;-when, just now, I met him flying down stairs, as if pursued by the Furies; and far from repeating his compliments, or making any excuse, he did not even answer a question I asked him, but rushed past me, with the rapidity of a thief from a bailiff!" "I protest," said Mrs. Beaumont, "I can't think what he meant; such rudeness, from a man of any family, is quite incomprehensible." "My Lord," cried Lady Louisa to Lord Merton, "do you know he did the same by me?-I was just going to ask him what was the matter; but he ran past me so quick, that I declare he quite dazzled my eyes. You can't think, my Lord, how he frightened me; I dare say I look as pale-don't I look very pale, my Lord?" "Your Ladyship," said Mr. Lovel, "so well becomes the lilies, that the roses might blush to see themselves so excelled." "Pray, Mr. Lovel," said Mrs. Selwyn," if the roses should blush, how would you find it out?" "Egad," cried Mr. Coverley, "I suppose they must blush, as the saying is, like a blue dog,-for they are red already." "Prithee, Jack," said Lord Merton, "don't you pretend to talk about blushes, that never knew what they were in your life." "My Lord," said Mrs. Selwyn, "if experience alone can justify mentioning them, what an admirable treatise upon the subject may we not expect from your Lordship!" "O, pray, Ma'am," answered he, "stick to Jack Coverley,-he's your only man; for my part, I confess I have a mortal aversion to arguments." "O, fie, my Lord," cried Mrs. Selwyn, "a senator of the nation! a member of the noblest parliament in the world!-and yet neglect the art of oratory!" "Why, faith, my Lord," said Mr. Lovel, "I think, in general, your House is not much addicted to study; we of the Lower House have indubitably most application; and, if I did not speak before a superior power (bowing to Lord Merton) I should presume to add, we have likewise the most able speakers." "Mr. Lovel," said Mrs. Selwyn, "you deserve immortality for that discovery! But for this observation, and the confession of Lord Merton, I protest that I should have supposed that a peer of the realm, and an able logician, were synonymous terms." Lord Merton, turning upon his heel, asked Lady Louisa if she would take the air before dinner? "Really," answered she, "I don't know;-I'm afraid it's monstrous hot; besides (putting her hand to her forehead) I an't half well; it's quite horrid to have such weak nerves!-the least thing in the world discomposes me: I declare, that man's oddness has given me such a shock,-I don't know when I shall recover from it. But I'm a sad, weak creature;-don't you think I am, my Lord?" "O, by no means," answered he, "your Ladyship is merely delicate,-and devil take me if ever I had the least passion for an Amazon." "I have the honour to be quite of your Lordship's opinion," said Mr. Lovel, looking maliciously at Mrs. Selwyn; "for I have an insuperable aversion to strength, either of body or mind, in a female." "Faith, and so have I," said Mr. Coverley; "for egad, I'd as soon see a woman chop wood, as hear her chop logic." "So would every man in his senses," said Lord Merton, "for a woman wants nothing to recommend her but beauty and good-nature; in everything else she is either impertinent or unnatural. For my part, deuce take me if ever I wish to hear a word of sense from a woman as long as I live!" "It has always been agreed," said Mrs. Selwyn, looking round her with the utmost contempt, "that no man ought to be connected with a woman whose understanding is superior to his own. Now I very much fear, that to accommodate all this good company, according to such a rule, would be utterly impracticable, unless we should choose subjects from Swift's hospital of idiots." How many enemies, my dear Sir, does this unbounded severity excite! Lord Merton, however, only whistled; Mr. Coverley sang; and Mr. Lovel, after biting his lips, said "'Pon honour, that lady-if she was not a lady-I should be half tempted to observe,-that there is something,-in such severity,-that is rather, I must say,-rather oddish." Just then a servant brought Lady Louisa a note upon a waiter, which is a ceremony always used to her Ladyship; and I took the opportunity of this interruption to the conversation to steal out of the room. I went immediately to the parlour, which I found quite empty; for I did not dare walk in the garden, after what Mrs. Selwyn had said. In a few minutes a servant announced Mr. Macartney; saying, as he entered the room, that he would acquaint Lord Orville he was there. Mr. Macartney rejoiced much at finding me alone. He told me he had taken the liberty to enquire for Lord Orville, by way of pretext for coming to the house. I then very eagerly enquired if he had seen his father. "I have, Madam," said he, "and the generous compassion you have shown made me hasten to acquaint you, that, upon reading my unhappy mother's letter, he did not hesitate to acknowledge me." "Good God," cried I, with no little emotion, "how similar are our circumstances! And did he receive you kindly?" "I could not, Madam, expect that he would; the cruel, transaction, which obliged me to fly to Paris, was recent in his memory." "And,-have you seen the young lady?" "No, Madam," said he, mournfully, "I was forbid her sight." "Forbid her sight!-and why?" "Partly, perhaps, from prudence,-and partly from the remains of a resentment which will not easily subside. I only requested leave to acquaint her with my relationship, and to be allowed to call her sister;-but it was denied me! 'You have no sister,' said Sir John, 'you must forget her existence.' Hard and vain command!" "You have-you have a sister!" cried I, from an impulse of pity, which I could not repress; "a sister who is most warmly interested in your welfare, and who only wants opportunity to manifest her friendship and regard." "Gracious Heaven!" cried he, "what does Miss Anville mean?" "Anville," said I, "is not my real name; Sir John Belmont is my father,-he is your's,-and I am your sister!-You see, therefore, the claim we mutually have to each other's regard; we are not merely bound by the ties of friendship, but by those of blood. I feel for you, already, all the affection of a sister; I felt it, indeed, before I knew I was one.-Why, my dear brother, do you not speak?-do you hesitate to acknowledge me?" "I am so lost in astonishment," cried he, "that I know not if I hear right!"- "I have, then, found a brother," cried I, holding out my hand, "and he will not own me!" "Own you!-Oh, Madam," cried he, accepting my offered hand, "is it indeed possible you can own me? -a poor, wretched adventurer! who so lately had no support but from your generosity?-whom your benevolence snatched from utter destruction?-Can you,-Oh, Madam, can you, indeed, and without a blush, condescend to own such an outcast for a brother?" "Oh, forbear, forbear," cried I, "is this language proper for a sister? are we not reciprocally bound to each other?-Will you not suffer me to expect from you all the good offices in your power?-But tell me, where is our father at present?" "At the Hot-Wells, Madam; he arrived there yesterday morning." I would have proceeded with further questions, but the entrance of Lord Orville prevented me. The moment he saw us, he started, and would have retreated; but, drawing my hand from Mr. Macartney's, I begged him to come in. For a few moments we were all silent, and, I believe, all in equal confusion. Mr. Macartney, however, recollecting himself said "I hope your Lordship will forgive the liberty I have taken in making use of your name." Lord Orville, rather coldly, bowed, but said nothing. Again we were all silent, and then Mr. Macartney took leave. "I fancy," said Lord Orville, when he was gone, "I have shortened Mr. Macartney's visit?" "No, my Lord, not at all." "I had presumed," said he, with some hesitation, "I should have seen Miss Anville in the garden;-but I knew not she was so much better engaged." Before I could answer, a servant came to tell me the chaise was ready, and that Mrs. Selwyn was enquiring for me. "I will wait on her immediately," cried I, and away I was running; but Lord Orville, stopping me, said, with great emotion, "Is it thus, Miss Anville, you leave me?" "My Lord," cried I, "how can I help it?-perhaps, soon, some better opportunity may offer-" "Good Heaven!" cried he, "do you take me for a Stoic! what better opportunity may I hope for?-is not the chaise come?-are you not going? have you even deigned to tell me whither?" "My journey, my Lord, will now be deferred. Mr. Macartney has brought me intelligence which renders it at present unnecessary." "Mr. Macartney," said he, gravely, "seems to have great influence;-yet he is a very young counsellor." "Is it possible, my Lord, Mr. Macartney can give you the least uneasiness?" "My dearest Miss Anville," said he, taking my hand, "I see, and I adore the purity of your mind, superior as it is to all little arts, and all apprehensions of suspicion; and I should do myself, as well as you, injustice, if I were capable of harbouring the smallest doubts of that goodness which makes you mine forever: nevertheless, pardon me, if I own myself surprised,-nay, alarmed, at these frequent meetings with so young a man as Mr. Macartney." "My Lord," cried I, eager to clear myself, "Mr. Macartney is my brother." "Your brother! you amaze me!-What strange mystery, then, makes his relationship a secret?" Just then Mrs. Selwyn opened the door. "O, you are here!" cried she: "Pray, is my Lord so kind as to assist you in preparing for your journey, or in retarding it?" "I should be most happy," said Lord Orville, smiling, "if it were in my power to do the latter." I then acquainted her with Mr. Macartney's communication. She immediately ordered the chaise away: and then took me into her own room, to consider what should be done. A few minutes sufficed to determine her; and she wrote the following note. "To Sir John Belmont, Bart." "MRS. SELWYN presents her compliments to Sir John Belmont; and, if he is at leisure, will be glad to wait on him this morning, upon business of importance." She then ordered her man to enquire at the pump-room for a direction; and went herself to Mrs. Beaumont to apologize for deferring her journey. An answer was presently returned, that Sir John would be glad to see her. She would have had me immediately accompany her to the Hot-Wells; but I entreated her to spare me the distress of so abrupt an introduction, and to pave the way for my reception. She consented rather reluctantly, and, attended only by her servant, walked to the Wells. She was not absent two hours; yet so miserably did time seem to linger, that I thought a thousand accidents had happened, and feared she would never return. I passed the whole time in my own room, for I was too much agitated even to converse with Lord Orville. The instant that, from my window, I saw her returning, I flew down stairs, and met her in the garden. We both walked to the arbour. Her looks, in which both disappointment and anger were expressed, presently announced to me the failure of her embassy. Finding that she did not speak, I asked her, in a faltering voice, whether or not I had a father? "You have not, my dear!" said she abruptly. "Very well, Madam," said I, with tolerable calmness, "let the chaise then be ordered again;-I will go to Berry Hill;-and there, I trust, I shall still find one!" It was some time ere she could give, or I could hear, the account of her visit; and then she related it in a hasty manner; yet, I believe I can recollect every word. "I found Sir John alone. He received me with the utmost politeness. I did not keep him a moment in suspense as to the purport of my visit. But I had no sooner made it known, than, with a supercilious smile, he said, 'And have you, Madam, been prevailed upon to revive that ridiculous old story?' Ridiculous, I told him, was a term which he would find no one else do him the favour to make use of, in speaking of the horrible actions belonging to the old story he made so light of; 'actions' continued I, 'which would dye still deeper the black annals of Nero or Caligula.' He attempted in vain to rally; for I pursued him with all the severity in my power, and ceased not painting the enormity of his crime till I stung him to the quick, and, in a voice of passion and impatience, he said, 'No more, Madam,-this is not a subject upon which I need a monitor.' 'Make then,' cried I, 'the only reparation in your power.-Your daughter is now at Clifton; send for her hither; and, in the face of the world, proclaim the legitimacy of her birth, and clear the reputation of your injured wife.' 'Madam,' said he, 'you are much mistaken, if you suppose I waited for the honour of this visit before I did what little justice now depends upon me, to the memory of that unfortunate woman: her daughter has been my care from her infancy; I have taken her into my house; she bears my name; and she will be my sole heiress.' For some time this assertion appeared so absurd, that I only laughed at it: but, at last, he assured me, I had myself been imposed upon; for that very woman who attended Lady Belmont in her last illness, conveyed the child to him while he was in London, before she was a year old. 'Unwilling,' he added, 'at that time to confirm the rumour of my being married, I sent the woman with the child to France: as soon as she was old enough, I put her into a convent, where she has been properly educated, and now I have taken her home. I have acknowledged her for my lawful child, and paid, at length, to the memory of her unhappy mother a tribute of fame, which has made me wish to hide myself hereafter from all the world.' This whole story sounded so improbable, that I did not scruple to tell him I discredited every word. He then rung his bell; and, enquiring if his hair-dresser was come, said he was sorry to leave me; but that, if I would favour him with my company to-morrow, he would do himself the honour of introducing Miss Belmont to me, instead of troubling me to introduce her to him. I rose in great indignation; and assuring him I would make his conduct as public as it was infamous-I left the house." Good Heaven, how strange the recital! how incomprehensible an affair! The Miss Belmont then who is actually at Bristol, passes for the daughter of my unhappy mother!-passes, in short, for your Evelina! Who she can be, or what this tale can mean, I have not any idea. Mrs. Selwyn soon after left me to my own reflections. Indeed they were not very pleasant. Quietly as I had borne her relation, the moment I was alone I felt most bitterly both the disgrace and sorrow of a rejection so cruelly inexplicable. I know not how long I might have continued in this situation, had I not been awakened from my melancholy reverie by the voice of Lord Orville. "May I come in," cried he, "or shall I interrupt you?" I was silent, and he seated himself next me. "I fear," he continued, "Miss Anville will think I persecute her: yet so much as I have to say, and so much as I wish to hear, with so few opportunities for either, she cannot wonder-and I hope she will not be offended-that I seize with such avidity every moment in my power to converse with her. You are grave," added he, taking my hand; "I hope the pleasure it gives to me, will not be a subject of pain to you? -You are silent!-Something, I am sure, has afflicted you:-would to Heaven I were able to console you!-Would to Heaven I were worthy to participate in your sorrows!" My heart was too full to bear this kindness, and I could only answer by my tears. "Good Heaven," cried he, "how you alarm me!-My love, my sweet Miss Anville, deny me no longer to be the sharer of your griefs!-tell me, at least, that you have not withdrawn your esteem!-that you do not repent the goodness you have shown me!-that you still think me the same grateful Orville, whose heart you have deigned to accept!" "Oh, my Lord," cried I, "your generosity overpowers me!" And I wept like an infant. For now, that all my hopes of being acknowledged seemed finally crushed, I felt the nobleness of his disinterested regard so forcibly, that I could scarce breathe under the weight of gratitude which oppressed me. He seemed greatly shocked; and, in terms the most flattering, the most respectfully tender, he at once soothed my distress, and urged me to tell him its cause. "My Lord," said I, when I was able to speak, "you little know what an outcast you have honoured with your choice!-a child of bounty,-an orphan from infancy,-dependant, even for subsistence, dependent, upon the kindness of compassion!-Rejected by my natural friends,-disowned for ever by my nearest relation,-Oh, my Lord, so circumstanced, can I deserve the distinction with which you honour me? No, no, I feel the inequality too painfully;-you must leave me, my Lord; you must suffer me to return to obscurity; and there, in the bosom of my first, best, my only friend,-I will pour forth all the grief of my heart!-while you, my Lord, must seek elsewhere-" I could not proceed; my whole soul recoiled against the charge I would have given, and my voice refused to utter it. "Never," cried he, warmly, "my heart is your's, and I swear to you an attachment eternal!-You prepare me, indeed, for a tale of horror, and I am almost breathless with expectation;-but so firm is my conviction, that, whatever are your misfortunes, to have merited them is not of the number, that I feel myself more strongly, more invincibly devoted to you than ever!-Tell me but where I may find this noble friend, whose virtues you have already taught me to reverence,-and I will fly to obtain his consent and intercession, that henceforward our fates my be indissolubly united;-and then shall it be the sole study of my life to endeavor to soften your past,-and guard you from future misfortunes!" I had just raised my eyes to answer this most generous of men, when the first object they met was Mrs. Selwyn. "So, my dear," cried she, "what, still courting the rural shades!-I thought ere now you would have been satiated with this retired seat, and I have been seeking you all over the house. But I find the only way to meet with you,-is to enquire for Lord Orville. However, don't let me disturb your meditation; you are possibly planning some pastoral dialogue." And, with this provoking speech, she walked on. In the greatest confusion I was quitting the arbour, when Lord Orville said, "Permit me to follow Mrs. Selwyn;-it is time to put an end to all impertinent conjectures; will you allow me to speak to her openly?" I assented in silence, and he left me. I then went to my own room, where I continued till I was summoned to dinner; after which, Mrs. Selwyn invited me to hers. The moment she had shut the door, "Your Ladyship'" said she, "will, I hope, be seated." "Ma'am!" cried I, staring. "O the sweet innocent! So you don't know what I mean?-but, my dear, my sole view is to accustom you a little to your dignity elect, lest, when you are addressed by your title, you should look another way, from an apprehension of listening to a discourse not meant for you to hear." Having, in this manner, diverted herself with my confusion, till her raillery was almost exhausted, she congratulated me very seriously upon the partiality of Lord Orville, and painted to me, in the strongest terms, his disinterested desire of being married to me immediately. She had told him, she said, my whole story, and yet he was willing, nay eager, that our union should take place of any further application to my family. "Now, my dear," continued she, "I advise you by all means to marry him directly; nothing can be more precarious than our success with Sir John; and the young men of this age are not to be trusted with too much time for deliberation, where their interests are concerned." "Good God, Madam," cried I, "do you think I would hurry Lord Orville?" "Well, do as you will," said she, "luckily you have an excellent subject for Quixotism;-otherwise this delay might prove your ruin; but Lord Orville is almost as romantic as if he had been born and bred at Berry Hill." She then proposed, as no better expedient seemed likely to be suggested, that I should accompany her at once in her visit to the Hot-Wells to-morrow morning. The very idea made me tremble; yet she represented so strongly the necessity of pursuing this unhappy affair with spirit, or giving it totally up, that, wanting her force of argument, I was almost obliged to yield to her proposal. In the evening we all walked in the garden; and Lord Orville, who never quitted my side, told me he had been listening to a tale, which though it had removed the perplexities that had so long tormented him, had penetrated him with sorrow and compassion. I acquainted him with Mrs. Selwyn's plan for to-morrow, and confessed the extreme terror it gave me. He then, in a manner almost unanswerable, besought me to leave to him the conduct of the affair, by consenting to be his before an interview took place. I could not but acknowledge my sense of his generosity; but I told him I was wholly dependent upon you; and that I was certain your opinion would be the same as mine; which was, that it would be highly improper I should dispose of myself for ever, so very near the time which must finally decide by whose authority I ought to be guided. The subject of this dreaded meeting, with the thousand conjectures and apprehensions to which it gives birth, employed all our conversation then, as it has all my thoughts since. Heaven only knows how I shall support myself, when the long expected-the wished-yet terrible moment arrives, that will prostrate me at the feet of the nearest, the most reverenced of all relations, whom my heart yearns to know, and longs to love! LETTER LXXVIII. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Oct. 9th. I COULD not write yesterday, so violent was the agitation of my mind;-but I will not, now, lose a moment till I have hastened to my best friend an account of the transactions of a day I can never recollect without emotion. Mrs. Selwyn determined upon sending no message, "Lest," said she, "Sir John, fatigued with the very idea of my reproaches, should endeavour to avoid a meeting. He cannot but see who you are, whether he will do you justice or not." We went early, and in Mrs. Beaumont's chariot; into which Lord Orville, uttering words of the kindest encouragement, handed us both. My uneasiness, during the ride, was excessive; but, when we stopped at the door, I was almost senseless with terror! the meeting, at last, was not so dreadful as that moment! I believe I was carried into the house; but I scarce recollect what was done with me: however, I know we remained some time in the parlour before Mrs. Selwyn could send any message up stairs. When I was somewhat recovered, I intreated her to let me return home, assuring her I felt myself quite unequal to supporting the interview. "No," said she; "you must stay now: your fears will but gain strength by delay; and we must not have such a shock as this repeated." Then, turning to the servant, she sent up her name. An answer was brought, that he was going out in great haste, but would attend her immediately. I turned so sick, that Mrs. Selwyn was apprehensive I should have fainted; and, opening a door which led to an inner apartment, she begged me to wait there till I was somewhat composed, and till she had prepared for my reception. Glad of every moment's reprieve, I willingly agreed to the proposal; and Mrs. Selwyn had but just time to shut me in, before her presence was necessary. The voice of a father -Oh, dear and revered name!-which then, for the first time, struck my ears, affected me in a manner I cannot describe, though it was only employed in giving orders to a servant as he came down stairs. Then, entering the parlour, I heard him say, "I am sorry, Madam, I made you wait; but I have an engagement which now calls me away: however, if you have any commands for me, I shall be glad of the honour of your company some other time." "I am come, Sir," said Mrs. Selwyn, "to introduce your daughter to you." "I am infinitely obliged to you," answered he; "but I have just had the satisfaction of breakfasting with her. Ma'am, your most obedient." "You refuse, then, to see her?" "I am much indebted to you, Madam, for this desire of increasing my family; but you must excuse me if I decline taking advantage of it. I have already a daughter, to whom I owe everything; and it is not three days since that I had the pleasure of discovering a son: how many more sons and daughters may be brought to me, I am yet to learn; but I am already perfectly satisfied with the size of my family." "Had you a thousand children, Sir John," said Mrs. Selwyn, "this only one, of which Lady Belmont was the mother, ought to be most distinguished; and, far from avoiding her sight, you should thank your stars, in humble gratitude, that there yet remains in your power the smallest opportunity of doing the injured wife you have destroyed, the poor justice of acknowledging her child!" "I am very unwilling, Madam," answered he, "to enter into any discussion of this point; but you are determined to compel me to speak. There lives not at this time the human being, who should talk to me of the regret due to the memory of that ill-fated woman; no one can feel it so severely as myself; but let me, nevertheless, assure you, I have already done all that remained in my power to prove the respect she merited from me: her child I have educated, and owned for my lawful heiress: if, madam, you can suggest to me any other means by which I may more fully do her justice, and more clearly manifest her innocence, name them to me; and, though they should wound my character still deeper, I will perform them readily." "All this sounds vastly well," returned Mrs. Selwyn; "but I must own it is rather too enigmatical for my faculties of comprehension. You can, however, have no objection to seeing this young lady." "None in the world." "Come forth, then, my dear," cried she, opening the door; "come forth and see your father!" Then, taking my trembling hand, she led me forward. I would have withdrawn it and retreated; but, as he advanced instantly towards me, I found myself already before him. What a moment for your Evelina-an involuntary scream escaped me, and, covering my face with my hands, I sunk on the floor. He had, however, seen me first; for, in a voice scarce articulate, he exclaimed, "My God! does Caroline Evelyn still live!" Mrs. Selwyn said something, but I could not listen to her; and in a few minutes he added, "Lift up thy head-if my sight has not blasted thee!-lift up thy head, thou image of my long lost Caroline!" Affected beyond measure, I half arose, and embraced his knees, while yet on my own. "Yes, yes," cried he, looking earnestly in my face, "I see, I see thou art her child! she lives-she breathes,-she is present to my view!-Oh, God, that she indeed lived!-Go, child, go," added he, wildly starting, and pushing me from him: "take her away, Madam,-I cannot bear to look at her!" And then, breaking hastily from me, he rushed out of the room. Speechless, motionless myself, I attempted not to stop him; but Mrs. Selwyn, hastening after him, caught hold of his arm: "Leave me, Madam," cried he, with quickness, "and take care of the poor child:-bid her not think me unkind; tell her, I would at this moment plunge a dagger in my heart to serve her: but she has set my brain on fire; and I can see her no more!" Then, with a violence almost frantic, he ran up stairs. Oh, Sir, had I not indeed cause to dread this interview?-an interview so unspeakably painful and afflicting to us both! Mrs. Selwyn would have immediately returned to Clifton; but I entreated her to wait some time, in the hope that my unhappy father, when his first emotion was over, would again bear me in his sight. However, he soon after sent his servant to enquire how I did; and to tell Mrs. Selwyn he was much indisposed, but would hope for the honour of seeing her to-morrow, at any time she would please to appoint. She fixed upon ten o'clock in the morning; and then, with a heavy heart, I got into the chariot. Those afflicting words, I can see her no more! were never a moment absent from my mind. Yet the sight of Lord Orville, who handed us from the carriage, gave some relief to the sadness of my thoughts. I could not, however, enter upon the painful subject; but, begging Mrs. Selwyn to satisfy him, I went to my own room. As soon as I communicated to the good Mrs. Clinton the present situation of my affairs, an idea occurred to her which seemed to clear up all the mystery of my having been so long disowned. The woman, she says, who attended my ever-to-be-regretted mother in her last illness, and who nursed me the first four months of my life, soon after being discharged from your house, left Berry Hill entirely, with her baby, who was but six weeks older than myself. Mrs. Clinton remembers, that her quitting the place appeared, at the time, very extraordinary to the neighbours; but, as she was never heard of afterwards, she was by degrees quite forgotten. The moment this was mentioned, it struck Mrs. Selwyn, as well as Mrs. Clinton herself, that my father had been imposed upon; and that the nurse, who said she had brought his child to him, had, in fact, carried her own. The name by which I was known, the secrecy observed in regard to my family, and the retirement in which I lived, all conspired to render this scheme, however daring and fraudulent, by no means impracticable; and, in short, the idea was no sooner started, than conviction seemed to follow it. Mrs. Selwyn determined immediately to discover the truth or mistake of this conjecture; therefore, the moment she had dined, she walked to the Hot Wells, attended by Mrs. Clinton. I waited in my room till her return; and then heard the following account of her visit: She found my poor father in great agitation. She immediately informed him of the occasion of her so speedy return, and of her suspicions of the woman who had pretended to convey to him his child. Interrupting her with quickness, he said he had just sent her from his presence; that the certainty I carried in my countenance of my real birth, made him, the moment he had recovered from a surprise which had almost deprived him of reason, suspect, himself, the imposition she mentioned. He had therefore sent for the woman, and questioned her with the utmost austerity; she turned pale, and was extremely embarrassed; but still she persisted in affirming, that she had really brought him the daughter of Lady Belmont. His perplexity, he said, almost distracted him: he had always observed, that his daughter bore no resemblance to either of her parents; but, as he had never doubted the veracity of the nurse, this circumstance did not give birth to any suspicion. At Mrs. Selwyn's desire, the woman was again called, and interrogated with equal art and severity; her confusion was evident, and her answers often contradictory; yet she still declared she was no impostor. "We will see that in a minute," said Mrs. Selwyn; and then desired Mrs. Clinton might be called up stairs. The poor wretch, changing colour, would have escaped out of the room; but, being prevented, dropt on her knees, and implored forgiveness. A confession of the whole affair was then extorted from her. Doubtless, my dear Sir, you must remember Dame Green, who was my first nurse. The deceit she has practised was suggested, she says, by a conversation she overheard; in which my unhappy mother besought you, that, if her child survived her, you would take the sole care of its education; and, in particular, if it should be a female, you would by no means part with her in early life. You not only consented, she says, but assured her you would even retire abroad with me yourself, if my father should importunately demand me. Her own child, she said, was then in her arms; and she could not forbear wishing it were possible to give her the fortune which seemed so little valued for me. This wish once raised was not easily suppressed; on the contrary, what at first appeared a mere idle desire, in a short time seemed a feasible scheme. Her husband was dead, and she had little regard for any body but her child; and, in short, having saved money for the journey, she contrived to enquire a direction to my father; and, telling her neighbours she was going to settle in Devonshire, she set out on her expedition. When Mrs. Selwyn asked her how she dared perpetrate such a fraud, she protested she had no ill designs; but that, as Miss would be never the worse for it, she thought it pity nobody should be the better. Her success we are already acquainted with. Indeed everything seemed to contribute towards it: my father had no correspondent at Berry Hill; the child was instantly sent to France; where, being brought up in as much retirement as myself, nothing but accident could discover the fraud. And here let me indulge myself in observing, and rejoicing to observe, that the total neglect I thought I met with was not the effect of insensibility or unkindness, but of imposition and error; and that, at the very time we concluded I was unnaturally rejected, my deluded father meant to show me most favour and protection. He acknowledges that Lady Howard's letter flung him into some perplexity: he immediately communicated it to Dame Green, who confessed it was the greatest shock she had ever received in her life; yet she had the art and boldness to assert, that Lady Howard must herself have been deceived: and as she had, from the beginning of her enterprise, declared she had stolen away the child without your knowledge, he concluded that some deceit was then intended him; and this thought occasioned his abrupt answer. Dame Green owned, that, from the moment the journey to England was settled, she gave herself up for lost. All her hope was to have had her daughter married before it took place; for which reason she had so much promoted Mr. Macartney's addresses; for though such a match was inadequate to the pretensions of Miss Belmont, she well knew it was far superior to those her daughter could form after the discovery of her birth. My first enquiry was, if this innocent daughter was yet acquainted with the affair? "No," Mrs. Selwyn said; nor was any plan settled how to divulge it to her. Poor unfortunate girl! how hard is her fate! She is entitled to my kindest offices, and I shall always consider her as my sister. I then asked whether my father would again allow me to see him! "Why, no, my dear, not yet," answered she; "he declares the sight of you is too much for him: however, we are to settle everything concerning you to-morrow; for this woman took up all our time to-day." This morning, therefore, she is again gone to the Hot Wells. I am waiting in all impatience for her return; but, as I know you will be anxious for the account this letter contains, I will not delay sending it. LETTER LXXIX. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. October 9th. HOW agitated, my dear Sir, is the present life of your Evelina! every day seems important, and one event only a prelude to another. Mrs. Selwyn, upon her return this morning from the Hot Wells, entering my room very abruptly, said, "Oh, my dear, I have terrible news for you!" "For me, Ma'am!-Good God! what now?" "Arm yourself," cried she, "with all your Berry Hill philosophy;-con over every lesson of fortitude or resignation you ever learnt in your life;-for know,-you are next week to be married to Lord Orville!" Doubt, astonishment, and a kind of perturbation I cannot describe, made this abrupt communication alarm me extremely; and, almost breathless, I could only exclaim, "Good God, Madam, what do you tell me!" "You may well be frightened, my dear," said she, ironically; "for really there is something mighty terrific in becoming, at once, the wife of the man you adore,-and a Countess!" I entreated her to spare her raillery, and tell me her real meaning. She could not prevail with herself to grant the first request, though she readily complied with the second. My poor father, she said, was still in the utmost uneasiness: he entered upon his affairs with great openness, and told her, he was equally disturbed how to dispose either of the daughter he had discovered, or the daughter he was now to give up; the former he dreaded to trust himself with again beholding, and the latter he knew not how to shock with the intelligence of her disgrace. Mrs. Selwyn then acquainted him with my situation in regard to Lord Orville: this delighted him extremely; and, when he heard of his Lordship's eagerness, he said he was himself of opinion, the sooner the union took place the better; and, in return, he informed her of the affair of Mr. Macartney. "And, after a very long conversation," continued Mrs. Selwyn, "we agreed, that the most eligible scheme for all parties would be, to have both the real and the fictitious daughter married without delay. Therefore, if either of you have any inclination to pull caps for the title of Miss Belmont, you must do it with all speed, as next week will take from both of you all pretensions to it." "Next week!-dear Madam, what a strange plan!-without my being consulted,-without applying to Mr. Villars,-without even the concurrence of Lord Orville!" "As to consulting you, my dear, it was out of all question; because, you know, young ladies' hearts and hands are always to be given with reluctance;-as to Mr. Villars, it is sufficient we know him for your friend;-and as for Lord Orville, he is a party concerned." "A party concerned!-you amaze me!" "Why, yes; for, as I found our consultation likely to redound to his advantage, I persuaded Sir John to send for him." "Send for him!-Good God!" "Yes; and Sir John agreed. I told the servant, that if he could not hear of his Lordship in the house, he might be pretty certain of encountering him in the arbour.-Why do you colour, my dear?-Well, he was with us in a moment: I introduced him to Sir John; and we proceeded to business." "I am very, very sorry for it!-Lord Orville must himself think this conduct strangely precipitate." "No, my dear, you are mistaken; Lord Orville has too much good sense. Everything was then discussed in a rational manner. You are to be married privately, though not secretly, and then go to one of his Lordship's country seats: and poor little Miss Green and your brother, who have no house of their own, must go to one of Sir John's." "But why, my dear Madam, why all this haste? why may we not be allowed a little longer time?" "I could give you a thousand reasons," answered she, "but that I am tolerably certain two or three will be more than you can controvert, even with all the logic of genuine coquetry. In the first place, you doubtless wish to quit the house of Mrs. Beaumont: to whose, then, can you with such propriety remove as to Lord Orville's?" "Surely, Madam," cried I, "I am not more destitute now than when I thought myself an orphan." "Your father, my dear," answered she, "is willing to save the little impostor as much of the mortification of her disgrace as is in his power; now, if you immediately take her place, according to your right, as Miss Belmont, why, not all that either of you can do for her, will prevent her being eternally stigmatized as the bantling of Dame Green, wash-woman and wet nurse, of Berry Hill, Dorsetshire. Now such a genealogy will not be very flattering, even to Mr. Macartney, who, all-dismal as he is, you will find by no means wanting in pride and self-consequence." "For the universe," interrupted I, "I would not be accessary to the degradation you mention; but surely, Madam, I may return to Berry Hill?" "By no means," said she; "for though compassion may make us wish to save the poor girl the confusion of an immediate and public fall, yet justice demands you should appear henceforward in no other light than that of Sir John Belmont's daughter. Besides, between friends, I, who know the world, can see that half this prodigious delicacy for the little usurper is the mere result of self-interest; for, while her affairs are hushed up, Sir John's, you know, are kept from being brought further to light. Now the double marriage we have projected obviates all rational objections. Sir John will give you immediately L.30,000; all settlements, and so forth, will be made for you in the name of Evelina Belmont:-Mr. Macartney will at the same time take poor Polly Green; and yet, at first, it will only be generally known that a daughter of Sir John Belmont is married." In this manner, though she did not convince me, yet the quickness of her arguments silenced and perplexed me. I enquired, however, if I might not be permitted to again see my father, or whether I must regard myself as banished his presence for ever? "My dear," said she, "he does not know you: he concludes that you have been brought up to detest him; and therefore he is rather prepared to dread than to love you." This answer made me very unhappy: I wished, most impatiently, to remove his prejudice, and endeavour, by dutiful assiduity, to engage his kindness; yet knew not how to propose seeing him, while conscious he wished to avoid me. This evening, as soon as the company was engaged with cards, Lord Orville exerted his utmost eloquence to reconcile me to this hasty plan; but how was I startled when he told me that next Tuesday was the day appointed by my father to be the most important of my life! "Next Tuesday!" repeated I, quite out of breath, "Oh, my Lord!-" "My sweet Evelina," said he, "the day which will make me the happiest of mortals, would probably appear awful to you, were it to be deferred a twelvemonth. Mrs. Selwyn has, doubtless, acquainted you with the many motives which, independent of my eagerness, require it to be speedy; suffer, therefore, its acceleration, and generously complete my felicity, by endeavouring to suffer it without repugnance." "Indeed, my Lord, I would not wilfully raise objections, nor do I desire to appear insensible of the honour of your good opinion;-but there is something in this plan-so very hasty-so unreasonably precipitate:-besides, I shall have no time to hear from Berry Hill;-and believe me, my Lord, I should be for ever miserable, were I, in an affair so important, to act without the sanction of Mr. Villars's advice." He offered to wait on you himself: but I told him I had rather write to you. And then he proposed, that, instead of my immediately accompanying him to Lincolnshire, we should first pass a month at my native Berry Hill. This was, indeed, a grateful proposal to me, and I listened to it with undisguised pleasure. And, in short, I was obliged to consent to a compromise in merely deferring the day till Thursday! He readily undertook to engage my father's concurrence in this little delay; and I besought him, at the same time, to make use of his influence to obtain me a second interview, and to represent the deep concern I felt in being thus banished his sight. He would then have spoken of settlements; but I assured him I was almost ignorant of the word. And now, my dearest Sir, what is your opinion of these hasty proceedings? Believe me, I half regret the simple facility with which I have suffered myself to be hurried into compliance; and, should you start but the smallest objection, I will yet insist upon being allowed more time. I must now write a concise account of the state of my affairs to Howard Grove, and to Madame Duval. Adieu, dearest and most honoured Sir! everything at present depends upon your single decision; to which, though I yield in trembling, I yield implicitly. LETTER LXXX. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Oct. 11th. YESTERDAY morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Lord Orville went to the Hot Wells, to wait upon my father with my double petition. Mrs. Beaumont then, in general terms, proposed a walk in the garden. Mrs. Selwyn said she had letters to write; but Lady Louisa rose to accompany Mrs. Beaumont. I had had some reason to imagine, from the notice with which her Ladyship had honoured me during breakfast, that her brother had acquainted her with my present situation: and her behaviour now confirmed my conjectures: for, when I would have gone up stairs, instead of suffering me, as usual, to pass disregarded, she called after me with an affected surprise, "Miss Anville, don't you walk with us?" There seemed something so little-minded in this sudden change of conduct, that, from an involuntary motion of contempt, I thanked her with a coldness like her own, and declined her offer. Yet, observing that she blushed extremely at my refusal, and recollecting she was sister to Lord Orville, my indignation subsided; and, upon Mrs. Beaumont repeating the invitation, I accepted it. Our walk proved extremely dull: Mrs. Beaumont, who never says much, was more silent than usual; Lady Louisa strove in vain to lay aside the restraint and distance she has hitherto preserved; and, as to me, I was too conscious of the circumstances to which I owed their attention, to feel either pride or pleasure from receiving it. Lord Orville was not long absent: he joined us in the garden with a look of gaiety and good humour that revived us all. "You are just the party," said he, "I wished to see together. Will you, Madam (taking my hand), allow me the honour of introducing you, by your real name, to two of my nearest relations? Mrs. Beaumont, give me leave to present to you the daughter of Sir John Belmont, a young lady who, I am sure, must long since have engaged your esteem and admiration, though you were a stranger to her birth." "My Lord," said Mrs. Beaumont, graciously saluting me, "the young lady's rank in life, your Lordship's recommendation, or her own merit, would, any one of them, have been sufficient to have entitled her to my regard; and I hope she has always met with that respect in my house which is so much her due; though, had I been sooner made acquainted with her family, I should doubtless have better known how to have secured it." "Miss Belmont," said Lord Orville, "can receive no lustre from family, whatever she may give to it. Louisa, you will, I am sure, be happy to make yourself an interest in the friendship of Miss Belmont, whom I hope shortly (kissing my hand, and joining it with her Ladyship's) to have the happiness of presenting to you by yet another name, and by the most endearing of all titles." I believe it would be difficult to say whose cheeks were, at that moment, of the deepest dye, Lady Louisa's or my own; for the conscious pride with which she has hitherto slighted me, gave to her an embarrassment which equalled the confusion that an introduction so unexpected gave to me. She saluted me, however; and, with a faint smile said, "I shall esteem myself very happy to profit by the honour of Miss Belmont's acquaintance." I only courtsied, and we walked on; but it was evident, from the little surprise they expressed, that they had been already informed of the state of the affair. We were soon after joined by more company: and Lord Orville then, in a low voice, took an opportunity to tell me the success of his visit. In the first place, Thursday was agreed to; and, in the second, my father, he said, was much concerned to hear of my uneasiness; sent me his blessing; and complied with my request of seeing him, with the same readiness he should agree to any other I could make. Lord Orville, therefore, settled that I should wait upon him in the evening, and, at his particular request, unaccompanied by Mrs. Selwyn. This kind message, and the prospect of so soon seeing him, gave me sensations of mixed pleasure and pain, which wholly occupied my mind till the time of my going to the Hot Wells. Mrs. Beaumont lent me her chariot, and Lord Orville absolutely insisted upon attending me. "If you go alone," said he, "Mrs. Selwyn will certainly be offended; but if you allow me to conduct you, though she may give the freer scope to her raillery, she cannot possibly be affronted: and we had much better suffer her laughter, than provoke her satire." Indeed, I must own, I had no reason to regret being so accompanied; for his conversation supported my spirits from drooping, and made the ride seem so short, that we actually stopped at my father's door, before I knew we had proceeded ten yards. He handed me from the carriage, and conducted me to the parlour, at the door of which I was met by Mr. Macartney. "Ah, my dear brother," cried I, "how happy am I to see you here!" He bowed, and thanked me. Lord Orville, then, holding out his hand, said, "Mr. Macartney, I hope we shall be better acquainted; I promise myself much pleasure from cultivating your friendship." "Your Lordship does me but too much honour," answered Mr. Macartney. "But where," cried I, "is my sister? for so I must already call, and always consider her:-I am afraid she avoids me;-you must endeavour, my dear brother, to prepossess her in my favour, and reconcile her to owning me." "Oh, Madam," cried he, "you are all goodness and benevolence! but at present I hope you will excuse her, for I fear she has hardly fortitude sufficient to see you: in a short time perhaps-" "In a very short time, then," said Lord Orville, "I hope you will yourself introduce her, and that we shall have the pleasure of wishing you both joy:-allow me, my Evelina, to say we, and permit me, in your name, as well as my own, to entreat that the first guests we shall have the happiness of receiving may be Mr. and Mrs. Macartney." A servant then came to beg I would walk up stairs. I besought Lord Orville to accompany me; but he feared the displeasure of Sir John, who had desired to see me alone. He led me, however, to the foot of the stairs, and made the kindest efforts to give me courage: but indeed he did not succeed; for the interview appeared to me in all its terrors, and left me no feeling but apprehension. The moment I reached the landing-place, the drawing-room door was opened: and my father, with a voice of kindness, called out, "My child, is it you?" "Yes, Sir," cried I, springing forward, and kneeling at his feet, "it is your child, if you will own her!" He knelt by my side, and, folding me in his arms, "Own thee," repeated he, "yes, my poor girl, and Heaven knows with what bitter contrition!" Then, raising both himself and me, he brought me into the drawing-room, shut the door, and took me to the window; where, looking at me with great earnestness, "Poor unhappy Caroline!" cried he; and, to my inexpressible concern, he burst into tears. Need I tell you, my dear Sir, how mine flowed at the sight? I would again have embraced his knees; but, hurrying from me, he flung himself upon a sofa, and, leaning his face on his arms, seemed for some time absorbed in bitterness of grief. I ventured not to interrupt a sorrow I so much respected; but waited in silence, and at a distance, till he recovered from its violence. But then it seemed in a moment to give way to a kind of frantic fury; for starting suddenly, with a sternness which at once surprised and frightened me, "Child," cried he, "hast thou yet sufficiently humbled thy father?-if thou hast, be contented with this proof of my weakness, and no longer force thyself into my presence!" Thunderstruck by a command so unexpected, I stood still and speechless, and doubted whether my own ears did not deceive me. "Oh go, go!" cried he, passionately; "in pity-in compassion,-if thou valuest my senses, leave me,-and for ever!" "I will, I will," cried I, greatly terrified; and I moved hastily towards the door: yet, stopping when I reached it, and, almost involuntarily, dropping on my knees, "Vouchsafe," cried I, "Oh, Sir, vouchsafe but once to bless your daughter, and her sight shall never more offend you!" "Alas," cried he, in a softened voice, "I am not worthy to bless thee!-I am not worthy to call thee daughter!-I am not worthy that the fair light of Heaven should visit my eyes!-Oh God! that I could but call back the time ere thou wast born,-or else bury its remembrance in eternal oblivion!" "Would to Heaven," cried I, "that the sight of me were less terrible to you! that, instead of irritating, I could soothe your sorrows!-Oh Sir, how thankfully would I then prove my duty, even at the hazard of my life!" "Are you so kind?" cried he, gently; "come hither, child;-rise, Evelina:-Alas, it is for me to kneel,-not you;-and I would kneel,-I would crawl upon the earth,-I would kiss the dust,-could I, by such submission, obtain the forgiveness of the representative of the most injured of women!" "Oh, Sir," exclaimed I, "that you could but read my heart!-that you could but see the filial tenderness and concern with which it overflows!-you would not then talk thus,-you would not then banish me your presence, and exclude me from your affection!" "Good God," cried he, "is it then possible that you do not hate me?-Can the child of the wronged Caroline look at,-and not execrate me? Wast thou not born to abhor, and bred to curse me? Did not thy mother bequeath thee her blessing on condition that thou should'st detest and avoid me ?" "Oh no, no, no!" cried I; "think not so unkindly of her, nor so hardly of me." I then took from my pocketbook her last letter; and, pressing it to my lips, with a trembling hand, and still upon my knees, I held it out to him. Hastily snatching it from me, "Great Heaven!" cried he, "'tis her writing-Whence comes this?-who gave it you-why had I it not sooner?" I made no answer; his vehemence intimidated me, and I ventured not to move from the suppliant posture in which I had put myself. He went from me to the window, where his eyes were for some time rivetted upon the direction of the letter, though his hand shook so violently he could hardly hold it. Then, bringing it to me, "Open it,"-cried he,-"for I cannot!" I had myself hardly strength to obey him: but when I had, he took it back, and walked hastily up and down the room, as if dreading to read it. At length, turning to me, "Do you know," cried he, "its contents?" "No, Sir," answered I, "it has never been unsealed." He then again went to the window, and began reading. Having hastily run it over, he cast up his eyes with a look of desperation; the letter fell from his hand, and he exclaimed, "Yes! thou art sainted!-thou art blessed!-and I am cursed for ever!" He continued some time fixed in this melancholy position; after which, casting himself with violence upon the ground, "Oh wretch," cried he, "unworthy life and light, in what dungeon canst thou hide thy head?" I could restrain myself no longer; I rose and went to him; I did not dare speak; but, with pity and concern unutterable, I wept and hung over him. Soon after, starting up, he again seized the letter, exclaiming, "Acknowledge thee, Caroline!-yes, with my heart's best blood would I acknowledge thee!-Oh that thou could'st witness the agony of my soul!-Ten thousand daggers could not have wounded me like this letter!" Then, after again reading it, "Evelina," he cried, "she charges me to receive thee;-wilt thou, in obedience to her will, own for thy father the destroyer of thy mother?" What a dreadful question!-I shuddered, but could not speak. "To clear her fame, and receive her child," continued he, looking stedfastly at the letter, "are the conditions upon which she leaves me her forgiveness: her fame I have already cleared;-and Oh, how willingly would I take her child to my bosom, fold her to my heart,-call upon her to mitigate my anguish, and pour the balm of comfort on my wounds, were I not conscious I deserve not to receive it, and that all my affliction is the result of my own guilt!" It was in vain I attempted to speak; horror and grief took from me all power of utterance. He then read aloud from the letter, "Look not like thy unfortunate mother!" "Sweet soul, with what bitterness of spirit hast thou written!-Come hither, Evelina: Gracious Heaven! (looking earnestly at me) never was likeness more striking!-the eyes-the face-the form-Oh, my child, my child!" Imagine, Sir,-for I can never describe my feelings, when I saw him sink upon his knees before me! "Oh, dear resemblance of thy murdered mother!-Oh, all that remains of the most injured of women! behold thy father at thy feet!-bending thus lowly to implore you would not hate him.-Oh, then, thou representative of my departed wife, speak to me in her name, and say that the remorse which tears my soul tortures me not in vain!" "Oh, rise, rise, my beloved father," cried I, attempting to assist him; "I cannot bear to see you thus; reverse not the law of nature; rise yourself, and bless your kneeling daughter!" "May Heaven bless thee, my child!-"cried he, "for I dare not." He then rose; and, embracing me most affectionately, added, "I see, I see that thou art all kindness, softness, and tenderness; I need not have feared thee, thou art all the fondest father could wish, and I will try to frame my mind to less painful sensations at thy sight. Perhaps the time may come, when I may know the comfort of such a daughter;-at present I am only fit to be alone: dreadful as are my reflections, they ought merely to torment myself.-Adieu, my child;-be not angry,-I cannot stay with thee;-Oh, Evelina! thy countenance is a dagger to my heart!-just so thy mother looked,-just so-" Tears and sighs seemed to choak him;-and, waving his hand, he would have left me;-but, clinging to him, "Oh, Sir," cried I, "will you so soon abandon me?-am I again an orphan!-Oh, my dear, my long-lost father, leave me not, I beseech you! take pity on your child, and rob her not of the parent she so fondly hoped would cherish her!" "You know not what you ask," cried he; "the emotions which now rend my soul are more than my reason can endure; suffer me then, to leave you;-impute it not to unkindness, but think of me as well as thou canst. Lord Orville has behaved nobly;-I believe he will make thee happy." Then, again embracing me, "God bless thee, my dear child," cried he, "God bless thee, my Evelina!-endeavour to love,-at least not to hate me,-and to make me an interest in thy filial bosom, by thinking of me as thy father." I could not speak; I kissed his hands on my knees: and then, with yet more emotion, he again blessed me, and hurried out of the room,-leaving me almost drowned in tears. Oh, Sir, all goodness as you are, how much will you feel for your Evelina, during a scene of such agitation! I pray Heaven to accept the tribute of his remorse, and restore him to tranquillity! When I was sufficiently composed to return to the parlour, I found Lord Orville waiting for me with the utmost anxiety:-and then a new scene of emotion, though of a far different nature, awaited me; for I learned by Mr. Macartney, that this noblest of men had insisted the so-long supposed Miss Belmont should be considered, indeed, as my sister, and as the co-heiress of my father; though not in law, in justice, he says, she ought ever to be treated as the daughter of Sir John Belmont. Oh! Lord Orville!-it shall be the sole study of my happy life, to express, better than by words, the sense I have of your exalted benevolence and greatness of mind! LETTER LXXXI. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Clifton, Oct. 12th. THIS morning, early, I received the following letter from Sir Clement Willoughby: "To Miss Anville. "I HAVE this moment received intelligence that preparations are actually making for your marriage with Lord Orville. "Imagine not that I write with the imbecile idea of rendering those preparations abortive. No, I am not so mad. My sole view is to explain the motive of my conduct in a particular instance, and to obviate the accusation of treachery which may be laid to my charge. "My unguarded behaviour, when I last saw you, has, probably, already acquainted you, that the letter I then saw you reading was written by myself. For your further satisfaction, let me have the honour of informing you, that the letter you had designed for Lord Orville, had fallen into my hands. "However I may have been urged on by a passion the most violent that ever warmed the heart of man, I can by no means calmly submit to be stigmatized for an action seemingly so dishonourable; and it is for this reason that I trouble you with this justification. "Lord Orville,-the happy Orville, whom you are so ready to bless,-had made me believe he loved you not;-nay, that he held you in contempt. "Such were my thoughts of his sentiments of you, when I got possession of the letter you meant to send him. I pretend not to vindicate either the means I used to obtain it, or the action of breaking the seal; but I was impelled, by an impetuous curiosity, to discover the terms upon which you wrote to him. "The letter, however, was wholly unintelligible to me, and the perusal of it only added to my perplexity. "A tame suspense I was not born to endure, and I determined to clear my doubts at all hazards and events. "I answered it, therefore, in Orville's name. "The views which I am now going to acknowledge, must, infallibly, incur your displeasure;-yet I scorn all palliation. "Briefly, then, I concealed your letter to prevent a discovery of your capacity; and I wrote you an answer, which I hoped would prevent your wishing for any other. "I am well aware of every thing which can be said upon this subject. Lord Orville will, possibly, think himself ill-used; but I am extremely indifferent as to his opinion; nor do I now write by way of offering any apology to him, but merely to make known to yourself the reasons by which I have been governed. "I intend to set off next week for the Continent. Should his Lordship have any commands for me in the mean time, I shall be glad to receive them. I say not this by way of defiance,-I should blush to be suspected of so doing through an indirect channel; but simply that, if you show him this letter, he may know I dare defend, as well as excuse, my conduct. "CLEMENT WILLOUGHBY." What a strange letter! how proud and how piqued does its writer appear! To what alternate meanness and rashness do the passions lead, when reason and self-denial do not oppose them! Sir Clement is conscious he has acted dishonourably; yet the same unbridled vehemence, which urged him to gratify a blameable curiosity, will sooner prompt him to risk his life, than, confess his misconduct. The rudeness of his manner of writing to me, springs, from the same cause: the proof which he has received of my indifference to him, has stung him to the soul, and he has neither the delicacy nor forbearance to disguise his displeasure. I determined not to show this letter to Lord Orville, and thought it most prudent to let Sir Clement know I should not. I therefore wrote the following note: "To Sir Clement Willoughby. "SIR, "The letter you have been pleased to address to me, is so little calculated to afford Lord Orville any satisfaction, that you may depend upon my carefully keeping it from his sight. I will bear you no resentment for what is past; but I most earnestly intreat, nay implore, that you will not write again, while in your present frame of mind, by any channel, direct or indirect. "I hope you will have much pleasure in your promised expedition; and I beg leave to assure you of my good wishes." Not knowing by what name to sign, I was obliged to send it without any. The preparations which Sir Clement mentions, go on just as if your consent were arrived: it is in vain that I expostulate; Lord Orville says, should any objections be raised, all shall be given up; but that, as his hopes forbid him to expect any, he must proceed as if already assured of your concurrence. We have had, this afternoon, a most interesting conversation, in which we have traced our sentiments of each other from our first acquaintance. I have made him confess how ill he thought of me upon my foolish giddiness at Mrs. Stanley's ball; but he flatters me with assurances, that every succeeding time he saw me, I appeared to something less and less disadvantage. When I expressed my amazement that he could honour with his choice a girl who seemed so infinitely, in every respect, beneath his alliance, he frankly owned, that he had fully intended making more minute inquiries into my family and connections; particularly concerning those people he saw me with at Marybone, before he acknowledged his prepossession in my favour: but seeing me again, put him quite off his guard; and, "divesting him of prudence, left him nothing but love." These were his words; and yet, he has repeatedly assured me, that his partiality has known no bounds from the time of my residing at Clifton. * * * * * * Mr. Macartney has just been with me, on an embassy from my father. He has sent me his kindest love and assurances of favour; and desired to know if I am happy in the prospect of changing my situation, and if there is any thing I can name which he can do for me. And, at the same time, Mr. Macartney delivered to me a draught on my father's banker for a thousand pounds, which he insisted that I should receive entirely for my own use, and expend in equipping myself properly for the new rank of life to which I seem destined. I am sure I need not say how much I was penetrated by this goodness: I wrote my thanks, and acknowledged, frankly, that if I could see him restored to tranquillity, my heart would be without a wish. LETTER LXXXII. EVELINA IN CONTINUATION. Clifton, Oct. 13th. THE time approaches now when I hope we shall meet;-yet I cannot sleep;-great joy is a restless as sorrow,-and therefore I will continue my journal. As I had never had an opportunity of seeing Bath, a party was formed last night for showing me that celebrated city; and this morning, after breakfast, we set out in three phaetons. Lady Louisa and Mrs. Beaumont with Lord Merton; Mr. Coverley, Mr. Lovel, and Mrs. Selwyn; and myself with Lord Orville. We had hardly proceeded half a mile, when a gentleman from the post-chaise which came gallopping after us, called out to the servants, "Holla, my lads!-pray, is one Miss Anville in any of them thing-em-bobs?" I immediately recollected the voice of Captain Mirvan; and Lord Orville stopped the phaeton. He was out of the chaise, and with us in a moment. "So, Miss Anville," cried he, "how do you do? So I hear you're Miss Belmont now;-pray, how does old Madame French do?" "Madame Duval," said I, "is, I believe, very well." "I hope she is in good case," said he, winking significantly, "and won't flinch at seeing service: she has laid by long enough to refit and be made tight. And pray how does poor Monseer Doleful do? Is he as lank-jawed as ever?" "They are neither of them," said I, "in Bristol." "No!" cried he, with a look of disappointment; "but surely the old dowager intends coming to the wedding! 'twill be a most excellent opportunity to show off her best Lyons silk. Besides, I purpose to dance a new fashioned jig with her. Don't you know when she'll come?" "I have no reason to expect her at all." "No!-'Fore George, this here's the worst news I'd wish to hear!-why I've thought of nothing all the way, but what trick I should serve her." "You have been very obliging!" said I, laughing. "O, I promise you," cried he, "our Moll would never have wheedled me into this jaunt, if I'd known she was not here; for, to let you into the secret, I fully intended to have treated the old buck with another frolic." "Did Miss Mirvan, then, persuade you to this journey?" "Yes, and we've been travelling all night." "We!" cried I: "Is Miss Mirvan, then, with you?" "What, Molly?-yes, she's in that there chaise." "Good God, Sir, why did you not tell me sooner?" cried I; and immediately, with Lord Orville's assistance, I jumped out of the phaeton, and ran to the dear girl. Lord Orville opened the chaise door; and I am sure I need not tell you what unfeigned joy accompanied our meeting. We both begged we might not be parted during the ride; and Lord Orville was so good as to invite Captain Mirvan into his phaeton. I think I was hardly ever more rejoiced than at this so seasonable visit from my dear Maria; who had no sooner heard the situation of my affairs, than with the assistance of Lady Howard, and her kind mother, she besought her father with such earnestness to consent to the journey, that he had not been able to withstand their united intreaties; though she owned that, had he not expected to have met with Madame Duval, she believes he would not so readily have yielded. They arrived at Mrs. Beaumont's but a few minutes after we were out of sight, and overtook us without much difficulty. I say nothing of our conversation, because you may so well suppose both the subjects we chose, and our manner of discussing them. We all stopped at a great hotel, where we were obliged to enquire for a room, as Lady Louisa, fatigued to death, desired to take something before we began our rambles. As soon as the party was assembled, the Captain, abruptly saluting me, said, "So, Miss Belmont, I wish you joy; so I hear you've quarrelled with your new name already?" "Me!-no, indeed, Sir." "Then please for to tell me the reason you're in such a hurry to change it?" "Miss Belmont!" cried Mr. Lovel. Looking around him with the utmost astonishment: "I beg pardon;-but, if it is not impertinent,-I must beg leave to say I always understood that lady's name was Anville." "'Fore George," cried the Captain, "it runs in my head, I've seen you somewhere before! And now I think on't, pray a'n't you the person I saw at the play one night, and who didn't know, all the time, whether it was a tragedy or a comedy, or a concert of fiddlers?" "I believe, Sir," said Mr. Lovel, stammering, "I, had once,-I think-the pleasure of seeing you last spring." "Aye, and if I live an hundred springs," answered he, "I shall never forget it; by Jingo, it has served me for a most excellent good joke ever since. Well, howsomever, I'm glad to see you still in the land of the living," (shaking him roughly by the hand.) "Pray, if a body may be so bold, how much a night may you give at present to keep the undertakers aloof?" "Me, Sir!" said Mr. Lovel, very much discomposed; "I protest I never thought myself in such imminent danger as to-really, Sir, I don't understand you." "O, you don't! why then I'll make free for to explain myself. Gentlemen and Ladies, I'll tell you what; do you know this here gentleman, simple as he sits there, pays five shillings a-night to let his friends know he's alive!" "And very cheap too," said Mrs. Selwyn, "if we consider the value of the intelligence." Lady Louisa being now refreshed, we proceeded upon our expedition. The charming city of Bath answered all my expectations. The Crescent, the prospect from it, and the elegant symmetry of the Circus, delighted me. The Parades, I own, rather disappointed me; one of them is scarce preferable to some of the best paved streets in London; and the other, though it affords a beautiful prospect, a charming view of Prior Park and of the Avon, yet wanted something in itself of more striking elegance than a mere broad pavement, to satisfy the ideas I had formed of it. At the pump-room, I was amazed at the public exhibition of the ladies in the bath; it is true, their heads are covered with bonnets; but the very idea of being seen, in such a situation, by whoever pleases to look, is indelicate. "'Fore George," said the Captain, looking into the bath, "this would be a most excellent place for old Madame French to dance a fandango in! By Jingo, I wou'dn't wish for better sport than to swing her round this here pond!" "She would be very much obliged to you," said Lord Orville, "for so extraordinary a mark of your favour." "Why, to let you know," answered the Captain, "she hit my fancy mightily; I never took so much to an old tabby before." "Really now," cried Mr. Lovel, looking also into the bath, "I must confess it is, to me, very incomprehensible why the ladies choose that frightful unbecoming dress to bathe in! I have often pondered very seriously upon the subject, but could never hit upon the reason." "Well, I declare," said Lady Louisa, "I should like of all things to set something new a-going; I always hated bathing, because one can get no pretty dress for it! now do, there's a good creature, try to help me to something." "Who, me!-O, dear Ma'am," said he, simpering, "I can't pretend to assist a person of your Ladyship's tastes; besides, I have not the least head for fashions.-I really don't think I ever invented above three in my life! But I never had the least turn for dress,-never any notion of fancy or elegance." "O fie, Mr. Lovel! how can you talk so?-don't we all know that you lead the ton in the beau monde? I declare, I think you dress better than any body." "O, dear Ma'am, you confuse me to the last degree! I dress well!-I protest I don't think I'm ever fit to be seen! I'm often shocked to death to think what a figure I go. If your Ladyship will believe me, I was full half an hour this morning thinking what I should put on!" "Odds my life," cried the Captain, "I wish I'd been near you! I warrant I'd have quickened your motions a little; Half an hour thinking what you'd put on; and who the deuce do you think cares the snuff of a candle whether you've any thing on or not?" "O pray, Captain," cried Mrs. Selwyn, "don't be angry with the gentleman for thinking, whatever be the cause, for I assure you he makes no common practice of offending in that way." "Really, Ma'am, you're prodigiously kind," said Mr. Lovel, angrily. "Pray now," said the Captain, "did you ever get a ducking in that there place yourself?" "A ducking, Sir!" repeated Mr. Lovel: "I protest I think that's rather an odd term!-but if you mean a bathing, it is an honour I have had many times." "And pray, if a body may be so bold, what do you do with that frizle-frize top of your own? Why, I'll lay you what you will, there is fat and grease enough on your crown to buoy you up, if you were to go in head downwards." "And I don't know," cried Mrs. Selwyn, "but that might be the easiest way; for I'm sure it would be the lightest." "For the matter of that there," said the Captain, "you must make him a soldier, before you can tell which is lightest, head or heels. Howsomever, I'd lay ten pounds to a shilling, I could whisk him so dexterously over into the pool, that he should light plump upon his foretop and turn round like a tetotum." "Done!" cried Lord Merton; "I take your odds." "Will you?" returned he; "why, then, 'fore George, I'd do it as soon as say Jack Robinson." "He, he!" faintly laughed Mr. Lovel, as he moved abruptly from the window; "'pon honour, this is pleasant enough; but I don't see what right any body has to lay wagers about one without one's consent." "There, Lovel, you are out," cried Mr. Coverley, "any man may lay what wager about you he will; your consent is nothing to the purpose: he may lay that your nose is a sky-blue, if he pleases." "Ay," said Mrs. Selwyn, "or that your mind is more adorned than your person;-or any absurdity whatsoever." "I protest," said Mr. Lovel, "I think it's a very disagreeable privilege, and I must beg that nobody may take such a liberty with me." "Like enough you may," cried the Captain;" but what's that to the purpose? Suppose I've a mind to lay that you've never a tooth in your head-pray, how will you hinder me?" "You'll allow me, at least, Sir, to take the liberty of asking how you'll prove it?" "How?-why, by knocking them all down your throat." "Knocking them all down my throat, Sir!" repeated Mr. Lovel, with a look of horror; "I protest I never heard any thing so shocking in my life! And I must beg leave to observe, that no wager, in my opinion, could justify such a barbarous action." Here Lord Orville interfered, and hurried us to our carriages. We returned in the same order we came. Mrs. Beaumont invited all the party to dinner, and has been so obliging as to beg Miss Mirvan may continue at her house during her stay. The Captain will lodge at the Wells. The first half-hour after our return was devoted to hearing Mr. Lovel's apologies for dining in his riding-dress. Mrs. Beaumont then, addressing herself to Miss Mirvan and me, inquired how we liked Bath? "I hope," said Mr. Lovel, "the ladies do not call this seeing Bath." "No!-what should ail 'em?" cried the Captain, "do you suppose they put their eyes in their pockets?" "No, Sir; but I fancy you will find no person-that is-no person of any condition-call going about a few places in a morning seeing Bath." "Mayhap, then," said the literal Captain, "you think we should see it better by going about at midnight?" "No, Sir, no," said Mr. Lovel, with a supercilious smile, "I perceive you don't understand me;-we should never call it seeing Bath, without going at the right season." "Why, what a plague, then," demanded he, "can you only see at one season of the year?" Mr. Lovel again smiled; but seemed superior to making any answer. "The Bath amusements," said Lord Orville, "have a sameness in them, which, after a short time, renders them rather insipid; but the greatest objection that can be made to the place, is the encouragement it gives to gamesters." "Why, I hope, my Lord, you would not think of abolishing gaming," cried Lord Merton, "'tis the very zest of life! Devil take me if I could live without it." "I am sorry for it," said Lord Orville, gravely, and looking at Lady Louisa. "Your Lordship is no judge of this subject," continued the other; "but if once we could get you to a gaming-table, you'd never be happy away from it!" "I hope, my Lord," cried Lady Louisa, "that nobody here ever occasions your quitting it." "Your Ladyship," said Lord Merton, recollecting himself, "has power to make me quit any thing." "Except herself," said Mr. Coverley. "Egad, my Lord, I think I've helpt you out there!" "You men of wit, Jack," answered his Lordship, "are always ready;-for my part, I don't pretend to any talents that way." "Really, my Lord?" asked the sarcastic Mrs. Selwyn; "well, that is wonderful, considering success would be so much in your power." "Pray, Ma'am," said Mr. Lovel to Lady Louisa, "has your Ladyship heard the news?" "News!-what news?" "Why, the report circulating at the Wells concerning a certain person." "O Lord, no: pray tell me what it is?" "O no, Ma'am, I beg your La'ship will excuse me; 'tis a profound secret, and I would not have mentioned it, if I had not thought you knew it." "Lord, now, how can you be so monstrous? I declare, now, you're a provoking creature! But come, I know you'll tell me;-won't you now?" "Your La'ship knows I am but too happy to obey you; but, 'pon honour, I can't speak a word, if you won't all promise me the most inviolable secrecy." "I wish you'd wait for that from me," said the Captain, "and I'll give you my word you'd be dumb for one while. Secrecy, quoth-a!-'Fore George, I wonder you an't ashamed to mention such a word, when you talk of telling it to a woman. Though, for the matter of that, I'd as lieve blab it to the whole sex at once, as to go for to tell it to such a thing as you." "Such a thing as me, Sir!" said Mr. Lovel, letting fall his knife and fork, and looking very important; "I really have not the honour to understand your expression." "It's all one for that," said the Captain; "you may have it explained whenever you like it." "'Pon honour, Sir," returned Mr. Lovel, "I must take the liberty to tell you, that I should be extremely offended, but that I suppose it to be some sea-phrase; and therefore I'll let it pass without further notice." Lord Orville, then, to change the discourse, asked Miss Mirvan if she should spend the ensuing winter in London? "No, to be sure," said the Captain, "what should she for? She saw all that was to be seen before." "Is London, then," said Mr. Lovel, smiling at Lady Louisa, "only to be regarded as a sight?" "Why, pray, Mr. Wiseacre, how are you pleased for to regard it yourself?-Answer me to that." "O Sir, my opinion, I fancy, you would hardly find intelligible. I don't understand sea-phrases enough to define it to your comprehension. Does not your La'ship think the task would be rather difficult?" "O Lard, yes," cried Lady Louisa; "I declare I'd as soon teach my parrot to talk Welsh." "Ha! ha! ha! Admirable;-'Pon honour, your La'ship's quite in luck to-day; but that, indeed, your La'ship is every day. Though, to be sure, it is but candid to acknowledge, that the gentlemen of the ocean have a set of ideas, as well as a dialect, so opposite to our's, that it is by no means surprising they should regard London as a mere show, that may be seen by being looked at. Ha! ha! ha!" "Ha! ha!" echoed Lady Louisa; "Well, I declare you are the drollest creature." "He! he! 'Pon honour, I can't help laughing at the conceit of seeing London in a few weeks!" "And what a plague should hinder you?" cried the Captain; "do you want to spend a day in every street?" Here again Lady Louisa and Mr. Lovel interchanged smiles. "Why, I warrant you, if I had the showing it, I'd haul you from St. James's to Wapping the very first morning." The smiles were now, with added contempt, repeated; which the Captain observing, looked very fiercely at Mr. Lovel, and said, "Hark'ee my spark, none of your grinning!-'tis a lingo I don't understand; and if you give me any more of it, I shall go near to lend you a box o' the ear." "I protest, Sir," said Mr. Lovel, turning extremely pale, "I think it's taking a very particular liberty with a person, to talk to one in such a style as this!" "It's like you may," returned the Captain: "but give a good gulp, and I'll warrant you'll swallow it." Then, calling for a glass of ale, with a very provoking and significant nod, he drank to his easy digestion. Mr. Lovel made no answer, but looked extremely sullen; and, soon after, we left the gentlemen to themselves. I had then two letters delivered to me; one from Lady Howard and Mrs. Mirvan, which contained the kindest congratulations; and the other from Madame Duval;-but not a word from you,-to my no small surprise and concern. Madame Duval seems greatly rejoiced at my late intelligence: a violent cold, she says, prevents her coming to Bristol. The Branghtons, she tells me, are all well; Miss Polly is soon to be married to Mr. Brown; but Mr. Smith has changed his lodgings, "which," she adds, "has made the house extremely dull. However, that's not the worst news; pardi, I wish it was! but I've been used like nobody,-for Monsieur Du Bois has had the baseness to go back to France without me." In conclusion, she assures me, as you prognosticated she would, that I shall be sole heiress of all she is worth, when Lady Orville. At tea-time, we were joined by all the gentlemen but Captain Mirvan, who went to the hotel where he was to sleep, and made his daughter accompany him, to separate her trumpery, as he called it, from his clothes. As soon as they were gone, Mr. Lovel, who still appeared extremely sulky, said, "I protest, I never saw such a vulgar, abusive fellow in my life, as that Captain: 'pon honour, I believe he came here for no purpose in the world but to pick a quarrel; however, for my part, I vow I wo'n't humour him." "I declare," cried Lady Louisa, "he put me in a monstrous fright;-I never heard any body talk so shocking in my life!" "I think," said Mrs. Selwyn, with great solemnity, "he threatened to box your ears, Mr. Lovel;-did not he?" "Really, Ma'am," said Mr. Lovel, colouring, "if one was to mind every thing those low kind of people say, one should never be at rest for one impertinence or other; so I think the best way is to be above taking any notice of them." "What," said Mrs. Selwyn, with the same gravity, "and so receive the blow in silence!" During this discourse, I heard the Captain's chaise stop at the door, and ran downstairs to meet Maria. She was alone, and told me that her father, who, she was sure, had some scheme in agitation against Mr. Lovel, had sent her on before him. We continued in the parlour till his return, and were joined by Lord Orville, who begged me not to insist on a patience so unnatural, as submitting to be excluded our society. And let me, my dear Sir, with a grateful heart let me own, I never before passed half an hour in such perfect felicity. I believe we were all sorry when the Captain returned; yet his inward satisfaction, from however different a cause, did not seem inferior to what our's had been. He chucked Maria under the chin, rubbed his hands, and was scarce able to contain the fullness of his glee. We all attended him to the drawing room; where, having composed his countenance, without any previous attention to Mrs. Beaumont, he marched up to Mr. Lovel, and abruptly said, "Pray, have you e'er a brother in these here parts?" "Me, Sir?-no, thank Heaven, I'm free from all encumbrances of that sort." "Well," cried the Captain, "I met a person just now so like you, I could have sworn he had been your twin brother." "It would have been a most singular pleasure to me," said Mr. Lovel, "if I also could have seen him; for, really, I have not the least notion what sort of a person I am, and I have a prodigious curiosity to know." Just then the Captain's servant, opening the door, said, "A little gentleman below desires to see one Mr. Lovel." "Beg him to walk up stairs," said Mrs. Beaumont. "But, pray what is the reason William is out of the way?" The man shut the door without any answer. "I can't imagine who it is," said Mr. Lovel: "I recollect no little gentleman of my acquaintance now at Bristol,-except, indeed the Marquis of Charlton;-but I don't much fancy it can be him. Let me see, who else is there so very little?" A confused noise among the servants now drew all eyes towards the door: the impatient Captain hastened to open it; and then, clapping his hands, called out, "'Fore George, 'tis the same person I took for your relation!" And then, to the utter astonishment of every body but himself, he hauled into the room a monkey, full-dressed, and extravagantly -e; la mode! The dismay of the company was almost general. Poor Mr. Lovel seemed thunderstruck with indignation and surprise: Lady Louisa began a scream, which for some time was incessant; Miss Mirvan and I jumped involuntarily upon the seats of our chairs; Mrs. Beaumont herself followed our example; Lord Orville placed himself before me as a guard; and Mrs. Selwyn, Lord Merton, and Mr. Coverley, burst into a loud, immoderate, ungovernable fit of laughter, in which they were joined by the Captain, till, unable to support himself, he rolled on the floor. The first voice which made its way through this general noise was that of Lady Louisa, which her fright and screaming rendered extremely shrill. "Take it away!" cried she, "take the monster away;-I shall faint, I shall faint if you don't!" Mr. Lovel, irritated beyond endurance, angrily demanded of the Captain what he meant? "Mean?" cried the Captain, as soon as he was able to speak; "why only to shew you in your proper colours." Then rising, and pointing to the monkey, "Why now, ladies and gentlemen, I'll be judged by you all!-Did you ever see any thing more like?-Odds my life, if it wasn't for this here tail, you wouldn't know one from t'other." "Sir," cried Mr. Lovel, stamping, "I shall take a time to make you feel my wrath." "Come now," continued the regardless Captain, "just for the fun's sake, doff your coat and waistcoat, and swop with Monseer Grinagain here; and I'll warrant you'll not know yourself which is which." "Not know myself from a monkey!-I assure you, Sir, I'm not to be used in this manner, and I won't bear it-curse me if I will!" "Why, hey-day!" cried the Captain, "what, is master in a passion?-well, don't be angry:-come, he shan't hurt you;-here, shake a paw with him:-why, he'll do you no harm, man!-come, kiss and be friends!" "Who, I?" cried Mr. Lovel, almost mad with vexation; "as I'm a living creature, I would not touch him for a thousand worlds!" "Send him a challenge," cried Mr. Coverley, "and I'll be your second." "Ay, do," said the Captain; "and I'll be second to my friend, Monseer Clapperclaw here. Come to it at once!-tooth and nail!" "God forbid!" cried Mr. Lovel, retreating, "I would sooner trust my person with a mad bull!" "I don't like the look of him myself," said Lord Merton, "for he grins most horribly." "Oh, I'm frightened out of my senses!" cried Lady Louisa, "take him away, or I shall die!" "Captain," said Lord Orville, "the ladies are alarmed; and I must beg you would send the monkey away." "Why, where can be the mighty harm of one monkey more than another?" answered the Captain: "howsomever, if its agreeable to the ladies, suppose we turn them out together?" "What do you mean by that, Sir?" cried Mr. Lovel, lifting up his cane. "What do you mean?" cried the Captain, fiercely, "be so good as to down with your cane." Poor Mr. Lovel, too much intimidated to stand his ground, yet too much enraged to submit, turned hastily round, and, forgetful of consequences, vented his passion by giving a furious blow to the monkey. The creature darting forwards, sprung instantly upon him; and, clinging round his neck, fastened his teeth to one of his ears. I was really sorry for the poor man; who, though an egregious fop, had committed no offence that merited such chastisement. It was impossible now to distinguish whose screams were loudest, those of Mr. Lovel, or of the terrified Lady Louisa, who I believe, thought her own turn was approaching: but the unrelenting Captain roared with joy. Not so Lord Orville: ever humane, generous, and benevolent he quitted his charge, who he saw was wholly out of danger, and seizing the monkey by the collar, made him loosen the ear; and then with a sudden swing, flung him out of the room, and shut the door. Poor Mr. Lovel, almost fainting with terror, sunk upon the floor, crying out, "Oh, I shall die, I shall die!-Oh, I'm bit to death!" "Captain Mirvan," said Mrs. Beaumont, with no little indignation, "I must own I don't perceive the wit of this action; and I am sorry to have such cruelty practised in my house." "Why Lord, Ma'am," said the Captain, when his rapture abated sufficiently for speech, "how could I tell they'd fall out so?-By jingo, I brought him to be a messmate for t'other." "Egad," said Mr. Coverley, "I would not have been served so for a thousand pounds." "Why, then, there's the odds of it," said the Captain; "for you see he is served so for nothing. But come," turning to Mr. Lovel, "be of good heart, all may end well yet, and you and Monseer Longtail be as good friends as ever." "I'm surprised, Mrs. Beaumont," cried Mr. Lovel, starting up, "that you can suffer a person under your roof to be treated so inhumanly." "What argufies so many words?" said the unfeeling Captain; "it is but a slit of the ear; it only looks as if you had been in the pillory." "Very true," added Mrs. Selwyn; "and who knows but it may acquire you the credit of being an anti-ministerial writer?" "I protest," cried Mr. Lovel, looking ruefully at his dress, "my new riding suit's all over blood!" "Ha, ha, ha," cried the Captain, "see what comes of studying for an hour what you shall put on!" Mr. Lovel then walked to the glass; and, looking at the place, exclaimed, "Oh heaven, what a monstrous wound! my ear will never be fit to be seen again!" "Why then," said the Captain, "you must hide it;-'tis but wearing a wig." "A wig!" repeated the affrighted Mr. Lovel; "I wear a wig?-no, not if you would give me a thousand pounds an hour!" "I declare," said Lady Louisa, "I never heard such a shocking proposal in my life!" Lord Orville, then, seeing no prospect that the altercation would cease, proposed to the Captain to walk. He assented; and having given Mr. Lovel a nod of exultation, accompanied his Lordship down stairs. "'Pon honour," said Mr. Lovel, the moment the door was shut, "that fellow is the greatest brute in nature! he ought not to be admitted into a civilized society." "Lovel," said Mr. Coverley, affecting to whisper, "you must certainly pink him: you must not put up with such an affront." "Sir," said Mr. Lovel, "with any common person I should not deliberate an instant; but really with a fellow who has done nothing but fight all his life, 'pon honour, Sir, I can't think of it!" "Lovel," said Lord Merton, in the same voice, "you must call him to account." "Every man," said he, pettishly, "is the best judge of his own affairs; and I don't ask the honour of any person's advice." "Egad, Lovel," said Mr. Coverley, "you're in for it!-you can't possibly be off!" "Sir," cried he, very impatiently, "upon any proper occasion I should be as ready to show my courage as any body; but as to fighting for such a trifle as this-I protest I should blush to think of it!" "A trifle!" cried Mrs. Selwyn, "good Heaven! and have you made this astonishing riot about a trifle?" "Ma'am," answered the poor wretch, in great confusion, "I did not know at first but that my cheek might have been bit; but as 'tis no worse, why, it does not a great deal signify. Mrs. Beaumont, I have the honour to wish you a good evening; I'm sure my carriage must be waiting." And then, very abruptly, he left the room. What a commotion has this mischief-loving Captain raised! Were I to remain here long, even the society of my dear Maria could scarce compensate for the disturbances which he excites. When he returned, and heard of the quiet exit of Mr. Lovel, his triumph was intolerable. "I think, I think," he cried, "I have peppered him well! I'll warrant he won't give an hour tomorrow morning to settling what he shall put on; why, his coat," turning to me, "would be a most excellent match for old Madame Furbelow's best Lyons silk! 'Fore George, I'd desire no better sport than to have that there old cat here to go her snacks!" All the company the, Lord Orville, Miss Mirvan, and myself excepted, played at cards; and we -oh, how much better did we pass our time! While we were engaged in a most delightful conversation, a servant brought me a letter, which he told me had by some accident been mislaid. Judge of my feelings when I saw, my dearest Sir, your revered hand-writing! My emotions soon betrayed to Lord Orville whom the letter was from; the importance of the contents he well knew; and, assuring me I should not be seen by the card-players, he besought me to open it without delay. Open it, indeed, I did-but read it I could not;-the willing, yet awful consent you have granted-the tenderness of your expressions-the certainty that no obstacle remained to my eternal union with the loved owner of my heart, gave me sensations too various, and, though joyful, too little placid for observation. Finding myself unable to proceed, and blinded by the tears of gratitude and delight, which started into my eyes, I gave over the attempt of reading till I retired to my own room; and, having no voice to answer the enquiries of Lord Orville, I put the letter into his hands, and left it to speak both for me and itself. Lord Orville was himself affected by your kindness: he kissed the letter as he returned it; and, pressing my hand affectionately to his heart, "Your are now," said he, in a low voice, "all my own! Oh, my Evelina, how will my soul find room for its happiness?-it seems already bursting!" I could make no reply, indeed I hardly spoke another word the rest of the evening; so little talkative is the fulness of contentment. O, my dearest Sir, the thankfulness of my heart I must pour forth at our meeting, when, at your feet, my happiness receives its confirmation from your blessing; and when my noble-minded, my beloved Lord Orville, presents to you the highly-honoured, and thrice-happy Evelina. A few lines I will endeavour to write on Thursday, which shall be sent off express, to give you, should nothing intervene, yet more certain assurance of our meeting. Now then, therefore, for the first-and probably the last time I shall ever own the name, permit me to sign myself, Most dear Sir, your gratefully affectionate, EVELINA BELMONT. Lady Louisa, at her own particular desire, will be present at the ceremony, as well as Miss Mirvan and Mrs. Selwyn: Mr. Macartney will, the same morning, be united to my foster-sister; and my father himself will give us both away. LETTER LXXXIII. MR. VILLARS TO EVELINA. EVERY wish of my soul is now fulfilled-for the felicity of my Evelina is equal to her worthiness! Yes, my child, thy happiness is engraved in golden characters upon the tablets of my heart; and their impression is indelible: for, should the rude and deep-searching hand of Misfortune attempt to pluck them from their repository, the fleeting fabric of life would give way; and in tearing from my vitals the nourishment by which they are supported, she would but grasp at a shadow insensible to her touch. Give thee my consent?-Oh thou joy, comfort, and pride of my life, how cold is that word to express the fervency of my approbation! Yes, I do indeed give thee my consent; and so thankfully, that, with the humblest gratitude to Providence, I would seal it with the remnant of my days. Hasten then, my love, to bless me with thy presence, and to receive the blessings with which my fond heart overflows!-And oh, my Evelina, hear and assist in one only, humble, but ardent prayer, which yet animates my devotions: That the height of bliss to which thou art rising may not render thee giddy, but that the purity of thy mind may form the brightest splendour of thy prosperity!-and that the weak and aged frame of thy almost idolizing parent, nearly worn out by time, past afflictions, and infirmities, may yet be able to sustain a meeting with all its better part holds dear; and then, that all the wounds which the former severity of fortune inflicted, may be healed and purified by the ultimate consolation of pouring forth my dying words in blessings on my child!-closing these joy-streaming eyes in her presence, and breathing my last faint sighs in her loved arms! Grieve not, oh child of my care! Grieve not at the inevitable moment! but may thy own end be equally propitious! Oh, may'st thou, when full of days, and full of honour, sink down as gently to rest!-be loved as kindly, watched as tenderly, as thy happy father! And mayest thou, when thy glass is run, be sweetly, but not bitterly, mourned by some remaining darling of thy affections-some yet surviving Evelina! ARTHUR VILLARS. LETTER LXXXIV. EVELINA TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS. ALL is over, my dearest Sir; and the fate of your Evelina is decided! This morning, with fearful joy and trembling gratitude, she united herself for ever with the object of her dearest, her eternal affection. I have time for no more; the chaise now waits which is to conduct me to dear Berry Hill, and to the arms of the best of men. EVELINA. THE END. 
154	----	THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM by William Dean Howells JTABLE 5 27 1 I. WHEN Bartley Hubbard went to interview Silas Lapham for the "Solid Men of Boston" series, which he undertook to finish up in The Events, after he replaced their original projector on that newspaper, Lapham received him in his private office by previous appointment. "Walk right in!" he called out to the journalist, whom he caught sight of through the door of the counting-room. He did not rise from the desk at which he was writing, but he gave Bartley his left hand for welcome, and he rolled his large head in the direction of a vacant chair. "Sit down! I'll be with you in just half a minute." "Take your time," said Bartley, with the ease he instantly felt. "I'm in no hurry." He took a note-book from his pocket, laid it on his knee, and began to sharpen a pencil. "There!" Lapham pounded with his great hairy fist on the envelope he had been addressing. "William!" he called out, and he handed the letter to a boy who came to get it. "I want that to go right away. Well, sir," he continued, wheeling round in his leather-cushioned swivel-chair, and facing Bartley, seated so near that their knees almost touched, "so you want my life, death, and Christian sufferings, do you, young man?" "That's what I'm after," said Bartley. "Your money or your life." "I guess you wouldn't want my life without the money," said Lapham, as if he were willing to prolong these moments of preparation. "Take 'em both," Bartley suggested. "Don't want your money without your life, if you come to that. But you're just one million times more interesting to the public than if you hadn't a dollar; and you know that as well as I do, Mr. Lapham. There's no use beating about the bush." "No," said Lapham, somewhat absently. He put out his huge foot and pushed the ground-glass door shut between his little den and the book-keepers, in their larger den outside. "In personal appearance," wrote Bartley in the sketch for which he now studied his subject, while he waited patiently for him to continue, "Silas Lapham is a fine type of the successful American. He has a square, bold chin, only partially concealed by the short reddish-grey beard, growing to the edges of his firmly closing lips. His nose is short and straight; his forehead good, but broad rather than high; his eyes blue, and with a light in them that is kindly or sharp according to his mood. He is of medium height, and fills an average arm-chair with a solid bulk, which on the day of our interview was unpretentiously clad in a business suit of blue serge. His head droops somewhat from a short neck, which does not trouble itself to rise far from a pair of massive shoulders." "I don't know as I know just where you want me to begin," said Lapham. "Might begin with your birth; that's where most of us begin," replied Bartley. A gleam of humorous appreciation shot into Lapham's blue eyes. "I didn't know whether you wanted me to go quite so far back as that," he said. "But there's no disgrace in having been born, and I was born in the State of Vermont, pretty well up under the Canada line--so well up, in fact, that I came very near being an adoptive citizen; for I was bound to be an American of SOME sort, from the word Go! That was about--well, let me see!--pretty near sixty years ago: this is '75, and that was '20. Well, say I'm fifty-five years old; and I've LIVED 'em, too; not an hour of waste time about ME, anywheres! I was born on a farm, and----" "Worked in the fields summers and went to school winters: regulation thing?" Bartley cut in. "Regulation thing," said Lapham, accepting this irreverent version of his history somewhat dryly. "Parents poor, of course," suggested the journalist. "Any barefoot business? Early deprivations of any kind, that would encourage the youthful reader to go and do likewise? Orphan myself, you know," said Bartley, with a smile of cynical good-comradery. Lapham looked at him silently, and then said with quiet self-respect, "I guess if you see these things as a joke, my life won't interest you." "Oh yes, it will," returned Bartley, unabashed. "You'll see; it'll come out all right." And in fact it did so, in the interview which Bartley printed. "Mr. Lapham," he wrote, "passed rapidly over the story of his early life, its poverty and its hardships, sweetened, however, by the recollections of a devoted mother, and a father who, if somewhat her inferior in education, was no less ambitious for the advancement of his children. They were quiet, unpretentious people, religious, after the fashion of that time, and of sterling morality, and they taught their children the simple virtues of the Old Testament and Poor Richard's Almanac." Bartley could not deny himself this gibe; but he trusted to Lapham's unliterary habit of mind for his security in making it, and most other people would consider it sincere reporter's rhetoric. "You know," he explained to Lapham, "that we have to look at all these facts as material, and we get the habit of classifying them. Sometimes a leading question will draw out a whole line of facts that a man himself would never think of." He went on to put several queries, and it was from Lapham's answers that he generalised the history of his childhood. "Mr. Lapham, although he did not dwell on his boyish trials and struggles, spoke of them with deep feeling and an abiding sense of their reality." This was what he added in the interview, and by the time he had got Lapham past the period where risen Americans are all pathetically alike in their narrow circumstances, their sufferings, and their aspirations, he had beguiled him into forgetfulness of the check he had received, and had him talking again in perfect enjoyment of his autobiography. "Yes, sir," said Lapham, in a strain which Bartley was careful not to interrupt again, "a man never sees all that his mother has been to him till it's too late to let her know that he sees it. Why, my mother--" he stopped. "It gives me a lump in the throat," he said apologetically, with an attempt at a laugh. Then he went on: "She was a little frail thing, not bigger than a good-sized intermediate school-girl; but she did the whole work of a family of boys, and boarded the hired men besides. She cooked, swept, washed, ironed, made and mended from daylight till dark--and from dark till daylight, I was going to say; for I don't know how she got any time for sleep. But I suppose she did. She got time to go to church, and to teach us to read the Bible, and to misunderstand it in the old way. She was GOOD. But it ain't her on her knees in church that comes back to me so much like the sight of an angel as her on her knees before me at night, washing my poor, dirty little feet, that I'd run bare in all day, and making me decent for bed. There were six of us boys; it seems to me we were all of a size; and she was just so careful with all of us. I can feel her hands on my feet yet!" Bartley looked at Lapham's No. 10 boots, and softly whistled through his teeth. "We were patched all over; but we wa'n't ragged. I don't know how she got through it. She didn't seem to think it was anything; and I guess it was no more than my father expected of her. HE worked like a horse in doors and out--up at daylight, feeding the stock, and groaning round all day with his rheumatism, but not stopping." Bartley hid a yawn over his note-book, and probably, if he could have spoken his mind, he would have suggested to Lapham that he was not there for the purpose of interviewing his ancestry. But Bartley had learned to practise a patience with his victims which he did not always feel, and to feign an interest in their digressions till he could bring them up with a round turn. "I tell you," said Lapham, jabbing the point of his penknife into the writing-pad on the desk before him, "when I hear women complaining nowadays that their lives are stunted and empty, I want to tell 'em about my MOTHER'S life. I could paint it out for 'em." Bartley saw his opportunity at the word paint, and cut in. "And you say, Mr. Lapham, that you discovered this mineral paint on the old farm yourself?" Lapham acquiesced in the return to business. "I didn't discover it," he said scrupulously. "My father found it one day, in a hole made by a tree blowing down. There it was, lying loose in the pit, and sticking to the roots that had pulled up a big, cake of dirt with 'em. I don't know what give him the idea that there was money in it, but he did think so from the start. I guess, if they'd had the word in those days, they'd considered him pretty much of a crank about it. He was trying as long as he lived to get that paint introduced; but he couldn't make it go. The country was so poor they couldn't paint their houses with anything; and father hadn't any facilities. It got to be a kind of joke with us; and I guess that paint-mine did as much as any one thing to make us boys clear out as soon as we got old enough. All my brothers went West, and took up land; but I hung on to New England and I hung on to the old farm, not because the paint-mine was on it, but because the old house was--and the graves. Well," said Lapham, as if unwilling to give himself too much credit, "there wouldn't been any market for it, anyway. You can go through that part of the State and buy more farms than you can shake a stick at for less money than it cost to build the barns on 'em. Of course, it's turned out a good thing. I keep the old house up in good shape, and we spend a month or so there every summer. M' wife kind of likes it, and the girls. Pretty place; sightly all round it. I've got a force of men at work there the whole time, and I've got a man and his wife in the house. Had a family meeting there last year; the whole connection from out West. There!" Lapham rose from his seat and took down a large warped, unframed photograph from the top of his desk, passing his hand over it, and then blowing vigorously upon it, to clear it of the dust. "There we are, ALL of us." "I don't need to look twice at YOU," said Bartley, putting his finger on one of the heads. "Well, that's Bill," said Lapham, with a gratified laugh. "He's about as brainy as any of us, I guess. He's one of their leading lawyers, out Dubuque way; been judge of the Common Pleas once or twice. That's his son--just graduated at Yale--alongside of my youngest girl. Good-looking chap, ain't he?" "SHE'S a good-looking chap," said Bartley, with prompt irreverence. He hastened to add, at the frown which gathered between Lapham's eyes, "What a beautiful creature she is! What a lovely, refined, sensitive face! And she looks GOOD, too." "She is good," said the father, relenting. "And, after all, that's about the best thing in a woman," said the potential reprobate. "If my wife wasn't good enough to keep both of us straight, I don't know what would become of me." "My other daughter," said Lapham, indicating a girl with eyes that showed large, and a face of singular gravity. "Mis' Lapham," he continued, touching his wife's effigy with his little finger. "My brother Willard and his family--farm at Kankakee. Hazard Lapham and his wife--Baptist preacher in Kansas. Jim and his three girls--milling business at Minneapolis. Ben and his family--practising medicine in Fort Wayne." The figures were clustered in an irregular group in front of an old farm-house, whose original ugliness had been smartened up with a coat of Lapham's own paint, and heightened with an incongruous piazza. The photographer had not been able to conceal the fact that they were all decent, honest-looking, sensible people, with a very fair share of beauty among the young girls; some of these were extremely pretty, in fact. He had put them into awkward and constrained attitudes, of course; and they all looked as if they had the instrument of torture which photographers call a head-rest under their occiputs. Here and there an elderly lady's face was a mere blur; and some of the younger children had twitched themselves into wavering shadows, and might have passed for spirit-photographs of their own little ghosts. It was the standard family-group photograph, in which most Americans have figured at some time or other; and Lapham exhibited a just satisfaction in it. "I presume," he mused aloud, as he put it back on top of his desk, "that we sha'n't soon get together again, all of us." "And you say," suggested Bartley, "that you stayed right along on the old place, when the rest cleared out West?" "No o-o-o," said Lapham, with a long, loud drawl; "I cleared out West too, first off. Went to Texas. Texas was all the cry in those days. But I got enough of the Lone Star in about three months, and I come back with the idea that Vermont was good enough for me." "Fatted calf business?" queried Bartley, with his pencil poised above his note-book. "I presume they were glad to see me," said Lapham, with dignity. "Mother," he added gently, "died that winter, and I stayed on with father. I buried him in the spring; and then I came down to a little place called Lumberville, and picked up what jobs I could get. I worked round at the saw-mills, and I was ostler a while at the hotel--I always DID like a good horse. Well, I WA'N'T exactly a college graduate, and I went to school odd times. I got to driving the stage after while, and by and by I BOUGHT the stage and run the business myself. Then I hired the tavern-stand, and--well to make a long story short, then I got married. Yes," said Lapham, with pride, "I married the school-teacher. We did pretty well with the hotel, and my wife she was always at me to paint up. Well, I put it off, and PUT it off, as a man will, till one day I give in, and says I, 'Well, let's paint up. Why, Pert,'--m'wife's name's Persis,--'I've got a whole paint-mine out on the farm. Let's go out and look at it.' So we drove out. I'd let the place for seventy-five dollars a year to a shif'less kind of a Kanuck that had come down that way; and I'd hated to see the house with him in it; but we drove out one Saturday afternoon, and we brought back about a bushel of the stuff in the buggy-seat, and I tried it crude, and I tried it burnt; and I liked it. M'wife she liked it too. There wa'n't any painter by trade in the village, and I mixed it myself. Well, sir, that tavern's got that coat of paint on it yet, and it hain't ever had any other, and I don't know's it ever will. Well, you know, I felt as if it was a kind of harumscarum experiment, all the while; and I presume I shouldn't have tried it but I kind of liked to do it because father'd always set so much store by his paint-mine. And when I'd got the first coat on,"--Lapham called it CUT,--"I presume I must have set as much as half an hour; looking at it and thinking how he would have enjoyed it. I've had my share of luck in this world, and I ain't a-going to complain on my OWN account, but I've noticed that most things get along too late for most people. It made me feel bad, and it took all the pride out my success with the paint, thinking of father. Seemed to me I might 'a taken more interest in it when he was by to see; but we've got to live and learn. Well, I called my wife out,--I'd tried it on the back of the house, you know,--and she left her dishes,--I can remember she came out with her sleeves rolled up and set down alongside of me on the trestle,--and says I, 'What do you think, Persis?' And says she, 'Well, you hain't got a paint-mine, Silas Lapham; you've got a GOLD-mine.' She always was just so enthusiastic about things. Well, it was just after two or three boats had burnt up out West, and a lot of lives lost, and there was a great cry about non-inflammable paint, and I guess that was what was in her mind. 'Well, I guess it ain't any gold-mine, Persis,' says I; 'but I guess it IS a paint-mine. I'm going to have it analysed, and if it turns out what I think it is, I'm going to work it. And if father hadn't had such a long name, I should call it the Nehemiah Lapham Mineral Paint. But, any rate, every barrel of it, and every keg, and every bottle, and every package, big or little, has got to have the initials and figures N.L.f. 1835, S.L.t. 1855, on it. Father found it in 1835, and I tried it in 1855.'" "'S.T.--1860--X.' business," said Bartley. "Yes," said Lapham, "but I hadn't heard of Plantation Bitters then, and I hadn't seen any of the fellow's labels. I set to work and I got a man down from Boston; and I carried him out to the farm, and he analysed it--made a regular Job of it. Well, sir, we built a kiln, and we kept a lot of that paint-ore red-hot for forty-eight hours; kept the Kanuck and his family up, firing. The presence of iron in the ore showed with the magnet from the start; and when he came to test it, he found out that it contained about seventy-five per cent. of the peroxide of iron." Lapham pronounced the scientific phrases with a sort of reverent satisfaction, as if awed through his pride by a little lingering uncertainty as to what peroxide was. He accented it as if it were purr-ox-EYED; and Bartley had to get him to spell it. "Well, and what then?" he asked, when he had made a note of the percentage. "What then?" echoed Lapham. "Well, then, the fellow set down and told me, 'You've got a paint here,' says he, 'that's going to drive every other mineral paint out of the market. Why' says he, 'it'll drive 'em right into the Back Bay!' Of course, I didn't know what the Back Bay was then, but I begun to open my eyes; thought I'd had 'em open before, but I guess I hadn't. Says he, 'That paint has got hydraulic cement in it, and it can stand fire and water and acids;' he named over a lot of things. Says he, 'It'll mix easily with linseed oil, whether you want to use it boiled or raw; and it ain't a-going to crack nor fade any; and it ain't a-going to scale. When you've got your arrangements for burning it properly, you're going to have a paint that will stand like the everlasting hills, in every climate under the sun.' Then he went into a lot of particulars, and I begun to think he was drawing a long-bow, and meant to make his bill accordingly. So I kept pretty cool; but the fellow's bill didn't amount to anything hardly--said I might pay him after I got going; young chap, and pretty easy; but every word he said was gospel. Well, I ain't a-going to brag up my paint; I don't suppose you came here to hear me blow." "Oh yes, I did," said Bartley. "That's what I want. Tell all there is to tell, and I can boil it down afterward. A man can't make a greater mistake with a reporter than to hold back anything out of modesty. It may be the very thing we want to know. What we want is the whole truth; and more; we've got so much modesty of our own that we can temper almost any statement." Lapham looked as if he did not quite like this tone, and he resumed a little more quietly. "Oh, there isn't really very much more to say about the paint itself. But you can use it for almost anything where a paint is wanted, inside or out. It'll prevent decay, and it'll stop it, after it's begun, in tin or iron. You can paint the inside of a cistern or a bath-tub with it, and water won't hurt it; and you can paint a steam-boiler with it, and heat won't. You can cover a brick wall with it, or a railroad car, or the deck of a steamboat, and you can't do a better thing for either." "Never tried it on the human conscience, I suppose," suggested Bartley. "No, sir," replied Lapham gravely. "I guess you want to keep that as free from paint as you can, if you want much use of it. I never cared to try any of it on mine." Lapham suddenly lifted his bulk up out of his swivel-chair, and led the way out into the wareroom beyond the office partitions, where rows and ranks of casks, barrels, and kegs stretched dimly back to the rear of the building, and diffused an honest, clean, wholesome smell of oil and paint. They were labelled and branded as containing each so many pounds of Lapham's Mineral Paint, and each bore the mystic devices, N.L.f. 1835--S.L.t. 1855. "There!" said Lapham, kicking one of the largest casks with the toe of his boot, "that's about our biggest package; and here," he added, laying his hand affectionately on the head of a very small keg, as if it were the head of a child, which it resembled in size, "this is the smallest. We used to put the paint on the market dry, but now we grind every ounce of it in oil--very best quality of linseed oil--and warrant it. We find it gives more satisfaction. Now, come back to the office, and I'll show you our fancy brands." It was very cool and pleasant in that dim wareroom, with the rafters showing overhead in a cloudy perspective, and darkening away into the perpetual twilight at the rear of the building; and Bartley had found an agreeable seat on the head of a half-barrel of the paint, which he was reluctant to leave. But he rose and followed the vigorous lead of Lapham back to the office, where the sun of a long summer afternoon was just beginning to glare in at the window. On shelves opposite Lapham's desk were tin cans of various sizes, arranged in tapering cylinders, and showing, in a pattern diminishing toward the top, the same label borne by the casks and barrels in the wareroom. Lapham merely waved his hand toward these; but when Bartley, after a comprehensive glance at them, gave his whole attention to a row of clean, smooth jars, where different tints of the paint showed through flawless glass, Lapham smiled, and waited in pleased expectation. "Hello!" said Bartley. "That's pretty!" "Yes," assented Lapham, "it is rather nice. It's our latest thing, and we find it takes with customers first-rate. Look here!" he said, taking down one of the jars, and pointing to the first line of the label. Bartley read, "THE PERSIS BRAND," and then he looked at Lapham and smiled. "After HER, of course," said Lapham. "Got it up and put the first of it on the market her last birthday. She was pleased." "I should think she might have been," said Bartley, while he made a note of the appearance of the jars. "I don't know about your mentioning it in your interview," said Lapham dubiously. "That's going into the interview, Mr. Lapham, if nothing else does. Got a wife myself, and I know just how you feel." It was in the dawn of Bartley's prosperity on the Boston Events, before his troubles with Marcia had seriously begun. "Is that so?" said Lapham, recognising with a smile another of the vast majority of married Americans; a few underrate their wives, but the rest think them supernal in intelligence and capability. "Well," he added, "we must see about that. Where'd you say you lived?" "We don't live; we board. Mrs. Nash, 13 Canary Place." "Well, we've all got to commence that way," suggested Lapham consolingly. "Yes; but we've about got to the end of our string. I expect to be under a roof of my own on Clover Street before long. I suppose," said Bartley, returning to business, "that you didn't let the grass grow under your feet much after you found out what was in your paint-mine?" "No, sir," answered Lapham, withdrawing his eyes from a long stare at Bartley, in which he had been seeing himself a young man again, in the first days of his married life. "I went right back to Lumberville and sold out everything, and put all I could rake and scrape together into paint. And Mis' Lapham was with me every time. No hang back about HER. I tell you she was a WOMAN!" Bartley laughed. "That's the sort most of us marry." "No, we don't," said Lapham. "Most of us marry silly little girls grown up to LOOK like women." "Well, I guess that's about so," assented Bartley, as if upon second thought. "If it hadn't been for her," resumed Lapham, "the paint wouldn't have come to anything. I used to tell her it wa'n't the seventy-five per cent. of purr-ox-eyed of iron in the ORE that made that paint go; it was the seventy-five per cent. of purr-ox-eyed of iron in HER." "Good!" cried Bartley. "I'll tell Marcia that." "In less'n six months there wa'n't a board-fence, nor a bridge-girder, nor a dead wall, nor a barn, nor a face of rock in that whole region that didn't have 'Lapham's Mineral Paint--Specimen' on it in the three colours we begun by making." Bartley had taken his seat on the window-sill, and Lapham, standing before him, now put up his huge foot close to Bartley's thigh; neither of them minded that. "I've heard a good deal of talk about that S.T.--1860--X. man, and the stove-blacking man, and the kidney-cure man, because they advertised in that way; and I've read articles about it in the papers; but I don't see where the joke comes in, exactly. So long as the people that own the barns and fences don't object, I don't see what the public has got to do with it. And I never saw anything so very sacred about a big rock, along a river or in a pasture, that it wouldn't do to put mineral paint on it in three colours. I wish some of the people that talk about the landscape, and WRITE about it, had to bu'st one of them rocks OUT of the landscape with powder, or dig a hole to bury it in, as we used to have to do up on the farm; I guess they'd sing a little different tune about the profanation of scenery. There ain't any man enjoys a sightly bit of nature--a smooth piece of interval with half a dozen good-sized wine-glass elms in it--more than I do. But I ain't a-going to stand up for every big ugly rock I come across, as if we were all a set of dumn Druids. I say the landscape was made for man, and not man for the landscape." "Yes," said Bartley carelessly; "it was made for the stove-polish man and the kidney-cure man." "It was made for any man that knows how to use it," Lapham returned, insensible to Bartley's irony. "Let 'em go and live with nature in the WINTER, up there along the Canada line, and I guess they'll get enough of her for one while. Well--where was I?" "Decorating the landscape," said Bartley. "Yes, sir; I started right there at Lumberville, and it give the place a start too. You won't find it on the map now; and you won't find it in the gazetteer. I give a pretty good lump of money to build a town-hall, about five years back, and the first meeting they held in it they voted to change the name,--Lumberville WA'N'T a name,--and it's Lapham now." "Isn't it somewhere up in that region that they get the old Brandon red?" asked Bartley. "We're about ninety miles from Brandon. The Brandon's a good paint," said Lapham conscientiously. "Like to show you round up at our place some odd time, if you get off." "Thanks. I should like it first-rate. WORKS there?" "Yes; works there. Well, sir, just about the time I got started, the war broke out; and it knocked my paint higher than a kite. The thing dropped perfectly dead. I presume that if I'd had any sort of influence, I might have got it into Government hands, for gun-carriages and army wagons, and may be on board Government vessels. But I hadn't, and we had to face the music. I was about broken-hearted, but m'wife she looked at it another way. 'I guess it's a providence,' says she. 'Silas, I guess you've got a country that's worth fighting for. Any rate, you better go out and give it a chance.' Well, sir, I went. I knew she meant business. It might kill her to have me go, but it would kill her sure if I stayed. She was one of that kind. I went. Her last words was, 'I'll look after the paint, Si.' We hadn't but just one little girl then,--boy'd died,--and Mis' Lapham's mother was livin' with us; and I knew if times DID anyways come up again, m'wife'd know just what to do. So I went. I got through; and you can call me Colonel, if you want to. Feel there!" Lapham took Bartley's thumb and forefinger and put them on a bunch in his leg, just above the knee. "Anything hard?" "Ball?" Lapham nodded. "Gettysburg. That's my thermometer. If it wa'n't for that, I shouldn't know enough to come in when it rains." Bartley laughed at a joke which betrayed some evidences of wear. "And when you came back, you took hold of the paint and rushed it." "I took hold of the paint and rushed it--all I could," said Lapham, with less satisfaction than he had hitherto shown in his autobiography. "But I found that I had got back to another world. The day of small things was past, and I don't suppose it will ever come again in this country. My wife was at me all the time to take a partner--somebody with capital; but I couldn't seem to bear the idea. That paint was like my own blood to me. To have anybody else concerned in it was like--well, I don't know what. I saw it was the thing to do; but I tried to fight it off, and I tried to joke it off. I used to say, 'Why didn't you take a partner yourself, Persis, while I was away?' And she'd say, 'Well, if you hadn't come back, I should, Si.' Always DID like a joke about as well as any woman I ever saw. Well, I had to come to it. I took a partner." Lapham dropped the bold blue eyes with which he had been till now staring into Bartley's face, and the reporter knew that here was a place for asterisks in his interview, if interviews were faithful. "He had money enough," continued Lapham, with a suppressed sigh; "but he didn't know anything about paint. We hung on together for a year or two. And then we quit." "And he had the experience," suggested Bartley, with companionable ease. "I had some of the experience too," said Lapham, with a scowl; and Bartley divined, through the freemasonry of all who have sore places in their memories, that this was a point which he must not touch again. "And since that, I suppose, you've played it alone." "I've played it alone." "You must ship some of this paint of yours to foreign countries, Colonel?" suggested Bartley, putting on a professional air. "We ship it to all parts of the world. It goes to South America, lots of it. It goes to Australia, and it goes to India, and it goes to China, and it goes to the Cape of Good Hope. It'll stand any climate. Of course, we don't export these fancy brands much. They're for home use. But we're introducing them elsewhere. Here." Lapham pulled open a drawer, and showed Bartley a lot of labels in different languages--Spanish, French, German, and Italian. "We expect to do a good business in all those countries. We've got our agencies in Cadiz now, and in Paris, and in Hamburg, and in Leghorn. It's a thing that's bound to make its way. Yes, sir. Wherever a man has got a ship, or a bridge, or a lock, or a house, or a car, or a fence, or a pig-pen anywhere in God's universe to paint, that's the paint for him, and he's bound to find it out sooner or later. You pass a ton of that paint dry through a blast-furnace, and you'll get a quarter of a ton of pig-iron. I believe in my paint. I believe it's a blessing to the world. When folks come in, and kind of smell round, and ask me what I mix it with, I always say, 'Well, in the first place, I mix it with FAITH, and after that I grind it up with the best quality of boiled linseed oil that money will buy.'" Lapham took out his watch and looked at it, and Bartley perceived that his audience was drawing to a close. "'F you ever want to run down and take a look at our works, pass you over the road,"--he called it RUD--"and it sha'n't cost you a cent." "Well, may be I shall, sometime," said Bartley. "Good afternoon, Colonel." "Good afternoon. Or--hold on! My horse down there yet, William?" he called to the young man in the counting-room who had taken his letter at the beginning of the interview. "Oh! All right!" he added, in response to something the young man said. "Can't I set you down somewhere, Mr. Hubbard? I've got my horse at the door, and I can drop you on my way home. I'm going to take Mis' Lapham to look at a house I'm driving piles for, down on the New Land." "Don't care if I do," said Bartley. Lapham put on a straw hat, gathered up some papers lying on his desk, pulled down its rolling cover, turned the key in it, and gave the papers to an extremely handsome young woman at one of the desks in the outer office. She was stylishly dressed, as Bartley saw, and her smooth, yellow hair was sculpturesquely waved over a low, white forehead. "Here," said Lapham, with the same prompt gruff kindness that he had used in addressing the young man, "I want you should put these in shape, and give me a type-writer copy to-morrow." "What an uncommonly pretty girl!" said Bartley, as they descended the rough stairway and found their way out to the street, past the dangling rope of a block and tackle wandering up into the cavernous darkness overhead. "She does her work," said Lapham shortly. Bartley mounted to the left side of the open buggy standing at the curb-stone, and Lapham, gathering up the hitching-weight, slid it under the buggy-seat and mounted beside him. "No chance to speed a horse here, of course," said Lapham, while the horse with a spirited gentleness picked her way, with a high, long action, over the pavement of the street. The streets were all narrow, and most of them crooked, in that quarter of the town; but at the end of one the spars of a vessel pencilled themselves delicately against the cool blue of the afternoon sky. The air was full of a smell pleasantly compounded of oakum, of leather, and of oil. It was not the busy season, and they met only two or three trucks heavily straggling toward the wharf with their long string teams; but the cobble-stones of the pavement were worn with the dint of ponderous wheels, and discoloured with iron-rust from them; here and there, in wandering streaks over its surface, was the grey stain of the salt water with which the street had been sprinkled. After an interval of some minutes, which both men spent in looking round the dash-board from opposite sides to watch the stride of the horse, Bartley said, with a light sigh, "I had a colt once down in Maine that stepped just like that mare." "Well!" said Lapham, sympathetically recognising the bond that this fact created between them. "Well, now, I tell you what you do. You let me come for you 'most any afternoon, now, and take you out over the Milldam, and speed this mare a little. I'd like to show you what this mare can do. Yes, I would." "All right," answered Bartley; "I'll let you know my first day off." "Good," cried Lapham. "Kentucky?" queried Bartley. "No, sir. I don't ride behind anything but Vermont; never did. Touch of Morgan, of course; but you can't have much Morgan in a horse if you want speed. Hambletonian mostly. Where'd you say you wanted to get out?" "I guess you may put me down at the Events Office, just round the corner here. I've got to write up this interview while it's fresh." "All right," said Lapham, impersonally assenting to Bartley's use of him as material. He had not much to complain of in Bartley's treatment, unless it was the strain of extravagant compliment which it involved. But the flattery was mainly for the paint, whose virtues Lapham did not believe could be overstated, and himself and his history had been treated with as much respect as Bartley was capable of showing any one. He made a very picturesque thing of the discovery of the paint-mine. "Deep in the heart of the virgin forests of Vermont, far up toward the line of the Canadian snows, on a desolate mountain-side, where an autumnal storm had done its wild work, and the great trees, strewn hither and thither, bore witness to its violence, Nehemiah Lapham discovered, just forty years ago, the mineral which the alchemy of his son's enterprise and energy has transmuted into solid ingots of the most precious of metals. The colossal fortune of Colonel Silas Lapham lay at the bottom of a hole which an uprooted tree had dug for him, and which for many years remained a paint-mine of no more appreciable value than a soap-mine." Here Bartley had not been able to forego another grin; but he compensated for it by the high reverence with which he spoke of Colonel Lapham's record during the war of the rebellion, and of the motives which impelled him to turn aside from an enterprise in which his whole heart was engaged, and take part in the struggle. "The Colonel bears embedded in the muscle of his right leg a little memento of the period in the shape of a minie-ball, which he jocularly referred to as his thermometer, and which relieves him from the necessity of reading 'The Probabilities' in his morning paper. This saves him just so much time; and for a man who, as he said, has not a moment of waste time on him anywhere, five minutes a day are something in the course of a year. Simple, clear, bold, and straightforward in mind and action, Colonel Silas Lapham, with a prompt comprehensiveness and a never-failing business sagacity, is, in the best sense of that much-abused term, one of nature's noblemen, to the last inch of his five eleven and a half. His life affords an example of single-minded application and unwavering perseverance which our young business men would do well to emulate. There is nothing showy or meretricious about the man. He believes in mineral paint, and he puts his heart and soul into it. He makes it a religion; though we would not imply that it IS his religion. Colonel Lapham is a regular attendant at the Rev. Dr. Langworthy's church. He subscribes liberally to the Associated Charities, and no good object or worthy public enterprise fails to receive his support. He is not now actively in politics, and his paint is not partisan; but it is an open secret that he is, and always has been, a staunch Republican. Without violating the sanctities of private life, we cannot speak fully of various details which came out in the free and unembarrassed interview which Colonel Lapham accorded our representative. But we may say that the success of which he is justly proud he is also proud to attribute in great measure to the sympathy and energy of his wife--one of those women who, in whatever walk of life, seem born to honour the name of American Woman, and to redeem it from the national reproach of Daisy Millerism. Of Colonel Lapham's family, we will simply add that it consists of two young lady daughters. "The subject of this very inadequate sketch is building a house on the water side of Beacon Street, after designs by one of our leading architectural firms, which, when complete, will be one of the finest ornaments of that exclusive avenue. It will, we believe, be ready for the occupancy of the family sometime in the spring." When Bartley had finished his article, which he did with a good deal of inward derision, he went home to Marcia, still smiling over the thought of Lapham, whose burly simplicity had peculiarly amused him. "He regularly turned himself inside out to me," he said, as he sat describing his interview to Marcia. "Then I know you could make something nice out of it," said his wife; "and that will please Mr. Witherby." "Oh yes, I've done pretty well; but I couldn't let myself loose on him the way I wanted to. Confound the limitations of decency, anyway! I should like to have told just what Colonel Lapham thought of landscape advertising in Colonel Lapham's own words. I'll tell you one thing, Marsh: he had a girl there at one of the desks that you wouldn't let ME have within gunshot of MY office. Pretty? It ain't any name for it!" Marcia's eyes began to blaze, and Bartley broke out into a laugh, in which he arrested himself at sight of a formidable parcel in the corner of the room. "Hello! What's that?" "Why, I don't know what it is," replied Marcia tremulously. "A man brought it just before you came in, and I didn't like to open it." "Think it was some kind of infernal machine?" asked Bartley, getting down on his knees to examine the package. "MRS. B. Hubbard, heigh?" He cut the heavy hemp string with his penknife. "We must look into this thing. I should like to know who's sending packages to Mrs. Hubbard in my absence." He unfolded the wrappings of paper, growing softer and finer inward, and presently pulled out a handsome square glass jar, through which a crimson mass showed richly. "The Persis Brand!" he yelled. "I knew it!" "Oh, what is it, Bartley?" quavered Marcia. Then, courageously drawing a little nearer: "Is it some kind of jam?" she implored. "Jam? No!" roared Bartley. "It's PAINT! It's mineral paint--Lapham's paint!" "Paint?" echoed Marcia, as she stood over him while he stripped their wrappings from the jars which showed the dark blue, dark green, light brown, dark brown, and black, with the dark crimson, forming the gamut of colour of the Lapham paint. "Don't TELL me it's paint that I can use, Bartley!" "Well, I shouldn't advise you to use much of it--all at once," replied her husband. "But it's paint that you can use in moderation." Marcia cast her arms round his neck and kissed him. "O Bartley, I think I'm the happiest girl in the world! I was just wondering what I should do. There are places in that Clover Street house that need touching up so dreadfully. I shall be very careful. You needn't be afraid I shall overdo. But, this just saves my life. Did you BUY it, Bartley? You know we couldn't afford it, and you oughtn't to have done it! And what does the Persis Brand mean?" "Buy it?" cried Bartley. "No! The old fool's sent it to you as a present. You'd better wait for the facts before you pitch into me for extravagance, Marcia. Persis is the name of his wife; and he named it after her because it's his finest brand. You'll see it in my interview. Put it on the market her last birthday for a surprise to her." "What old fool?" faltered Marcia. "Why, Lapham--the mineral paint man." "Oh, what a good man!" sighed Marcia from the bottom of her soul. "Bartley! you WON'T make fun of him as you do of some of those people? WILL you?" "Nothing that HE'LL ever find out," said Bartley, getting up and brushing off the carpet-lint from his knees. II. AFTER dropping Bartley Hubbard at the Events building, Lapham drove on down Washington Street to Nankeen Square at the South End, where he had lived ever since the mistaken movement of society in that direction ceased. He had not built, but had bought very cheap of a terrified gentleman of good extraction who discovered too late that the South End was not the thing, and who in the eagerness of his flight to the Back Bay threw in his carpets and shades for almost nothing. Mrs. Lapham was even better satisfied with their bargain than the Colonel himself, and they had lived in Nankeen Square for twelve years. They had seen the saplings planted in the pretty oval round which the houses were built flourish up into sturdy young trees, and their two little girls in the same period had grown into young ladies; the Colonel's tough frame had expanded into the bulk which Bartley's interview indicated; and Mrs. Lapham, while keeping a more youthful outline, showed the sharp print of the crow's-foot at the corners of her motherly eyes, and certain slight creases in her wholesome cheeks. The fact that they lived in an unfashionable neighbourhood was something that they had never been made to feel to their personal disadvantage, and they had hardly known it till the summer before this story opens, when Mrs. Lapham and her daughter Irene had met some other Bostonians far from Boston, who made it memorable. They were people whom chance had brought for the time under a singular obligation to the Lapham ladies, and they were gratefully recognisant of it. They had ventured--a mother and two daughters--as far as a rather wild little Canadian watering-place on the St. Lawrence, below Quebec, and had arrived some days before their son and brother was expected to join them. Two of their trunks had gone astray, and on the night of their arrival the mother was taken violently ill. Mrs. Lapham came to their help, with her skill as nurse, and with the abundance of her own and her daughter's wardrobe, and a profuse, single-hearted kindness. When a doctor could be got at, he said that but for Mrs. Lapham's timely care, the lady would hardly have lived. He was a very effusive little Frenchman, and fancied he was saying something very pleasant to everybody. A certain intimacy inevitably followed, and when the son came he was even more grateful than the others. Mrs. Lapham could not quite understand why he should be as attentive to her as to Irene; but she compared him with other young men about the place, and thought him nicer than any of them. She had not the means of a wider comparison; for in Boston, with all her husband's prosperity, they had not had a social life. Their first years there were given to careful getting on Lapham's part, and careful saving on his wife's. Suddenly the money began to come so abundantly that she need not save; and then they did not know what to do with it. A certain amount could be spent on horses, and Lapham spent it; his wife spent on rich and rather ugly clothes and a luxury of household appointments. Lapham had not yet reached the picture-buying stage of the rich man's development, but they decorated their house with the costliest and most abominable frescoes; they went upon journeys, and lavished upon cars and hotels; they gave with both hands to their church and to all the charities it brought them acquainted with; but they did not know how to spend on society. Up to a certain period Mrs. Lapham had the ladies of her neighbourhood in to tea, as her mother had done in the country in her younger days. Lapham's idea of hospitality was still to bring a heavy-buying customer home to pot-luck; neither of them imagined dinners. Their two girls had gone to the public schools, where they had not got on as fast as some of the other girls; so that they were a year behind in graduating from the grammar-school, where Lapham thought that they had got education enough. His wife was of a different mind; she would have liked them to go to some private school for their finishing. But Irene did not care for study; she preferred house-keeping, and both the sisters were afraid of being snubbed by the other girls, who were of a different sort from the girls of the grammar-school; these were mostly from the parks and squares, like themselves. It ended in their going part of a year. But the elder had an odd taste of her own for reading, and she took some private lessons, and read books out of the circulating library; the whole family were amazed at the number she read, and rather proud of it. They were not girls who embroidered or abandoned themselves to needle-work. Irene spent her abundant leisure in shopping for herself and her mother, of whom both daughters made a kind of idol, buying her caps and laces out of their pin-money, and getting her dresses far beyond her capacity to wear. Irene dressed herself very stylishly, and spent hours on her toilet every day. Her sister had a simpler taste, and, if she had done altogether as she liked, might even have slighted dress. They all three took long naps every day, and sat hours together minutely discussing what they saw out of the window. In her self-guided search for self-improvement, the elder sister went to many church lectures on a vast variety of secular subjects, and usually came home with a comic account of them, and that made more matter of talk for the whole family. She could make fun of nearly everything; Irene complained that she scared away the young men whom they got acquainted with at the dancing-school sociables. They were, perhaps, not the wisest young men. The girls had learned to dance at Papanti's; but they had not belonged to the private classes. They did not even know of them, and a great gulf divided them from those who did. Their father did not like company, except such as came informally in their way; and their mother had remained too rustic to know how to attract it in the sophisticated city fashion. None of them had grasped the idea of European travel; but they had gone about to mountain and sea-side resorts, the mother and the two girls, where they witnessed the spectacle which such resorts present throughout New England, of multitudes of girls, lovely, accomplished, exquisitely dressed, humbly glad of the presence of any sort of young man; but the Laphams had no skill or courage to make themselves noticed, far less courted by the solitary invalid, or clergyman, or artist. They lurked helplessly about in the hotel parlours, looking on and not knowing how to put themselves forward. Perhaps they did not care a great deal to do so. They had not a conceit of themselves, but a sort of content in their own ways that one may notice in certain families. The very strength of their mutual affection was a barrier to worldly knowledge; they dressed for one another; they equipped their house for their own satisfaction; they lived richly to themselves, not because they were selfish, but because they did not know how to do otherwise. The elder daughter did not care for society, apparently. The younger, who was but three years younger, was not yet quite old enough to be ambitious of it. With all her wonderful beauty, she had an innocence almost vegetable. When her beauty, which in its immaturity was crude and harsh, suddenly ripened, she bloomed and glowed with the unconsciousness of a flower; she not merely did not feel herself admired, but hardly knew herself discovered. If she dressed well, perhaps too well, it was because she had the instinct of dress; but till she met this young man who was so nice to her at Baie St. Paul, she had scarcely lived a detached, individual life, so wholly had she depended on her mother and her sister for her opinions, almost her sensations. She took account of everything he did and said, pondering it, and trying to make out exactly what he meant, to the inflection of a syllable, the slightest movement or gesture. In this way she began for the first time to form ideas which she had not derived from her family, and they were none the less her own because they were often mistaken. Some of the things that he partly said, partly looked, she reported to her mother, and they talked them over, as they did everything relating to these new acquaintances, and wrought them into the novel point of view which they were acquiring. When Mrs. Lapham returned home, she submitted all the accumulated facts of the case, and all her own conjectures, to her husband, and canvassed them anew. At first he was disposed to regard the whole affair as of small importance, and she had to insist a little beyond her own convictions in order to counteract his indifference. "Well, I can tell you," she said, "that if you think they were not the nicest people you ever saw, you're mightily mistaken. They had about the best manners; and they had been everywhere, and knew everything. I declare it made me feel as if we had always lived in the backwoods. I don't know but the mother and the daughters would have let you feel so a little, if they'd showed out all they thought; but they never did; and the son--well, I can't express it, Silas! But that young man had about perfect ways." "Seem struck up on Irene?" asked the Colonel. "How can I tell? He seemed just about as much struck up on me. Anyway, he paid me as much attention as he did her. Perhaps it's more the way, now, to notice the mother than it used to be." Lapham ventured no conjecture, but asked, as he had asked already, who the people were. Mrs. Lapham repeated their name. Lapham nodded his head. "Do you know them? What business is he in?" "I guess he ain't in anything," said Lapham. "They were very nice," said Mrs. Lapham impartially. "Well, they'd ought to be," returned the Colonel. "Never done anything else." "They didn't seem stuck up," urged his wife. "They'd no need to--with you. I could buy him and sell him, twice over." This answer satisfied Mrs. Lapham rather with the fact than with her husband. "Well, I guess I wouldn't brag, Silas," she said. In the winter the ladies of this family, who returned to town very late, came to call on Mrs. Lapham. They were again very polite. But the mother let drop, in apology for their calling almost at nightfall, that the coachman had not known the way exactly. "Nearly all our friends are on the New Land or on the Hill." There was a barb in this that rankled after the ladies had gone; and on comparing notes with her daughter, Mrs. Lapham found that a barb had been left to rankle in her mind also. "They said they had never been in this part of the town before." Upon a strict search of her memory, Irene could not report that the fact had been stated with anything like insinuation, but it was that which gave it a more penetrating effect. "Oh, well, of course," said Lapham, to whom these facts were referred. "Those sort of people haven't got much business up our way, and they don't come. It's a fair thing all round. We don't trouble the Hill or the New Land much." "We know where they are," suggested his wife thoughtfully. "Yes," assented the Colonel. "I know where they are. I've got a lot of land over on the Back Bay." "You have?" eagerly demanded his wife. "Want me to build on it?" he asked in reply, with a quizzical smile. "I guess we can get along here for a while." This was at night. In the morning Mrs. Lapham said-- "I suppose we ought to do the best we can for the children, in every way." "I supposed we always had," replied her husband. "Yes, we have, according to our light." "Have you got some new light?" "I don't know as it's light. But if the girls are going to keep on living in Boston and marry here, I presume we ought to try to get them into society, some way; or ought to do something." "Well, who's ever done more for their children than we have?" demanded Lapham, with a pang at the thought that he could possibly have been out-done. "Don't they have everything they want? Don't they dress just as you say? Don't you go everywhere with 'em? Is there ever anything going on that's worth while that they don't see it or hear it? I don't know what you mean. Why don't you get them into society? There's money enough!" "There's got to be something besides money, I guess," said Mrs. Lapham, with a hopeless sigh. "I presume we didn't go to work just the right way about their schooling. We ought to have got them into some school where they'd have got acquainted with city girls--girls who could help them along." "Nearly everybody at Miss Smillie's was from some where else." "Well, it's pretty late to think about that now," grumbled Lapham. "And we've always gone our own way, and not looked out for the future. We ought to have gone out more, and had people come to the house. Nobody comes." "Well, is that my fault? I guess nobody ever makes people welcomer." "We ought to have invited company more." "Why don't you do it now? If it's for the girls, I don't care if you have the house full all the while." Mrs. Lapham was forced to a confession full of humiliation. "I don't know who to ask." "Well, you can't expect me to tell you." "No; we're both country people, and we've kept our country ways, and we don't, either of us, know what to do. You've had to work so hard, and your luck was so long coming, and then it came with such a rush, that we haven't had any chance to learn what to do with it. It's just the same with Irene's looks; I didn't expect she was ever going to have any, she WAS such a plain child, and, all at once, she's blazed out this way. As long as it was Pen that didn't seem to care for society, I didn't give much mind to it. But I can see it's going to be different with Irene. I don't believe but what we're in the wrong neighbourhood." "Well," said the Colonel, "there ain't a prettier lot on the Back Bay than mine. It's on the water side of Beacon, and it's twenty-eight feet wide and a hundred and fifty deep. Let's build on it." Mrs. Lapham was silent a while. "No," she said finally; "we've always got along well enough here, and I guess we better stay." At breakfast she said casually: "Girls, how would you like to have your father build on the New Land?" The girls said they did not know. It was more convenient to the horse-cars where they were. Mrs. Lapham stole a look of relief at her husband, and nothing more was said of the matter. The mother of the family who had called upon Mrs. Lapham brought her husband's cards, and when Mrs. Lapham returned the visit she was in some trouble about the proper form of acknowledging the civility. The Colonel had no card but a business card, which advertised the principal depot and the several agencies of the mineral paint; and Mrs. Lapham doubted, till she wished to goodness that she had never seen nor heard of those people, whether to ignore her husband in the transaction altogether, or to write his name on her own card. She decided finally upon this measure, and she had the relief of not finding the family at home. As far as she could judge, Irene seemed to suffer a little disappointment from the fact. For several months there was no communication between the families. Then there came to Nankeen Square a lithographed circular from the people on the Hill, signed in ink by the mother, and affording Mrs. Lapham an opportunity to subscribe for a charity of undeniable merit and acceptability. She submitted it to her husband, who promptly drew a cheque for five hundred dollars. She tore it in two. "I will take a cheque for a hundred, Silas," she said. "Why?" he asked, looking up guiltily at her. "Because a hundred is enough; and I don't want to show off before them." "Oh, I thought may be you did. Well, Pert," he added, having satisfied human nature by the preliminary thrust, "I guess you're about right. When do you want I should begin to build on Beacon Street?" He handed her the new cheque, where she stood over him, and then leaned back in his chair and looked up at her. "I don't want you should begin at all. What do you mean, Silas?" She rested against the side of his desk. "Well, I don't know as I mean anything. But shouldn't you like to build? Everybody builds, at least once in a lifetime." "Where is your lot? They say it's unhealthy, over there." Up to a certain point in their prosperity Mrs. Lapham had kept strict account of all her husband's affairs; but as they expanded, and ceased to be of the retail nature with which women successfully grapple, the intimate knowledge of them made her nervous. There was a period in which she felt that they were being ruined, but the crash had not come; and, since his great success, she had abandoned herself to a blind confidence in her husband's judgment, which she had hitherto felt needed her revision. He came and went, day by day, unquestioned. He bought and sold and got gain. She knew that he would tell her if ever things went wrong, and he knew that she would ask him whenever she was anxious. "It ain't unhealthy where I've bought," said Lapham, rather enjoying her insinuation. "I looked after that when I was trading; and I guess it's about as healthy on the Back Bay as it is here, anyway. I got that lot for you, Pert; I thought you'd want to build on the Back Bay some day." "Pshaw!" said Mrs. Lapham, deeply pleased inwardly, but not going to show it, as she would have said. "I guess you want to build there yourself." She insensibly got a little nearer to her husband. They liked to talk to each other in that blunt way; it is the New England way of expressing perfect confidence and tenderness. "Well, I guess I do," said Lapham, not insisting upon the unselfish view of the matter. "I always did like the water side of Beacon. There ain't a sightlier place in the world for a house. And some day there's bound to be a drive-way all along behind them houses, between them and the water, and then a lot there is going to be worth the gold that will cover it--COIN. I've had offers for that lot, Pert, twice over what I give for it. Yes, I have. Don't you want to ride over there some afternoon with me and see it?" "I'm satisfied where we be, Si," said Mrs. Lapham, recurring to the parlance of her youth in her pathos at her husband's kindness. She sighed anxiously, for she felt the trouble a woman knows in view of any great change. They had often talked of altering over the house in which they lived, but they had never come to it; and they had often talked of building, but it had always been a house in the country that they had thought of. "I wish you had sold that lot." "I hain't," said the colonel briefly. "I don't know as I feel much like changing our way of living." "Guess we could live there pretty much as we live here. There's all kinds of people on Beacon Street; you mustn't think they're all big-bugs. I know one party that lives in a house he built to sell, and his wife don't keep any girl. You can have just as much style there as you want, or just as little. I guess we live as well as most of 'em now, and set as good a table. And if you come to style, I don't know as anybody has got more of a right to put it on than what we have." "Well, I don't want to build on Beacon Street, Si," said Mrs. Lapham gently. "Just as you please, Persis. I ain't in any hurry to leave." Mrs. Lapham stood flapping the cheque which she held in her right hand against the edge of her left. The Colonel still sat looking up at her face, and watching the effect of the poison of ambition which he had artfully instilled into her mind. She sighed again--a yielding sigh. "What are you going to do this afternoon?" "I'm going to take a turn on the Brighton road," said the Colonel. "I don't believe but what I should like to go along," said his wife. "All right. You hain't ever rode behind that mare yet, Pert, and I want you should see me let her out once. They say the snow's all packed down already, and the going is A 1." At four o'clock in the afternoon, with a cold, red winter sunset before them, the Colonel and his wife were driving slowly down Beacon Street in the light, high-seated cutter, where, as he said, they were a pretty tight fit. He was holding the mare in till the time came to speed her, and the mare was springily jolting over the snow, looking intelligently from side to side, and cocking this ear and that, while from her nostrils, her head tossing easily, she blew quick, irregular whiffs of steam. "Gay, ain't she?" proudly suggested the Colonel. "She IS gay," assented his wife. They met swiftly dashing sleighs, and let them pass on either hand, down the beautiful avenue narrowing with an admirably even sky-line in the perspective. They were not in a hurry. The mare jounced easily along, and they talked of the different houses on either side of the way. They had a crude taste in architecture, and they admired the worst. There were women's faces at many of the handsome windows, and once in a while a young man on the pavement caught his hat suddenly from his head, and bowed in response to some salutation from within. "I don't think our girls would look very bad behind one of those big panes," said the Colonel. "No," said his wife dreamily. "Where's the YOUNG man? Did he come with them?" "No; he was to spend the winter with a friend of his that has a ranch in Texas. I guess he's got to do something." "Yes; gentlemaning as a profession has got to play out in a generation or two." Neither of them spoke of the lot, though Lapham knew perfectly well what his wife had come with him for, and she was aware that he knew it. The time came when he brought the mare down to a walk, and then slowed up almost to a stop, while they both turned their heads to the right and looked at the vacant lot, through which showed the frozen stretch of the Back Bay, a section of the Long Bridge, and the roofs and smoke-stacks of Charlestown. "Yes, it's sightly," said Mrs. Lapham, lifting her hand from the reins, on which she had unconsciously laid it. Lapham said nothing, but he let the mare out a little. The sleighs and cutters were thickening round them. On the Milldam it became difficult to restrict the mare to the long, slow trot into which he let her break. The beautiful landscape widened to right and left of them, with the sunset redder and redder, over the low, irregular hills before them. They crossed the Milldam into Longwood; and here, from the crest of the first upland, stretched two endless lines, in which thousands of cutters went and came. Some of the drivers were already speeding their horses, and these shot to and fro on inner lines, between the slowly moving vehicles on either side of the road. Here and there a burly mounted policeman, bulging over the pommel of his M'Clellan saddle, jolted by, silently gesturing and directing the course, and keeping it all under the eye of the law. It was what Bartley Hubbard called "a carnival of fashion and gaiety on the Brighton road," in his account of it. But most of the people in those elegant sleighs and cutters had so little the air of the great world that one knowing it at all must have wondered where they and their money came from; and the gaiety of the men, at least, was expressed, like that of Colonel Lapham, in a grim almost fierce, alertness; the women wore an air of courageous apprehension. At a certain point the Colonel said, "I'm going to let her out, Pert," and he lifted and then dropped the reins lightly on the mare's back. She understood the signal, and, as an admirer said, "she laid down to her work." Nothing in the immutable iron of Lapham's face betrayed his sense of triumph as the mare left everything behind her on the road. Mrs. Lapham, if she felt fear, was too busy holding her flying wraps about her, and shielding her face from the scud of ice flung from the mare's heels, to betray it; except for the rush of her feet, the mare was as silent as the people behind her; the muscles of her back and thighs worked more and more swiftly, like some mechanism responding to an alien force, and she shot to the end of the course, grazing a hundred encountered and rival sledges in her passage, but unmolested by the policemen, who probably saw that the mare and the Colonel knew what they were about, and, at any rate, were not the sort of men to interfere with trotting like that. At the end of the heat Lapham drew her in, and turned off on a side street into Brookline. "Tell you what, Pert," he said, as if they had been quietly jogging along, with time for uninterrupted thought since he last spoke, "I've about made up my mind to build on that lot." "All right, Silas," said Mrs. Lapham; "I suppose you know what you're about. Don't build on it for me, that's all." When she stood in the hall at home, taking off her things, she said to the girls, who were helping her, "Some day your father will get killed with that mare." "Did he speed her?" asked Penelope, the elder. She was named after her grandmother, who had in her turn inherited from another ancestress the name of the Homeric matron whose peculiar merits won her a place even among the Puritan Faiths, Hopes, Temperances, and Prudences. Penelope was the girl whose odd serious face had struck Bartley Hubbard in the photograph of the family group Lapham showed him on the day of the interview. Her large eyes, like her hair, were brown; they had the peculiar look of near-sighted eyes which is called mooning; her complexion was of a dark pallor. Her mother did not reply to a question which might be considered already answered. "He says he's going to build on that lot of his," she next remarked, unwinding the long veil which she had tied round her neck to hold her bonnet on. She put her hat and cloak on the hall table, to be carried upstairs later, and they all went in to tea: creamed oysters, birds, hot biscuit, two kinds of cake, and dishes of stewed and canned fruit and honey. The women dined alone at one, and the Colonel at the same hour down-town. But he liked a good hot meal when he got home in the evening. The house flared with gas; and the Colonel, before he sat down, went about shutting the registers, through which a welding heat came voluming up from the furnace. "I'll be the death of that darkey YET," he said, "if he don't stop making on such a fire. The only way to get any comfort out of your furnace is to take care of it yourself." "Well," answered his wife from behind the teapot, as he sat down at table with this threat, "there's nothing to prevent you, Si. And you can shovel the snow too, if you want to--till you get over to Beacon Street, anyway." "I guess I can keep my own sidewalk on Beacon Street clean, if I take the notion." "I should like to see you at it," retorted his wife. "Well, you keep a sharp lookout, and may be you will." Their taunts were really expressions of affectionate pride in each other. They liked to have it, give and take, that way, as they would have said, right along. "A man can be a man on Beacon Street as well as anywhere, I guess." "Well, I'll do the wash, as I used to in Lumberville," said Mrs. Lapham. "I presume you'll let me have set tubs, Si. You know I ain't so young any more." She passed Irene a cup of Oolong tea,--none of them had a sufficiently cultivated palate for Sou-chong,--and the girl handed it to her father. "Papa," she asked, "you don't really mean that you're going to build over there?" "Don't I? You wait and see," said the Colonel, stirring his tea. "I don't believe you do," pursued the girl. "Is that so? I presume you'd hate to have me. Your mother does." He said DOOS, of course. Penelope took the word. "I go in for it. I don't see any use in not enjoying money, if you've got it to enjoy. That's what it's for, I suppose; though you mightn't always think so." She had a slow, quaint way of talking, that seemed a pleasant personal modification of some ancestral Yankee drawl, and her voice was low and cozy, and so far from being nasal that it was a little hoarse. "I guess the ayes has it, Pen," said her father. "How would it do to let Irene and your mother stick in the old place here, and us go into the new house?" At times the Colonel's grammar failed him. The matter dropped, and the Laphams lived on as before, with joking recurrences to the house on the water side of Beacon. The Colonel seemed less in earnest than any of them about it; but that was his way, his girls said; you never could tell when he really meant a thing. III. TOWARD the end of the winter there came a newspaper, addressed to Miss Irene Lapham; it proved to be a Texas newspaper, with a complimentary account of the ranch of the Hon. Loring G. Stanton, which the representative of the journal had visited. "It must be his friend," said Mrs. Lapham, to whom her daughter brought the paper; "the one he's staying with." The girl did not say anything, but she carried the paper to her room, where she scanned every line of it for another name. She did not find it, but she cut the notice out and stuck it into the side of her mirror, where she could read it every morning when she brushed her hair, and the last thing at night when she looked at herself in the glass just before turning off the gas. Her sister often read it aloud, standing behind her and rendering it with elocutionary effects. "The first time I ever heard of a love-letter in the form of a puff to a cattle-ranch. But perhaps that's the style on the Hill." Mrs. Lapham told her husband of the arrival of the paper, treating the fact with an importance that he refused to see in it. "How do you know the fellow sent it, anyway?" he demanded. "Oh, I know he did." "I don't see why he couldn't write to 'Rene, if he really meant anything." "Well, I guess that wouldn't be their way," said Mrs. Lapham; she did not at all know what their way would be. When the spring opened Colonel Lapham showed that he had been in earnest about building on the New Land. His idea of a house was a brown-stone front, four stories high, and a French roof with an air-chamber above. Inside, there was to be a reception-room on the street and a dining-room back. The parlours were to be on the second floor, and finished in black walnut or party-coloured paint. The chambers were to be on the three floors above, front and rear, with side-rooms over the front door. Black walnut was to be used everywhere except in the attic, which was to be painted and grained to look like black walnut. The whole was to be very high-studded, and there were to be handsome cornices and elaborate centre-pieces throughout, except, again, in the attic. These ideas he had formed from the inspection of many new buildings which he had seen going up, and which he had a passion for looking into. He was confirmed in his ideas by a master builder who had put up a great many houses on the Back Bay as a speculation, and who told him that if he wanted to have a house in the style, that was the way to have it. The beginnings of the process by which Lapham escaped from the master builder and ended in the hands of an architect are so obscure that it would be almost impossible to trace them. But it all happened, and Lapham promptly developed his ideas of black walnut finish, high studding, and cornices. The architect was able to conceal the shudder which they must have sent through him. He was skilful, as nearly all architects are, in playing upon that simple instrument Man. He began to touch Colonel Lapham's stops. "Oh, certainly, have the parlours high-studded. But you've seen some of those pretty old-fashioned country-houses, haven't you, where the entrance-story is very low-studded?" "Yes," Lapham assented. "Well, don't you think something of that kind would have a very nice effect? Have the entrance-story low-studded, and your parlours on the next floor as high as you please. Put your little reception-room here beside the door, and get the whole width of your house frontage for a square hall, and an easy low-tread staircase running up three sides of it. I'm sure Mrs. Lapham would find it much pleasanter." The architect caught toward him a scrap of paper lying on the table at which they were sitting and sketched his idea. "Then have your dining-room behind the hall, looking on the water." He glanced at Mrs. Lapham, who said, "Of course," and the architect went on-- "That gets you rid of one of those long, straight, ugly staircases,"--until that moment Lapham had thought a long, straight staircase the chief ornament of a house,--"and gives you an effect of amplitude and space." "That's so!" said Mrs. Lapham. Her husband merely made a noise in his throat. "Then, were you thinking of having your parlours together, connected by folding doors?" asked the architect deferentially. "Yes, of course," said Lapham. "They're always so, ain't they?" "Well, nearly," said the architect. "I was wondering how would it do to make one large square room at the front, taking the whole breadth of the house, and, with this hall-space between, have a music-room back for the young ladies?" Lapham looked helplessly at his wife, whose quicker apprehension had followed the architect's pencil with instant sympathy. "First-rate!" she cried. The Colonel gave way. "I guess that would do. It'll be kind of odd, won't it?" "Well, I don't know," said the architect. "Not so odd, I hope, as the other thing will be a few years from now." He went on to plan the rest of the house, and he showed himself such a master in regard to all the practical details that Mrs. Lapham began to feel a motherly affection for the young man, and her husband could not deny in his heart that the fellow seemed to understand his business. He stopped walking about the room, as he had begun to do when the architect and Mrs. Lapham entered into the particulars of closets, drainage, kitchen arrangements, and all that, and came back to the table. "I presume," he said, "you'll have the drawing-room finished in black walnut?" "Well, yes," replied the architect, "if you like. But some less expensive wood can be made just as effective with paint. Of course you can paint black walnut too." "Paint it?" gasped the Colonel. "Yes," said the architect quietly. "White, or a little off white." Lapham dropped the plan he had picked up from the table. His wife made a little move toward him of consolation or support. "Of course," resumed the architect, "I know there has been a great craze for black walnut. But it's an ugly wood; and for a drawing-room there is really nothing like white paint. We should want to introduce a little gold here and there. Perhaps we might run a painted frieze round under the cornice--garlands of roses on a gold ground; it would tell wonderfully in a white room." The Colonel returned less courageously to the charge. "I presume you'll want Eastlake mantel-shelves and tiles?" He meant this for a sarcastic thrust at a prevailing foible of the profession. "Well, no," gently answered the architect. "I was thinking perhaps a white marble chimney-piece, treated in the refined Empire style, would be the thing for that room." "White marble!" exclaimed the Colonel. "I thought that had gone out long ago." "Really beautiful things can't go out. They may disappear for a little while, but they must come back. It's only the ugly things that stay out after they've had their day." Lapham could only venture very modestly, "Hard-wood floors?" "In the music-room, of course," consented the architect. "And in the drawing-room?" "Carpet. Some sort of moquette, I should say. But I should prefer to consult Mrs. Lapham's taste in that matter." "And in the other rooms?" "Oh, carpets, of course." "And what about the stairs?" "Carpet. And I should have the rail and banisters white--banisters turned or twisted." The Colonel said under his breath, "Well, I'm dumned!" but he gave no utterance to his astonishment in the architect's presence. When he went at last,--the session did not end till eleven o'clock,--Lapham said, "Well, Pert, I guess that fellow's fifty years behind, or ten years ahead. I wonder what the Ongpeer style is?" "I don't know. I hated to ask. But he seemed to understand what he was talking about. I declare, he knows what a woman wants in a house better than she does herself." "And a man's simply nowhere in comparison," said Lapham. But he respected a fellow who could beat him at every point, and have a reason ready, as this architect had; and when he recovered from the daze into which the complete upheaval of all his preconceived notions had left him, he was in a fit state to swear by the architect. It seemed to him that he had discovered the fellow (as he always called him) and owned him now, and the fellow did nothing to disturb this impression. He entered into that brief but intense intimacy with the Laphams which the sympathetic architect holds with his clients. He was privy to all their differences of opinion and all their disputes about the house. He knew just where to insist upon his own ideas, and where to yield. He was really building several other houses, but he gave the Laphams the impression that he was doing none but theirs. The work was not begun till the frost was thoroughly out of the ground, which that year was not before the end of April. Even then it did not proceed very rapidly. Lapham said they might as well take their time to it; if they got the walls up and the thing closed in before the snow flew, they could be working at it all winter. It was found necessary to dig for the kitchen; at that point the original salt-marsh lay near the surface, and before they began to put in the piles for the foundation they had to pump. The neighbourhood smelt like the hold of a ship after a three years' voyage. People who had cast their fortunes with the New Land went by professing not to notice it; people who still "hung on to the Hill" put their handkerchiefs to their noses, and told each other the old terrible stories of the material used in filling up the Back Bay. Nothing gave Lapham so much satisfaction in the whole construction of his house as the pile-driving. When this began, early in the summer, he took Mrs. Lapham every day in his buggy and drove round to look at it; stopping the mare in front of the lot, and watching the operation with even keener interest than the little loafing Irish boys who superintended it in force. It pleased him to hear the portable engine chuckle out a hundred thin whiffs of steam in carrying the big iron weight to the top of the framework above the pile, then seem to hesitate, and cough once or twice in pressing the weight against the detaching apparatus. There was a moment in which the weight had the effect of poising before it fell; then it dropped with a mighty whack on the iron-bound head of the pile, and drove it a foot into the earth. "By gracious!" he would say, "there ain't anything like that in THIS world for BUSINESS, Persis!" Mrs. Lapham suffered him to enjoy the sight twenty or thirty times before she said, "Well, now drive on, Si." By the time the foundation was in and the brick walls had begun to go up, there were so few people left in the neighbourhood that she might indulge with impunity her husband's passion for having her clamber over the floor-timbers and the skeleton stair-cases with him. Many of the householders had boarded up their front doors before the buds had begun to swell and the assessor to appear in early May; others had followed soon; and Mrs. Lapham was as safe from remark as if she had been in the depth of the country. Ordinarily she and her girls left town early in July, going to one of the hotels at Nantasket, where it was convenient for the Colonel to get to and from his business by the boat. But this summer they were all lingering a few weeks later, under the novel fascination of the new house, as they called it, as if there were no other in the world. Lapham drove there with his wife after he had set Bartley Hubbard down at the Events office, but on this day something happened that interfered with the solid pleasure they usually took in going over the house. As the Colonel turned from casting anchor at the mare's head with the hitching-weight, after helping his wife to alight, he encountered a man to whom he could not help speaking, though the man seemed to share his hesitation if not his reluctance at the necessity. He was a tallish, thin man, with a dust-coloured face, and a dead, clerical air, which somehow suggested at once feebleness and tenacity. Mrs. Lapham held out her hand to him. "Why, Mr. Rogers!" she exclaimed; and then, turning toward her husband, seemed to refer the two men to each other. They shook hands, but Lapham did not speak. "I didn't know you were in Boston," pursued Mrs. Lapham. "Is Mrs. Rogers with you?" "No," said Mr. Rogers, with a voice which had the flat, succinct sound of two pieces of wood clapped together. "Mrs. Rogers is still in Chicago." A little silence followed, and then Mrs Lapham said-- "I presume you are quite settled out there." "No; we have left Chicago. Mrs. Rogers has merely remained to finish up a little packing." "Oh, indeed! Are you coming back to Boston?" "I cannot say as yet. We sometimes think of so doing." Lapham turned away and looked up at the building. His wife pulled a little at her glove, as if embarrassed, or even pained. She tried to make a diversion. "We are building a house," she said, with a meaningless laugh. "Oh, indeed," said Mr. Rogers, looking up at it. Then no one spoke again, and she said helplessly-- "If you come to Boston, I hope I shall see Mrs. Rogers." "She will be happy to have you call," said Mr Rogers. He touched his hat-brim, and made a bow forward rather than in Mrs. Lapham's direction. She mounted the planking that led into the shelter of the bare brick walls, and her husband slowly followed. When she turned her face toward him her cheeks were burning, and tears that looked hot stood in her eyes. "You left it all to me!" she cried. "Why couldn't you speak a word?" "I hadn't anything to say to him," replied Lapham sullenly. They stood a while, without looking at the work which they had come to enjoy, and without speaking to each other. "I suppose we might as well go on," said Mrs. Lapham at last, as they returned to the buggy. The Colonel drove recklessly toward the Milldam. His wife kept her veil down and her face turned from him. After a time she put her handkerchief up under her veil and wiped her eyes, and he set his teeth and squared his jaw. "I don't see how he always manages to appear just at the moment when he seems to have gone fairly out of our lives, and blight everything," she whimpered. "I supposed he was dead," said Lapham. "Oh, don't SAY such a thing! It sounds as if you wished it." "Why do you mind it? What do you let him blight everything for?" "I can't help it, and I don't believe I ever shall. I don't know as his being dead would help it any. I can't ever see him without feeling just as I did at first." "I tell you," said Lapham, "it was a perfectly square thing. And I wish, once for all, you would quit bothering about it. My conscience is easy as far as he is concerned, and it always was." "And I can't look at him without feeling as if you'd ruined him, Silas." "Don't look at him, then," said her husband, with a scowl. "I want you should recollect in the first place, Persis, that I never wanted a partner." "If he hadn't put his money in when he did, you'd 'a' broken down." "Well, he got his money out again, and more, too," said the Colonel, with a sulky weariness. "He didn't want to take it out." "I gave him his choice: buy out or go out." "You know he couldn't buy out then. It was no choice at all." "It was a business chance." "No; you had better face the truth, Silas. It was no chance at all. You crowded him out. A man that had saved you! No, you had got greedy, Silas. You had made your paint your god, and you couldn't bear to let anybody else share in its blessings." "I tell you he was a drag and a brake on me from the word go. You say he saved me. Well, if I hadn't got him out he'd 'a' ruined me sooner or later. So it's an even thing, as far forth as that goes." "No, it ain't an even thing, and you know it, Silas. Oh, if I could only get you once to acknowledge that you did wrong about it, then I should have some hope. I don't say you meant wrong exactly, but you took an advantage. Yes, you took an advantage! You had him where he couldn't help himself, and then you wouldn't show him any mercy." "I'm sick of this," said Lapham. "If you'll 'tend to the house, I'll manage my business without your help." "You were very glad of my help once." "Well, I'm tired of it now. Don't meddle." "I WILL meddle. When I see you hardening yourself in a wrong thing, it's time for me to meddle, as you call it, and I will. I can't ever get you to own up the least bit about Rogers, and I feel as if it was hurting you all the while." "What do you want I should own up about a thing for when I don't feel wrong? I tell you Rogers hain't got anything to complain of, and that's what I told you from the start. It's a thing that's done every day. I was loaded up with a partner that didn't know anything, and couldn't do anything, and I unloaded; that's all." "You unloaded just at the time when you knew that your paint was going to be worth about twice what it ever had been; and you wanted all the advantage for yourself." "I had a right to it. I made the success." "Yes, you made it with Rogers's money; and when you'd made it you took his share of it. I guess you thought of that when you saw him, and that's why you couldn't look him in the face." At these words Lapham lost his temper. "I guess you don't want to ride with me any more to-day," he said, turning the mare abruptly round. "I'm as ready to go back as what you are," replied his wife. "And don't you ask me to go to that house with you any more. You can sell it, for all me. I sha'n't live in it. There's blood on it." IV. THE silken texture of the marriage tie bears a daily strain of wrong and insult to which no other human relation can be subjected without lesion; and sometimes the strength that knits society together might appear to the eye of faltering faith the curse of those immediately bound by it. Two people by no means reckless of each other's rights and feelings, but even tender of them for the most part, may tear at each other's heart-strings in this sacred bond with perfect impunity; though if they were any other two they would not speak or look at each other again after the outrages they exchange. It is certainly a curious spectacle, and doubtless it ought to convince an observer of the divinity of the institution. If the husband and wife are blunt, outspoken people like the Laphams, they do not weigh their words; if they are more refined, they weigh them very carefully, and know accurately just how far they will carry, and in what most sensitive spot they may be planted with most effect. Lapham was proud of his wife, and when he married her it had been a rise in life for him. For a while he stood in awe of his good fortune, but this could not last, and he simply remained supremely satisfied with it. The girl who had taught school with a clear head and a strong hand was not afraid of work; she encouraged and helped him from the first, and bore her full share of the common burden. She had health, and she did not worry his life out with peevish complaints and vagaries; she had sense and principle, and in their simple lot she did what was wise and right. Their marriage was hallowed by an early sorrow: they lost their boy, and it was years before they could look each other in the face and speak of him. No one gave up more than they when they gave up each other and Lapham went to the war. When he came back and began to work, her zeal and courage formed the spring of his enterprise. In that affair of the partnership she had tried to be his conscience, but perhaps she would have defended him if he had accused himself; it was one of those things in this life which seem destined to await justice, or at least judgment, in the next. As he said, Lapham had dealt fairly by his partner in money; he had let Rogers take more money out of the business than he put into it; he had, as he said, simply forced out of it a timid and inefficient participant in advantages which he had created. But Lapham had not created them all. He had been dependent at one time on his partner's capital. It was a moment of terrible trial. Happy is the man for ever after who can choose the ideal, the unselfish part in such an exigency! Lapham could not rise to it. He did what he could maintain to be perfectly fair. The wrong, if any, seemed to be condoned to him, except when from time to time his wife brought it up. Then all the question stung and burned anew, and had to be reasoned out and put away once more. It seemed to have an inextinguishable vitality. It slept, but it did not die. His course did not shake Mrs. Lapham's faith in him. It astonished her at first, and it always grieved her that he could not see that he was acting solely in his own interest. But she found excuses for him, which at times she made reproaches. She vaguely perceived that his paint was something more than business to him; it was a sentiment, almost a passion. He could not share its management and its profit with another without a measure of self-sacrifice far beyond that which he must make with something less personal to him. It was the poetry of that nature, otherwise so intensely prosaic; and she understood this, and for the most part forbore. She knew him good and true and blameless in all his life, except for this wrong, if it were a wrong; and it was only when her nerves tingled intolerably with some chance renewal of the pain she had suffered, that she shared her anguish with him in true wifely fashion. With those two there was never anything like an explicit reconciliation. They simply ignored a quarrel; and Mrs. Lapham had only to say a few days after at breakfast, "I guess the girls would like to go round with you this afternoon, and look at the new house," in order to make her husband grumble out as he looked down into his coffee-cup. "I guess we better all go, hadn't we?" "Well, I'll see," she said. There was not really a great deal to look at when Lapham arrived on the ground in his four-seated beach-wagon. But the walls were up, and the studding had already given skeleton shape to the interior. The floors were roughly boarded over, and the stairways were in place, with provisional treads rudely laid. They had not begun to lath and plaster yet, but the clean, fresh smell of the mortar in the walls mingling with the pungent fragrance of the pine shavings neutralised the Venetian odour that drew in over the water. It was pleasantly shady there, though for the matter of that the heat of the morning had all been washed out of the atmosphere by a tide of east wind setting in at noon, and the thrilling, delicious cool of a Boston summer afternoon bathed every nerve. The foreman went about with Mrs. Lapham, showing her where the doors were to be; but Lapham soon tired of this, and having found a pine stick of perfect grain, he abandoned himself to the pleasure of whittling it in what was to be the reception-room, where he sat looking out on the street from what was to be the bay-window. Here he was presently joined by his girls, who, after locating their own room on the water side above the music-room, had no more wish to enter into details than their father. "Come and take a seat in the bay-window, ladies," he called out to them, as they looked in at him through the ribs of the wall. He jocosely made room for them on the trestle on which he sat. They came gingerly and vaguely forward, as young ladies do when they wish not to seem to be going to do a thing they have made up their minds to do. When they had taken their places on their trestle, they could not help laughing with scorn, open and acceptable to their father; and Irene curled her chin up, in a little way she had, and said, "How ridiculous!" to her sister. "Well, I can tell you what," said the Colonel, in fond enjoyment of their young ladyishness, "your mother wa'n't ashamed to sit with me on a trestle when I called her out to look at the first coat of my paint that I ever tried on a house." "Yes; we've heard that story," said Penelope, with easy security of her father's liking what she said. "We were brought up on that story." "Well, it's a good story," said her father. At that moment a young man came suddenly in range, who began to look up at the signs of building as he approached. He dropped his eyes in coming abreast of the bay-window, where Lapham sat with his girls, and then his face lightened, and he took off his hat and bowed to Irene. She rose mechanically from the trestle, and her face lightened too. She was a very pretty figure of a girl, after our fashion of girls, round and slim and flexible, and her face was admirably regular. But her great beauty--and it was very great--was in her colouring. This was of an effect for which there is no word but delicious, as we use it of fruit or flowers. She had red hair, like her father in his earlier days, and the tints of her cheeks and temples were such as suggested May-flowers and apple-blossoms and peaches. Instead of the grey that often dulls this complexion, her eyes were of a blue at once intense and tender, and they seemed to burn on what they looked at with a soft, lambent flame. It was well understood by her sister and mother that her eyes always expressed a great deal more than Irene ever thought or felt; but this is not saying that she was not a very sensible girl and very honest. The young man faltered perceptibly, and Irene came a little forward, and then there gushed from them both a smiling exchange of greeting, of which the sum was that he supposed she was out of town, and that she had not known that he had got back. A pause ensued, and flushing again in her uncertainty as to whether she ought or ought not to do it, she said, "My father, Mr. Corey; and my sister." The young man took off his hat again, showing his shapely head, with a line of wholesome sunburn ceasing where the recently and closely clipped hair began. He was dressed in a fine summer check, with a blue white-dotted neckerchief, and he had a white hat, in which he looked very well when he put it back on his head. His whole dress seemed very fresh and new, and in fact he had cast aside his Texan habiliments only the day before. "How do you do, sir?" said the Colonel, stepping to the window, and reaching out of it the hand which the young man advanced to take. "Won't you come in? We're at home here. House I'm building." "Oh, indeed?" returned the young man; and he came promptly up the steps, and through its ribs into the reception-room. "Have a trestle?" asked the Colonel, while the girls exchanged little shocks of terror and amusement at the eyes. "Thank you," said the young man simply, and sat down. "Mrs. Lapham is upstairs interviewing the carpenter, but she'll be down in a minute." "I hope she's quite well," said Corey. "I supposed--I was afraid she might be out of town." "Well, we are off to Nantasket next week. The house kept us in town pretty late." "It must be very exciting, building a house," said Corey to the elder sister. "Yes, it is," she assented, loyally refusing in Irene's interest the opportunity of saying anything more. Corey turned to the latter. "I suppose you've all helped to plan it?" "Oh no; the architect and mamma did that." "But they allowed the rest of us to agree, when we were good," said Penelope. Corey looked at her, and saw that she was shorter than her sister, and had a dark complexion. "It's very exciting," said Irene. "Come up," said the Colonel, rising, "and look round if you'd like to." "I should like to, very much," said the young man. He helped the young ladies over crevasses of carpentry and along narrow paths of planking, on which they had made their way unassisted before. The elder sister left the younger to profit solely by these offices as much as possible. She walked between them and her father, who went before, lecturing on each apartment, and taking the credit of the whole affair more and more as he talked on. "There!" he said, "we're going to throw out a bay-window here, so as get the water all the way up and down. This is my girls' room," he added, looking proudly at them both. It seemed terribly intimate. Irene blushed deeply and turned her head away. But the young man took it all, apparently, as simply as their father. "What a lovely lookout!" he said. The Back Bay spread its glassy sheet before them, empty but for a few small boats and a large schooner, with her sails close-furled and dripping like snow from her spars, which a tug was rapidly towing toward Cambridge. The carpentry of that city, embanked and embowered in foliage, shared the picturesqueness of Charlestown in the distance. "Yes," said Lapham, "I go in for using the best rooms in your house yourself. If people come to stay with you, they can put up with the second best. Though we don't intend to have any second best. There ain't going to be an unpleasant room in the whole house, from top to bottom." "Oh, I wish papa wouldn't brag so!" breathed Irene to her sister, where they stood, a little apart, looking away together. The Colonel went on. "No, sir," he swelled out, "I have gone in for making a regular job of it. I've got the best architect in Boston, and I'm building a house to suit myself. And if money can do it, guess I'm going to be suited." "It seems very delightful," said Corey, "and very original." "Yes, sir. That fellow hadn't talked five minutes before I saw that he knew what he was about every time." "I wish mamma would come!" breathed Irene again. "I shall certainly go through the floor if papa says anything more." "They are making a great many very pretty houses nowadays," said the young man. "It's very different from the old-fashioned building." "Well," said the Colonel, with a large toleration of tone and a deep breath that expanded his ample chest, "we spend more on our houses nowadays. I started out to build a forty-thousand-dollar house. Well, sir! that fellow has got me in for more than sixty thousand already, and I doubt if I get out of it much under a hundred. You can't have a nice house for nothing. It's just like ordering a picture of a painter. You pay him enough, and he can afford to paint you a first-class picture; and if you don't, he can't. That's all there is of it. Why, they tell me that A. T. Stewart gave one of those French fellows sixty thousand dollars for a little seven-by-nine picture the other day. Yes, sir, give an architect money enough, and he'll give you a nice house every time." "I've heard that they're sharp at getting money to realise their ideas," assented the young man, with a laugh. "Well, I should say so!" exclaimed the Colonel. "They come to you with an improvement that you can't resist. It has good looks and common-sense and everything in its favour, and it's like throwing money away to refuse. And they always manage to get you when your wife is around, and then you're helpless." The Colonel himself set the example of laughing at this joke, and the young man joined him less obstreperously. The girls turned, and he said, "I don't think I ever saw this view to better advantage. It's surprising how well the Memorial Hall and the Cambridge spires work up, over there. And the sunsets must be magnificent." Lapham did not wait for them to reply. "Yes, sir, it's about the sightliest view I know of. I always did like the water side of Beacon. Long before I owned property here, or ever expected to, m'wife and I used to ride down this way, and stop the buggy to get this view over the water. When people talk to me about the Hill, I can understand 'em. It's snug, and it's old-fashioned, and it's where they've always lived. But when they talk about Commonwealth Avenue, I don't know what they mean. It don't hold a candle to the water side of Beacon. You've got just as much wind over there, and you've got just as much dust, and all the view you've got is the view across the street. No, sir! when you come to the Back Bay at all, give me the water side of Beacon." "Oh, I think you're quite right," said the young man. "The view here is everything." Irene looked "I wonder what papa is going to say next!" at her sister, when their mother's voice was heard overhead, approaching the opening in the floor where the stairs were to be; and she presently appeared, with one substantial foot a long way ahead. She was followed by the carpenter, with his rule sticking out of his overalls pocket, and she was still talking to him about some measurements they had been taking, when they reached the bottom, so that Irene had to say, "Mamma, Mr. Corey," before Mrs. Lapham was aware of him. He came forward with as much grace and speed as the uncertain footing would allow, and Mrs. Lapham gave him a stout squeeze of her comfortable hand. "Why, Mr. Corey! When did you get back?" "Yesterday. It hardly seems as if I HAD got back. I didn't expect to find you in a new house." "Well, you are our first caller. I presume you won't expect I should make excuses for the state you find it in. Has the Colonel been doing the honours?" "Oh yes. And I've seen more of your house than I ever shall again, I suppose." "Well, I hope not," said Lapham. "There'll be several chances to see us in the old one yet, before we leave." He probably thought this a neat, off-hand way of making the invitation, for he looked at his woman-kind as if he might expect their admiration. "Oh yes, indeed!" said his wife. "We shall be very glad to see Mr. Corey, any time." "Thank you; I shall be glad to come." He and the Colonel went before, and helped the ladies down the difficult descent. Irene seemed less sure-footed than the others; she clung to the young man's hand an imperceptible moment longer than need be, or else he detained her. He found opportunity of saying, "It's so pleasant seeing you again," adding, "all of you." "Thank you," said the girl. "They must all be glad to have you at home again." Corey laughed. "Well, I suppose they would be, if they were at home to have me. But the fact is, there's nobody in the house but my father and myself, and I'm only on my way to Bar Harbour." "Oh! Are they there?" "Yes; it seems to be the only place where my mother can get just the combination of sea and mountain air that she wants." "We go to Nantasket--it's convenient for papa; and I don't believe we shall go anywhere else this summer, mamma's so taken up with building. We do nothing but talk house; and Pen says we eat and sleep house. She says it would be a sort of relief to go and live in tents for a while." "She seems to have a good deal of humour," the young man ventured, upon the slender evidence. The others had gone to the back of the house a moment, to look at some suggested change. Irene and Corey were left standing in the doorway. A lovely light of happiness played over her face and etherealised its delicious beauty. She had some ado to keep herself from smiling outright, and the effort deepened the dimples in her cheeks; she trembled a little, and the pendants shook in the tips of her pretty ears. The others came back directly, and they all descended the front steps together. The Colonel was about to renew his invitation, but he caught his wife's eye, and, without being able to interpret its warning exactly, was able to arrest himself, and went about gathering up the hitching-weight, while the young man handed the ladies into the phaeton. Then he lifted his hat, and the ladies all bowed, and the Laphams drove off, Irene's blue ribbons fluttering backward from her hat, as if they were her clinging thoughts. "So that's young Corey, is it?" said the Colonel, letting the stately stepping, tall coupe horse make his way homeward at will with the beach-wagon. "Well, he ain't a bad-looking fellow, and he's got a good, fair and square, honest eye. But I don't see how a fellow like that, that's had every advantage in this world, can hang round home and let his father support him. Seems to me, if I had his health and his education, I should want to strike out and do something for myself." The girls on the back seat had hold of each other's hands, and they exchanged electrical pressures at the different points their father made. "I presume," said Mrs. Lapham, "that he was down in Texas looking after something." "He's come back without finding it, I guess." "Well, if his father has the money to support him, and don't complain of the burden, I don't see why WE should." "Oh, I know it's none of my business, but I don't like the principle. I like to see a man ACT like a man. I don't like to see him taken care of like a young lady. Now, I suppose that fellow belongs to two or three clubs, and hangs around 'em all day, lookin' out the window,--I've seen 'em,--instead of tryin' to hunt up something to do for an honest livin'." "If I was a young man," Penelope struck in, "I would belong to twenty clubs, if I could find them and I would hang around them all, and look out the window till I dropped." "Oh, you would, would you?" demanded her father, delighted with her defiance, and twisting his fat head around over his shoulder to look at her. "Well, you wouldn't do it on my money, if you were a son of MINE, young lady." "Oh, you wait and see," retorted the girl. This made them all laugh. But the Colonel recurred seriously to the subject that night, as he was winding up his watch preparatory to putting it under his pillow. "I could make a man of that fellow, if I had him in the business with me. There's stuff in him. But I spoke up the way I did because I didn't choose Irene should think I would stand any kind of a loafer 'round--I don't care who he is, or how well educated or brought up. And I guess, from the way Pen spoke up, that 'Rene saw what I was driving at." The girl, apparently, was less anxious about her father's ideas and principles than about the impression which he had made upon the young man. She had talked it over and over with her sister before they went to bed, and she asked in despair, as she stood looking at Penelope brushing out her hair before the glass-- "Do you suppose he'll think papa always talks in that bragging way?" "He'll be right if he does," answered her sister. "It's the way father always does talk. You never noticed it so much, that's all. And I guess if he can't make allowance for father's bragging, he'll be a little too good. I enjoyed hearing the Colonel go on." "I know you did," returned Irene in distress. Then she sighed. "Didn't you think he looked very nice?" "Who? The Colonel?" Penelope had caught up the habit of calling her father so from her mother, and she used his title in all her jocose and perverse moods. "You know very well I don't mean papa," pouted Irene. "Oh! Mr. Corey! Why didn't you say Mr. Corey if you meant Mr. Corey? If I meant Mr. Corey, I should say Mr. Corey. It isn't swearing! Corey, Corey, Co----" Her sister clapped her hand over her mouth "Will you HUSH, you wretched thing?" she whimpered. "The whole house can hear you." "Oh yes, they can hear me all over the square. Well, I think he looked well enough for a plain youth, who hadn't taken his hair out of curl-papers for some time." "It WAS clipped pretty close," Irene admitted; and they both laughed at the drab effect of Mr. Corey's skull, as they remembered it. "Did you like his nose?" asked Irene timorously. "Ah, now you're COMING to something," said Penelope. "I don't know whether, if I had so much of a nose, I should want it all Roman." "I don't see how you can expect to have a nose part one kind and part another," argued Irene. "Oh, I do. Look at mine!" She turned aside her face, so as to get a three-quarters view of her nose in the glass, and crossing her hands, with the brush in one of them, before her, regarded it judicially. "Now, my nose started Grecian, but changed its mind before it got over the bridge, and concluded to be snub the rest of the way." "You've got a very pretty nose, Pen," said Irene, joining in the contemplation of its reflex in the glass. "Don't say that in hopes of getting me to compliment HIS, Mrs."--she stopped, and then added deliberately--"C.!" Irene also had her hair-brush in her hand, and now she sprang at her sister and beat her very softly on the shoulder with the flat of it. "You mean thing!" she cried, between her shut teeth, blushing hotly. "Well, D., then," said Penelope. "You've nothing to say against D.? Though I think C. is just as nice an initial." "Oh!" cried the younger, for all expression of unspeakable things. "I think he has very good eyes," admitted Penelope. "Oh, he HAS! And didn't you like the way his sackcoat set? So close to him, and yet free--kind of peeling away at the lapels?" "Yes, I should say he was a young man of great judgment. He knows how to choose his tailor." Irene sat down on the edge of a chair. "It was so nice of you, Pen, to come in, that way, about clubs." "Oh, I didn't mean anything by it except opposition," said Penelope. "I couldn't have father swelling on so, without saying something." "How he did swell!" sighed Irene. "Wasn't it a relief to have mamma come down, even if she did seem to be all stocking at first?" The girls broke into a wild giggle, and hid their faces in each other's necks. "I thought I SHOULD die," said Irene. "'It's just like ordering a painting,'" said Penelope, recalling her father's talk, with an effect of dreamy absent-mindedness. "'You give the painter money enough, and he can afford to paint you a first-class picture. Give an architect money enough, and he'll give you a first-class house, every time.'" "Oh, wasn't it awful!" moaned her sister. "No one would ever have supposed that he had fought the very idea of an architect for weeks, before he gave in." Penelope went on. "'I always did like the water side of Beacon,--long before I owned property there. When you come to the Back Bay at all, give me the water side of Beacon.'" "Ow-w-w-w!" shrieked Irene. "DO stop!" The door of their mother's chamber opened below, and the voice of the real Colonel called, "What are you doing up there, girls? Why don't you go to bed?" This extorted nervous shrieks from both of them. The Colonel heard a sound of scurrying feet, whisking drapery, and slamming doors. Then he heard one of the doors opened again, and Penelope said, "I was only repeating something you said when you talked to Mr. Corey." "Very well, now," answered the Colonel. "You postpone the rest of it till to-morrow at breakfast, and see that you're up in time to let ME hear it." V. AT the same moment young Corey let himself in at his own door with his latch-key, and went to the library, where he found his father turning the last leaves of a story in the Revue des Deux Mondes. He was a white-moustached old gentleman, who had never been able to abandon his pince-nez for the superior comfort of spectacles, even in the privacy of his own library. He knocked the glasses off as his son came in and looked up at him with lazy fondness, rubbing the two red marks that they always leave on the side of the nose. "Tom," he said, "where did you get such good clothes?" "I stopped over a day in New York," replied the son, finding himself a chair. "I'm glad you like them." "Yes, I always do like your clothes, Tom," returned the father thoughtfully, swinging his glasses, "But I don't see how you can afford 'em, I can't." "Well, sir," said the son, who dropped the "sir" into his speech with his father, now and then, in an old-fashioned way that was rather charming, "you see, I have an indulgent parent." "Smoke?" suggested the father, pushing toward his son a box of cigarettes, from which he had taken one. "No, thank you," said the son. "I've dropped that." "Ah, is that so?" The father began to feel about on the table for matches, in the purblind fashion of elderly men. His son rose, lighted one, and handed it to him. "Well,--oh, thank you, Tom!--I believe some statisticians prove that if you will give up smoking you can dress very well on the money your tobacco costs, even if you haven't got an indulgent parent. But I'm too old to try. Though, I confess, I should rather like the clothes. Whom did you find at the club?" "There were a lot of fellows there," said young Corey, watching the accomplished fumigation of his father in an absent way. "It's astonishing what a hardy breed the young club-men are," observed his father. "All summer through, in weather that sends the sturdiest female flying to the sea-shore, you find the clubs filled with young men, who don't seem to mind the heat in the least." "Boston isn't a bad place, at the worst, in summer," said the son, declining to take up the matter in its ironical shape. "I dare say it isn't, compared with Texas," returned the father, smoking tranquilly on. "But I don't suppose you find many of your friends in town outside of the club." "No; you're requested to ring at the rear door, all the way down Beacon Street and up Commonwealth Avenue. It's rather a blank reception for the returning prodigal." "Ah, the prodigal must take his chance if he comes back out of season. But I'm glad to have you back, Tom, even as it is, and I hope you're not going to hurry away. You must give your energies a rest." "I'm sure you never had to reproach me with abnormal activity," suggested the son, taking his father's jokes in good part. "No, I don't know that I have," admitted the elder. "You've always shown a fair degree of moderation, after all. What do you think of taking up next? I mean after you have embraced your mother and sisters at Mount Desert. Real estate? It seems to me that it is about time for you to open out as a real-estate broker. Or did you ever think of matrimony?" "Well, not just in that way, sir," said the young man. "I shouldn't quite like to regard it as a career, you know." "No, no. I understand that. And I quite agree with you. But you know I've always contended that the affections could be made to combine pleasure and profit. I wouldn't have a man marry for money,--that would be rather bad,--but I don't see why, when it comes to falling in love, a man shouldn't fall in love with a rich girl as easily as a poor one. Some of the rich girls are very nice, and I should say that the chances of a quiet life with them were rather greater. They've always had everything, and they wouldn't be so ambitious and uneasy. Don't you think so?" "It would depend," said the son, "upon whether a girl's people had been rich long enough to have given her position before she married. If they hadn't, I don't see how she would be any better than a poor girl in that respect." "Yes, there's sense in that. But the suddenly rich are on a level with any of us nowadays. Money buys position at once. I don't say that it isn't all right. The world generally knows what it's about, and knows how to drive a bargain. I dare say it makes the new rich pay too much. But there's no doubt but money is to the fore now. It is the romance, the poetry of our age. It's the thing that chiefly strikes the imagination. The Englishmen who come here are more curious about the great new millionaires than about any one else, and they respect them more. It's all very well. I don't complain of it." "And you would like a rich daughter-in-law, quite regardless, then?" "Oh, not quite so bad as that, Tom," said his father. "A little youth, a little beauty, a little good sense and pretty behaviour--one mustn't object to those things; and they go just as often with money as without it. And I suppose I should like her people to be rather grammatical." "It seems to me that you're exacting, sir," said the son. "How can you expect people who have been strictly devoted to business to be grammatical? Isn't that rather too much?" "Perhaps it is. Perhaps you're right. But I understood your mother to say that those benefactors of hers, whom you met last summer, were very passably grammatical." "The father isn't." The elder, who had been smoking with his profile toward his son, now turned his face full upon him. "I didn't know you had seen him?" "I hadn't until to-day," said young Corey, with a little heightening of his colour. "But I was walking down street this afternoon, and happened to look round at a new house some one was putting up, and I saw the whole family in the window. It appears that Mr. Lapham is building the house." The elder Corey knocked the ash of his cigarette into the holder at his elbow. "I am more and more convinced, the longer I know you, Tom, that we are descended from Giles Corey. The gift of holding one's tongue seems to have skipped me, but you have it in full force. I can't say just how you would behave under peine forte et dure, but under ordinary pressure you are certainly able to keep your own counsel. Why didn't you mention this encounter at dinner? You weren't asked to plead to an accusation of witchcraft." "No, not exactly," said the young man. "But I didn't quite see my way to speaking of it. We had a good many other things before us." "Yes, that's true. I suppose you wouldn't have mentioned it now if I hadn't led up to it, would you?" "I don't know, sir. It was rather on my mind to do so. Perhaps it was I who led up to it." His father laughed. "Perhaps you did, Tom; perhaps you did. Your mother would have known you were leading up to something, but I'll confess that I didn't. What is it?" "Nothing very definite. But do you know that in spite of his syntax I rather liked him?" The father looked keenly at the son; but unless the boy's full confidence was offered, Corey was not the man to ask it. "Well?" was all that he said. "I suppose that in a new country one gets to looking at people a little out of our tradition; and I dare say that if I hadn't passed a winter in Texas I might have found Colonel Lapham rather too much." "You mean that there are worse things in Texas?" "Not that exactly. I mean that I saw it wouldn't be quite fair to test him by our standards." "This comes of the error which I have often deprecated," said the elder Corey. "In fact I am always saying that the Bostonian ought never to leave Boston. Then he knows--and then only--that there can BE no standard but ours. But we are constantly going away, and coming back with our convictions shaken to their foundations. One man goes to England, and returns with the conception of a grander social life; another comes home from Germany with the notion of a more searching intellectual activity; a fellow just back from Paris has the absurdest ideas of art and literature; and you revert to us from the cowboys of Texas, and tell us to our faces that we ought to try Papa Lapham by a jury of his peers. It ought to be stopped--it ought, really. The Bostonian who leaves Boston ought to be condemned to perpetual exile." The son suffered the father to reach his climax with smiling patience. When he asked finally, "What are the characteristics of Papa Lapham that place him beyond our jurisdiction?" the younger Corey crossed his long legs, and leaned forward to take one of his knees between his hands. "Well, sir, he bragged, rather." "Oh, I don't know that bragging should exempt him from the ordinary processes. I've heard other people brag in Boston." "Ah, not just in that personal way--not about money." "No, that was certainly different." "I don't mean," said the young fellow, with the scrupulosity which people could not help observing and liking in him, "that it was more than an indirect expression of satisfaction in the ability to spend." "No. I should be glad to express something of the kind myself, if the facts would justify me." The son smiled tolerantly again. "But if he was enjoying his money in that way, I didn't see why he shouldn't show his pleasure in it. It might have been vulgar, but it wasn't sordid. And I don't know that it was vulgar. Perhaps his successful strokes of business were the romance of his life----" The father interrupted with a laugh. "The girl must be uncommonly pretty. What did she seem to think of her father's brag?" "There were two of them," answered the son evasively. "Oh, two! And is the sister pretty too?" "Not pretty, but rather interesting. She is like her mother." "Then the pretty one isn't the father's pet?" "I can't say, sir. I don't believe," added the young fellow, "that I can make you see Colonel Lapham just as I did. He struck me as very simple-hearted and rather wholesome. Of course he could be tiresome; we all can; and I suppose his range of ideas is limited. But he is a force, and not a bad one. If he hasn't got over being surprised at the effect of rubbing his lamp." "Oh, one could make out a case. I suppose you know what you are about, Tom. But remember that we are Essex County people, and that in savour we are just a little beyond the salt of the earth. I will tell you plainly that I don't like the notion of a man who has rivalled the hues of nature in her wildest haunts with the tints of his mineral paint; but I don't say there are not worse men. He isn't to my taste, though he might be ever so much to my conscience." "I suppose," said the son, "that there is nothing really to be ashamed of in mineral paint. People go into all sorts of things." His father took his cigarette from his mouth and once more looked his son full in the face. "Oh, is THAT it?" "It has crossed my mind," admitted the son. "I must do something. I've wasted time and money enough. I've seen much younger men all through the West and South-west taking care of themselves. I don't think I was particularly fit for anything out there, but I am ashamed to come back and live upon you, sir." His father shook his head with an ironical sigh. "Ah, we shall never have a real aristocracy while this plebeian reluctance to live upon a parent or a wife continues the animating spirit of our youth. It strikes at the root of the whole feudal system. I really think you owe me an apology, Tom. I supposed you wished to marry the girl's money, and here you are, basely seeking to go into business with her father." Young Corey laughed again like a son who perceives that his father is a little antiquated, but keeps a filial faith in his wit. "I don't know that it's quite so bad as that; but the thing had certainly crossed my mind. I don't know how it's to be approached, and I don't know that it's at all possible. But I confess that I 'took to' Colonel Lapham from the moment I saw him. He looked as if he 'meant business,' and I mean business too." The father smoked thoughtfully. "Of course people do go into all sorts of things, as you say, and I don't know that one thing is more ignoble than another, if it's decent and large enough. In my time you would have gone into the China trade or the India trade--though I didn't; and a little later cotton would have been your manifest destiny--though it wasn't mine; but now a man may do almost anything. The real-estate business is pretty full. Yes, if you have a deep inward vocation for it, I don't see why mineral paint shouldn't do. I fancy it's easy enough approaching the matter. We will invite Papa Lapham to dinner, and talk it over with him." "Oh, I don't think that would be exactly the way, sir," said the son, smiling at his father's patrician unworldliness. "No? Why not?" "I'm afraid it would be a bad start. I don't think it would strike him as business-like." "I don't see why he should be punctilious, if we're not." "Ah, we might say that if he were making the advances." "Well, perhaps you are right, Tom. What is your idea?" "I haven't a very clear one. It seems to me I ought to get some business friend of ours, whose judgment he would respect, to speak a good word for me." "Give you a character?" "Yes. And of course I must go to Colonel Lapham. My notion would be to inquire pretty thoroughly about him, and then, if I liked the look of things, to go right down to Republic Street and let him see what he could do with me, if anything." "That sounds tremendously practical to me, Tom, though it may be just the wrong way. When are you going down to Mount Desert?" "To-morrow, I think, sir," said the young man. "I shall turn it over in my mind while I'm off." The father rose, showing something more than his son's height, with a very slight stoop, which the son's figure had not. "Well," he said, whimsically, "I admire your spirit, and I don't deny that it is justified by necessity. It's a consolation to think that while I've been spending and enjoying, I have been preparing the noblest future for you--a future of industry and self-reliance. You never could draw, but this scheme of going into the mineral-paint business shows that you have inherited something of my feeling for colour." The son laughed once more, and waiting till his father was well on his way upstairs, turned out the gas and then hurried after him and preceded him into his chamber. He glanced over it to see that everything was there, to his father's hand. Then he said, "Good night, sir," and the elder responded, "Good night, my son," and the son went to his own room. Over the mantel in the elder Corey's room hung a portrait which he had painted of his own father, and now he stood a moment and looked at this as if struck by something novel in it. The resemblance between his son and the old India merchant, who had followed the trade from Salem to Boston when the larger city drew it away from the smaller, must have been what struck him. Grandfather and grandson had both the Roman nose which appears to have flourished chiefly at the formative period of the republic, and which occurs more rarely in the descendants of the conscript fathers, though it still characterises the profiles of a good many Boston ladies. Bromfield Corey had not inherited it, and he had made his straight nose his defence when the old merchant accused him of a want of energy. He said, "What could a man do whose unnatural father had left his own nose away from him?" This amused but did not satisfy the merchant. "You must do something," he said; "and it's for you to choose. If you don't like the India trade, go into something else. Or, take up law or medicine. No Corey yet ever proposed to do nothing." "Ah, then, it's quite time one of us made a beginning," urged the man who was then young, and who was now old, looking into the somewhat fierce eyes of his father's portrait. He had inherited as little of the fierceness as of the nose, and there was nothing predatory in his son either, though the aquiline beak had come down to him in such force. Bromfield Corey liked his son Tom for the gentleness which tempered his energy. "Well let us compromise," he seemed to be saying to his father's portrait. "I will travel." "Travel? How long?" the keen eyes demanded. "Oh, indefinitely. I won't be hard with you, father." He could see the eyes soften, and the smile of yielding come over his father's face; the merchant could not resist a son who was so much like his dead mother. There was some vague understanding between them that Bromfield Corey was to come back and go into business after a time, but he never did so. He travelled about over Europe, and travelled handsomely, frequenting good society everywhere, and getting himself presented at several courts, at a period when it was a distinction to do so. He had always sketched, and with his father's leave he fixed himself at Rome, where he remained studying art and rounding the being inherited from his Yankee progenitors, till there was very little left of the ancestral angularities. After ten years he came home and painted that portrait of his father. It was very good, if a little amateurish, and he might have made himself a name as a painter of portraits if he had not had so much money. But he had plenty of money, though by this time he was married and beginning to have a family. It was absurd for him to paint portraits for pay, and ridiculous to paint them for nothing; so he did not paint them at all. He continued a dilettante, never quite abandoning his art, but working at it fitfully, and talking more about it than working at it. He had his theory of Titian's method; and now and then a Bostonian insisted upon buying a picture of him. After a while he hung it more and more inconspicuously, and said apologetically, "Oh yes! that's one of Bromfield Corey's things. It has nice qualities, but it's amateurish." In process of time the money seemed less abundant. There were shrinkages of one kind and another, and living had grown much more expensive and luxurious. For many years he talked about going back to Rome, but he never went, and his children grew up in the usual way. Before he knew it his son had him out to his class-day spread at Harvard, and then he had his son on his hands. The son made various unsuccessful provisions for himself, and still continued upon his father's hands, to their common dissatisfaction, though it was chiefly the younger who repined. He had the Roman nose and the energy without the opportunity, and at one of the reversions his father said to him, "You ought not to have that nose, Tom; then you would do very well. You would go and travel, as I did." LAPHAM and his wife continued talking after he had quelled the disturbance in his daughters' room overhead; and their talk was not altogether of the new house. "I tell you," he said, "if I had that fellow in the business with me I would make a man of him." "Well, Silas Lapham," returned his wife, "I do believe you've got mineral paint on the brain. Do you suppose a fellow like young Corey, brought up the way he's been, would touch mineral paint with a ten-foot pole?" "Why not?" haughtily asked the Colonel. "Well, if you don't know already, there's no use trying to tell you." VI. THE Coreys had always had a house at Nahant, but after letting it for a season or two they found they could get on without it, and sold it at the son's instance, who foresaw that if things went on as they were going, the family would be straitened to the point of changing their mode of life altogether. They began to be of the people of whom it was said that they stayed in town very late; and when the ladies did go away, it was for a brief summering in this place and that. The father remained at home altogether; and the son joined them in the intervals of his enterprises, which occurred only too often. At Bar Harbour, where he now went to find them, after his winter in Texas, he confessed to his mother that there seemed no very good opening there for him. He might do as well as Loring Stanton, but he doubted if Stanton was doing very well. Then he mentioned the new project which he had been thinking over. She did not deny that there was something in it, but she could not think of any young man who had gone into such a business as that, and it appeared to her that he might as well go into a patent medicine or a stove-polish. "There was one of his hideous advertisements," she said, "painted on a reef that we saw as we came down." Corey smiled. "Well, I suppose, if it was in a good state of preservation, that is proof positive of the efficacy of the paint on the hulls of vessels." "It's very distasteful to me, Tom," said his mother; and if there was something else in her mind, she did not speak more plainly of it than to add: "It's not only the kind of business, but the kind of people you would be mixed up with." "I thought you didn't find them so very bad," suggested Corey. "I hadn't seen them in Nankeen Square then." "You can see them on the water side of Beacon Street when you go back." Then he told of his encounter with the Lapham family in their new house. At the end his mother merely said, "It is getting very common down there," and she did not try to oppose anything further to his scheme. The young man went to see Colonel Lapham shortly after his return to Boston. He paid his visit at Lapham's office, and if he had studied simplicity in his summer dress he could not have presented himself in a figure more to the mind of a practical man. His hands and neck still kept the brown of the Texan suns and winds, and he looked as business-like as Lapham himself. He spoke up promptly and briskly in the outer office, and caused the pretty girl to look away from her copying at him. "Is Mr. Lapham in?" he asked; and after that moment for reflection which an array of book-keepers so addressed likes to give the inquirer, a head was lifted from a ledger and nodded toward the inner office. Lapham had recognised the voice, and he was standing, in considerable perplexity, to receive Corey, when the young man opened his painted glass door. It was a hot afternoon, and Lapham was in his shirt sleeves. Scarcely a trace of the boastful hospitality with which he had welcomed Corey to his house a few days before lingered in his present address. He looked at the young man's face, as if he expected him to despatch whatever unimaginable affair he had come upon. "Won't you sit down? How are you? You'll excuse me," he added, in brief allusion to the shirt-sleeves. "I'm about roasted." Corey laughed. "I wish you'd let me take off MY coat." "Why, TAKE it off!" cried the Colonel, with instant pleasure. There is something in human nature which causes the man in his shirt-sleeves to wish all other men to appear in the same deshabille. "I will, if you ask me after I've talked with you two minutes," said the young fellow, companionably pulling up the chair offered him toward the desk where Lapham had again seated himself. "But perhaps you haven't got two minutes to give me?" "Oh yes, I have," said the Colonel. "I was just going to knock off. I can give you twenty, and then I shall have fifteen minutes to catch the boat." "All right," said Corey. "I want you to take me into the mineral paint business." The Colonel sat dumb. He twisted his thick neck, and looked round at the door to see if it was shut. He would not have liked to have any of those fellows outside hear him, but there is no saying what sum of money he would not have given if his wife had been there to hear what Corey had just said. "I suppose," continued the young man, "I could have got several people whose names you know to back my industry and sobriety, and say a word for my business capacity. But I thought I wouldn't trouble anybody for certificates till I found whether there was a chance, or the ghost of one, of your wanting me. So I came straight to you." Lapham gathered himself together as well as he could. He had not yet forgiven Corey for Mrs. Lapham's insinuation that he would feel himself too good for the mineral paint business; and though he was dispersed by that astounding shot at first, he was not going to let any one even hypothetically despise his paint with impunity. "How do you think I am going to take you on?" They took on hands at the works; and Lapham put it as if Corey were a hand coming to him for employment. Whether he satisfied himself by this or not, he reddened a little after he had said it. Corey answered, ignorant of the offence: "I haven't a very clear idea, I'm afraid; but I've been looking a little into the matter from the outside." "I hope you hain't been paying any attention to that fellow's stuff in the Events?" Lapham interrupted. Since Bartley's interview had appeared, Lapham had regarded it with very mixed feelings. At first it gave him a glow of secret pleasure, blended with doubt as to how his wife would like the use Bartley had made of her in it. But she had not seemed to notice it much, and Lapham had experienced the gratitude of the man who escapes. Then his girls had begun to make fun of it; and though he did not mind Penelope's jokes much, he did not like to see that Irene's gentility was wounded. Business friends met him with the kind of knowing smile about it that implied their sense of the fraudulent character of its praise--the smile of men who had been there and who knew how it was themselves. Lapham had his misgivings as to how his clerks and underlings looked at it; he treated them with stately severity for a while after it came out, and he ended by feeling rather sore about it. He took it for granted that everybody had read it. "I don't know what you mean," replied Corey, "I don't see the Events regularly." "Oh, it was nothing. They sent a fellow down here to interview me, and he got everything about as twisted as he could." "I believe they always do," said Corey. "I hadn't seen it. Perhaps it came out before I got home." "Perhaps it did." "My notion of making myself useful to you was based on a hint I got from one of your own circulars." Lapham was proud of those circulars; he thought they read very well. "What was that?" "I could put a little capital into the business," said Corey, with the tentative accent of a man who chances a thing. "I've got a little money, but I didn't imagine you cared for anything of that kind." "No, sir, I don't," returned the Colonel bluntly. "I've had one partner, and one's enough." "Yes," assented the young man, who doubtless had his own ideas as to eventualities--or perhaps rather had the vague hopes of youth. "I didn't come to propose a partnership. But I see that you are introducing your paint into the foreign markets, and there I really thought I might be of use to you, and to myself too." "How?" asked the Colonel scantly. "Well, I know two or three languages pretty well. I know French, and I know German, and I've got a pretty fair sprinkling of Spanish." "You mean that you can talk them?" asked the Colonel, with the mingled awe and slight that such a man feels for such accomplishments. "Yes; and I can write an intelligible letter in either of them." Lapham rubbed his nose. "It's easy enough to get all the letters we want translated." "Well," pursued Corey, not showing his discouragement if he felt any, "I know the countries where you want to introduce this paint of yours. I've been there. I've been in Germany and France and I've been in South America and Mexico; I've been in Italy, of course. I believe I could go to any of those countries and place it to advantage." Lapham had listened with a trace of persuasion in his face, but now he shook his head. "It's placing itself as fast as there's any call for it. It wouldn't pay us to send anybody out to look after it. Your salary and expenses would eat up about all we should make on it." "Yes," returned the young man intrepidly, "if you had to pay me any salary and expenses." "You don't propose to work for nothing?" "I propose to work for a commission." The Colonel was beginning to shake his head again, but Corey hurried on. "I haven't come to you without making some inquiries about the paint, and I know how it stands with those who know best. I believe in it." Lapham lifted his head and looked at the young man, deeply moved. "It's the best paint in God's universe," he said with the solemnity of prayer. "It's the best in the market," said Corey; and he repeated, "I believe in it." "You believe in it," began the Colonel, and then he stopped. If there had really been any purchasing power in money, a year's income would have bought Mrs. Lapham's instant presence. He warmed and softened to the young man in every way, not only because he must do so to any one who believed in his paint, but because he had done this innocent person the wrong of listening to a defamation of his instinct and good sense, and had been willing to see him suffer for a purely supposititious offence. Corey rose. "You mustn't let me outstay my twenty minutes," he said, taking out his watch. "I don't expect you to give a decided answer on the spot. All that I ask is that you'll consider my proposition." "Don't hurry," said Lapham. "Sit still! I want to tell you about this paint," he added, in a voice husky with the feeling that his hearer could not divine. "I want to tell you ALL about it." "I could walk with you to the boat," suggested the young man. "Never mind the boat! I can take the next one. Look here!" The Colonel pulled open a drawer, as Corey sat down again, and took out a photograph of the locality of the mine. "Here's where we get it. This photograph don't half do the place justice," he said, as if the imperfect art had slighted the features of a beloved face. "It's one of the sightliest places in the country, and here's the very spot "--he covered it with his huge forefinger--"where my father found that paint, more than forty--years--ago. Yes, sir!" He went on, and told the story in unsparing detail, while his chance for the boat passed unheeded, and the clerks in the outer office hung up their linen office coats and put on their seersucker or flannel street coats. The young lady went too, and nobody was left but the porter, who made from time to time a noisy demonstration of fastening a distant blind, or putting something in place. At last the Colonel roused himself from the autobiographical delight of the history of his paint. "Well, sir, that's the story." "It's an interesting story," said Corey, with a long breath, as they rose together, and Lapham put on his coat. "That's what it is," said the Colonel. "Well!" he added, "I don't see but what we've got to have another talk about this thing. It's a surprise to me, and I don't see exactly how you're going to make it pay." "I'm willing to take the chances," answered Corey. "As I said, I believe in it. I should try South America first. I should try Chili." "Look here!" said Lapham, with his watch in his hand. "I like to get things over. We've just got time for the six o'clock boat. Why don't you come down with me to Nantasket? I can give you a bed as well as not. And then we can finish up." The impatience of youth in Corey responded to the impatience of temperament in his elder. "Why, I don't see why I shouldn't," he allowed himself to say. "I confess I should like to have it finished up myself, if it could be finished up in the right way." "Well, we'll see. Dennis!" Lapham called to the remote porter, and the man came. "Want to send any word home?" he asked Corey. "No; my father and I go and come as we like, without keeping account of each other. If I don't come home, he knows that I'm not there. That's all." "Well, that's convenient. You'll find you can't do that when you're married. Never mind, Dennis," said the Colonel. He had time to buy two newspapers on the wharf before he jumped on board the steam-boat with Corey. "Just made it," he said; "and that's what I like to do. I can't stand it to be aboard much more than a minute before she shoves out." He gave one of the newspapers to Corey as he spoke, and set him the example of catching up a camp-stool on their way to that point on the boat which his experience had taught him was the best. He opened his paper at once and began to run over its news, while the young man watched the spectacular recession of the city, and was vaguely conscious of the people about him, and of the gay life of the water round the boat. The air freshened; the craft thinned in number; they met larger sail, lagging slowly inward in the afternoon light; the islands of the bay waxed and waned as the steamer approached and left them behind. "I hate to see them stirring up those Southern fellows again," said the Colonel, speaking into the paper on his lap. "Seems to me it's time to let those old issues go." "Yes," said the young man. "What are they doing now?" "Oh, stirring up the Confederate brigadiers in Congress. I don't like it. Seems to me, if our party hain't got any other stock-in-trade, we better shut up shop altogether." Lapham went on, as he scanned his newspaper, to give his ideas of public questions, in a fragmentary way, while Corey listened patiently, and waited for him to come back to business. He folded up his paper at last, and stuffed it into his coat pocket. "There's one thing I always make it a rule to do," he said, "and that is to give my mind a complete rest from business while I'm going down on the boat. I like to get the fresh air all through me, soul and body. I believe a man can give his mind a rest, just the same as he can give his legs a rest, or his back. All he's got to do is to use his will-power. Why, I suppose, if I hadn't adopted some such rule, with the strain I've had on me for the last ten years, I should 'a' been a dead man long ago. That's the reason I like a horse. You've got to give your mind to the horse; you can't help it, unless you want to break your neck; but a boat's different, and there you got to use your will-power. You got to take your mind right up and put it where you want it. I make it a rule to read the paper on the boat----Hold on!" he interrupted himself to prevent Corey from paying his fare to the man who had come round for it. "I've got tickets. And when I get through the paper, I try to get somebody to talk to, or I watch the people. It's an astonishing thing to me where they all come from. I've been riding up and down on these boats for six or seven years, and I don't know but very few of the faces I see on board. Seems to be a perfectly fresh lot every time. Well, of course! Town's full of strangers in the summer season, anyway, and folks keep coming down from the country. They think it's a great thing to get down to the beach, and they've all heard of the electric light on the water, and they want to see it. But you take faces now! The astonishing thing to me is not what a face tells, but what it don't tell. When you think of what a man is, or a woman is, and what most of 'em have been through before they get to be thirty, it seems as if their experience would burn right through. But it don't. I like to watch the couples, and try to make out which are engaged, or going to be, and which are married, or better be. But half the time I can't make any sort of guess. Of course, where they're young and kittenish, you can tell; but where they're anyways on, you can't. Heigh?" "Yes, I think you're right," said Corey, not perfectly reconciled to philosophy in the place of business, but accepting it as he must. "Well," said the Colonel, "I don't suppose it was meant we should know what was in each other's minds. It would take a man out of his own hands. As long as he's in his own hands, there's some hopes of his doing something with himself; but if a fellow has been found out--even if he hasn't been found out to be so very bad--it's pretty much all up with him. No, sir. I don't want to know people through and through." The greater part of the crowd on board--and, of course, the boat was crowded--looked as if they might not only be easily but safely known. There was little style and no distinction among them; they were people who were going down to the beach for the fun or the relief of it, and were able to afford it. In face they were commonplace, with nothing but the American poetry of vivid purpose to light them up, where they did not wholly lack fire. But they were nearly all shrewd and friendly-looking, with an apparent readiness for the humorous intimacy native to us all. The women were dandified in dress, according to their means and taste, and the men differed from each other in degrees of indifference to it. To a straw-hatted population, such as ours is in summer, no sort of personal dignity is possible. We have not even the power over observers which comes from the fantasticality of an Englishman when he discards the conventional dress. In our straw hats and our serge or flannel sacks we are no more imposing than a crowd of boys. "Some day," said Lapham, rising as the boat drew near the wharf of the final landing, "there's going to be an awful accident on these boats. Just look at that jam." He meant the people thickly packed on the pier, and under strong restraint of locks and gates, to prevent them from rushing on board the boat and possessing her for the return trip before she had landed her Nantasket passengers. "Overload 'em every time," he continued, with a sort of dry, impersonal concern at the impending calamity, as if it could not possibly include him. "They take about twice as many as they ought to carry, and about ten times as many as they could save if anything happened. Yes, sir, it's bound to come. Hello! There's my girl!" He took out his folded newspaper and waved it toward a group of phaetons and barouches drawn up on the pier a little apart from the pack of people, and a lady in one of them answered with a flourish of her parasol. When he had made his way with his guest through the crowd, she began to speak to her father before she noticed Corey. "Well, Colonel, you've improved your last chance. We've been coming to every boat since four o'clock,--or Jerry has,--and I told mother that I would come myself once, and see if I couldn't fetch you; and if I failed, you could walk next time. You're getting perfectly spoiled." The Colonel enjoyed letting her scold him to the end before he said, with a twinkle of pride in his guest and satisfaction in her probably being able to hold her own against any discomfiture, "I've brought Mr. Corey down for the night with me, and I was showing him things all the way, and it took time." The young fellow was at the side of the open beach-wagon, making a quick bow, and Penelope Lapham was cozily drawling, "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Corey?" before the Colonel had finished his explanation. "Get right in there, alongside of Miss Lapham, Mr. Corey," he said, pulling himself up into the place beside the driver. "No, no," he had added quickly, at some signs of polite protest in the young man, "I don't give up the best place to anybody. Jerry, suppose you let me have hold of the leathers a minute." This was his way of taking the reins from the driver; and in half the time he specified, he had skilfully turned the vehicle on the pier, among the crooked lines and groups of foot-passengers, and was spinning up the road toward the stretch of verandaed hotels and restaurants in the sand along the shore. "Pretty gay down here," he said, indicating all this with a turn of his whip, as he left it behind him. "But I've got about sick of hotels; and this summer I made up my mind that I'd take a cottage. Well, Pen, how are the folks?" He looked half-way round for her answer, and with the eye thus brought to bear upon her he was able to give her a wink of supreme content. The Colonel, with no sort of ulterior design, and nothing but his triumph over Mrs. Lapham definitely in his mind, was feeling, as he would have said, about right. The girl smiled a daughter's amusement at her father's boyishness. "I don't think there's much change since morning. Did Irene have a headache when you left?" "No," said the Colonel. "Well, then, there's that to report." "Pshaw!" said the Colonel with vexation in his tone. "I'm sorry Miss Irene isn't well," said Corey politely. "I think she must have got it from walking too long on the beach. The air is so cool here that you forget how hot the sun is." "Yes, that's true," assented Corey. "A good night's rest will make it all right," suggested the Colonel, without looking round. "But you girls have got to look out." "If you're fond of walking," said Corey, "I suppose you find the beach a temptation." "Oh, it isn't so much that," returned the girl. "You keep walking on and on because it's so smooth and straight before you. We've been here so often that we know it all by heart--just how it looks at high tide, and how it looks at low tide, and how it looks after a storm. We're as well acquainted with the crabs and stranded jelly-fish as we are with the children digging in the sand and the people sitting under umbrellas. I think they're always the same, all of them." The Colonel left the talk to the young people. When he spoke next it was to say, "Well, here we are!" and he turned from the highway and drove up in front of a brown cottage with a vermilion roof, and a group of geraniums clutching the rock that cropped up in the loop formed by the road. It was treeless and bare all round, and the ocean, unnecessarily vast, weltered away a little more than a stone's-cast from the cottage. A hospitable smell of supper filled the air, and Mrs. Lapham was on the veranda, with that demand in her eyes for her belated husband's excuses, which she was obliged to check on her tongue at sight of Corey. VII. THE exultant Colonel swung himself lightly down from his seat. "I've brought Mr. Corey with me," he nonchalantly explained. Mrs. Lapham made their guest welcome, and the Colonel showed him to his room, briefly assuring himself that there was nothing wanting there. Then he went to wash his own hands, carelessly ignoring the eagerness with which his wife pursued him to their chamber. "What gave Irene a headache?" he asked, making himself a fine lather for his hairy paws. "Never you mind Irene," promptly retorted his wife. "How came he to come? Did you press him? If you DID, I'll never forgive you, Silas!" The Colonel laughed, and his wife shook him by the shoulder to make him laugh lower. "'Sh!" she whispered. "Do you want him to hear EVERY thing? DID you urge him?" The Colonel laughed the more. He was going to get all the good out of this. "No, I didn't urge him. Seemed to want to come." "I don't believe it. Where did you meet him?" "At the office." "What office?" "Mine." "Nonsense! What was he doing there?" "Oh, nothing much." "What did he come for?" "Come for? Oh! he SAID he wanted to go into the mineral paint business." Mrs. Lapham dropped into a chair, and watched his bulk shaken with smothered laughter. "Silas Lapham," she gasped, "if you try to get off any more of those things on me----" The Colonel applied himself to the towel. "Had a notion he could work it in South America. I don't know what he's up to." "Never mind!" cried his wife. "I'll get even with you YET." "So I told him he had better come down and talk it over," continued the Colonel, in well-affected simplicity. "I knew he wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole." "Go on!" threatened Mrs. Lapham. "Right thing to do, wa'n't it?" A tap was heard at the door, and Mrs. Lapham answered it. A maid announced supper. "Very well," she said, "come to tea now. But I'll make you pay for this, Silas." Penelope had gone to her sister's room as soon as she entered the house. "Is your head any better, 'Rene?" she asked. "Yes, a little," came a voice from the pillows. "But I shall not come to tea. I don't want anything. If I keep still, I shall be all right by morning." "Well, I'm sorry," said the elder sister. "He's come down with father." "He hasn't! Who?" cried Irene, starting up in simultaneous denial and demand. "Oh, well, if you say he hasn't, what's the use of my telling you who?" "Oh, how can you treat me so!" moaned the sufferer. "What do you mean, Pen?" "I guess I'd better not tell you," said Penelope, watching her like a cat playing with a mouse. "If you're not coming to tea, it would just excite you for nothing." The mouse moaned and writhed upon the bed. "Oh, I wouldn't treat YOU so!" The cat seated herself across the room, and asked quietly-- "Well, what could you do if it WAS Mr. Corey? You couldn't come to tea, you say. But HE'LL excuse you. I've told him you had a headache. Why, of course you can't come! It would be too barefaced. But you needn't be troubled, Irene; I'll do my best to make the time pass pleasantly for him." Here the cat gave a low titter, and the mouse girded itself up with a momentary courage and self-respect. "I should think you would be ashamed to come here and tease me so." "I don't see why you shouldn't believe me," argued Penelope. "Why shouldn't he come down with father, if father asked him? and he'd be sure to if he thought of it. I don't see any p'ints about that frog that's any better than any other frog." The sense of her sister's helplessness was too much for the tease; she broke down in a fit of smothered laughter, which convinced her victim that it was nothing but an ill-timed joke. "Well, Pen, I wouldn't use you so," she whimpered. Penelope threw herself on the bed beside her. "Oh, poor Irene! He IS here. It's a solemn fact." And she caressed and soothed her sister, while she choked with laughter. "You must get up and come out. I don't know what brought him here, but here he is." "It's too late now," said Irene desolately. Then she added, with a wilder despair: "What a fool I was to take that walk!" "Well," coaxed her sister, "come out and get some tea. The tea will do you good." "No, no; I can't come. But send me a cup here." "Yes, and then perhaps you can see him later in the evening." "I shall not see him at all." An hour after Penelope came back to her sister's room and found her before her glass. "You might as well have kept still, and been well by morning, 'Rene," she said. "As soon as we were done father said, 'Well, Mr. Corey and I have got to talk over a little matter of business, and we'll excuse you, ladies.' He looked at mother in a way that I guess was pretty hard to bear. 'Rene, you ought to have heard the Colonel swelling at supper. It would have made you feel that all he said the other day was nothing." Mrs. Lapham suddenly opened the door. "Now, see here, Pen," she said, as she closed it behind her, "I've had just as much as I can stand from your father, and if you don't tell me this instant what it all means----" She left the consequences to imagination, and Penelope replied with her mock soberness-- "Well, the Colonel does seem to be on his high horse, ma'am. But you mustn't ask me what his business with Mr. Corey is, for I don't know. All that I know is that I met them at the landing, and that they conversed all the way down--on literary topics." "Nonsense! What do you think it is?" "Well, if you want my candid opinion, I think this talk about business is nothing but a blind. It seems a pity Irene shouldn't have been up to receive him," she added. Irene cast a mute look of imploring at her mother, who was too much preoccupied to afford her the protection it asked. "Your father said he wanted to go into the business with him." Irene's look changed to a stare of astonishment and mystification, but Penelope preserved her imperturbability. "Well, it's a lucrative business, I believe." "Well, I don't believe a word of it!" cried Mrs. Lapham. "And so I told your father." "Did it seem to convince him?" inquired Penelope. Her mother did not reply. "I know one thing," she said. "He's got to tell me every word, or there'll be no sleep for him THIS night." "Well, ma'am," said Penelope, breaking down in one of her queer laughs, "I shouldn't be a bit surprised if you were right." "Go on and dress, Irene," ordered her mother, "and then you and Pen come out into the parlour. They can have just two hours for business, and then we must all be there to receive him. You haven't got headache enough to hurt you." "Oh, it's all gone now," said the girl. At the end of the limit she had given the Colonel, Mrs. Lapham looked into the dining-room, which she found blue with his smoke. "I think you gentlemen will find the parlour pleasanter now, and we can give it up to you." "Oh no, you needn't," said her husband. "We've got about through." Corey was already standing, and Lapham rose too. "I guess we can join the ladies now. We can leave that little point till to-morrow." Both of the young ladies were in the parlour when Corey entered with their father, and both were frankly indifferent to the few books and the many newspapers scattered about on the table where the large lamp was placed. But after Corey had greeted Irene he glanced at the novel under his eye, and said, in the dearth that sometimes befalls people at such times: "I see you're reading Middlemarch. Do you like George Eliot?" "Who?" asked the girl. Penelope interposed. "I don't believe Irene's read it yet. I've just got it out of the library; I heard so much talk about it. I wish she would let you find out a little about the people for yourself," she added. But here her father struck in-- "I can't get the time for books. It's as much as I can do to keep up with the newspapers; and when night comes, I'm tired, and I'd rather go out to the theatre, or a lecture, if they've got a good stereopticon to give you views of the places. But I guess we all like a play better than 'most anything else. I want something that'll make me laugh. I don't believe in tragedy. I think there's enough of that in real life without putting it on the stage. Seen 'Joshua Whitcomb'?" The whole family joined in the discussion, and it appeared that they all had their opinions of the plays and actors. Mrs. Lapham brought the talk back to literature. "I guess Penelope does most of our reading." "Now, mother, you're not going to put it all on me!" said the girl, in comic protest. Her mother laughed, and then added, with a sigh: "I used to like to get hold of a good book when I was a girl; but we weren't allowed to read many novels in those days. My mother called them all LIES. And I guess she wasn't so very far wrong about some of them." "They're certainly fictions," said Corey, smiling. "Well, we do buy a good many books, first and last," said the Colonel, who probably had in mind the costly volumes which they presented to one another on birthdays and holidays. "But I get about all the reading I want in the newspapers. And when the girls want a novel, I tell 'em to get it out of the library. That's what the library's for. Phew!" he panted, blowing away the whole unprofitable subject. "How close you women-folks like to keep a room! You go down to the sea-side or up to the mountains for a change of air, and then you cork yourselves into a room so tight you don't have any air at all. Here! You girls get on your bonnets, and go and show Mr. Corey the view of the hotels from the rocks." Corey said that he should be delighted. The girls exchanged looks with each other, and then with their mother. Irene curved her pretty chin in comment upon her father's incorrigibility, and Penelope made a droll mouth, but the Colonel remained serenely content with his finesse. "I got 'em out of the way," he said, as soon as they were gone, and before his wife had time to fall upon him, "because I've got through my talk with him, and now I want to talk with YOU. It's just as I said, Persis; he wants to go into the business with me." "It's lucky for you," said his wife, meaning that now he would not be made to suffer for attempting to hoax her. But she was too intensely interested to pursue that matter further. "What in the world do you suppose he means by it?" "Well, I should judge by his talk that he had been trying a good many different things since he left college, and he hain't found just the thing he likes--or the thing that likes him. It ain't so easy. And now he's got an idea that he can take hold of the paint and push it in other countries--push it in Mexico and push it in South America. He's a splendid Spanish scholar,"--this was Lapham's version of Corey's modest claim to a smattering of the language,--"and he's been among the natives enough to know their ways. And he believes in the paint," added the Colonel. "I guess he believes in something else besides the paint," said Mrs. Lapham. "What do you mean?" "Well, Silas Lapham, if you can't see NOW that he's after Irene, I don't know what ever CAN open your eyes. That's all." The Colonel pretended to give the idea silent consideration, as if it had not occurred to him before. "Well, then, all I've got to say is, that he's going a good way round. I don't say you're wrong, but if it's Irene, I don't see why he should want to go off to South America to get her. And that's what he proposes to do. I guess there's some paint about it too, Persis. He says he believes in it,"--the Colonel devoutly lowered his voice,--"and he's willing to take the agency on his own account down there, and run it for a commission on what he can sell." "Of course! He isn't going to take hold of it any way so as to feel beholden to you. He's got too much pride for that." "He ain't going to take hold of it at all, if he don't mean paint in the first place and Irene afterward. I don't object to him, as I know, either way, but the two things won't mix; and I don't propose he shall pull the wool over my eyes--or anybody else. But, as far as heard from, up to date, he means paint first, last, and all the time. At any rate, I'm going to take him on that basis. He's got some pretty good ideas about it, and he's been stirred up by this talk, just now, about getting our manufactures into the foreign markets. There's an overstock in everything, and we've got to get rid of it, or we've got to shut down till the home demand begins again. We've had two or three such flurries before now, and they didn't amount to much. They say we can't extend our commerce under the high tariff system we've got now, because there ain't any sort of reciprocity on our side,--we want to have the other fellows show all the reciprocity,--and the English have got the advantage of us every time. I don't know whether it's so or not; but I don't see why it should apply to my paint. Anyway, he wants to try it, and I've about made up my mind to let him. Of course I ain't going to let him take all the risk. I believe in the paint TOO, and I shall pay his expenses anyway." "So you want another partner after all?" Mrs. Lapham could not forbear saying. "Yes, if that's your idea of a partner. It isn't mine," returned her husband dryly. "Well, if you've made up your mind, Si, I suppose you're ready for advice," said Mrs. Lapham. The Colonel enjoyed this. "Yes, I am. What have you got to say against it?" "I don't know as I've got anything. I'm satisfied if you are." "Well?" "When is he going to start for South America?" "I shall take him into the office a while. He'll get off some time in the winter. But he's got to know the business first." "Oh, indeed! Are you going to take him to board in the family?" "What are you after, Persis?" "Oh, nothing! I presume he will feel free to visit in the family, even if he don't board with us." "I presume he will." "And if he don't use his privileges, do you think he'll be a fit person to manage your paint in South America?" The Colonel reddened consciously. "I'm not taking him on that basis." "Oh yes, you are! You may pretend you ain't to yourself, but you mustn't pretend so to me. Because I know you." The Colonel laughed. "Pshaw!" he said. Mrs. Lapham continued: "I don't see any harm in hoping that he'll take a fancy to her. But if you really think it won't do to mix the two things, I advise you not to take Mr. Corey into the business. It will do all very well if he DOES take a fancy to her; but if he don't, you know how you'll feel about it. And I know you well enough, Silas, to know that you can't do him justice if that happens. And I don't think it's right you should take this step unless you're pretty sure. I can see that you've set your heart on this thing." "I haven't set my heart on it at all," protested Lapham. "And if you can't bring it about, you're going to feel unhappy over it," pursued his wife, regardless of his protest. "Oh, very well," he said. "If you know more about what's in my mind than I do, there's no use arguing, as I can see." He got up, to carry off his consciousness, and sauntered out of the door on to his piazza. He could see the young people down on the rocks, and his heart swelled in his breast. He had always said that he did not care what a man's family was, but the presence of young Corey as an applicant to him for employment, as his guest, as the possible suitor of his daughter, was one of the sweetest flavours that he had yet tasted in his success. He knew who the Coreys were very well, and, in his simple, brutal way, he had long hated their name as a symbol of splendour which, unless he should live to see at least three generations of his descendants gilded with mineral paint, he could not hope to realise in his own. He was acquainted in a business way with the tradition of old Phillips Corey, and he had heard a great many things about the Corey who had spent his youth abroad and his father's money everywhere, and done nothing but say smart things. Lapham could not see the smartness of some of them which had been repeated to him. Once he had encountered the fellow, and it seemed to Lapham that the tall, slim, white-moustached man, with the slight stoop, was everything that was offensively aristocratic. He had bristled up aggressively at the name when his wife told how she had made the acquaintance of the fellow's family the summer before, and he had treated the notion of young Corey's caring for Irene with the contempt which such a ridiculous superstition deserved. He had made up his mind about young Corey beforehand; yet when he met him he felt an instant liking for him, which he frankly acknowledged, and he had begun to assume the burden of his wife's superstition, of which she seemed now ready to accuse him of being the inventor. Nothing had moved his thick imagination like this day's events since the girl who taught him spelling and grammar in the school at Lumberville had said she would have him for her husband. The dark figures, stationary on the rocks, began to move, and he could see that they were coming toward the house. He went indoors, so as not to appear to have been watching them. VIII. A WEEK after she had parted with her son at Bar Harbour, Mrs. Corey suddenly walked in upon her husband in their house in Boston. He was at breakfast, and he gave her the patronising welcome with which the husband who has been staying in town all summer receives his wife when she drops down upon him from the mountains or the sea-side. For a little moment she feels herself strange in the house, and suffers herself to be treated like a guest, before envy of his comfort vexes her back into possession and authority. Mrs. Corey was a lady, and she did not let her envy take the form of open reproach. "Well, Anna, you find me here in the luxury you left me to. How did you leave the girls?" "The girls were well," said Mrs. Corey, looking absently at her husband's brown velvet coat, in which he was so handsome. No man had ever grown grey more beautifully. His hair, while not remaining dark enough to form a theatrical contrast with his moustache, was yet some shades darker, and, in becoming a little thinner, it had become a little more gracefully wavy. His skin had the pearly tint which that of elderly men sometimes assumes, and the lines which time had traced upon it were too delicate for the name of wrinkles. He had never had any personal vanity, and there was no consciousness in his good looks now. "I am glad of that. The boy I have with me," he returned; "that is, when he IS with me." "Why, where is he?" demanded the mother. "Probably carousing with the boon Lapham somewhere. He left me yesterday afternoon to go and offer his allegiance to the Mineral Paint King, and I haven't seen him since." "Bromfield!" cried Mrs. Corey. "Why didn't you stop him?" "Well, my dear, I'm not sure that it isn't a very good thing." "A good thing? It's horrid!" "No, I don't think so. It's decent. Tom had found out--without consulting the landscape, which I believe proclaims it everywhere----" "Hideous!" "That it's really a good thing; and he thinks that he has some ideas in regard to its dissemination in the parts beyond seas." "Why shouldn't he go into something else?" lamented the mother. "I believe he has gone into nearly everything else and come out of it. So there is a chance of his coming out of this. But as I had nothing to suggest in place of it, I thought it best not to interfere. In fact, what good would my telling him that mineral paint was nasty have done? I dare say YOU told him it was nasty." "Yes! I did." "And you see with what effect, though he values your opinion three times as much as he values mine. Perhaps you came up to tell him again that it was nasty?" "I feel very unhappy about it. He is throwing himself away. Yes, I should like to prevent it if I could!" The father shook his head. "If Lapham hasn't prevented it, I fancy it's too late. But there may be some hopes of Lapham. As for Tom's throwing himself away, I don't know. There's no question but he is one of the best fellows under the sun. He's tremendously energetic, and he has plenty of the kind of sense which we call horse; but he isn't brilliant. No, Tom is not brilliant. I don't think he would get on in a profession, and he's instinctively kept out of everything of the kind. But he has got to do something. What shall he do? He says mineral paint, and really I don't see why he shouldn't. If money is fairly and honestly earned, why should we pretend to care what it comes out of, when we don't really care? That superstition is exploded everywhere." "Oh, it isn't the paint alone," said Mrs. Corey; and then she perceptibly arrested herself, and made a diversion in continuing: "I wish he had married some one." "With money?" suggested her husband. "From time to time I have attempted Tom's corruption from that side, but I suspect Tom has a conscience against it, and I rather like him for it. I married for love myself," said Corey, looking across the table at his wife. She returned his look tolerantly, though she felt it right to say, "What nonsense!" "Besides," continued her husband, "if you come to money, there is the paint princess. She will have plenty." "Ah, that's the worst of it," sighed the mother. "I suppose I could get on with the paint----" "But not with the princess? I thought you said she was a very pretty, well-behaved girl?" "She is very pretty, and she is well-behaved; but there is nothing of her. She is insipid; she is very insipid." "But Tom seemed to like her flavour, such as it was?" "How can I tell? We were under a terrible obligation to them, and I naturally wished him to be polite to them. In fact, I asked him to be so." "And he was too polite." "I can't say that he was. But there is no doubt that the child is extremely pretty." "Tom says there are two of them. Perhaps they will neutralise each other." "Yes, there is another daughter," assented Mrs. Corey. "I don't see how you can joke about such things, Bromfield," she added. "Well, I don't either, my dear, to tell you the truth. My hardihood surprises me. Here is a son of mine whom I see reduced to making his living by a shrinkage in values. It's very odd," interjected Corey, "that some values should have this peculiarity of shrinking. You never hear of values in a picture shrinking; but rents, stocks, real estate--all those values shrink abominably. Perhaps it might be argued that one should put all his values into pictures; I've got a good many of mine there." "Tom needn't earn his living," said Mrs. Corey, refusing her husband's jest. "There's still enough for all of us." "That is what I have sometimes urged upon Tom. I have proved to him that with economy, and strict attention to business, he need do nothing as long as he lives. Of course he would be somewhat restricted, and it would cramp the rest of us; but it is a world of sacrifices and compromises. He couldn't agree with me, and he was not in the least moved by the example of persons of quality in Europe, which I alleged in support of the life of idleness. It appears that he wishes to do something--to do something for himself. I am afraid that Tom is selfish." Mrs. Corey smiled wanly. Thirty years before, she had married the rich young painter in Rome, who said so much better things than he painted--charming things, just the things to please the fancy of a girl who was disposed to take life a little too seriously and practically. She saw him in a different light when she got him home to Boston; but he had kept on saying the charming things, and he had not done much else. In fact, he had fulfilled the promise of his youth. It was a good trait in him that he was not actively but only passively extravagant. He was not adventurous with his money; his tastes were as simple as an Italian's; he had no expensive habits. In the process of time he had grown to lead a more and more secluded life. It was hard to get him out anywhere, even to dinner. His patience with their narrowing circumstances had a pathos which she felt the more the more she came into charge of their joint life. At times it seemed too bad that the children and their education and pleasures should cost so much. She knew, besides, that if it had not been for them she would have gone back to Rome with him, and lived princely there for less than it took to live respectably in Boston. "Tom hasn't consulted me," continued his father, "but he has consulted other people. And he has arrived at the conclusion that mineral paint is a good thing to go into. He has found out all about it, and about its founder or inventor. It's quite impressive to hear him talk. And if he must do something for himself, I don't see why his egotism shouldn't as well take that form as another. Combined with the paint princess, it isn't so agreeable; but that's only a remote possibility, for which your principal ground is your motherly solicitude. But even if it were probable and imminent, what could you do? The chief consolation that we American parents have in these matters is that we can do nothing. If we were Europeans, even English, we should take some cognisance of our children's love affairs, and in some measure teach their young affections how to shoot. But it is our custom to ignore them until they have shot, and then they ignore us. We are altogether too delicate to arrange the marriages of our children; and when they have arranged them we don't like to say anything, for fear we should only make bad worse. The right way is for us to school ourselves to indifference. That is what the young people have to do elsewhere, and that is the only logical result of our position here. It is absurd for us to have any feeling about what we don't interfere with." "Oh, people do interfere with their children's marriages very often," said Mrs. Corey. "Yes, but only in a half-hearted way, so as not to make it disagreeable for themselves if the marriages go on in spite of them, as they're pretty apt to do. Now, my idea is that I ought to cut Tom off with a shilling. That would be very simple, and it would be economical. But you would never consent, and Tom wouldn't mind it." "I think our whole conduct in regard to such things is wrong," said Mrs. Corey. "Oh, very likely. But our whole civilisation is based upon it. And who is going to make a beginning? To which father in our acquaintance shall I go and propose an alliance for Tom with his daughter? I should feel like an ass. And will you go to some mother, and ask her sons in marriage for our daughters? You would feel like a goose. No; the only motto for us is, Hands off altogether." "I shall certainly speak to Tom when the time comes," said Mrs. Corey. "And I shall ask leave to be absent from your discomfiture, my dear," answered her husband. The son returned that afternoon, and confessed his surprise at finding his mother in Boston. He was so frank that she had not quite the courage to confess in turn why she had come, but trumped up an excuse. "Well, mother," he said promptly, "I have made an engagement with Mr. Lapham." "Have you, Tom?" she asked faintly. "Yes. For the present I am going to have charge of his foreign correspondence, and if I see my way to the advantage I expect to find in it, I am going out to manage that side of his business in South America and Mexico. He's behaved very handsomely about it. He says that if it appears for our common interest, he shall pay me a salary as well as a commission. I've talked with Uncle Jim, and he thinks it's a good opening." "Your Uncle Jim does?" queried Mrs. Corey in amaze. "Yes; I consulted him the whole way through, and I've acted on his advice." This seemed an incomprehensible treachery on her brother's part. "Yes; I thought you would like to have me. And besides, I couldn't possibly have gone to any one so well fitted to advise me." His mother said nothing. In fact, the mineral paint business, however painful its interest, was, for the moment, superseded by a more poignant anxiety. She began to feel her way cautiously toward this. "Have you been talking about your business with Mr. Lapham all night?" "Well, pretty much," said her son, with a guiltless laugh. "I went to see him yesterday afternoon, after I had gone over the whole ground with Uncle Jim, and Mr. Lapham asked me to go down with him and finish up." "Down?" repeated Mrs. Corey. "Yes, to Nantasket. He has a cottage down there." "At Nantasket?" Mrs. Corey knitted her brows a little. "What in the world can a cottage at Nantasket be like?" "Oh, very much like a 'cottage' anywhere. It has the usual allowance of red roof and veranda. There are the regulation rocks by the sea; and the big hotels on the beach about a mile off, flaring away with electric lights and roman-candles at night. We didn't have them at Nahant." "No," said his mother. "Is Mrs. Lapham well? And her daughter?" "Yes, I think so," said the young man. "The young ladies walked me down to the rocks in the usual way after dinner, and then I came back and talked paint with Mr. Lapham till midnight. We didn't settle anything till this morning coming up on the boat." "What sort of people do they seem to be at home?" "What sort? Well, I don't know that I noticed." Mrs. Corey permitted herself the first part of a sigh of relief; and her son laughed, but apparently not at her. "They're just reading Middlemarch. They say there's so much talk about it. Oh, I suppose they're very good people. They seemed to be on very good terms with each other." "I suppose it's the plain sister who's reading Middlemarch." "Plain? Is she plain?" asked the young man, as if searching his consciousness. "Yes, it's the older one who does the reading, apparently. But I don't believe that even she overdoes it. They like to talk better. They reminded me of Southern people in that." The young man smiled, as if amused by some of his impressions of the Lapham family. "The living, as the country people call it, is tremendously good. The Colonel--he's a colonel--talked of the coffee as his wife's coffee, as if she had personally made it in the kitchen, though I believe it was merely inspired by her. And there was everything in the house that money could buy. But money has its limitations." This was a fact which Mrs. Corey was beginning to realise more and more unpleasantly in her own life; but it seemed to bring her a certain comfort in its application to the Laphams. "Yes, there is a point where taste has to begin," she said. "They seemed to want to apologise to me for not having more books," said Corey. "I don't know why they should. The Colonel said they bought a good many books, first and last; but apparently they don't take them to the sea-side." "I dare say they NEVER buy a NEW book. I've met some of these moneyed people lately, and they lavish on every conceivable luxury, and then borrow books, and get them in the cheap paper editions." "I fancy that's the way with the Lapham family," said the young man, smilingly. "But they are very good people. The other daughter is humorous." "Humorous?" Mrs. Corey knitted her brows in some perplexity. "Do you mean like Mrs. Sayre?" she asked, naming the lady whose name must come into every Boston mind when humour is mentioned. "Oh no; nothing like that. She never says anything that you can remember; nothing in flashes or ripples; nothing the least literary. But it's a sort of droll way of looking at things; or a droll medium through which things present themselves. I don't know. She tells what she's seen, and mimics a little." "Oh," said Mrs. Corey coldly. After a moment she asked: "And is Miss Irene as pretty as ever?" "She's a wonderful complexion," said the son unsatisfactorily. "I shall want to be by when father and Colonel Lapham meet," he added, with a smile. "Ah, yes, your father!" said the mother, in that way in which a wife at once compassionates and censures her husband to their children. "Do you think it's really going to be a trial to him?" asked the young man quickly. "No, no, I can't say it is. But I confess I wish it was some other business, Tom." "Well, mother, I don't see why. The principal thing looked at now is the amount of money; and while I would rather starve than touch a dollar that was dirty with any sort of dishonesty----" "Of course you would, my son!" interposed his mother proudly. "I shouldn't at all mind its having a little mineral paint on it. I'll use my influence with Colonel Lapham--if I ever have any--to have his paint scraped off the landscape." "I suppose you won't begin till the autumn." "Oh yes, I shall," said the son, laughing at his mother's simple ignorance of business. "I shall begin to-morrow morning." "To-morrow morning!" "Yes. I've had my desk appointed already, and I shall be down there at nine in the morning to take possession." "Tom," cried his mother, "why do you think Mr. Lapham has taken you into business so readily? I've always heard that it was so hard for young men to get in." "And do you think I found it easy with him? We had about twelve hours' solid talk." "And you don't suppose it was any sort of--personal consideration?" "Why, I don't know exactly what you mean, mother. I suppose he likes me." Mrs. Corey could not say just what she meant. She answered, ineffectually enough-- "Yes. You wouldn't like it to be a favour, would you?" "I think he's a man who may be trusted to look after his own interest. But I don't mind his beginning by liking me. It'll be my own fault if I don't make myself essential to him." "Yes," said Mrs. Corey. "Well," demanded her husband, at their first meeting after her interview with their son, "what did you say to Tom?" "Very little, if anything. I found him with his mind made up, and it would only have distressed him if I had tried to change it." "That is precisely what I said, my dear." "Besides, he had talked the matter over fully with James, and seems to have been advised by him. I can't understand James." "Oh! it's in regard to the paint, and not the princess, that he's made up his mind. Well, I think you were wise to let him alone, Anna. We represent a faded tradition. We don't really care what business a man is in, so it is large enough, and he doesn't advertise offensively; but we think it fine to affect reluctance." "Do you really feel so, Bromfield?" asked his wife seriously. "Certainly I do. There was a long time in my misguided youth when I supposed myself some sort of porcelain; but it's a relief to be of the common clay, after all, and to know it. If I get broken, I can be easily replaced." "If Tom must go into such a business," said Mrs. Corey, "I'm glad James approves of it." "I'm afraid it wouldn't matter to Tom if he didn't; and I don't know that I should care," said Corey, betraying the fact that he had perhaps had a good deal of his brother-in-law's judgment in the course of his life. "You had better consult him in regard to Tom's marrying the princess." "There is no necessity at present for that," said Mrs. Corey, with dignity. After a moment, she asked, "Should you feel quite so easy if it were a question of that, Bromfield?" "It would be a little more personal." "You feel about it as I do. Of course, we have both lived too long, and seen too much of the world, to suppose we can control such things. The child is good, I haven't the least doubt, and all those things can be managed so that they wouldn't disgrace us. But she has had a certain sort of bringing up. I should prefer Tom to marry a girl with another sort, and this business venture of his increases the chances that he won't. That's all." "''Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but 'twill serve.'" "I shouldn't like it." "Well, it hasn't happened yet." "Ah, you never can realise anything beforehand." "Perhaps that has saved me some suffering. But you have at least the consolation of two anxieties at once. I always find that a great advantage. You can play one off against the other." Mrs. Corey drew a long breath as if she did not experience the suggested consolation; and she arranged to quit, the following afternoon, the scene of her defeat, which she had not had the courage to make a battlefield. Her son went down to see her off on the boat, after spending his first day at his desk in Lapham's office. He was in a gay humour, and she departed in a reflected gleam of his good spirits. He told her all about it, as he sat talking with her at the stern of the boat, lingering till the last moment, and then stepping ashore, with as little waste of time as Lapham himself, on the gang-plank which the deck-hands had laid hold of. He touched his hat to her from the wharf to reassure her of his escape from being carried away with her, and the next moment his smiling face hid itself in the crowd. He walked on smiling up the long wharf, encumbered with trucks and hacks and piles of freight, and, taking his way through the deserted business streets beyond this bustle, made a point of passing the door of Lapham's warehouse, on the jambs of which his name and paint were lettered in black on a square ground of white. The door was still open, and Corey loitered a moment before it, tempted to go upstairs and fetch away some foreign letters which he had left on his desk, and which he thought he might finish up at home. He was in love with his work, and he felt the enthusiasm for it which nothing but the work we can do well inspires in us. He believed that he had found his place in the world, after a good deal of looking, and he had the relief, the repose, of fitting into it. Every little incident of the momentous, uneventful day was a pleasure in his mind, from his sitting down at his desk, to which Lapham's boy brought him the foreign letters, till his rising from it an hour ago. Lapham had been in view within his own office, but he had given Corey no formal reception, and had, in fact, not spoken to him till toward the end of the forenoon, when he suddenly came out of his den with some more letters in his hand, and after a brief "How d'ye do?" had spoken a few words about them, and left them with him. He was in his shirt-sleeves again, and his sanguine person seemed to radiate the heat with which he suffered. He did not go out to lunch, but had it brought to him in his office, where Corey saw him eating it before he left his own desk to go out and perch on a swinging seat before the long counter of a down-town restaurant. He observed that all the others lunched at twelve, and he resolved to anticipate his usual hour. When he returned, the pretty girl who had been clicking away at a type-writer all the morning was neatly putting out of sight the evidences of pie from the table where her machine stood, and was preparing to go on with her copying. In his office Lapham lay asleep in his arm-chair, with a newspaper over his face. Now, while Corey lingered at the entrance to the stairway, these two came down the stairs together, and he heard Lapham saying, "Well, then, you better get a divorce." He looked red and excited, and the girl's face, which she veiled at sight of Corey, showed traces of tears. She slipped round him into the street. But Lapham stopped, and said, with the show of no feeling but surprise: "Hello, Corey! Did you want to go up?" "Yes; there were some letters I hadn't quite got through with." "You'll find Dennis up there. But I guess you better let them go till to-morrow. I always make it a rule to stop work when I'm done." "Perhaps you're right," said Corey, yielding. "Come along down as far as the boat with me. There's a little matter I want to talk over with you." It was a business matter, and related to Corey's proposed connection with the house. The next day the head book-keeper, who lunched at the long counter of the same restaurant with Corey, began to talk with him about Lapham. Walker had not apparently got his place by seniority; though with his forehead, bald far up toward the crown, and his round smooth face, one might have taken him for a plump elder, if he had not looked equally like a robust infant. The thick drabbish yellow moustache was what arrested decision in either direction, and the prompt vigour of all his movements was that of a young man of thirty, which was really Walker's age. He knew, of course, who Corey was, and he had waited for a man who might look down on him socially to make the overtures toward something more than business acquaintance; but, these made, he was readily responsive, and drew freely on his philosophy of Lapham and his affairs. "I think about the only difference between people in this world is that some know what they want, and some don't. Well, now," said Walker, beating the bottom of his salt-box to make the salt come out, "the old man knows what he wants every time. And generally he gets it. Yes, sir, he generally gets it. He knows what he's about, but I'll be blessed if the rest of us do half the time. Anyway, we don't till he's ready to let us. You take my position in most business houses. It's confidential. The head book-keeper knows right along pretty much everything the house has got in hand. I'll give you my word I don't. He may open up to you a little more in your department, but, as far as the rest of us go, he don't open up any more than an oyster on a hot brick. They say he had a partner once; I guess he's dead. I wouldn't like to be the old man's partner. Well, you see, this paint of his is like his heart's blood. Better not try to joke him about it. I've seen people come in occasionally and try it. They didn't get much fun out of it." While he talked, Walker was plucking up morsels from his plate, tearing off pieces of French bread from the long loaf, and feeding them into his mouth in an impersonal way, as if he were firing up an engine. "I suppose he thinks," suggested Corey, "that if he doesn't tell, nobody else will." Walker took a draught of beer from his glass, and wiped the foam from his moustache. "Oh, but he carries it too far! It's a weakness with him. He's just so about everything. Look at the way he keeps it up about that type-writer girl of his. You'd think she was some princess travelling incognito. There isn't one of us knows who she is, or where she came from, or who she belongs to. He brought her and her machine into the office one morning, and set 'em down at a table, and that's all there is about it, as far as we're concerned. It's pretty hard on the girl, for I guess she'd like to talk; and to any one that didn't know the old man----" Walker broke off and drained his glass of what was left in it. Corey thought of the words he had overheard from Lapham to the girl. But he said, "She seems to be kept pretty busy." "Oh yes," said Walker; "there ain't much loafing round the place, in any of the departments, from the old man's down. That's just what I say. He's got to work just twice as hard, if he wants to keep everything in his own mind. But he ain't afraid of work. That's one good thing about him. And Miss Dewey has to keep step with the rest of us. But she don't look like one that would take to it naturally. Such a pretty girl as that generally thinks she does enough when she looks her prettiest." "She's a pretty girl," said Corey, non-committally. "But I suppose a great many pretty girls have to earn their living." "Don't any of 'em like to do it," returned the book-keeper. "They think it's a hardship, and I don't blame 'em. They have got a right to get married, and they ought to have the chance. And Miss Dewey's smart, too. She's as bright as a biscuit. I guess she's had trouble. I shouldn't be much more than half surprised if Miss Dewey wasn't Miss Dewey, or hadn't always been. Yes, sir," continued the book-keeper, who prolonged the talk as they walked back to Lapham's warehouse together, "I don't know exactly what it is,--it isn't any one thing in particular,--but I should say that girl had been married. I wouldn't speak so freely to any of the rest, Mr. Corey,--I want you to understand that,--and it isn't any of my business, anyway; but that's my opinion." Corey made no reply, as he walked beside the book-keeper, who continued-- "It's curious what a difference marriage makes in people. Now, I know that I don't look any more like a bachelor of my age than I do like the man in the moon, and yet I couldn't say where the difference came in, to save me. And it's just so with a woman. The minute you catch sight of her face, there's something in it that tells you whether she's married or not. What do you suppose it is?" "I'm sure I don't know," said Corey, willing to laugh away the topic. "And from what I read occasionally of some people who go about repeating their happiness, I shouldn't say that the intangible evidences were always unmistakable." "Oh, of course," admitted Walker, easily surrendering his position. "All signs fail in dry weather. Hello! What's that?" He caught Corey by the arm, and they both stopped. At a corner, half a block ahead of them, the summer noon solitude of the place was broken by a bit of drama. A man and woman issued from the intersecting street, and at the moment of coming into sight the man, who looked like a sailor, caught the woman by the arm, as if to detain her. A brief struggle ensued, the woman trying to free herself, and the man half coaxing, half scolding. The spectators could now see that he was drunk; but before they could decide whether it was a case for their interference or not, the woman suddenly set both hands against the man's breast and gave him a quick push. He lost his footing and tumbled into a heap in the gutter. The woman faltered an instant, as if to see whether he was seriously hurt, and then turned and ran. When Corey and the book-keeper re-entered the office, Miss Dewey had finished her lunch, and was putting a sheet of paper into her type-writer. She looked up at them with her eyes of turquoise blue, under her low white forehead, with the hair neatly rippled over it, and then began to beat the keys of her machine. IX. LAPHAM had the pride which comes of self-making, and he would not openly lower his crest to the young fellow he had taken into his business. He was going to be obviously master in his own place to every one; and during the hours of business he did nothing to distinguish Corey from the half-dozen other clerks and book-keepers in the outer office, but he was not silent about the fact that Bromfield Corey's son had taken a fancy to come to him. "Did you notice that fellow at the desk facing my type-writer girl? Well, sir, that's the son of Bromfield Corey--old Phillips Corey's grandson. And I'll say this for him, that there isn't a man in the office that looks after his work better. There isn't anything he's too good for. He's right here at nine every morning, before the clock gets in the word. I guess it's his grandfather coming out in him. He's got charge of the foreign correspondence. We're pushing the paint everywhere." He flattered himself that he did not lug the matter in. He had been warned against that by his wife, but he had the right to do Corey justice, and his brag took the form of illustration. "Talk about training for business--I tell you it's all in the man himself! I used to believe in what old Horace Greeley said about college graduates being the poorest kind of horned cattle; but I've changed my mind a little. You take that fellow Corey. He's been through Harvard, and he's had about every advantage that a fellow could have. Been everywhere, and talks half a dozen languages like English. I suppose he's got money enough to live without lifting a hand, any more than his father does; son of Bromfield Corey, you know. But the thing was in him. He's a natural-born business man; and I've had many a fellow with me that had come up out of the street, and worked hard all his life, without ever losing his original opposition to the thing. But Corey likes it. I believe the fellow would like to stick at that desk of his night and day. I don't know where he got it. I guess it must be his grandfather, old Phillips Corey; it often skips a generation, you know. But what I say is, a thing has got to be born in a man; and if it ain't born in him, all the privations in the world won't put it there, and if it is, all the college training won't take it out." Sometimes Lapham advanced these ideas at his own table, to a guest whom he had brought to Nantasket for the night. Then he suffered exposure and ridicule at the hands of his wife, when opportunity offered. She would not let him bring Corey down to Nantasket at all. "No, indeed!" she said. "I am not going to have them think we're running after him. If he wants to see Irene, he can find out ways of doing it for himself." "Who wants him to see Irene?" retorted the Colonel angrily. "I do," said Mrs. Lapham. "And I want him to see her without any of your connivance, Silas. I'm not going to have it said that I put my girls at anybody. Why don't you invite some of your other clerks?" "He ain't just like the other clerks. He's going to take charge of a part of the business. It's quite another thing." "Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Lapham vexatiously. "Then you ARE going to take a partner." "I shall ask him down if I choose!" returned the Colonel, disdaining her insinuation. His wife laughed with the fearlessness of a woman who knows her husband. "But you won't choose when you've thought it over, Si." Then she applied an emollient to his chafed surface. "Don't you suppose I feel as you do about it? I know just how proud you are, and I'm not going to have you do anything that will make you feel meeching afterward. You just let things take their course. If he wants Irene, he's going to find out some way of seeing her; and if he don't, all the plotting and planning in the world isn't going to make him." "Who's plotting?" again retorted the Colonel, shuddering at the utterance of hopes and ambitions which a man hides with shame, but a woman talks over as freely and coolly as if they were items of a milliner's bill. "Oh, not you!" exulted his wife. "I understand what you want. You want to get this fellow, who is neither partner nor clerk, down here to talk business with him. Well, now, you just talk business with him at the office." The only social attention which Lapham succeeded in offering Corey was to take him in his buggy, now and then, for a spin out over the Mill-dam. He kept the mare in town, and on a pleasant afternoon he liked to knock off early, as he phrased it, and let the mare out a little. Corey understood something about horses, though in a passionless way, and he would have preferred to talk business when obliged to talk horse. But he deferred to his business superior with the sense of discipline which is innate in the apparently insubordinate American nature. If Corey could hardly have helped feeling the social difference between Lapham and himself, in his presence he silenced his traditions, and showed him all the respect that he could have exacted from any of his clerks. He talked horse with him, and when the Colonel wished he talked house. Besides himself and his paint Lapham had not many other topics; and if he had a choice between the mare and the edifice on the water side of Beacon Street, it was just now the latter. Sometimes, in driving in or out, he stopped at the house, and made Corey his guest there, if he might not at Nantasket; and one day it happened that the young man met Irene there again. She had come up with her mother alone, and they were in the house, interviewing the carpenter as before, when the Colonel jumped out of his buggy and cast anchor at the pavement. More exactly, Mrs. Lapham was interviewing the carpenter, and Irene was sitting in the bow-window on a trestle, and looking out at the driving. She saw him come up with her father, and bowed and blushed. Her father went on up-stairs to find her mother, and Corey pulled up another trestle which he found in the back part of the room. The first floorings had been laid throughout the house, and the partitions had been lathed so that one could realise the shape of the interior. "I suppose you will sit at this window a good deal," said the young man. "Yes, I think it will be very nice. There's so much more going on than there is in the Square." "It must be very interesting to you to see the house grow." "It is. Only it doesn't seem to grow so fast as I expected." "Why, I'm amazed at the progress your carpenter has made every time I come." The girl looked down, and then lifting her eyes she said, with a sort of timorous appeal-- "I've been reading that book since you were down at Nantasket." "Book?" repeated Corey, while she reddened with disappointment. "Oh yes. Middlemarch. Did you like it?" "I haven't got through with it yet. Pen has finished it." "What does she think of it?" "Oh, I think she likes it very well. I haven't heard her talk about it much. Do you like it?" "Yes; I liked it immensely. But it's several years since I read it." "I didn't know it was so old. It's just got into the Seaside Library," she urged, with a little sense of injury in her tone. "Oh, it hasn't been out such a very great while," said Corey politely. "It came a little before DANIEL DERONDA." The girl was again silent. She followed the curl of a shaving on the floor with the point of her parasol. "Do you like that Rosamond Vincy?" she asked, without looking up. Corey smiled in his kind way. "I didn't suppose she was expected to have any friends. I can't say I liked her. But I don't think I disliked her so much as the author does. She's pretty hard on her good-looking"--he was going to say girls, but as if that might have been rather personal, he said--"people." "Yes, that's what Pen says. She says she doesn't give her any chance to be good. She says she should have been just as bad as Rosamond if she had been in her place." The young man laughed. "Your sister is very satirical, isn't she?" "I don't know," said Irene, still intent upon the convolutions of the shaving. "She keeps us laughing. Papa thinks there's nobody that can talk like her." She gave the shaving a little toss from her, and took the parasol up across her lap. The unworldliness of the Lapham girls did not extend to their dress; Irene's costume was very stylish, and she governed her head and shoulders stylishly. "We are going to have the back room upstairs for a music-room and library," she said abruptly. "Yes?" returned Corey. "I should think that would be charming." "We expected to have book-cases, but the architect wants to build the shelves in." The fact seemed to be referred to Corey for his comment. "It seems to me that would be the best way. They'll look like part of the room then. You can make them low, and hang your pictures above them." "Yes, that's what he said." The girl looked out of the window in adding, "I presume with nice bindings it will look very well." "Oh, nothing furnishes a room like books." "No. There will have to be a good many of them." "That depends upon the size of your room and the number of your shelves." "Oh, of course! I presume," said Irene, thoughtfully, "we shall have to have Gibbon." "If you want to read him," said Corey, with a laugh of sympathy for an imaginable joke. "We had a great deal about him at school. I believe we had one of his books. Mine's lost, but Pen will remember." The young man looked at her, and then said, seriously, "You'll want Greene, of course, and Motley, and Parkman." "Yes. What kind of writers are they?" "They're historians too." "Oh yes; I remember now. That's what Gibbon was. Is it Gibbon or Gibbons?" The young man decided the point with apparently superfluous delicacy. "Gibbon, I think." "There used to be so many of them," said Irene gaily. "I used to get them mixed up with each other, and I couldn't tell them from the poets. Should you want to have poetry?" "Yes; I suppose some edition of the English poets." "We don't any of us like poetry. Do you like it?" "I'm afraid I don't very much," Corey owned. "But, of course, there was a time when Tennyson was a great deal more to me than he is now." "We had something about him at school too. I think I remember the name. I think we ought to have ALL the American poets." "Well, not all. Five or six of the best: you want Longfellow and Bryant and Whittier and Holmes and Emerson and Lowell." The girl listened attentively, as if making mental note of the names. "And Shakespeare," she added. "Don't you like Shakespeare's plays?" "Oh yes, very much." "I used to be perfectly crazy about his plays. Don't you think 'Hamlet' is splendid? We had ever so much about Shakespeare. Weren't you perfectly astonished when you found out how many other plays of his there were? I always thought there was nothing but 'Hamlet' and 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Macbeth' and 'Richard III.' and 'King Lear,' and that one that Robeson and Crane have--oh yes! 'Comedy of Errors.'" "Those are the ones they usually play," said Corey. "I presume we shall have to have Scott's works," said Irene, returning to the question of books. "Oh yes." "One of the girls used to think he was GREAT. She was always talking about Scott." Irene made a pretty little amiably contemptuous mouth. "He isn't American, though?" she suggested. "No," said Corey; "he's Scotch, I believe." Irene passed her glove over her forehead. "I always get him mixed up with Cooper. Well, papa has got to get them. If we have a library, we have got to have books in it. Pen says it's perfectly ridiculous having one. But papa thinks whatever the architect says is right. He fought him hard enough at first. I don't see how any one can keep the poets and the historians and novelists separate in their mind. Of course papa will buy them if we say so. But I don't see how I'm ever going to tell him which ones." The joyous light faded out of her face and left it pensive. "Why, if you like," said the young man, taking out his pencil, "I'll put down the names we've been talking about." He clapped himself on his breast pockets to detect some lurking scrap of paper. "Will you?" she cried delightedly. "Here! take one of my cards," and she pulled out her card-case. "The carpenter writes on a three-cornered block and puts it into his pocket, and it's so uncomfortable he can't help remembering it. Pen says she's going to adopt the three-cornered-block plan with papa." "Thank you," said Corey. "I believe I'll use your card." He crossed over to her, and after a moment sat down on the trestle beside her. She looked over the card as he wrote. "Those are the ones we mentioned, but perhaps I'd better add a few others." "Oh, thank you," she said, when he had written the card full on both sides. "He has got to get them in the nicest binding, too. I shall tell him about their helping to furnish the room, and then he can't object." She remained with the card, looking at it rather wistfully. Perhaps Corey divined her trouble of mind. "If he will take that to any bookseller, and tell him what bindings he wants, he will fill the order for him." "Oh, thank you very much," she said, and put the card back into her card-case with great apparent relief. Then she turned her lovely face toward the young man, beaming with the triumph a woman feels in any bit of successful manoeuvring, and began to talk with recovered gaiety of other things, as if, having got rid of a matter annoying out of all proportion to its importance, she was now going to indemnify herself. Corey did not return to his own trestle. She found another shaving within reach of her parasol, and began poking that with it, and trying to follow it through its folds. Corey watched her a while. "You seem to have a great passion for playing with shavings," he said. "Is it a new one?" "New what?" "Passion." "I don't know," she said, dropping her eyelids, and keeping on with her effort. She looked shyly aslant at him. "Perhaps you don't approve of playing with shavings?" "Oh yes, I do. I admire it very much. But it seems rather difficult. I've a great ambition to put my foot on the shaving's tail and hold it for you." "Well," said the girl. "Thank you," said the young man. He did so, and now she ran her parasol point easily through it. They looked at each other and laughed. "That was wonderful. Would you like to try another?" he asked. "No, I thank you," she replied. "I think one will do." They both laughed again, for whatever reason or no reason, and then the young girl became sober. To a girl everything a young man does is of significance; and if he holds a shaving down with his foot while she pokes through it with her parasol, she must ask herself what he means by it. "They seem to be having rather a long interview with the carpenter to-day," said Irene, looking vaguely toward the ceiling. She turned with polite ceremony to Corey. "I'm afraid you're letting them keep you. You mustn't." "Oh no. You're letting me stay," he returned. She bridled and bit her lip for pleasure. "I presume they will be down before a great while. Don't you like the smell of the wood and the mortar? It's so fresh." "Yes, it's delicious." He bent forward and picked up from the floor the shaving with which they had been playing, and put it to his nose. "It's like a flower. May I offer it to you?" he asked, as if it had been one. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" She took it from him and put it into her belt, and then they both laughed once more. Steps were heard descending. When the elder people reached the floor where they were sitting, Corey rose and presently took his leave. "What makes you so solemn, 'Rene?" asked Mrs. Lapham. "Solemn?" echoed the girl. "I'm not a BIT solemn. What CAN you mean?" Corey dined at home that evening, and as he sat looking across the table at his father, he said, "I wonder what the average literature of non-cultivated people is." "Ah," said the elder, "I suspect the average is pretty low even with cultivated people. You don't read a great many books yourself, Tom." "No, I don't," the young man confessed. "I read more books when I was with Stanton, last winter, than I had since I was a boy. But I read them because I must--there was nothing else to do. It wasn't because I was fond of reading. Still I think I read with some sense of literature and the difference between authors. I don't suppose that people generally do that; I have met people who had read books without troubling themselves to find out even the author's name, much less trying to decide upon his quality. I suppose that's the way the vast majority of people read." "Yes. If authors were not almost necessarily recluses, and ignorant of the ignorance about them, I don't see how they could endure it. Of course they are fated to be overwhelmed by oblivion at last, poor fellows; but to see it weltering all round them while they are in the very act of achieving immortality must be tremendously discouraging. I don't suppose that we who have the habit of reading, and at least a nodding acquaintance with literature, can imagine the bestial darkness of the great mass of people--even people whose houses are rich and whose linen is purple and fine. But occasionally we get glimpses of it. I suppose you found the latest publications lying all about in Lapham cottage when you were down there?" Young Corey laughed. "It wasn't exactly cumbered with them." "No?" "To tell the truth, I don't suppose they ever buy books. The young ladies get novels that they hear talked of out of the circulating library." "Had they knowledge enough to be ashamed of their ignorance?" "Yes, in certain ways--to a certain degree." "It's a curious thing, this thing we call civilisation," said the elder musingly. "We think it is an affair of epochs and of nations. It's really an affair of individuals. One brother will be civilised and the other a barbarian. I've occasionally met young girls who were so brutally, insolently, wilfully indifferent to the arts which make civilisation that they ought to have been clothed in the skins of wild beasts and gone about barefoot with clubs over their shoulders. Yet they were of polite origin, and their parents were at least respectful of the things that these young animals despised." "I don't think that is exactly the case with the Lapham family," said the son, smiling. "The father and mother rather apologised about not getting time to read, and the young ladies by no means scorned it." "They are quite advanced!" "They are going to have a library in their Beacon Street house." "Oh, poor things! How are they ever going to get the books together?" "Well, sir," said the son, colouring a little, "I have been indirectly applied to for help." "You, Tom!" His father dropped back in his chair and laughed. "I recommended the standard authors," said the son. "Oh, I never supposed your PRUDENCE would be at fault, Tom!" "But seriously," said the young man, generously smiling in sympathy with his father's enjoyment, "they're not unintelligent people. They are very quick, and they are shrewd and sensible." "I have no doubt that some of the Sioux are so. But that is not saying that they are civilised. All civilisation comes through literature now, especially in our country. A Greek got his civilisation by talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian may still do it. But we, who live remote from history and monuments, we must read or we must barbarise. Once we were softened, if not polished, by religion; but I suspect that the pulpit counts for much less now in civilising." "They're enormous devourers of newspapers, and theatre-goers; and they go a great deal to lectures. The Colonel prefers them with the stereopticon." "They might get a something in that way," said the elder thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose one must take those things into account--especially the newspapers and the lectures. I doubt if the theatre is a factor in civilisation among us. I dare say it doesn't deprave a great deal, but from what I've seen of it I should say that it was intellectually degrading. Perhaps they might get some sort of lift from it; I don't know. Tom!" he added, after a moment's reflection. "I really think I ought to see this patron of yours. Don't you think it would be rather decent in me to make his acquaintance?" "Well, if you have the fancy, sir," said the young man. "But there's no sort of obligation. Colonel Lapham would be the last man in the world to want to give our relation any sort of social character. The meeting will come about in the natural course of things." "Ah, I didn't intend to propose anything immediate," said the father. "One can't do anything in the summer, and I should prefer your mother's superintendence. Still, I can't rid myself of the idea of a dinner. It appears to me that there ought to be a dinner." "Oh, pray don't feel that there's any necessity." "Well," said the elder, with easy resignation, "there's at least no hurry." "There is one thing I don't like," said Lapham, in the course of one of those talks which came up between his wife and himself concerning Corey, "or at least I don't understand it; and that's the way his father behaves. I don't want to force myself on any man; but it seems to me pretty queer the way he holds off. I should think he would take enough interest in his son to want to know something about his business. What is he afraid of?" demanded Lapham angrily. "Does he think I'm going to jump at a chance to get in with him, if he gives me one? He's mightily mistaken if he does. I don't want to know him." "Silas," said his wife, making a wife's free version of her husband's words, and replying to their spirit rather than their letter, "I hope you never said a word to Mr. Corey to let him know the way you feel." "I never mentioned his father to him!" roared the Colonel. "That's the way I feel about it!" "Because it would spoil everything. I wouldn't have them think we cared the least thing in the world for their acquaintance. We shouldn't be a bit better off. We don't know the same people they do, and we don't care for the same kind of things." Lapham was breathless with resentment of his wife's implication. "Don't I tell you," he gasped, "that I don't want to know them? Who began it? They're friends of yours if they're anybody's." "They're distant acquaintances of mine," returned Mrs. Lapham quietly; "and this young Corey is a clerk of yours. And I want we should hold ourselves so that when they get ready to make the advances we can meet them half-way or not, just as we choose." "That's what grinds me," cried her husband. "Why should we wait for them to make the advances? Why shouldn't we make 'em? Are they any better than we are? My note of hand would be worth ten times what Bromfield Corey's is on the street to-day. And I made MY money. I haven't loafed my life away." "Oh, it isn't what you've got, and it isn't what you've done exactly. It's what you are." "Well, then, what's the difference?" "None that really amounts to anything, or that need give you any trouble, if you don't think of it. But he's been all his life in society, and he knows just what to say and what to do, and he can talk about the things that society people like to talk about, and you--can't." Lapham gave a furious snort. "And does that make him any better?" "No. But it puts him where he can make the advances without demeaning himself, and it puts you where you can't. Now, look here, Silas Lapham! You understand this thing as well as I do. You know that I appreciate you, and that I'd sooner die than have you humble yourself to a living soul. But I'm not going to have you coming to me, and pretending that you can meet Bromfield Corey as an equal on his own ground. You can't. He's got a better education than you, and if he hasn't got more brains than you, he's got different. And he and his wife, and their fathers and grandfathers before 'em, have always had a high position, and you can't help it. If you want to know them, you've got to let them make the advances. If you don't, all well and good." "I guess," said the chafed and vanquished Colonel, after a moment for swallowing the pill, "that they'd have been in a pretty fix if you'd waited to let them make the advances last summer." "That was a different thing altogether. I didn't know who they were, or may be I should have waited. But all I say now is that if you've got young Corey into business with you, in hopes of our getting into society with his father, you better ship him at once. For I ain't going to have it on that basis." "Who wants to have it on that basis?" retorted her husband. "Nobody, if you don't," said Mrs. Lapham tranquilly. Irene had come home with the shaving in her belt, unnoticed by her father, and unquestioned by her mother. But her sister saw it at once, and asked her what she was doing with it. "Oh, nothing," said Irene, with a joyful smile of self-betrayal, taking the shaving carefully out, and laying it among the laces and ribbons in her drawer. "Hadn't you better put it in water, 'Rene? It'll be all wilted by morning," said Pen. "You mean thing!" cried the happy girl. "It isn't a flower!" "Oh, I thought it was a whole bouquet. Who gave it to you?" "I shan't tell you," said Irene saucily. "Oh, well, never mind. Did you know Mr. Corey had been down here this afternoon, walking on the beach with me?" "He wasn't--he wasn't at all! He was at the house with ME. There! I've caught you fairly." "Is that so?" drawled Penelope. "Then I never could guess who gave you that precious shaving." "No, you couldn't!" said Irene, flushing beautifully. "And you may guess, and you may guess, and you may guess!" With her lovely eyes she coaxed her sister to keep on teasing her, and Penelope continued the comedy with the patience that women have for such things. "Well, I'm not going to try, if it's no use. But I didn't know it had got to be the fashion to give shavings instead of flowers. But there's some sense in it. They can be used for kindlings when they get old, and you can't do anything with old flowers. Perhaps he'll get to sending 'em by the barrel." Irene laughed for pleasure in this tormenting. "O Pen, I want to tell you how it all happened." "Oh, he DID give it to you, then? Well, I guess I don't care to hear." "You shall, and you've got to!" Irene ran and caught her sister, who feigned to be going out of the room, and pushed her into a chair. "There, now!" She pulled up another chair, and hemmed her in with it. "He came over, and sat down on the trestle alongside of me----" "What? As close as you are to me now?" "You wretch! I will GIVE it to you! No, at a proper distance. And here was this shaving on the floor, that I'd been poking with my parasol----" "To hide your embarrassment." "Pshaw! I wasn't a bit embarrassed. I was just as much at my ease! And then he asked me to let him hold the shaving down with his foot, while I went on with my poking. And I said yes he might----" "What a bold girl! You said he might hold a shaving down for you?" "And then--and then----" continued Irene, lifting her eyes absently, and losing herself in the beatific recollection, "and then----Oh yes! Then I asked him if he didn't like the smell of pine shavings. And then he picked it up, and said it smelt like a flower. And then he asked if he might offer it to me--just for a joke, you know. And I took it, and stuck it in my belt. And we had such a laugh! We got into a regular gale. And O Pen, what do you suppose he meant by it?" She suddenly caught herself to her sister's breast, and hid her burning face on her shoulder. "Well, there used to be a book about the language of flowers. But I never knew much about the language of shavings, and I can't say exactly----" "Oh, don't--DON'T, Pen!" and here Irene gave over laughing, and began to sob in her sister's arms. "Why, 'Rene!" cried the elder girl. "You KNOW he didn't mean anything. He doesn't care a bit about me. He hates me! He despises me! Oh, what shall I do?" A trouble passed over the face of the sister as she silently comforted the child in her arms; then the drolling light came back into her eyes. "Well, 'Rene, YOU haven't got to do ANYthing. That's one advantage girls have got--if it IS an advantage. I'm not always sure." Irene's tears turned to laughing again. When she lifted her head it was to look into the mirror confronting them, where her beauty showed all the more brilliant for the shower that had passed over it. She seemed to gather courage from the sight. "It must be awful to have to DO," she said, smiling into her own face. "I don't see how they ever can." "Some of 'em can't--especially when there's such a tearing beauty around." "Oh, pshaw, Pen! you know that isn't so. You've got a real pretty mouth, Pen," she added thoughtfully, surveying the feature in the glass, and then pouting her own lips for the sake of that effect on them. "It's a useful mouth," Penelope admitted; "I don't believe I could get along without it now, I've had it so long." "It's got such a funny expression--just the mate of the look in your eyes; as if you were just going to say something ridiculous. He said, the very first time he saw you, that he knew you were humorous." "Is it possible? It must be so, if the Grand Mogul said it. Why didn't you tell me so before, and not let me keep on going round just like a common person?" Irene laughed as if she liked to have her sister take his praises in that way rather than another. "I've got such a stiff, prim kind of mouth," she said, drawing it down, and then looking anxiously at it. "I hope you didn't put on that expression when he offered you the shaving. If you did, I don't believe he'll ever give you another splinter." The severe mouth broke into a lovely laugh, and then pressed itself in a kiss against Penelope's cheek. "There! Be done, you silly thing! I'm not going to have you accepting ME before I've offered myself, ANYWAY." She freed herself from her sister's embrace, and ran from her round the room. Irene pursued her, in the need of hiding her face against her shoulder again. "O Pen! O Pen!" she cried. The next day, at the first moment of finding herself alone with her eldest daughter, Mrs. Lapham asked, as if knowing that Penelope must have already made it subject of inquiry: "What was Irene doing with that shaving in her belt yesterday?" "Oh, just some nonsense of hers with Mr. Corey. He gave it to her at the new house." Penelope did not choose to look up and meet her mother's grave glance. "What do you think he meant by it?" Penelope repeated Irene's account of the affair, and her mother listened without seeming to derive much encouragement from it. "He doesn't seem like one to flirt with her," she said at last. Then, after a thoughtful pause: "Irene is as good a girl as ever breathed, and she's a perfect beauty. But I should hate the day when a daughter of mine was married for her beauty." "You're safe as far as I'm concerned, mother." Mrs. Lapham smiled ruefully. "She isn't really equal to him, Pen. I misdoubted that from the first, and it's been borne in upon me more and more ever since. She hasn't mind enough." "I didn't know that a man fell in love with a girl's intellect," said Penelope quietly. "Oh no. He hasn't fallen in love with Irene at all. If he had, it wouldn't matter about the intellect." Penelope let the self-contradiction pass. "Perhaps he has, after all." "No," said Mrs. Lapham. "She pleases him when he sees her. But he doesn't try to see her." "He has no chance. You won't let father bring him here." "He would find excuses to come without being brought, if he wished to come," said the mother. "But she isn't in his mind enough to make him. He goes away and doesn't think anything more about her. She's a child. She's a good child, and I shall always say it; but she's nothing but a child. No, she's got to forget him." "Perhaps that won't be so easy." "No, I presume not. And now your father has got the notion in his head, and he will move heaven and earth to bring it to pass. I can see that he's always thinking about it." "The Colonel has a will of his own," observed the girl, rocking to and fro where she sat looking at her mother. "I wish we had never met them!" cried Mrs. Lapham. "I wish we had never thought of building! I wish he had kept away from your father's business!" "Well, it's too late now, mother," said the girl. "Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think." "Well, we must stand it, anyway," said Mrs. Lapham, with the grim antique Yankee submission. "Oh yes, we've got to stand it," said Penelope, with the quaint modern American fatalism. X. IT was late June, almost July, when Corey took up his life in Boston again, where the summer slips away so easily. If you go out of town early, it seems a very long summer when you come back in October; but if you stay, it passes swiftly, and, seen foreshortened in its flight, seems scarcely a month's length. It has its days of heat, when it is very hot, but for the most part it is cool, with baths of the east wind that seem to saturate the soul with delicious freshness. Then there are stretches of grey westerly weather, when the air is full of the sentiment of early autumn, and the frying, of the grasshopper in the blossomed weed of the vacant lots on the Back Bay is intershot with the carol of crickets; and the yellowing leaf on the long slope of Mt. Vernon Street smites the sauntering observer with tender melancholy. The caterpillar, gorged with the spoil of the lindens on Chestnut, and weaving his own shroud about him in his lodgment on the brick-work, records the passing of summer by mid-July; and if after that comes August, its breath is thick and short, and September is upon the sojourner before he has fairly had time to philosophise the character of the town out of season. But it must have appeared that its most characteristic feature was the absence of everybody he knew. This was one of the things that commended Boston to Bromfield Corey during the summer; and if his son had any qualms about the life he had entered upon with such vigour, it must have been a relief to him that there was scarcely a soul left to wonder or pity. By the time people got back to town the fact of his connection with the mineral paint man would be an old story, heard afar off with different degrees of surprise, and considered with different degrees of indifference. A man has not reached the age of twenty-six in any community where he was born and reared without having had his capacity pretty well ascertained; and in Boston the analysis is conducted with an unsparing thoroughness which may fitly impress the un-Bostonian mind, darkened by the popular superstition that the Bostonians blindly admire one another. A man's qualities are sifted as closely in Boston as they doubtless were in Florence or Athens; and, if final mercy was shown in those cities because a man was, with all his limitations, an Athenian or Florentine, some abatement might as justly be made in Boston for like reason. Corey's powers had been gauged in college, and he had not given his world reason to think very differently of him since he came out of college. He was rated as an energetic fellow, a little indefinite in aim, with the smallest amount of inspiration that can save a man from being commonplace. If he was not commonplace, it was through nothing remarkable in his mind, which was simply clear and practical, but through some combination of qualities of the heart that made men trust him, and women call him sweet--a word of theirs which conveys otherwise indefinable excellences. Some of the more nervous and excitable said that Tom Corey was as sweet as he could live; but this perhaps meant no more than the word alone. No man ever had a son less like him than Bromfield Corey. If Tom Corey had ever said a witty thing, no one could remember it; and yet the father had never said a witty thing to a more sympathetic listener than his own son. The clear mind which produced nothing but practical results reflected everything with charming lucidity; and it must have been this which endeared Tom Corey to every one who spoke ten words with him. In a city where people have good reason for liking to shine, a man who did not care to shine must be little short of universally acceptable without any other effort for popularity; and those who admired and enjoyed Bromfield Corey loved his son. Yet, when it came to accounting for Tom Corey, as it often did in a community where every one's generation is known to the remotest degrees of cousinship, they could not trace his sweetness to his mother, for neither Anna Bellingham nor any of her family, though they were so many blocks of Wenham ice for purity and rectangularity, had ever had any such savour; and, in fact, it was to his father, whose habit of talk wronged it in himself, that they had to turn for this quality of the son's. They traced to the mother the traits of practicality and common-sense in which he bordered upon the commonplace, and which, when they had dwelt upon them, made him seem hardly worth the close inquiry they had given him. While the summer wore away he came and went methodically about his business, as if it had been the business of his life, sharing his father's bachelor liberty and solitude, and expecting with equal patience the return of his mother and sisters in the autumn. Once or twice he found time to run down to Mt. Desert and see them; and then he heard how the Philadelphia and New York people were getting in everywhere, and was given reason to regret the house at Nahant which he had urged to be sold. He came back and applied himself to his desk with a devotion that was exemplary rather than necessary; for Lapham made no difficulty about the brief absences which he asked, and set no term to the apprenticeship that Corey was serving in the office before setting off upon that mission to South America in the early winter, for which no date had yet been fixed. The summer was a dull season for the paint as well as for everything else. Till things should brisk up, as Lapham said, in the fall, he was letting the new house take a great deal of his time. AEsthetic ideas had never been intelligibly presented to him before, and he found a delight in apprehending them that was very grateful to his imaginative architect. At the beginning, the architect had foreboded a series of mortifying defeats and disastrous victories in his encounters with his client; but he had never had a client who could be more reasonably led on from one outlay to another. It appeared that Lapham required but to understand or feel the beautiful effect intended, and he was ready to pay for it. His bull-headed pride was concerned in a thing which the architect made him see, and then he believed that he had seen it himself, perhaps conceived it. In some measure the architect seemed to share his delusion, and freely said that Lapham was very suggestive. Together they blocked out windows here, and bricked them up there; they changed doors and passages; pulled down cornices and replaced them with others of different design; experimented with costly devices of decoration, and went to extravagant lengths in novelties of finish. Mrs. Lapham, beginning with a woman's adventurousness in the unknown region, took fright at the reckless outlay at last, and refused to let her husband pass a certain limit. He tried to make her believe that a far-seeing economy dictated the expense; and that if he put the money into the house, he could get it out any time by selling it. She would not be persuaded. "I don't want you should sell it. And you've put more money into it now than you'll ever get out again, unless you can find as big a goose to buy it, and that isn't likely. No, sir! You just stop at a hundred thousand, and don't you let him get you a cent beyond. Why, you're perfectly bewitched with that fellow! You've lost your head, Silas Lapham, and if you don't look out you'll lose your money too." The Colonel laughed; he liked her to talk that way, and promised he would hold up a while. "But there's no call to feel anxious, Pert. It's only a question what to do with the money. I can reinvest it; but I never had so much of it to spend before." "Spend it, then," said his wife; "don't throw it away! And how came you to have so much more money than you know what to do with, Silas Lapham?" she added. "Oh, I've made a very good thing in stocks lately." "In stocks? When did you take up gambling for a living?" "Gambling? Stuff! What gambling? Who said it was gambling?" "You have; many a time." "Oh yes, buying and selling on a margin. But this was a bona fide transaction. I bought at forty-three for an investment, and I sold at a hundred and seven; and the money passed both times." "Well, you better let stocks alone," said his wife, with the conservatism of her sex. "Next time you'll buy at a hundred and seven and sell at forty three. Then where'll you be?" "Left," admitted the Colonel. "You better stick to paint a while yet." The Colonel enjoyed this too, and laughed again with the ease of a man who knows what he is about. A few days after that he came down to Nantasket with the radiant air which he wore when he had done a good thing in business and wanted his wife's sympathy. He did not say anything of what had happened till he was alone with her in their own room; but he was very gay the whole evening, and made several jokes which Penelope said nothing but very great prosperity could excuse: they all understood these moods of his. "Well, what is it, Silas?" asked his wife when the time came. "Any more big-bugs wanting to go into the mineral paint business with you?" "Something better than that." "I could think of a good many better things," said his wife, with a sigh of latent bitterness. "What's this one?" "I've had a visitor." "Who?" "Can't you guess?" "I don't want to try. Who was it?" "Rogers." Mrs. Lapham sat down with her hands in her lap, and stared at the smile on her husband's face, where he sat facing her. "I guess you wouldn't want to joke on that subject, Si," she said, a little hoarsely, "and you wouldn't grin about it unless you had some good news. I don't know what the miracle is, but if you could tell quick----" She stopped like one who can say no more. "I will, Persis," said her husband, and with that awed tone in which he rarely spoke of anything but the virtues of his paint. "He came to borrow money of me, and I lent him it. That's the short of it. The long----" "Go on," said his wife, with gentle patience. "Well, Pert, I was never so much astonished in my life as I was to see that man come into my office. You might have knocked me down with--I don't know what." "I don't wonder. Go on!" "And he was as much embarrassed as I was. There we stood, gaping at each other, and I hadn't hardly sense enough to ask him to take a chair. I don't know just how we got at it. And I don't remember just how it was that he said he came to come to me. But he had got hold of a patent right that he wanted to go into on a large scale, and there he was wanting me to supply him the funds." "Go on!" said Mrs. Lapham, with her voice further in her throat. "I never felt the way you did about Rogers, but I know how you always did feel, and I guess I surprised him with my answer. He had brought along a lot of stock as security----" "You didn't take it, Silas!" his wife flashed out. "Yes, I did, though," said Lapham. "You wait. We settled our business, and then we went into the old thing, from the very start. And we talked it all over. And when we got through we shook hands. Well, I don't know when it's done me so much good to shake hands with anybody." "And you told him--you owned up to him that you were in the wrong, Silas?" "No, I didn't," returned the Colonel promptly; "for I wasn't. And before we got through, I guess he saw it the same as I did." "Oh, no matter! so you had the chance to show how you felt." "But I never felt that way," persisted the Colonel. "I've lent him the money, and I've kept his stocks. And he got what he wanted out of me." "Give him back his stocks!" "No, I shan't. Rogers came to borrow. He didn't come to beg. You needn't be troubled about his stocks. They're going to come up in time; but just now they're so low down that no bank would take them as security, and I've got to hold them till they do rise. I hope you're satisfied now, Persis," said her husband; and he looked at her with the willingness to receive the reward of a good action which we all feel when we have performed one. "I lent him the money you kept me from spending on the house." "Truly, Si? Well, I'm satisfied," said Mrs. Lapham, with a deep tremulous breath. "The Lord has been good to you, Silas," she continued solemnly. "You may laugh if you choose, and I don't know as I believe in his interfering a great deal; but I believe he's interfered this time; and I tell you, Silas, it ain't always he gives people a chance to make it up to others in this life. I've been afraid you'd die, Silas, before you got the chance; but he's let you live to make it up to Rogers." "I'm glad to be let live," said Lapham stubbornly, "but I hadn't anything to make up to Milton K. Rogers. And if God has let me live for that----" "Oh, say what you please, Si! Say what you please, now you've done it! I shan't stop you. You've taken the one spot--the one SPECK--off you that was ever there, and I'm satisfied." "There wa'n't ever any speck there," Lapham held out, lapsing more and more into his vernacular; "and what I done I done for you, Persis." "And I thank you for your own soul's sake, Silas." "I guess my soul's all right," said Lapham. "And I want you should promise me one thing more." "Thought you said you were satisfied?" "I am. But I want you should promise me this: that you won't let anything tempt you--anything!--to ever trouble Rogers for that money you lent him. No matter what happens--no matter if you lose it all. Do you promise?" "Why, I don't ever EXPECT to press him for it. That's what I said to myself when I lent it. And of course I'm glad to have that old trouble healed up. I don't THINK I ever did Rogers any wrong, and I never did think so; but if I DID do it--IF I did--I'm willing to call it square, if I never see a cent of my money back again." "Well, that's all," said his wife. They did not celebrate his reconciliation with his old enemy--for such they had always felt him to be since he ceased to be an ally--by any show of joy or affection. It was not in their tradition, as stoical for the woman as for the man, that they should kiss or embrace each other at such a moment. She was content to have told him that he had done his duty, and he was content with her saying that. But before she slept she found words to add that she always feared the selfish part he had acted toward Rogers had weakened him, and left him less able to overcome any temptation that might beset him; and that was one reason why she could never be easy about it. Now she should never fear for him again. This time he did not explicitly deny her forgiving impeachment. "Well, it's all past and gone now, anyway; and I don't want you should think anything more about it." He was man enough to take advantage of the high favour in which he stood when he went up to town, and to abuse it by bringing Corey down to supper. His wife could not help condoning the sin of disobedience in him at such a time. Penelope said that between the admiration she felt for the Colonel's boldness and her mother's forbearance, she was hardly in a state to entertain company that evening; but she did what she could. Irene liked being talked to better than talking, and when her sister was by she was always, tacitly or explicitly, referring to her for confirmation of what she said. She was content to sit and look pretty as she looked at the young man and listened to her sister's drolling. She laughed and kept glancing at Corey to make sure that he was understanding her. When they went out on the veranda to see the moon on the water, Penelope led the way and Irene followed. They did not look at the moonlight long. The young man perched on the rail of the veranda, and Irene took one of the red-painted rocking-chairs where she could conveniently look at him and at her sister, who sat leaning forward lazily and running on, as the phrase is. That low, crooning note of hers was delicious; her face, glimpsed now and then in the moonlight as she turned it or lifted it a little, had a fascination which kept his eye. Her talk was very unliterary, and its effect seemed hardly conscious. She was far from epigram in her funning. She told of this trifle and that; she sketched the characters and looks of people who had interested her, and nothing seemed to have escaped her notice; she mimicked a little, but not much; she suggested, and then the affair represented itself as if without her agency. She did not laugh; when Corey stopped she made a soft cluck in her throat, as if she liked his being amused, and went on again. The Colonel, left alone with his wife for the first time since he had come from town, made haste to take the word. "Well, Pert, I've arranged the whole thing with Rogers, and I hope you'll be satisfied to know that he owes me twenty thousand dollars, and that I've got security from him to the amount of a fourth of that, if I was to force his stocks to a sale." "How came he to come down with you?" asked Mrs. Lapham. "Who? Rogers?" "Mr. Corey." "Corey? Oh!" said Lapham, affecting not to have thought she could mean Corey. "He proposed it." "Likely!" jeered his wife, but with perfect amiability. "It's so," protested the Colonel. "We got talking about a matter just before I left, and he walked down to the boat with me; and then he said if I didn't mind he guessed he'd come along down and go back on the return boat. Of course I couldn't let him do that." "It's well for you you couldn't." "And I couldn't do less than bring him here to tea." "Oh, certainly not." "But he ain't going to stay the night--unless," faltered Lapham, "you want him to." "Oh, of course, I want him to! I guess he'll stay, probably." "Well, you know how crowded that last boat always is, and he can't get any other now." Mrs. Lapham laughed at the simple wile. "I hope you'll be just as well satisfied, Si, if it turns out he doesn't want Irene after all." "Pshaw, Persis! What are you always bringing that up for?" pleaded the Colonel. Then he fell silent, and presently his rude, strong face was clouded with an unconscious frown. "There!" cried his wife, startling him from his abstraction. "I see how you'd feel; and I hope that you'll remember who you've got to blame." "I'll risk it," said Lapham, with the confidence of a man used to success. From the veranda the sound of Penelope's lazy tone came through the closed windows, with joyous laughter from Irene and peals from Corey. "Listen to that!" said her father within, swelling up with inexpressible satisfaction. "That girl can talk for twenty, right straight along. She's better than a circus any day. I wonder what she's up to now." "Oh, she's probably getting off some of those yarns of hers, or telling about some people. She can't step out of the house without coming back with more things to talk about than most folks would bring back from Japan. There ain't a ridiculous person she's ever seen but what she's got something from them to make you laugh at; and I don't believe we've ever had anybody in the house since the girl could talk that she hain't got some saying from, or some trick that'll paint 'em out so't you can see 'em and hear 'em. Sometimes I want to stop her; but when she gets into one of her gales there ain't any standing up against her. I guess it's lucky for Irene that she's got Pen there to help entertain her company. I can't ever feel down where Pen is." "That's so," said the Colonel. "And I guess she's got about as much culture as any of them. Don't you?" "She reads a great deal," admitted her mother. "She seems to be at it the whole while. I don't want she should injure her health, and sometimes I feel like snatchin' the books away from her. I don't know as it's good for a girl to read so much, anyway, especially novels. I don't want she should get notions." "Oh, I guess Pen'll know how to take care of herself," said Lapham. "She's got sense enough. But she ain't so practical as Irene. She's more up in the clouds--more of what you may call a dreamer. Irene's wide-awake every minute; and I declare, any one to see these two together when there's anything to be done, or any lead to be taken, would say Irene was the oldest, nine times out of ten. It's only when they get to talking that you can see Pen's got twice as much brains." "Well," said Lapham, tacitly granting this point, and leaning back in his chair in supreme content. "Did you ever see much nicer girls anywhere?" His wife laughed at his pride. "I presume they're as much swans as anybody's geese." "No; but honestly, now!" "Oh, they'll do; but don't you be silly, if you can help it, Si." The young people came in, and Corey said it was time for his boat. Mrs. Lapham pressed him to stay, but he persisted, and he would not let the Colonel send him to the boat; he said he would rather walk. Outside, he pushed along toward the boat, which presently he could see lying at her landing in the bay, across the sandy tract to the left of the hotels. From time to time he almost stopped in his rapid walk, as a man does whose mind is in a pleasant tumult; and then he went forward at a swifter pace. "She's charming!" he said, and he thought he had spoken aloud. He found himself floundering about in the deep sand, wide of the path; he got back to it, and reached the boat just before she started. The clerk came to take his fare, and Corey looked radiantly up at him in his lantern-light, with a smile that he must have been wearing a long time; his cheek was stiff with it. Once some people who stood near him edged suddenly and fearfully away, and then he suspected himself of having laughed outright. XI. COREY put off his set smile with the help of a frown, of which he first became aware after reaching home, when his father asked-- "Anything gone wrong with your department of the fine arts to-day, Tom?" "Oh no--no, sir," said the son, instantly relieving his brows from the strain upon them, and beaming again. "But I was thinking whether you were not perhaps right in your impression that it might be well for you to make Colonel Lapham's acquaintance before a great while." "Has he been suggesting it in any way?" asked Bromfield Corey, laying aside his book and taking his lean knee between his clasped hands. "Oh, not at all!" the young man hastened to reply. "I was merely thinking whether it might not begin to seem intentional, your not doing it." "Well, Tom, you know I have been leaving it altogether to you----" "Oh, I understand, of course, and I didn't mean to urge anything of the kind----" "You are so very much more of a Bostonian than I am, you know, that I've been waiting your motion in entire confidence that you would know just what to do, and when to do it. If I had been left quite to my own lawless impulses, I think I should have called upon your padrone at once. It seems to me that my father would have found some way of showing that he expected as much as that from people placed in the relation to him that we hold to Colonel Lapham." "Do you think so?" asked the young man. "Yes. But you know I don't pretend to be an authority in such matters. As far as they go, I am always in the hands of your mother and you children." "I'm very sorry, sir. I had no idea I was over-ruling your judgment. I only wanted to spare you a formality that didn't seem quite a necessity yet. I'm very sorry," he said again, and this time with more comprehensive regret. "I shouldn't like to have seemed remiss with a man who has been so considerate of me. They are all very good-natured." "I dare say," said Bromfield Corey, with the satisfaction which no elder can help feeling in disabling the judgment of a younger man, "that it won't be too late if I go down to your office with you to-morrow." "No, no. I didn't imagine your doing it at once, sir." "Ah, but nothing can prevent me from doing a thing when once I take the bit in my teeth," said the father, with the pleasure which men of weak will sometimes take in recognising their weakness. "How does their new house get on?" "I believe they expect to be in it before New Year." "Will they be a great addition to society?" asked Bromfield Corey, with unimpeachable seriousness. "I don't quite know what you mean," returned the son, a little uneasily. "Ah, I see that you do, Tom." "No one can help feeling that they are all people of good sense and--right ideas." "Oh, that won't do. If society took in all the people of right ideas and good sense, it would expand beyond the calling capacity of its most active members. Even your mother's social conscientiousness could not compass it. Society is a very different sort of thing from good sense and right ideas. It is based upon them, of course, but the airy, graceful, winning superstructure which we all know demands different qualities. Have your friends got these qualities,--which may be felt, but not defined?" The son laughed. "To tell you the truth, sir, I don't think they have the most elemental ideas of society, as we understand it. I don't believe Mrs. Lapham ever gave a dinner." "And with all that money!" sighed the father. "I don't believe they have the habit of wine at table. I suspect that when they don't drink tea and coffee with their dinner, they drink ice-water." "Horrible!" said Bromfield Corey. "It appears to me that this defines them." "Oh yes. There are people who give dinners, and who are not cognoscible. But people who have never yet given a dinner, how is society to assimilate them?" "It digests a great many people," suggested the young man. "Yes; but they have always brought some sort of sauce piquante with them. Now, as I understand you, these friends of yours have no such sauce." "Oh, I don't know about that!" cried the son. "Oh, rude, native flavours, I dare say. But that isn't what I mean. Well, then, they must spend. There is no other way for them to win their way to general regard. We must have the Colonel elected to the Ten O'clock Club, and he must put himself down in the list of those willing to entertain. Any one can manage a large supper. Yes, I see a gleam of hope for him in that direction." In the morning Bromfield Corey asked his son whether he should find Lapham at his place as early as eleven. "I think you might find him even earlier. I've never been there before him. I doubt if the porter is there much sooner." "Well, suppose I go with you, then?" "Why, if you like, sir," said the son, with some deprecation. "Oh, the question is, will HE like?" "I think he will, sir;" and the father could see that his son was very much pleased. Lapham was rending an impatient course through the morning's news when they appeared at the door of his inner room. He looked up from the newspaper spread on the desk before him, and then he stood up, making an indifferent feint of not knowing that he knew Bromfield Corey by sight. "Good morning, Colonel Lapham," said the son, and Lapham waited for him to say further, "I wish to introduce my father." Then he answered, "Good morning," and added rather sternly for the elder Corey, "How do you do, sir? Will you take a chair?" and he pushed him one. They shook hands and sat down, and Lapham said to his subordinate, "Have a seat;" but young Corey remained standing, watching them in their observance of each other with an amusement which was a little uneasy. Lapham made his visitor speak first by waiting for him to do so. "I'm glad to make your acquaintance, Colonel Lapham, and I ought to have come sooner to do so. My father in your place would have expected it of a man in my place at once, I believe. But I can't feel myself altogether a stranger as it is. I hope Mrs. Lapham is well? And your daughter?" "Thank you," said Lapham, "they're quite well." "They were very kind to my wife----" "Oh, that was nothing!" cried Lapham. "There's nothing Mrs. Lapham likes better than a chance of that sort. Mrs. Corey and the young ladies well?" "Very well, when I heard from them. They're out of town." "Yes, so I understood," said Lapham, with a nod toward the son. "I believe Mr. Corey, here, told Mrs. Lapham." He leaned back in his chair, stiffly resolute to show that he was not incommoded by the exchange of these civilities. "Yes," said Bromfield Corey. "Tom has had the pleasure which I hope for of seeing you all. I hope you're able to make him useful to you here?" Corey looked round Lapham's room vaguely, and then out at the clerks in their railed enclosure, where his eye finally rested on an extremely pretty girl, who was operating a type-writer. "Well, sir," replied Lapham, softening for the first time with this approach to business, "I guess it will be our own fault if we don't. By the way, Corey," he added, to the younger man, as he gathered up some letters from his desk, "here's something in your line. Spanish or French, I guess." "I'll run them over," said Corey, taking them to his desk. His father made an offer to rise. "Don't go," said Lapham, gesturing him down again. "I just wanted to get him away a minute. I don't care to say it to his face,--I don't like the principle,--but since you ask me about it, I'd just as lief say that I've never had any young man take hold here equal to your son. I don't know as you care." "You make me very happy," said Bromfield Corey. "Very happy indeed. I've always had the idea that there was something in my son, if he could only find the way to work it out. And he seems to have gone into your business for the love of it." "He went to work in the right way, sir! He told me about it. He looked into it. And that paint is a thing that will bear looking into." "Oh yes. You might think he had invented it, if you heard him celebrating it." "Is that so?" demanded Lapham, pleased through and through. "Well, there ain't any other way. You've got to believe in a thing before you can put any heart in it. Why, I had a partner in this thing once, along back just after the war, and he used to be always wanting to tinker with something else. 'Why,' says I, 'you've got the best thing in God's universe now. Why ain't you satisfied?' I had to get rid of him at last. I stuck to my paint, and that fellow's drifted round pretty much all over the whole country, whittling his capital down all the while, till here the other day I had to lend him some money to start him new. No, sir, you've got to believe in a thing. And I believe in your son. And I don't mind telling you that, so far as he's gone, he's a success." "That's very kind of you." "No kindness about it. As I was saying the other day to a friend of mine, I've had many a fellow right out of the street that had to work hard all his life, and didn't begin to take hold like this son of yours." Lapham expanded with profound self-satisfaction. As he probably conceived it, he had succeeded in praising, in a perfectly casual way, the supreme excellence of his paint, and his own sagacity and benevolence; and here he was sitting face to face with Bromfield Corey, praising his son to him, and receiving his grateful acknowledgments as if he were the father of some office-boy whom Lapham had given a place half but of charity. "Yes, sir, when your son proposed to take hold here, I didn't have much faith in his ideas, that's the truth. But I had faith in him, and I saw that he meant business from the start. I could see it was born in him. Any one could." "I'm afraid he didn't inherit it directly from me," said Bromfield Corey; "but it's in the blood, on both sides." "Well, sir, we can't help those things," said Lapham compassionately. "Some of us have got it, and some of us haven't. The idea is to make the most of what we HAVE got." "Oh yes; that is the idea. By all means." "And you can't ever tell what's in you till you try. Why, when I started this thing, I didn't more than half understand my own strength. I wouldn't have said, looking back, that I could have stood the wear and tear of what I've been through. But I developed as I went along. It's just like exercising your muscles in a gymnasium. You can lift twice or three times as much after you've been in training a month as you could before. And I can see that it's going to be just so with your son. His going through college won't hurt him,--he'll soon slough all that off,--and his bringing up won't; don't be anxious about it. I noticed in the army that some of the fellows that had the most go-ahead were fellows that hadn't ever had much more to do than girls before the war broke out. Your son will get along." "Thank you," said Bromfield Corey, and smiled--whether because his spirit was safe in the humility he sometimes boasted, or because it was triply armed in pride against anything the Colonel's kindness could do. "He'll get along. He's a good business man, and he's a fine fellow. MUST you go?" asked Lapham, as Bromfield Corey now rose more resolutely. "Well, glad to see you. It was natural you should want to come and see what he was about, and I'm glad you did. I should have felt just so about it. Here is some of our stuff," he said, pointing out the various packages in his office, including the Persis Brand. "Ah, that's very nice, very nice indeed," said his visitor. "That colour through the jar--very rich--delicious. Is Persis Brand a name?" Lapham blushed. "Well, Persis is. I don't know as you saw an interview that fellow published in the Events a while back?" "What is the Events?" "Well, it's that new paper Witherby's started." "No," said Bromfield Corey, "I haven't seen it. I read The Daily," he explained; by which he meant The Daily Advertiser, the only daily there is in the old-fashioned Bostonian sense. "He put a lot of stuff in my mouth that I never said," resumed Lapham; "but that's neither here nor there, so long as you haven't seen it. Here's the department your son's in," and he showed him the foreign labels. Then he took him out into the warehouse to see the large packages. At the head of the stairs, where his guest stopped to nod to his son and say "Good-bye, Tom," Lapham insisted upon going down to the lower door with him "Well, call again," he said in hospitable dismissal. "I shall always be glad to see you. There ain't a great deal doing at this season." Bromfield Corey thanked him, and let his hand remain perforce in Lapham's lingering grasp. "If you ever like to ride after a good horse----" the Colonel began. "Oh, no, no, no; thank you! The better the horse, the more I should be scared. Tom has told me of your driving!" "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Colonel. "Well! every one to his taste. Well, good morning, sir!" and he suffered him to go. "Who is the old man blowing to this morning?" asked Walker, the book-keeper, making an errand to Corey's desk. "My father." "Oh! That your father? I thought he must be one of your Italian correspondents that you'd been showing round, or Spanish." In fact, as Bromfield Corey found his way at his leisurely pace up through the streets on which the prosperity of his native city was founded, hardly any figure could have looked more alien to its life. He glanced up and down the facades and through the crooked vistas like a stranger, and the swarthy fruiterer of whom he bought an apple, apparently for the pleasure of holding it in his hand, was not surprised that the purchase should be transacted in his own tongue. Lapham walked back through the outer office to his own room without looking at Corey, and during the day he spoke to him only of business matters. That must have been his way of letting Corey see that he was not overcome by the honour of his father's visit. But he presented himself at Nantasket with the event so perceptibly on his mind that his wife asked: "Well, Silas, has Rogers been borrowing any more money of you? I don't want you should let that thing go too far. You've done enough." "You needn't be afraid. I've seen the last of Rogers for one while." He hesitated, to give the fact an effect of no importance. "Corey's father called this morning." "Did he?" said Mrs. Lapham, willing to humour his feint of indifference. "Did HE want to borrow some money too?" "Not as I understood." Lapham was smoking at great ease, and his wife had some crocheting on the other side of the lamp from him. The girls were on the piazza looking at the moon on the water again. "There's no man in it to-night," Penelope said, and Irene laughed forlornly. "What DID he want, then?" asked Mrs. Lapham. "Oh, I don't know. Seemed to be just a friendly call. Said he ought to have come before." Mrs. Lapham was silent a while. Then she said: "Well, I hope you're satisfied now." Lapham rejected the sympathy too openly offered. "I don't know about being satisfied. I wa'n't in any hurry to see him." His wife permitted him this pretence also. "What sort of a person is he, anyway?" "Well, not much like his son. There's no sort of business about him. I don't know just how you'd describe him. He's tall; and he's got white hair and a moustache; and his fingers are very long and limber. I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top of his cane. Didn't seem to be dressed very much, and acted just like anybody. Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking. Said he was glad I seemed to be getting along so well with his son. He asked after you and Irene; and he said he couldn't feel just like a stranger. Said you had been very kind to his wife. Of course I turned it off. Yes," said Lapham thoughtfully, with his hands resting on his knees, and his cigar between the fingers of his left hand, "I guess he meant to do the right thing, every way. Don't know as I ever saw a much pleasanter man. Dunno but what he's about the pleasantest man I ever did see." He was not letting his wife see in his averted face the struggle that revealed itself there--the struggle of stalwart achievement not to feel flattered at the notice of sterile elegance, not to be sneakingly glad of its amiability, but to stand up and look at it with eyes on the same level. God, who made us so much like himself, but out of the dust, alone knows when that struggle will end. The time had been when Lapham could not have imagined any worldly splendour which his dollars could not buy if he chose to spend them for it; but his wife's half discoveries, taking form again in his ignorance of the world, filled him with helpless misgiving. A cloudy vision of something unpurchasable, where he had supposed there was nothing, had cowed him in spite of the burly resistance of his pride. "I don't see why he shouldn't be pleasant," said Mrs. Lapham. "He's never done anything else." Lapham looked up consciously, with an uneasy laugh. "Pshaw, Persis! you never forget anything?" "Oh, I've got more than that to remember. I suppose you asked him to ride after the mare?" "Well," said Lapham, reddening guiltily, "he said he was afraid of a good horse." "Then, of course, you hadn't asked him." Mrs. Lapham crocheted in silence, and her husband leaned back in his chair and smoked. At last he said, "I'm going to push that house forward. They're loafing on it. There's no reason why we shouldn't be in it by Thanksgiving. I don't believe in moving in the dead of winter." "We can wait till spring. We're very comfortable in the old place," answered his wife. Then she broke out on him: "What are you in such a hurry to get into that house for? Do you want to invite the Coreys to a house-warming?" Lapham looked at her without speaking. "Don't you suppose I can see through you I declare, Silas Lapham, if I didn't know different, I should say you were about the biggest fool! Don't you know ANYthing? Don't you know that it wouldn't do to ask those people to our house before they've asked us to theirs? They'd laugh in our faces!" "I don't believe they'd laugh in our faces. What's the difference between our asking them and their asking us?" demanded the Colonel sulkily. "Oh, well! If you don t see!" "Well, I DON'T see. But I don't want to ask them to the house. I suppose, if I want to, I can invite him down to a fish dinner at Taft's." Mrs. Lapham fell back in her chair, and let her work drop in her lap with that "Tckk!" in which her sex knows how to express utter contempt and despair. "What's the matter?" "Well, if you DO such a thing, Silas, I'll never speak to you again! It's no USE! It's NO use! I did think, after you'd behaved so well about Rogers, I might trust you a little. But I see I can't. I presume as long as you live you'll have to be nosed about like a perfect--I don't know what!" "What are you making such a fuss about?" demanded Lapham, terribly crestfallen, but trying to pluck up a spirit. "I haven't done anything yet. I can't ask your advice about anything any more without having you fly out. Confound it! I shall do as I please after this." But as if he could not endure that contemptuous atmosphere, he got up, and his wife heard him in the dining-room pouring himself out a glass of ice-water, and then heard him mount the stairs to their room, and slam its door after him. "Do you know what your father's wanting to do now?" Mrs. Lapham asked her eldest daughter, who lounged into the parlour a moment with her wrap stringing from her arm, while the younger went straight to bed. "He wants to invite Mr. Corey's father to a fish dinner at Taft's!" Penelope was yawning with her hand on her mouth; she stopped, and, with a laugh of amused expectance, sank into a chair, her shoulders shrugged forward. "Why! what in the world has put the Colonel up to that?" "Put him up to it! There's that fellow, who ought have come to see him long ago, drops into his office this morning, and talks five minutes with him, and your father is flattered out of his five senses. He's crazy to get in with those people, and I shall have a perfect battle to keep him within bounds." "Well, Persis, ma'am, you can't say but what you began it," said Penelope. "Oh yes, I began it," confessed Mrs. Lapham. "Pen," she broke out, "what do you suppose he means by it?" "Who? Mr. Corey's father? What does the Colonel think?" "Oh, the Colonel!" cried Mrs. Lapham. She added tremulously: "Perhaps he IS right. He DID seem to take a fancy to her last summer, and now if he's called in that way . . ." She left her daughter to distribute the pronouns aright, and resumed: "Of course, I should have said once that there wasn't any question about it. I should have said so last year; and I don't know what it is keeps me from saying so now. I suppose I know a little more about things than I did; and your father's being so bent on it sets me all in a twitter. He thinks his money can do everything. Well, I don't say but what it can, a good many. And 'Rene is as good a child as ever there was; and I don't see but what she's pretty-appearing enough to suit any one. She's pretty-behaved, too; and she IS the most capable girl. I presume young men don't care very much for such things nowadays; but there ain't a great many girls can go right into the kitchen, and make such a custard as she did yesterday. And look at the way she does, through the whole house! She can't seem to go into a room without the things fly right into their places. And if she had to do it to-morrow, she could make all her own dresses a great deal better than them we pay to do it. I don't say but what he's about as nice a fellow as ever stepped. But there! I'm ashamed of going on so." "Well, mother," said the girl after a pause, in which she looked as if a little weary of the subject, "why do you worry about it? If it's to be it'll be, and if it isn't----" "Yes, that's what I tell your father. But when it comes to myself, I see how hard it is for him to rest quiet. I'm afraid we shall all do something we'll repent of afterwards." "Well, ma'am," said Penelope, "I don't intend to do anything wrong; but if I do, I promise not to be sorry for it. I'll go that far. And I think I wouldn't be sorry for it beforehand, if I were in your place, mother. Let the Colonel go on! He likes to manoeuvre, and he isn't going to hurt any one. The Corey family can take care of themselves, I guess." She laughed in her throat, drawing down the corners of her mouth, and enjoying the resolution with which her mother tried to fling off the burden of her anxieties. "Pen! I believe you're right. You always do see things in such a light! There! I don't care if he brings him down every day." "Well, ma'am," said Pen, "I don't believe 'Rene would, either. She's just so indifferent!" The Colonel slept badly that night, and in the morning Mrs. Lapham came to breakfast without him. "Your father ain't well," she reported. "He's had one of his turns." "I should have thought he had two or three of them," said Penelope, "by the stamping round I heard. Isn't he coming to breakfast?" "Not just yet," said her mother. "He's asleep, and he'll be all right if he gets his nap out. I don't want you girls should make any great noise." "Oh, we'll be quiet enough," returned Penelope. "Well, I'm glad the Colonel isn't sojering. At first I thought he might be sojering." She broke into a laugh, and, struggling indolently with it, looked at her sister. "You don't think it'll be necessary for anybody to come down from the office and take orders from him while he's laid up, do you, mother?" she inquired. "Pen!" cried Irene. "He'll be well enough to go up on the ten o'clock boat," said the mother sharply. "I think papa works too hard all through the summer. Why don't you make him take a rest, mamma?" asked Irene. "Oh, take a rest! The man slaves harder every year. It used to be so that he'd take a little time off now and then; but I declare, he hardly ever seems to breathe now away from his office. And this year he says he doesn't intend to go down to Lapham, except to see after the works for a few days. I don't know what to do with the man any more! Seems as if the more money he got, the more he wanted to get. It scares me to think what would happen to him if he lost it. I know one thing," concluded Mrs. Lapham. "He shall not go back to the office to-day." "Then he won't go up on the ten o'clock boat," Pen reminded her. "No, he won't. You can just drive over to the hotel as soon as you're through, girls, and telegraph that he's not well, and won't be at the office till to-morrow. I'm not going to have them send anybody down here to bother him." "That's a blow," said Pen. "I didn't know but they might send----" she looked demurely at her sister--"Dennis!" "Mamma!" cried Irene. "Well, I declare, there's no living with this family any more," said Penelope. "There, Pen, be done!" commanded her mother. But perhaps she did not intend to forbid her teasing. It gave a pleasant sort of reality to the affair that was in her mind, and made what she wished appear not only possible but probable. Lapham got up and lounged about, fretting and rebelling as each boat departed without him, through the day; before night he became very cross, in spite of the efforts of the family to soothe him, and grumbled that he had been kept from going up to town. "I might as well have gone as not," he repeated, till his wife lost her patience. "Well, you shall go to-morrow, Silas, if you have to be carried to the boat." "I declare," said Penelope, "the Colonel don't pet worth a cent." The six o'clock boat brought Corey. The girls were sitting on the piazza, and Irene saw him first. "O Pen!" she whispered, with her heart in her face; and Penelope had no time for mockery before he was at the steps. "I hope Colonel Lapham isn't ill," he said, and they could hear their mother engaged in a moral contest with their father indoors. "Go and put on your coat! I say you shall! It don't matter HOW he sees you at the office, shirt-sleeves or not. You're in a gentleman's house now--or you ought to be--and you shan't see company in your dressing-gown." Penelope hurried in to subdue her mother's anger. "Oh, he's very much better, thank you!" said Irene, speaking up loudly to drown the noise of the controversy. "I'm glad of that," said Corey, and when she led him indoors the vanquished Colonel met his visitor in a double-breasted frock-coat, which he was still buttoning up. He could not persuade himself at once that Corey had not come upon some urgent business matter, and when he was clear that he had come out of civility, surprise mingled with his gratification that he should be the object of solicitude to the young man. In Lapham's circle of acquaintance they complained when they were sick, but they made no womanish inquiries after one another's health, and certainly paid no visits of sympathy till matters were serious. He would have enlarged upon the particulars of his indisposition if he had been allowed to do so; and after tea, which Corey took with them, he would have remained to entertain him if his wife had not sent him to bed. She followed him to see that he took some medicine she had prescribed for him, but she went first to Penelope's room, where she found the girl with a book in her hand, which she was not reading. "You better go down," said the mother. "I've got to go to your father, and Irene is all alone with Mr. Corey; and I know she'll be on pins and needles without you're there to help make it go off." "She'd better try to get along without me, mother," said Penelope soberly. "I can't always be with them." "Well," replied Mrs. Lapham, "then I must. There'll be a perfect Quaker meeting down there." "Oh, I guess 'Rene will find something to say if you leave her to herself. Or if she don't, HE must. It'll be all right for you to go down when you get ready; but I shan't go till toward the last. If he's coming here to see Irene--and I don't believe he's come on father's account--he wants to see her and not me. If she can't interest him alone, perhaps he'd as well find it out now as any time. At any rate, I guess you'd better make the experiment. You'll know whether it's a success if he comes again." "Well," said the mother, "may be you're right. I'll go down directly. It does seem as if he did mean something, after all." Mrs. Lapham did not hasten to return to her guest. In her own girlhood it was supposed that if a young man seemed to be coming to see a girl, it was only common-sense to suppose that he wished to see her alone; and her life in town had left Mrs. Lapham's simple traditions in this respect unchanged. She did with her daughter as her mother would have done with her. Where Penelope sat with her book, she heard the continuous murmur of voices below, and after a long interval she heard her mother descend. She did not read the open book that lay in her lap, though she kept her eyes fast on the print. Once she rose and almost shut the door, so that she could scarcely hear; then she opened it wide again with a self-disdainful air, and resolutely went back to her book, which again she did not read. But she remained in her room till it was nearly time for Corey to return to his boat. When they were alone again, Irene made a feint of scolding her for leaving her to entertain Mr. Corey. "Why! didn't you have a pleasant call?" asked Penelope. Irene threw her arms round her. "Oh, it was a SPLENDID call! I didn't suppose I could make it go off so well. We talked nearly the whole time about you!" "I don't think THAT was a very interesting subject." "He kept asking about you. He asked everything. You don't know how much he thinks of you, Pen. O Pen! what do you think made him come? Do you think he really did come to see how papa was?" Irene buried her face in her sister's neck. Penelope stood with her arms at her side, submitting. "Well," she said, "I don't think he did, altogether." Irene, all glowing, released her. "Don't you--don't you REALLY? O Pen! don't you think he IS nice? Don't you think he's handsome? Don't you think I behaved horridly when we first met him this evening, not thanking him for coming? I know he thinks I've no manners. But it seemed as if it would be thanking him for coming to see me. Ought I to have asked him to come again, when he said good-night? I didn't; I couldn't. Do you believe he'll think I don't want him to? You don't believe he would keep coming if he didn't--want to----" "He hasn't kept coming a great deal, yet," suggested Penelope. "No; I know he hasn't. But if he--if he should?" "Then I should think he wanted to." "Oh, would you--WOULD you? Oh, how good you always are, Pen! And you always say what you think. I wish there was some one coming to see you too. That's all that I don't like about it. Perhaps----He was telling about his friend there in Texas----" "Well," said Penelope, "his friend couldn't call often from Texas. You needn't ask Mr. Corey to trouble about me, 'Rene. I think I can manage to worry along, if you're satisfied." "Oh, I AM, Pen. When do you suppose he'll come again?" Irene pushed some of Penelope's things aside on the dressing-case, to rest her elbow and talk at ease. Penelope came up and put them back. "Well, not to-night," she said; "and if that's what you're sitting up for----" Irene caught her round the neck again, and ran out of the room. The Colonel was packed off on the eight o'clock boat the next morning; but his recovery did not prevent Corey from repeating his visit in a week. This time Irene came radiantly up to Penelope's room, where she had again withdrawn herself. "You must come down, Pen," she said. "He's asked if you're not well, and mamma says you've got to come." After that Penelope helped Irene through with her calls, and talked them over with her far into the night after Corey was gone. But when the impatient curiosity of her mother pressed her for some opinion of the affair, she said, "You know as much as I do, mother." "Don't he ever say anything to you about her--praise her up, any?" "He's never mentioned Irene to me." "He hasn't to me, either," said Mrs. Lapham, with a sigh of trouble. "Then what makes him keep coming?" "I can't tell you. One thing, he says there isn't a house open in Boston where he's acquainted. Wait till some of his friends get back, and then if he keeps coming, it'll be time to inquire." "Well!" said the mother; but as the weeks passed she was less and less able to attribute Corey's visits to his loneliness in town, and turned to her husband for comfort. "Silas, I don't know as we ought to let young Corey keep coming so. I don't quite like it, with all his family away." "He's of age," said the Colonel. "He can go where he pleases. It don't matter whether his family's here or not." "Yes, but if they don't want he should come? Should you feel just right about letting him?" "How're you going to stop him? I swear, Persis, I don't know what's got over you! What is it? You didn't use to be so. But to hear you talk, you'd think those Coreys were too good for this world, and we wa'n't fit for 'em to walk on." "I'm not going to have 'em say we took an advantage of their being away and tolled him on." "I should like to HEAR 'em say it!" cried Lapham. "Or anybody!" "Well," said his wife, relinquishing this point of anxiety, "I can't make out whether he cares anything for her or not. And Pen can't tell either; or else she won't." "Oh, I guess he cares for her, fast enough," said the Colonel. "I can't make out that he's said or done the first thing to show it." "Well, I was better than a year getting my courage up." "Oh, that was different," said Mrs. Lapham, in contemptuous dismissal of the comparison, and yet with a certain fondness. "I guess, if he cared for her, a fellow in his position wouldn't be long getting up his courage to speak to Irene." Lapham brought his fist down on the table between them. "Look here, Persis! Once for all, now, don't you ever let me hear you say anything like that again! I'm worth nigh on to a million, and I've made it every cent myself; and my girls are the equals of anybody, I don't care who it is. He ain't the fellow to take on any airs; but if he ever tries it with me, I'll send him to the right about mighty quick. I'll have a talk with him, if----" "No, no; don't do that!" implored his wife. "I didn't mean anything. I don't know as I meant ANYthing. He's just as unassuming as he can be, and I think Irene's a match for anybody. You just let things go on. It'll be all right. You never can tell how it is with young people. Perhaps SHE'S offish. Now you ain't--you ain't going to say anything?" Lapham suffered himself to be persuaded, the more easily, no doubt, because after his explosion he must have perceived that his pride itself stood in the way of what his pride had threatened. He contented himself with his wife's promise that she would never again present that offensive view of the case, and she did not remain without a certain support in his sturdy self-assertion. XII. MRS. COREY returned with her daughters in the early days of October, having passed three or four weeks at Intervale after leaving Bar Harbour. They were somewhat browner than they were when they left town in June, but they were not otherwise changed. Lily, the elder of the girls, had brought back a number of studies of kelp and toadstools, with accessory rocks and rotten logs, which she would never finish up and never show any one, knowing the slightness of their merit. Nanny, the younger, had read a great many novels with a keen sense of their inaccuracy as representations of life, and had seen a great deal of life with a sad regret for its difference from fiction. They were both nice girls, accomplished, well-dressed of course, and well enough looking; but they had met no one at the seaside or the mountains whom their taste would allow to influence their fate, and they had come home to the occupations they had left, with no hopes and no fears to distract them. In the absence of these they were fitted to take the more vivid interest in their brother's affairs, which they could see weighed upon their mother's mind after the first hours of greeting. "Oh, it seems to have been going on, and your father has never written a word about it," she said, shaking her head. "What good would it have done?" asked Nanny, who was little and fair, with rings of light hair that filled a bonnet-front very prettily; she looked best in a bonnet. "It would only have worried you. He could not have stopped Tom; you couldn't, when you came home to do it." "I dare say papa didn't know much about it," suggested Lily. She was a tall, lean, dark girl, who looked as if she were not quite warm enough, and whom you always associated with wraps of different aesthetic effect after you had once seen her. It is a serious matter always to the women of his family when a young man gives them cause to suspect that he is interested in some other woman. A son-in-law or brother-in-law does not enter the family; he need not be caressed or made anything of; but the son's or brother's wife has a claim upon his mother and sisters which they cannot deny. Some convention of their sex obliges them to show her affection, to like or to seem to like her, to take her to their intimacy, however odious she may be to them. With the Coreys it was something more than an affair of sentiment. They were by no means poor, and they were not dependent money-wise upon Tom Corey; but the mother had come, without knowing it, to rely upon his sense, his advice in everything, and the sisters, seeing him hitherto so indifferent to girls, had insensibly grown to regard him as altogether their own till he should be released, not by his marriage, but by theirs, an event which had not approached with the lapse of time. Some kinds of girls--they believed that they could readily have chosen a kind--might have taken him without taking him from them; but this generosity could not be hoped for in such a girl as Miss Lapham. "Perhaps," urged their mother, "it would not be so bad. She seemed an affectionate little thing with her mother, without a great deal of character though she was so capable about some things." "Oh, she'll be an affectionate little thing with Tom too, you may be sure," said Nanny. "And that characterless capability becomes the most in tense narrow-mindedness. She'll think we were against her from the beginning." "She has no cause for that," Lily interposed, "and we shall not give her any." "Yes, we shall," retorted Nanny. "We can't help it; and if we can't, her own ignorance would be cause enough." "I can't feel that she's altogether ignorant," said Mrs. Corey justly. "Of course she can read and write," admitted Nanny. "I can't imagine what he finds to talk about with her," said Lily. "Oh, THAT'S very simple," returned her sister. "They talk about themselves, with occasional references to each other. I have heard people 'going on' on the hotel piazzas. She's embroidering, or knitting, or tatting, or something of that kind; and he says she seems quite devoted to needlework, and she says, yes, she has a perfect passion for it, and everybody laughs at her for it; but she can't help it, she always was so from a child, and supposes she always shall be,--with remote and minute particulars. And she ends by saying that perhaps he does not like people to tat, or knit, or embroider, or whatever. And he says, oh, yes, he does; what could make her think such a thing? but for his part he likes boating rather better, or if you're in the woods camping. Then she lets him take up one corner of her work, and perhaps touch her fingers; and that encourages him to say that he supposes nothing could induce her to drop her work long enough to go down on the rocks, or out among the huckleberry bushes; and she puts her head on one side, and says she doesn't know really. And then they go, and he lies at her feet on the rocks, or picks huckleberries and drops them in her lap, and they go on talking about themselves, and comparing notes to see how they differ from each other. And----" "That will do, Nanny," said her mother. Lily smiled autumnally. "Oh, disgusting!" "Disgusting? Not at all!" protested her sister. "It's very amusing when you see it, and when you do it----" "It's always a mystery what people see in each other," observed Mrs. Corey severely. "Yes," Nanny admitted, "but I don't know that there is much comfort for us in the application." "No, there isn't," said her mother. "The most that we can do is to hope for the best till we know the worst. Of course we shall make the best of the worst when it comes." "Yes, and perhaps it would not be so very bad. I was saying to your father when I was here in July that those things can always be managed. You must face them as if they were nothing out of the way, and try not to give any cause for bitterness among ourselves." "That's true. But I don't believe in too much resignation beforehand. It amounts to concession," said Nanny. "Of course we should oppose it in all proper ways," returned her mother. Lily had ceased to discuss the matter. In virtue of her artistic temperament, she was expected not to be very practical. It was her mother and her sister who managed, submitting to the advice and consent of Corey what they intended to do. "Your father wrote me that he had called on Colonel Lapham at his place of business," said Mrs. Corey, seizing her first chance of approaching the subject with her son. "Yes," said Corey. "A dinner was father's idea, but he came down to a call, at my suggestion." "Oh," said Mrs. Corey, in a tone of relief, as if the statement threw a new light on the fact that Corey had suggested the visit. "He said so little about it in his letter that I didn't know just how it came about." "I thought it was right they should meet," explained the son, "and so did father. I was glad that I suggested it, afterward; it was extremely gratifying to Colonel Lapham." "Oh, it was quite right in every way. I suppose you have seen something of the family during the summer." "Yes, a good deal. I've been down at Nantasket rather often." Mrs. Corey let her eyes droop. Then she asked: "Are they well?" "Yes, except Lapham himself, now and then. I went down once or twice to see him. He hasn't given himself any vacation this summer; he has such a passion for his business that I fancy he finds it hard being away from it at any time, and he's made his new house an excuse for staying." "Oh yes, his house! Is it to be something fine?" "Yes; it's a beautiful house. Seymour is doing it." "Then, of course, it will be very handsome. I suppose the young ladies are very much taken up with it; and Mrs. Lapham." "Mrs. Lapham, yes. I don't think the young ladies care so much about it." "It must be for them. Aren't they ambitious?" asked Mrs. Corey, delicately feeling her way. Her son thought a while. Then he answered with a smile-- "No, I don't really think they are. They are unambitious, I should say." Mrs. Corey permitted herself a long breath. But her son added, "It's the parents who are ambitious for them," and her respiration became shorter again. "Yes," she said. "They're very simple, nice girls," pursued Corey. "I think you'll like the elder, when you come to know her." When you come to know her. The words implied an expectation that the two families were to be better acquainted. "Then she is more intellectual than her sister?" Mrs. Corey ventured. "Intellectual?" repeated her son. "No; that isn't the word, quite. Though she certainly has more mind." "The younger seemed very sensible." "Oh, sensible, yes. And as practical as she's pretty. She can do all sorts of things, and likes to be doing them. Don't you think she's an extraordinary beauty?" "Yes--yes, she is," said Mrs. Corey, at some cost. "She's good, too," said Corey, "and perfectly innocent and transparent. I think you will like her the better the more you know her." "I thought her very nice from the beginning," said the mother heroically; and then nature asserted itself in her. "But I should be afraid that she might perhaps be a little bit tiresome at last; her range of ideas seemed so extremely limited." "Yes, that's what I was afraid of. But, as a matter of fact, she isn't. She interests you by her very limitations. You can see the working of her mind, like that of a child. She isn't at all conscious even of her beauty." "I don't believe young men can tell whether girls are conscious or not," said Mrs. Corey. "But I am not saying the Miss Laphams are not----" Her son sat musing, with an inattentive smile on his face. "What is it?" "Oh! nothing. I was thinking of Miss Lapham and something she was saying. She's very droll, you know." "The elder sister? Yes, you told me that. Can you see the workings of her mind too?" "No; she's everything that's unexpected." Corey fell into another reverie, and smiled again; but he did not offer to explain what amused him, and his mother would not ask. "I don't know what to make of his admiring the girl so frankly," she said afterward to her husband. "That couldn't come naturally till after he had spoken to her, and I feel sure that he hasn't yet." "You women haven't risen yet--it's an evidence of the backwardness of your sex--to a conception of the Bismarck idea in diplomacy. If a man praises one woman, you still think he's in love with another. Do you mean that because Tom didn't praise the elder sister so much, he HAS spoken to HER?" Mrs. Corey refused the consequence, saying that it did not follow. "Besides, he did praise her." "You ought to be glad that matters are in such good shape, then. At any rate, you can do absolutely nothing." "Oh! I know it," sighed Mrs. Corey. "I wish Tom would be a little opener with me." "He's as open as it's in the nature of an American-born son to be with his parents. I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard to the young lady, he would have told you--if he knew." "Why, don't you think he does know, Bromfield?" "I'm not at all sure he does. You women think that because a young man dangles after a girl, or girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do with his time, and because they seem to like it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in this instance because there was nobody else in town." "Do you really think so?" "I throw out the suggestion. And it strikes me that a young lady couldn't do better than stay in or near Boston during the summer. Most of the young men are here, kept by business through the week, with evenings available only on the spot, or a few miles off. What was the proportion of the sexes at the seashore and the mountains?" "Oh, twenty girls at least for even an excuse of a man. It's shameful." "You see, I am right in one part of my theory. Why shouldn't I be right in the rest?" "I wish you were. And yet I can't say that I do. Those things are very serious with girls. I shouldn't like Tom to have been going to see those people if he meant nothing by it." "And you wouldn't like it if he did. You are difficult, my dear." Her husband pulled an open newspaper toward him from the table. "I feel that it wouldn't be at all like him to do so," said Mrs. Corey, going on to entangle herself in her words, as women often do when their ideas are perfectly clear. "Don't go to reading, please, Bromfield! I am really worried about this matter I must know how much it means. I can't let it go on so. I don't see how you can rest easy without knowing." "I don't in the least know what's going to become of me when I die; and yet I sleep well," replied Bromfield Corey, putting his newspaper aside. "Ah! but this is a very different thing." "So much more serious? Well, what can you do? We had this out when you were here in the summer, and you agreed with me then that we could do nothing. The situation hasn't changed at all." "Yes, it has; it has continued the same," said Mrs. Corey, again expressing the fact by a contradiction in terms. "I think I must ask Tom outright." "You know you can't do that, my dear." "Then why doesn't he tell us?" "Ah, that's what HE can't do, if he's making love to Miss Irene--that's her name, I believe--on the American plan. He will tell us after he has told HER. That was the way I did. Don't ignore our own youth, Anna. It was a long while ago, I'll admit." "It was very different," said Mrs. Corey, a little shaken. "I don't see how. I dare say Mamma Lapham knows whether Tom is in love with her daughter or not; and no doubt Papa Lapham knows it at second hand. But we shall not know it until the girl herself does. Depend upon that. Your mother knew, and she told your father; but my poor father knew nothing about it till we were engaged; and I had been hanging about--dangling, as you call it----" "No, no; YOU called it that." "Was it I?--for a year or more." The wife could not refuse to be a little consoled by the image of her young love which the words conjured up, however little she liked its relation to her son's interest in Irene Lapham. She smiled pensively. "Then you think it hasn't come to an understanding with them yet?" "An understanding? Oh, probably." "An explanation, then?" "The only logical inference from what we've been saying is that it hasn't. But I don't ask you to accept it on that account. May I read now, my dear?" "Yes, you may read now," said Mrs. Corey, with one of those sighs which perhaps express a feminine sense of the unsatisfactoriness of husbands in general, rather than a personal discontent with her own. "Thank you, my dear; then I think I'll smoke too," said Bromfield Corey, lighting a cigar. She left him in peace, and she made no further attempt upon her son's confidence. But she was not inactive for that reason. She did not, of course, admit to herself, and far less to others, the motive with which she went to pay an early visit to the Laphams, who had now come up from Nantasket to Nankeen Square. She said to her daughters that she had always been a little ashamed of using her acquaintance with them to get money for her charity, and then seeming to drop it. Besides, it seemed to her that she ought somehow to recognise the business relation that Tom had formed with the father; they must not think that his family disapproved of what he had done. "Yes, business is business," said Nanny, with a laugh. "Do you wish us to go with you again?" "No; I will go alone this time," replied the mother with dignity. Her coupe now found its way to Nankeen Square without difficulty, and she sent up a card, which Mrs. Lapham received in the presence of her daughter Penelope. "I presume I've got to see her," she gasped. "Well, don't look so guilty, mother," joked the girl; "you haven't been doing anything so VERY wrong." "It seems as if I HAD. I don't know what's come over me. I wasn't afraid of the woman before, but now I don't seem to feel as if I could look her in the face. He's been coming here of his own accord, and I fought against his coming long enough, goodness knows. I didn't want him to come. And as far forth as that goes, we're as respectable as they are; and your father's got twice their money, any day. We've no need to go begging for their favour. I guess they were glad enough to get him in with your father." "Yes, those are all good points, mother," said the girl; "and if you keep saying them over, and count a hundred every time before you speak, I guess you'll worry through." Mrs. Lapham had been fussing distractedly with her hair and ribbons, in preparation for her encounter with Mrs. Corey. She now drew in a long quivering breath, stared at her daughter without seeing her, and hurried downstairs. It was true that when she met Mrs. Corey before she had not been awed by her; but since then she had learned at least her own ignorance of the world, and she had talked over the things she had misconceived and the things she had shrewdly guessed so much that she could not meet her on the former footing of equality. In spite of as brave a spirit and as good a conscience as woman need have, Mrs. Lapham cringed inwardly, and tremulously wondered what her visitor had come for. She turned from pale to red, and was hardly coherent in her greetings; she did not know how they got to where Mrs. Corey was saying exactly the right things about her son's interest and satisfaction in his new business, and keeping her eyes fixed on Mrs. Lapham's, reading her uneasiness there, and making her feel, in spite of her indignant innocence, that she had taken a base advantage of her in her absence to get her son away from her and marry him to Irene. Then, presently, while this was painfully revolving itself in Mrs. Lapham's mind, she was aware of Mrs. Corey's asking if she was not to have the pleasure of seeing Miss Irene. "No; she's out, just now," said Mrs. Lapham. "I don't know just when she'll be in. She went to get a book." And here she turned red again, knowing that Irene had gone to get the book because it was one that Corey had spoken of. "Oh! I'm sorry," said Mrs. Corey. "I had hoped to see her. And your other daughter, whom I never met?" "Penelope?" asked Mrs. Lapham, eased a little. "She is at home. I will go and call her." The Laphams had not yet thought of spending their superfluity on servants who could be rung for; they kept two girls and a man to look after the furnace, as they had for the last ten years. If Mrs. Lapham had rung in the parlour, her second girl would have gone to the street door to see who was there. She went upstairs for Penelope herself, and the girl, after some rebellious derision, returned with her. Mrs. Corey took account of her, as Penelope withdrew to the other side of the room after their introduction, and sat down, indolently submissive on the surface to the tests to be applied, and following Mrs. Corey's lead of the conversation in her odd drawl. "You young ladies will be glad to be getting into your new house," she said politely. "I don't know," said Penelope. "We're so used to this one." Mrs. Corey looked a little baffled, but she said sympathetically, "Of course, you will be sorry to leave your old home." Mrs. Lapham could not help putting in on behalf of her daughters: "I guess if it was left to the girls to say, we shouldn't leave it at all." "Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Corey; "are they so much attached? But I can quite understand it. My children would be heart-broken too if we were to leave the old place." She turned to Penelope. "But you must think of the lovely new house, and the beautiful position." "Yes, I suppose we shall get used to them too," said Penelope, in response to this didactic consolation. "Oh, I could even imagine your getting very fond of them," pursued Mrs. Corey patronisingly. "My son has told me of the lovely outlook you're to have over the water. He thinks you have such a beautiful house. I believe he had the pleasure of meeting you all there when he first came home." "Yes, I think he was our first visitor." "He is a great admirer of your house," said Mrs. Corey, keeping her eyes very sharply, however politely, on Penelope's face, as if to surprise there the secret of any other great admiration of her son's that might helplessly show itself. "Yes," said the girl, "he's been there several times with father; and he wouldn't be allowed to overlook any of its good points." Her mother took a little more courage from her daughter's tranquillity. "The girls make such fun of their father's excitement about his building, and the way he talks it into everybody." "Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Corey, with civil misunderstanding and inquiry. Penelope flushed, and her mother went on: "I tell him he's more of a child about it than any of them." "Young people are very philosophical nowadays," remarked Mrs. Corey. "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Lapham. "I tell them they've always had everything, so that nothing's a surprise to them. It was different with us in our young days." "Yes," said Mrs. Corey, without assenting. "I mean the Colonel and myself," explained Mrs. Lapham. "Oh yes--yes!" said Mrs. Corey. "I'm sure," the former went on, rather helplessly, "we had to work hard enough for everything we got. And so we appreciated it." "So many things were not done for young people then," said Mrs. Corey, not recognising the early-hardships standpoint of Mrs. Lapham. "But I don't know that they are always the better for it now," she added vaguely, but with the satisfaction we all feel in uttering a just commonplace. "It's rather hard living up to blessings that you've always had," said Penelope. "Yes," replied Mrs. Corey distractedly, and coming back to her slowly from the virtuous distance to which she had absented herself. She looked at the girl searchingly again, as if to determine whether this were a touch of the drolling her son had spoken of. But she only added: "You will enjoy the sunsets on the Back Bay so much." "Well, not unless they're new ones," said Penelope. "I don't believe I could promise to enjoy any sunsets that I was used to, a great deal." Mrs. Corey looked at her with misgiving, hardening into dislike. "No," she breathed vaguely. "My son spoke of the fine effect of the lights about the hotel from your cottage at Nantasket," she said to Mrs. Lapham. "Yes, they're splendid!" exclaimed that lady. "I guess the girls went down every night with him to see them from the rocks." "Yes," said Mrs. Corey, a little dryly; and she permitted herself to add: "He spoke of those rocks. I suppose both you young ladies spend a great deal of your time on them when you're there. At Nahant my children were constantly on them." "Irene likes the rocks," said Penelope. "I don't care much about them,--especially at night." "Oh, indeed! I suppose you find it quite as well looking at the lights comfortably from the veranda." "No; you can't see them from the house." "Oh," said Mrs. Corey. After a perceptible pause, she turned to Mrs. Lapham. "I don't know what my son would have done for a breath of sea air this summer, if you had not allowed him to come to Nantasket. He wasn't willing to leave his business long enough to go anywhere else." "Yes, he's a born business man," responded Mrs. Lapham enthusiastically. "If it's born in you, it's bound to come out. That's what the Colonel is always saying about Mr. Corey. He says it's born in him to be a business man, and he can't help it." She recurred to Corey gladly because she felt that she had not said enough of him when his mother first spoke of his connection with the business. "I don't believe," she went on excitedly, "that Colonel Lapham has ever had anybody with him that he thought more of." "You have all been very kind to my son," said Mrs. Corey in acknowledgment, and stiffly bowing a little, "and we feel greatly indebted to you. Very much so." At these grateful expressions Mrs. Lapham reddened once more, and murmured that it had been very pleasant to them, she was sure. She glanced at her daughter for support, but Penelope was looking at Mrs. Corey, who doubtless saw her from the corner of her eyes, though she went on speaking to her mother. "I was sorry to hear from him that Mr.--Colonel?--Lapham had not been quite well this summer. I hope he's better now?" "Oh yes, indeed," replied Mrs. Lapham; "he's all right now. He's hardly ever been sick, and he don't know how to take care of himself. That's all. We don't any of us; we're all so well." "Health is a great blessing," sighed Mrs. Corey. "Yes, so it is. How is your oldest daughter?" inquired Mrs. Lapham. "Is she as delicate as ever?" "She seems to be rather better since we returned." And now Mrs. Corey, as if forced to the point, said bunglingly that the young ladies had wished to come with her, but had been detained. She based her statement upon Nanny's sarcastic demand; and, perhaps seeing it topple a little, she rose hastily, to get away from its fall. "But we shall hope for some--some other occasion," she said vaguely, and she put on a parting smile, and shook hands with Mrs. Lapham and Penelope, and then, after some lingering commonplaces, got herself out of the house. Penelope and her mother were still looking at each other, and trying to grapple with the effect or purport of the visit, when Irene burst in upon them from the outside. "O mamma! wasn't that Mrs. Corey's carriage just drove away?" Penelope answered with her laugh. "Yes! You've just missed the most delightful call, 'Rene. So easy and pleasant every way. Not a bit stiff! Mrs. Corey was so friendly! She didn't make one feel at all as if she'd bought me, and thought she'd given too much; and mother held up her head as if she were all wool and a yard wide, and she would just like to have anybody deny it." In a few touches of mimicry she dashed off a sketch of the scene: her mother's trepidation, and Mrs. Corey's well-bred repose and polite scrutiny of them both. She ended by showing how she herself had sat huddled up in a dark corner, mute with fear. "If she came to make us say and do the wrong thing, she must have gone away happy; and it's a pity you weren't here to help, Irene. I don't know that I aimed to make a bad impression, but I guess I succeeded--even beyond my deserts." She laughed; then suddenly she flashed out in fierce earnest. "If I missed doing anything that could make me as hateful to her as she made herself to me----" She checked herself, and began to laugh. Her laugh broke, and the tears started into her eyes; she ran out of the room, and up the stairs. "What--what does it mean?" asked Irene in a daze. Mrs. Lapham was still in the chilly torpor to which Mrs. Corey's call had reduced her. Penelope's vehemence did not rouse her. She only shook her head absently, and said, "I don't know." "Why should Pen care what impression she made? I didn't suppose it would make any difference to her whether Mrs. Corey liked her or not." "I didn't, either. But I could see that she was just as nervous as she could be, every minute of the time. I guess she didn't like Mrs. Corey any too well from the start, and she couldn't seem to act like herself." "Tell me about it, mamma," said Irene, dropping into a chair. Mrs. Corey described the interview to her husband on her return home. "Well, and what are your inferences?" he asked. "They were extremely embarrassed and excited--that is, the mother. I don't wish to do her injustice, but she certainly behaved consciously." "You made her feel so, I dare say, Anna. I can imagine how terrible you must have been in the character of an accusing spirit, too lady-like to say anything. What did you hint?" "I hinted nothing," said Mrs. Corey, descending to the weakness of defending herself. "But I saw quite enough to convince me that the girl is in love with Tom, and the mother knows it." "That was very unsatisfactory. I supposed you went to find out whether Tom was in love with the girl. Was she as pretty as ever?" "I didn't see her; she was not at home; I saw her sister." "I don't know that I follow you quite, Anna. But no matter. What was the sister like?" "A thoroughly disagreeable young woman." "What did she do?" "Nothing. She's far too sly for that. But that was the impression." "Then you didn't find her so amusing as Tom does?" "I found her pert. There's no other word for it. She says things to puzzle you and put you out." "Ah, that was worse than pert, Anna; that was criminal. Well, let us thank heaven the younger one is so pretty." Mrs. Corey did not reply directly. "Bromfield," she said, after a moment of troubled silence, "I have been thinking over your plan, and I don't see why it isn't the right thing." "What is my plan?" inquired Bromfield Corey. "A dinner." Her husband began to laugh. "Ah, you overdid the accusing-spirit business, and this is reparation." But Mrs. Corey hurried on, with combined dignity and anxiety-- "We can't ignore Tom's intimacy with them--it amounts to that; it will probably continue even if it's merely a fancy, and we must seem to know it; whatever comes of it, we can't disown it. They are very simple, unfashionable people, and unworldly; but I can't say that they are offensive, unless--unless," she added, in propitiation of her husband's smile, "unless the father--how did you find the father?" she implored. "He will be very entertaining," said Corey, "if you start him on his paint. What was the disagreeable daughter like? Shall you have her?" "She's little and dark. We must have them all," Mrs. Corey sighed. "Then you don't think a dinner would do?" "Oh yes, I do. As you say, we can't disown Tom's relation to them, whatever it is. We had much better recognise it, and make the best of the inevitable. I think a Lapham dinner would be delightful." He looked at her with delicate irony in his voice and smile, and she fetched another sigh, so deep and sore now that he laughed outright. "Perhaps," he suggested, "it would be the best way of curing Tom of his fancy, if he has one. He has been seeing her with the dangerous advantages which a mother knows how to give her daughter in the family circle, and with no means of comparing her with other girls. You must invite several other very pretty girls." "Do you really think so, Bromfield?" asked Mrs. Corey, taking courage a little. "That might do," But her spirits visibly sank again. "I don't know any other girl half so pretty." "Well, then, better bred." "She is very lady-like, very modest, and pleasing." "Well, more cultivated." "Tom doesn't get on with such people." "Oh, you wish him to marry her, I see." "No, no." "Then you'd better give the dinner to bring them together, to promote the affair." "You know I don't want to do that, Bromfield. But I feel that we must do something. If we don't, it has a clandestine appearance. It isn't just to them. A dinner won't leave us in any worse position, and may leave us in a better. Yes," said Mrs. Corey, after another thoughtful interval, "we must have them--have them all. It could be very simple." "Ah, you can't give a dinner under a bushel, if I take your meaning, my dear. If we do this at all, we mustn't do it as if we were ashamed of it. We must ask people to meet them." "Yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "There are not many people in town yet," she added, with relief that caused her husband another smile. "There really seems a sort of fatality about it," she concluded religiously. "Then you had better not struggle against it. Go and reconcile Lily and Nanny to it as soon as possible." Mrs. Corey blanched a little. "But don't you think it will be the best thing, Bromfield?" "I do indeed, my dear. The only thing that shakes my faith in the scheme is the fact that I first suggested it. But if you have adopted it, it must be all right, Anna. I can't say that I expected it." "No," said his wife, "it wouldn't do." XIII. HAVING distinctly given up the project of asking the Laphams to dinner, Mrs. Corey was able to carry it out with the courage of sinners who have sacrificed to virtue by frankly acknowledging its superiority to their intended transgression. She did not question but the Laphams would come; and she only doubted as to the people whom she should invite to meet them. She opened the matter with some trepidation to her daughters, but neither of them opposed her; they rather looked at the scheme from her own point of view, and agreed with her that nothing had really yet been done to wipe out the obligation to the Laphams helplessly contracted the summer before, and strengthened by that ill-advised application to Mrs. Lapham for charity. Not only the principal of their debt of gratitude remained, but the accruing interest. They said, What harm could giving the dinner possibly do them? They might ask any or all of their acquaintance without disadvantage to themselves; but it would be perfectly easy to give the dinner just the character they chose, and still flatter the ignorance of the Laphams. The trouble would be with Tom, if he were really interested in the girl; but he could not say anything if they made it a family dinner; he could not feel anything. They had each turned in her own mind, as it appeared from a comparison of ideas, to one of the most comprehensive of those cousinships which form the admiration and terror of the adventurer in Boston society. He finds himself hemmed in and left out at every turn by ramifications that forbid him all hope of safe personality in his comments on people; he is never less secure than when he hears some given Bostonian denouncing or ridiculing another. If he will be advised, he will guard himself from concurring in these criticisms, however just they appear, for the probability is that their object is a cousin of not more than one remove from the censor. When the alien hears a group of Boston ladies calling one another, and speaking of all their gentlemen friends, by the familiar abbreviations of their Christian names, he must feel keenly the exile to which he was born; but he is then, at least, in comparatively little danger; while these latent and tacit cousinships open pitfalls at every step around him, in a society where Middlesexes have married Essexes and produced Suffolks for two hundred and fifty years. These conditions, however, so perilous to the foreigner, are a source of strength and security to those native to them. An uncertain acquaintance may be so effectually involved in the meshes of such a cousinship, as never to be heard of outside of it and tremendous stories are told of people who have spent a whole winter in Boston, in a whirl of gaiety, and who, the original guests of the Suffolks, discover upon reflection that they have met no one but Essexes and Middlesexes. Mrs. Corey's brother James came first into her mind, and she thought with uncommon toleration of the easy-going, uncritical, good-nature of his wife. James Bellingham had been the adviser of her son throughout, and might be said to have actively promoted his connection with Lapham. She thought next of the widow of her cousin, Henry Bellingham, who had let her daughter marry that Western steamboat man, and was fond of her son-in-law; she might be expected at least to endure the paint-king and his family. The daughters insisted so strongly upon Mrs. Bellingham's son Charles, that Mrs. Corey put him down--if he were in town; he might be in Central America; he got on with all sorts of people. It seemed to her that she might stop at this: four Laphams, five Coreys, and four Bellinghams were enough. "That makes thirteen," said Nanny. "You can have Mr. and Mrs. Sewell." "Yes, that is a good idea," assented Mrs. Corey. "He is our minister, and it is very proper." "I don't see why you don't have Robert Chase. It is a pity he shouldn't see her--for the colour." "I don't quite like the idea of that," said Mrs. Corey; "but we can have him too, if it won't make too many." The painter had married into a poorer branch of the Coreys, and his wife was dead. "Is there any one else?" "There is Miss Kingsbury." "We have had her so much. She will begin to think we are using her." "She won't mind; she's so good-natured." "Well, then," the mother summed up, "there are four Laphams, five Coreys, four Bellinghams, one Chase, and one Kingsbury--fifteen. Oh! and two Sewells. Seventeen. Ten ladies and seven gentlemen. It doesn't balance very well, and it's too large." "Perhaps some of the ladies won't come," suggested Lily. "Oh, the ladies always come," said Nanny. Their mother reflected. "Well, I will ask them. The ladies will refuse in time to let us pick up some gentlemen somewhere; some more artists. Why! we must have Mr. Seymour, the architect; he's a bachelor, and he's building their house, Tom says." Her voice fell a little when she mentioned her son's name, and she told him of her plan, when he came home in the evening, with evident misgiving. "What are you doing it for, mother?" he asked, looking at her with his honest eyes. She dropped her own in a little confusion. "I won't do it at all, my dear," she said, "if you don't approve. But I thought--You know we have never made any proper acknowledgment of their kindness to us at Baie St. Paul. Then in the winter, I'm ashamed to say, I got money from her for a charity I was interested in; and I hate the idea of merely USING people in that way. And now your having been at their house this summer--we can't seem to disapprove of that; and your business relations to him----" "Yes, I see," said Corey. "Do you think it amounts to a dinner?" "Why, I don't know," returned his mother. "We shall have hardly any one out of our family connection." "Well," Corey assented, "it might do. I suppose what you wish is to give them a pleasure." "Why, certainly. Don't you think they'd like to come?" "Oh, they'd like to come; but whether it would be a pleasure after they were here is another thing. I should have said that if you wanted to have them, they would enjoy better being simply asked to meet our own immediate family." "That's what I thought of in the first place, but your father seemed to think it implied a social distrust of them; and we couldn't afford to have that appearance, even to ourselves." "Perhaps he was right." "And besides, it might seem a little significant." Corey seemed inattentive to this consideration. "Whom did you think of asking?" His mother repeated the names. "Yes, that would do," he said, with a vague dissatisfaction. "I won't have it at all, if you don't wish, Tom." "Oh yes, have it; perhaps you ought. Yes, I dare say it's right. What did you mean by a family dinner seeming significant?" His mother hesitated. When it came to that, she did not like to recognise in his presence the anxieties that had troubled her. But "I don't know," she said, since she must. "I shouldn't want to give that young girl, or her mother, the idea that we wished to make more of the acquaintance than--than you did, Tom." He looked at her absent-mindedly, as if he did not take her meaning. But he said, "Oh yes, of course," and Mrs. Corey, in the uncertainty in which she seemed destined to remain concerning this affair, went off and wrote her invitation to Mrs. Lapham. Later in the evening, when they again found themselves alone, her son said, "I don't think I understood you, mother, in regard to the Laphams. I think I do now. I certainly don't wish you to make more of the acquaintance than I have done. It wouldn't be right; it might be very unfortunate. Don't give the dinner!" "It's too late now, my son," said Mrs. Corey. "I sent my note to Mrs. Lapham an hour ago." Her courage rose at the trouble which showed in Corey's face. "But don't be annoyed by it, Tom. It isn't a family dinner, you know, and everything can be managed without embarrassment. If we take up the affair at this point, you will seem to have been merely acting for us; and they can't possibly understand anything more." "Well, well! Let it go! I dare say it's all right. At any rate, it can't be helped now." "I don't wish to help it, Tom," said Mrs. Corey, with a cheerfullness which the thought of the Laphams had never brought her before. "I am sure it is quite fit and proper, and we can make them have a very pleasant time. They are good, inoffensive people, and we owe it to ourselves not to be afraid to show that we have felt their kindness to us, and his appreciation of you." "Well," consented Corey. The trouble that his mother had suddenly cast off was in his tone; but she was not sorry. It was quite time that he should think seriously of his attitude toward these people if he had not thought of it before, but, according to his father's theory, had been merely dangling. It was a view of her son's character that could hardly have pleased her in different circumstances, yet it was now unquestionably a consolation if not wholly a pleasure. If she considered the Laphams at all, it was with the resignation which we feel at the evils of others, even when they have not brought them on themselves. Mrs. Lapham, for her part, had spent the hours between Mrs. Corey's visit and her husband's coming home from business in reaching the same conclusion with regard to Corey; and her spirits were at the lowest when they sat down to supper. Irene was downcast with her; Penelope was purposely gay; and the Colonel was beginning, after his first plate of the boiled ham,--which, bristling with cloves, rounded its bulk on a wide platter before him,--to take note of the surrounding mood, when the door-bell jingled peremptorily, and the girl left waiting on the table to go and answer it. She returned at once with a note for Mrs. Lapham, which she read, and then, after a helpless survey of her family, read again. "Why, what IS it, mamma?" asked Irene, while the Colonel, who had taken up his carving-knife for another attack on the ham, held it drawn half across it. "Why, I don't know what it does mean," answered Mrs. Lapham tremulously, and she let the girl take the note from her. Irene ran it over, and then turned to the name at the end with a joyful cry and a flush that burned to the top of her forehead. Then she began to read it once more. The Colonel dropped his knife and frowned impatiently, and Mrs. Lapham said, "You read it out loud, if you know what to make of it, Irene." But Irene, with a nervous scream of protest, handed it to her father, who performed the office. "DEAR MRS. LAPHAM: "Will you and General Lapham----" "I didn't know I was a general," grumbled Lapham. "I guess I shall have to be looking up my back pay. Who is it writes this, anyway?" he asked, turning the letter over for the signature. "Oh, never mind. Read it through!" cried his wife, with a kindling glance of triumph at Penelope, and he resumed-- "--and your daughters give us the pleasure of your company at dinner on Thursday, the 28th, at half-past six. "Yours sincerely, "ANNA B. COREY." The brief invitation had been spread over two pages, and the Colonel had difficulties with the signature which he did not instantly surmount. When he had made out the name and pronounced it, he looked across at his wife for an explanation. "I don't know what it all means," she said, shaking her head and speaking with a pleased flutter. "She was here this afternoon, and I should have said she had come to see how bad she could make us feel. I declare I never felt so put down in my life by anybody." "Why, what did she do? What did she say?" Lapham was ready, in his dense pride, to resent any affront to his blood, but doubtful, with the evidence of this invitation to the contrary, if any affront had been offered. Mrs. Lapham tried to tell him, but there was really nothing tangible; and when she came to put it into words, she could not make out a case. Her husband listened to her excited attempt, and then he said, with judicial superiority, "I guess nobody's been trying to make you feel bad, Persis. What would she go right home and invite you to dinner for, if she'd acted the way you say?" In this view it did seem improbable, and Mrs. Lapham was shaken. She could only say, "Penelope felt just the way I did about it." Lapham looked at the girl, who said, "Oh, I can't prove it! I begin to think it never happened. I guess it didn't." "Humph!" said her father, and he sat frowning thoughtfully a while--ignoring her mocking irony, or choosing to take her seriously. "You can't really put your finger on anything," he said to his wife, "and it ain't likely there is anything. Anyway, she's done the proper thing by you now." Mrs. Lapham faltered between her lingering resentment and the appeals of her flattered vanity. She looked from Penelope's impassive face to the eager eyes of Irene. "Well--just as you say, Silas. I don't know as she WAS so very bad. I guess may be she was embarrassed some----" "That's what I told you, mamma, from the start," interrupted Irene. "Didn't I tell you she didn't mean anything by it? It's just the way she acted at Baie St. Paul, when she got well enough to realise what you'd done for her!" Penelope broke into a laugh. "Is that her way of showing her gratitude? I'm sorry I didn't understand that before." Irene made no effort to reply. She merely looked from her mother to her father with a grieved face for their protection, and Lapham said, "When we've done supper, you answer her, Persis. Say we'll come." "With one exception," said Penelope. "What do you mean?" demanded her father, with a mouth full of ham. "Oh, nothing of importance. Merely that I'm not going." Lapham gave himself time to swallow his morsel, and his rising wrath went down with it. "I guess you'll change your mind when the time comes," he said. "Anyway, Persis, you say we'll all come, and then, if Penelope don't want to go, you can excuse her after we get there. That's the best way." None of them, apparently, saw any reason why the affair should not be left in this way, or had a sense of the awful and binding nature of a dinner engagement. If she believed that Penelope would not finally change her mind and go, no doubt Mrs. Lapham thought that Mrs. Corey would easily excuse her absence. She did not find it so simple a matter to accept the invitation. Mrs. Corey had said "Dear Mrs. Lapham," but Mrs. Lapham had her doubts whether it would not be a servile imitation to say "Dear Mrs. Corey" in return; and she was tormented as to the proper phrasing throughout and the precise temperature which she should impart to her politeness. She wrote an unpractised, uncharacteristic round hand, the same in which she used to set the children's copies at school, and she subscribed herself, after some hesitation between her husband's given name and her own, "Yours truly, Mrs. S. Lapham." Penelope had gone to her room, without waiting to be asked to advise or criticise; but Irene had decided upon the paper, and on the whole, Mrs. Lapham's note made a very decent appearance on the page. When the furnace-man came, the Colonel sent him out to post it in the box at the corner of the square. He had determined not to say anything more about the matter before the girls, not choosing to let them see that he was elated; he tried to give the effect of its being an everyday sort of thing, abruptly closing the discussion with his order to Mrs. Lapham to accept; but he had remained swelling behind his newspaper during her prolonged struggle with her note, and he could no longer hide his elation when Irene followed her sister upstairs. "Well, Pers," he demanded, "what do you say now?" Mrs. Lapham had been sobered into something of her former misgiving by her difficulties with her note. "Well, I don't know what TO say. I declare, I'm all mixed up about it, and I don't know as we've begun as we can carry out in promising to go. I presume," she sighed, "that we can all send some excuse at the last moment, if we don't want to go." "I guess we can carry out, and I guess we shan't want to send any excuse," bragged the Colonel. "If we're ever going to be anybody at all, we've got to go and see how it's done. I presume we've got to give some sort of party when we get into the new house, and this gives the chance to ask 'em back again. You can't complain now but what they've made the advances, Persis?" "No," said Mrs. Lapham lifelessly; "I wonder why they wanted to do it. Oh, I suppose it's all right," she added in deprecation of the anger with her humility which she saw rising in her husband's face; "but if it's all going to be as much trouble as that letter, I'd rather be whipped. I don't know what I'm going to wear; or the girls either. I do wonder--I've heard that people go to dinner in low-necks. Do you suppose it's the custom?" "How should I know?" demanded the Colonel. "I guess you've got clothes enough. Any rate, you needn't fret about it. You just go round to White's or Jordan & Marsh's, and ask for a dinner dress. I guess that'll settle it; they'll know. Get some of them imported dresses. I see 'em in the window every time I pass; lots of 'em." "Oh, it ain't the dress!" said Mrs. Lapham. "I don't suppose but what we could get along with that; and I want to do the best we can for the children; but I don't know what we're going to talk about to those people when we get there. We haven't got anything in common with them. Oh, I don't say they're any better," she again made haste to say in arrest of her husband's resentment. "I don't believe they are; and I don't see why they should be. And there ain't anybody has got a better right to hold up their head than you have, Silas. You've got plenty of money, and you've made every cent of it." "I guess I shouldn't amounted to much without you, Persis," interposed Lapham, moved to this justice by her praise. "Oh, don't talk about ME!" protested the wife. "Now that you've made it all right about Rogers, there ain't a thing in this world against you. But still, for all that, I can see--and I can feel it when I can't see it--that we're different from those people. They're well-meaning enough, and they'd excuse it, I presume, but we're too old to learn to be like them." "The children ain't," said Lapham shrewdly. "No, the children ain't," admitted his wife, "and that's the only thing that reconciles me to it." "You see how pleased Irene looked when I read it?" "Yes, she was pleased." "And I guess Penelope'll think better of it before the time comes." "Oh yes, we do it for them. But whether we're doing the best thing for 'em, goodness knows. I'm not saying anything against HIM. Irene'll be a lucky girl to get him, if she wants him. But there! I'd ten times rather she was going to marry such a fellow as you were, Si, that had to make every inch of his own way, and she had to help him. It's in her!" Lapham laughed aloud for pleasure in his wife's fondness; but neither of them wished that he should respond directly to it. "I guess, if it wa'n't for me, he wouldn't have a much easier time. But don't you fret! It's all coming out right. That dinner ain't a thing for you to be uneasy about. It'll pass off perfectly easy and natural." Lapham did not keep his courageous mind quite to the end of the week that followed. It was his theory not to let Corey see that he was set up about the invitation, and when the young man said politely that his mother was glad they were able to come, Lapham was very short with him. He said yes, he believed that Mrs. Lapham and the girls were going. Afterward he was afraid Corey might not understand that he was coming too; but he did not know how to approach the subject again, and Corey did not, so he let it pass. It worried him to see all the preparation that his wife and Irene were making, and he tried to laugh at them for it; and it worried him to find that Penelope was making no preparation at all for herself, but only helping the others. He asked her what should she do if she changed her mind at the last moment and concluded to go, and she said she guessed she should not change her mind, but if she did, she would go to White's with him and get him to choose her an imported dress, he seemed to like them so much. He was too proud to mention the subject again to her. Finally, all that dress-making in the house began to scare him with vague apprehensions in regard to his own dress. As soon as he had determined to go, an ideal of the figure in which he should go presented itself to his mind. He should not wear any dress-coat, because, for one thing, he considered that a man looked like a fool in a dress-coat, and, for another thing, he had none--had none on principle. He would go in a frock-coat and black pantaloons, and perhaps a white waistcoat, but a black cravat anyway. But as soon as he developed this ideal to his family, which he did in pompous disdain of their anxieties about their own dress, they said he should not go so. Irene reminded him that he was the only person without a dress-coat at a corps reunion dinner which he had taken her to some years before, and she remembered feeling awfully about it at the time. Mrs. Lapham, who would perhaps have agreed of herself, shook her head with misgiving. "I don't see but what you'll have to get you one, Si," she said. "I don't believe they ever go without 'em to a private house." He held out openly, but on his way home the next day, in a sudden panic, he cast anchor before his tailor's door and got measured for a dress-coat. After that he began to be afflicted about his waist-coat, concerning which he had hitherto been airily indifferent. He tried to get opinion out of his family, but they were not so clear about it as they were about the frock. It ended in their buying a book of etiquette, which settled the question adversely to a white waistcoat. The author, however, after being very explicit in telling them not to eat with their knives, and above all not to pick their teeth with their forks,--a thing which he said no lady or gentleman ever did,--was still far from decided as to the kind of cravat Colonel Lapham ought to wear: shaken on other points, Lapham had begun to waver also concerning the black cravat. As to the question of gloves for the Colonel, which suddenly flashed upon him one evening, it appeared never to have entered the thoughts of the etiquette man, as Lapham called him. Other authors on the same subject were equally silent, and Irene could only remember having heard, in some vague sort of way, that gentlemen did not wear gloves so much any more. Drops of perspiration gathered on Lapham's forehead in the anxiety of the debate; he groaned, and he swore a little in the compromise profanity which he used. "I declare," said Penelope, where she sat purblindly sewing on a bit of dress for Irene, "the Colonel's clothes are as much trouble as anybody's. Why don't you go to Jordan & Marsh's and order one of the imported dresses for yourself, father?" That gave them all the relief of a laugh over it, the Colonel joining in piteously. He had an awful longing to find out from Corey how he ought to go. He formulated and repeated over to himself an apparently careless question, such as, "Oh, by the way, Corey, where do you get your gloves?" This would naturally lead to some talk on the subject, which would, if properly managed, clear up the whole trouble. But Lapham found that he would rather die than ask this question, or any question that would bring up the dinner again. Corey did not recur to it, and Lapham avoided the matter with positive fierceness. He shunned talking with Corey at all, and suffered in grim silence. One night, before they fell asleep, his wife said to him, "I was reading in one of those books to-day, and I don't believe but what we've made a mistake if Pen holds out that she won't go." "Why?" demanded Lapham, in the dismay which beset him at every fresh recurrence to the subject. "The book says that it's very impolite not to answer a dinner invitation promptly. Well, we've done that all right,--at first I didn't know but what we had been a little too quick, may be,--but then it says if you're not going, that it's the height of rudeness not to let them know at once, so that they can fill your place at the table." The Colonel was silent for a while. "Well, I'm dumned," he said finally, "if there seems to be any end to this thing. If it was to do over again, I'd say no for all of us." "I've wished a hundred times they hadn't asked us; but it's too late to think about that now. The question is, what are we going to do about Penelope?" "Oh, I guess she'll go, at the last moment." "She says she won't. She took a prejudice against Mrs. Corey that day, and she can't seem to get over it." "Well, then, hadn't you better write in the morning, as soon as you're up, that she ain't coming?" Mrs. Lapham sighed helplessly. "I shouldn't know how to get it in. It's so late now; I don't see how I could have the face." "Well, then, she's got to go, that's all." "She's set she won't." "And I'm set she shall," said Lapham with the loud obstinacy of a man whose women always have their way. Mrs. Lapham was not supported by the sturdiness of his proclamation. But she did not know how to do what she knew she ought to do about Penelope, and she let matters drift. After all, the child had a right to stay at home if she did not wish to go. That was what Mrs. Lapham felt, and what she said to her husband next morning, bidding him let Penelope alone, unless she chose herself to go. She said it was too late now to do anything, and she must make the best excuse she could when she saw Mrs. Corey. She began to wish that Irene and her father would go and excuse her too. She could not help saying this, and then she and Lapham had some unpleasant words. "Look here!" he cried. "Who wanted to go in for these people in the first place? Didn't you come home full of 'em last year, and want me to sell out here and move somewheres else because it didn't seem to suit 'em? And now you want to put it all on me! I ain't going to stand it." "Hush!" said his wife. "Do you want to raise the house? I didn't put it on you, as you say. You took it on yourself. Ever since that fellow happened to come into the new house that day, you've been perfectly crazy to get in with them. And now you're so afraid you shall do something wrong before 'em, you don't hardly dare to say your life's your own. I declare, if you pester me any more about those gloves, Silas Lapham, I won't go." "Do you suppose I want to go on my own account?" he demanded furiously. "No," she admitted. "Of course I don't. I know very well that you're doing it for Irene; but, for goodness gracious' sake, don't worry our lives out, and make yourself a perfect laughing-stock before the children." With this modified concession from her, the quarrel closed in sullen silence on Lapham's part. The night before the dinner came, and the question of his gloves was still unsettled, and in a fair way to remain so. He had bought a pair, so as to be on the safe side, perspiring in company with the young lady who sold them, and who helped him try them on at the shop; his nails were still full of the powder which she had plentifully peppered into them in order to overcome the resistance of his blunt fingers. But he was uncertain whether he should wear them. They had found a book at last that said the ladies removed their gloves on sitting down at table, but it said nothing about gentlemen's gloves. He left his wife where she stood half hook-and-eyed at her glass in her new dress, and went down to his own den beyond the parlour. Before he shut his door he caught a glimpse of Irene trailing up and down before the long mirror in HER new dress, followed by the seamstress on her knees; the woman had her mouth full of pins, and from time to time she made Irene stop till she could put one of the pins into her train; Penelope sat in a corner criticising and counselling. It made Lapham sick, and he despised himself and all his brood for the trouble they were taking. But another glance gave him a sight of the young girl's face in the mirror, beautiful and radiant with happiness, and his heart melted again with paternal tenderness and pride. It was going to be a great pleasure to Irene, and Lapham felt that she was bound to cut out anything there. He was vexed with Penelope that she was not going too; he would have liked to have those people hear her talk. He held his door a little open, and listened to the things she was "getting off" there to Irene. He showed that he felt really hurt and disappointed about Penelope, and the girl's mother made her console him the next evening before they all drove away without her. "You try to look on the bright side of it, father. I guess you'll see that it's best I didn't go when you get there. Irene needn't open her lips, and they can all see how pretty she is; but they wouldn't know how smart I was unless I talked, and maybe then they wouldn't." This thrust at her father's simple vanity in her made him laugh; and then they drove away, and Penelope shut the door, and went upstairs with her lips firmly shutting in a sob. XIV. THE Coreys were one of the few old families who lingered in Bellingham Place, the handsome, quiet old street which the sympathetic observer must grieve to see abandoned to boarding-houses. The dwellings are stately and tall, and the whole place wears an air of aristocratic seclusion, which Mrs. Corey's father might well have thought assured when he left her his house there at his death. It is one of two evidently designed by the same architect who built some houses in a characteristic taste on Beacon Street opposite the Common. It has a wooden portico, with slender fluted columns, which have always been painted white, and which, with the delicate mouldings of the cornice, form the sole and sufficient decoration of the street front; nothing could be simpler, and nothing could be better. Within, the architect has again indulged his preference for the classic; the roof of the vestibule, wide and low, rests on marble columns, slim and fluted like the wooden columns without, and an ample staircase climbs in a graceful, easy curve from the tesselated pavement. Some carved Venetian scrigni stretched along the wall; a rug lay at the foot of the stairs; but otherwise the simple adequacy of the architectural intention had been respected, and the place looked bare to the eyes of the Laphams when they entered. The Coreys had once kept a man, but when young Corey began his retrenchments the man had yielded to the neat maid who showed the Colonel into the reception-room and asked the ladies to walk up two flights. He had his charges from Irene not to enter the drawing-room without her mother, and he spent five minutes in getting on his gloves, for he had desperately resolved to wear them at last. When he had them on, and let his large fists hang down on either side, they looked, in the saffron tint which the shop-girl said his gloves should be of, like canvased hams. He perspired with doubt as he climbed the stairs, and while he waited on the landing for Mrs. Lapham and Irene to come down from above before going into the drawing-room, he stood staring at his hands, now open and now shut, and breathing hard. He heard quiet talking beyond the portiere within, and presently Tom Corey came out. "Ah, Colonel Lapham! Very glad to see you." Lapham shook hands with him and gasped, "Waiting for Mis' Lapham," to account for his presence. He had not been able to button his right glove, and he now began, with as much indifference as he could assume, to pull them both off, for he saw that Corey wore none. By the time he had stuffed them into the pocket of his coat-skirt his wife and daughter descended. Corey welcomed them very cordially too, but looked a little mystified. Mrs. Lapham knew that he was silently inquiring for Penelope, and she did not know whether she ought to excuse her to him first or not. She said nothing, and after a glance toward the regions where Penelope might conjecturably be lingering, he held aside the portiere for the Laphams to pass, and entered the room with them. Mrs. Lapham had decided against low-necks on her own responsibility, and had entrenched herself in the safety of a black silk, in which she looked very handsome. Irene wore a dress of one of those shades which only a woman or an artist can decide to be green or blue, and which to other eyes looks both or neither, according to their degrees of ignorance. If it was more like a ball dress than a dinner dress, that might be excused to the exquisite effect. She trailed, a delicate splendour, across the carpet in her mother's sombre wake, and the consciousness of success brought a vivid smile to her face. Lapham, pallid with anxiety lest he should somehow disgrace himself, giving thanks to God that he should have been spared the shame of wearing gloves where no one else did, but at the same time despairing that Corey should have seen him in them, had an unwonted aspect of almost pathetic refinement. Mrs. Corey exchanged a quick glance of surprise and relief with her husband as she started across the room to meet her guests, and in her gratitude to them for being so irreproachable, she threw into her manner a warmth that people did not always find there. "General Lapham?" she said, shaking hands in quick succession with Mrs. Lapham and Irene, and now addressing herself to him. "No, ma'am, only Colonel," said the honest man, but the lady did not hear him. She was introducing her husband to Lapham's wife and daughter, and Bromfield Corey was already shaking his hand and saying he was very glad to see him again, while he kept his artistic eye on Irene, and apparently could not take it off. Lily Corey gave the Lapham ladies a greeting which was physically rather than socially cold, and Nanny stood holding Irene's hand in both of hers a moment, and taking in her beauty and her style with a generous admiration which she could afford, for she was herself faultlessly dressed in the quiet taste of her city, and looking very pretty. The interval was long enough to let every man present confide his sense of Irene's beauty to every other; and then, as the party was small, Mrs. Corey made everybody acquainted. When Lapham had not quite understood, he held the person's hand, and, leaning urbanely forward, inquired, "What name?" He did that because a great man to whom he had been presented on the platform at a public meeting had done so to him, and he knew it must be right. A little lull ensued upon the introductions, and Mrs. Corey said quietly to Mrs. Lapham, "Can I send any one to be of use to Miss Lapham?" as if Penelope must be in the dressing-room. Mrs. Lapham turned fire-red, and the graceful forms in which she had been intending to excuse her daughter's absence went out of her head. "She isn't upstairs," she said, at her bluntest, as country people are when embarrassed. "She didn't feel just like coming to-night. I don't know as she's feeling very well." Mrs. Corey emitted a very small "O!"--very small, very cold,--which began to grow larger and hotter and to burn into Mrs. Lapham's soul before Mrs. Corey could add, "I'm very sorry. It's nothing serious, I hope?" Robert Chase, the painter, had not come, and Mrs. James Bellingham was not there, so that the table really balanced better without Penelope; but Mrs. Lapham could not know this, and did not deserve to know it. Mrs. Corey glanced round the room, as if to take account of her guests, and said to her husband, "I think we are all here, then," and he came forward and gave his arm to Mrs. Lapham. She perceived then that in their determination not to be the first to come they had been the last, and must have kept the others waiting for them. Lapham had never seen people go down to dinner arm-in-arm before, but he knew that his wife was distinguished in being taken out by the host, and he waited in jealous impatience to see if Tom Corey would offer his arm to Irene. He gave it to that big girl they called Miss Kingsbury, and the handsome old fellow whom Mrs. Corey had introduced as her cousin took Irene out. Lapham was startled from the misgiving in which this left him by Mrs. Corey's passing her hand through his arm, and he made a sudden movement forward, but felt himself gently restrained. They went out the last of all; he did not know why, but he submitted, and when they sat down he saw that Irene, although she had come in with that Mr. Bellingham, was seated beside young Corey, after all. He fetched a long sigh of relief when he sank into his chair and felt himself safe from error if he kept a sharp lookout and did only what the others did. Bellingham had certain habits which he permitted himself, and one of these was tucking the corner of his napkin into his collar; he confessed himself an uncertain shot with a spoon, and defended his practice on the ground of neatness and common-sense. Lapham put his napkin into his collar too, and then, seeing that no one but Bellingham did it, became alarmed and took it out again slyly. He never had wine on his table at home, and on principle he was a prohibitionist; but now he did not know just what to do about the glasses at the right of his plate. He had a notion to turn them all down, as he had read of a well-known politician's doing at a public dinner, to show that he did not take wine; but, after twiddling with one of them a moment, he let them be, for it seemed to him that would be a little too conspicuous, and he felt that every one was looking. He let the servant fill them all, and he drank out of each, not to appear odd. Later, he observed that the young ladies were not taking wine, and he was glad to see that Irene had refused it, and that Mrs. Lapham was letting it stand untasted. He did not know but he ought to decline some of the dishes, or at least leave most of some on his plate, but he was not able to decide; he took everything and ate everything. He noticed that Mrs. Corey seemed to take no more trouble about the dinner than anybody, and Mr. Corey rather less; he was talking busily to Mrs. Lapham, and Lapham caught a word here and there that convinced him she was holding her own. He was getting on famously himself with Mrs. Corey, who had begun with him about his new house; he was telling her all about it, and giving her his ideas. Their conversation naturally included his architect across the table; Lapham had been delighted and secretly surprised to find the fellow there; and at something Seymour said the talk spread suddenly, and the pretty house he was building for Colonel Lapham became the general theme. Young Corey testified to its loveliness, and the architect said laughingly that if he had been able to make a nice thing of it, he owed it to the practical sympathy of his client. "Practical sympathy is good," said Bromfield Corey; and, slanting his head confidentially to Mrs. Lapham, he added, "Does he bleed your husband, Mrs. Lapham? He's a terrible fellow for appropriations!" Mrs. Lapham laughed, reddening consciously, and said she guessed the Colonel knew how to take care of himself. This struck Lapham, then draining his glass of sauterne, as wonderfully discreet in his wife. Bromfield Corey leaned back in his chair a moment. "Well, after all, you can't say, with all your modern fuss about it, that you do much better now than the old fellows who built such houses as this." "Ah," said the architect, "nobody can do better than well. Your house is in perfect taste; you know I've always admired it; and I don't think it's at all the worse for being old-fashioned. What we've done is largely to go back of the hideous style that raged after they forgot how to make this sort of house. But I think we may claim a better feeling for structure. We use better material, and more wisely; and by and by we shall work out something more characteristic and original." "With your chocolates and olives, and your clutter of bric-a-brac?" "All that's bad, of course, but I don't mean that. I don't wish to make you envious of Colonel Lapham, and modesty prevents my saying, that his house is prettier,--though I may have my convictions,--but it's better built. All the new houses are better built. Now, your house----" "Mrs. Corey's house," interrupted the host, with a burlesque haste in disclaiming responsibility for it that made them all laugh. "My ancestral halls are in Salem, and I'm told you couldn't drive a nail into their timbers; in fact, I don't know that you would want to do it." "I should consider it a species of sacrilege," answered Seymour, "and I shall be far from pressing the point I was going to make against a house of Mrs. Corey's." This won Seymour the easy laugh, and Lapham silently wondered that the fellow never got off any of those things to him. "Well," said Corey, "you architects and the musicians are the true and only artistic creators. All the rest of us, sculptors, painters, novelists, and tailors, deal with forms that we have before us; we try to imitate, we try to represent. But you two sorts of artists create form. If you represent, you fail. Somehow or other you do evolve the camel out of your inner consciousness." "I will not deny the soft impeachment," said the architect, with a modest air. "I dare say. And you'll own that it's very handsome of me to say this, after your unjustifiable attack on Mrs. Corey's property." Bromfield Corey addressed himself again to Mrs. Lapham, and the talk subdivided itself as before. It lapsed so entirely away from the subject just in hand, that Lapham was left with rather a good idea, as he thought it, to perish in his mind, for want of a chance to express it. The only thing like a recurrence to what they had been saying was Bromfield Corey's warning Mrs. Lapham, in some connection that Lapham lost, against Miss Kingsbury. "She's worse," he was saying, "when it comes to appropriations than Seymour himself. Depend upon it, Mrs. Lapham, she will give you no peace of your mind, now she's met you, from this out. Her tender mercies are cruel; and I leave you to supply the content from your own scriptural knowledge. Beware of her, and all her works. She calls them works of charity; but heaven knows whether they are. It don't stand to reason that she gives the poor ALL the money she gets out of people. I have my own belief"--he gave it in a whisper for the whole table to hear--"that she spends it for champagne and cigars." Lapham did not know about that kind of talking; but Miss Kingsbury seemed to enjoy the fun as much as anybody, and he laughed with the rest. "You shall be asked to the very next debauch of the committee, Mr. Corey; then you won't dare expose us," said Miss Kingsbury. "I wonder you haven't been down upon Corey to go to the Chardon Street home and talk with your indigent Italians in their native tongue," said Charles Bellingham. "I saw in the Transcript the other night that you wanted some one for the work." "We did think of Mr. Corey," replied Miss Kingsbury; "but we reflected that he probably wouldn't talk with them at all; he would make them keep still to be sketched, and forget all about their wants." Upon the theory that this was a fair return for Corey's pleasantry, the others laughed again. "There is one charity," said Corey, pretending superiority to Miss Kingsbury's point, "that is so difficult, I wonder it hasn't occurred to a lady of your courageous invention." "Yes?" said Miss Kingsbury. "What is that?" "The occupation, by deserving poor of neat habits, of all the beautiful, airy, wholesome houses that stand empty the whole summer long, while their owners are away in their lowly cots beside the sea." "Yes, that is terrible," replied Miss Kingsbury, with quick earnestness, while her eyes grew moist. "I have often thought of our great, cool houses standing useless here, and the thousands of poor creatures stifling in their holes and dens, and the little children dying for wholesome shelter. How cruelly selfish we are!" "That is a very comfortable sentiment, Miss Kingsbury," said Corey, "and must make you feel almost as if you had thrown open No. 31 to the whole North End. But I am serious about this matter. I spend my summers in town, and I occupy my own house, so that I can speak impartially and intelligently; and I tell you that in some of my walks on the Hill and down on the Back Bay, nothing but the surveillance of the local policeman prevents my offering personal violence to those long rows of close-shuttered, handsome, brutally insensible houses. If I were a poor man, with a sick child pining in some garret or cellar at the North End, I should break into one of them, and camp out on the grand piano." "Surely, Bromfield," said his wife, "you don't consider what havoc such people would make with the furniture of a nice house!" "That is true," answered Corey, with meek conviction. "I never thought of that." "And if you were a poor man with a sick child, I doubt if you'd have so much heart for burglary as you have now," said James Bellingham. "It's wonderful how patient they are," said the minister. "The spectacle of the hopeless comfort the hard-working poor man sees must be hard to bear." Lapham wanted to speak up and say that he had been there himself, and knew how such a man felt. He wanted to tell them that generally a poor man was satisfied if he could make both ends meet; that he didn't envy any one his good luck, if he had earned it, so long as he wasn't running under himself. But before he could get the courage to address the whole table, Sewell added, "I suppose he don't always think of it." "But some day he WILL think about it," said Corey. "In fact, we rather invite him to think about it, in this country." "My brother-in-law," said Charles Bellingham, with the pride a man feels in a mentionably remarkable brother-in-law, "has no end of fellows at work under him out there at Omaha, and he says it's the fellows from countries where they've been kept from thinking about it that are discontented. The Americans never make any trouble. They seem to understand that so long as we give unlimited opportunity, nobody has a right to complain." "What do you hear from Leslie?" asked Mrs. Corey, turning from these profitless abstractions to Mrs. Bellingham. "You know," said that lady in a lower tone, "that there is another baby?" "No! I hadn't heard of it!" "Yes; a boy. They have named him after his uncle." "Yes," said Charles Bellingham, joining in. "He is said to be a noble boy, and to resemble me." "All boys of that tender age are noble," said Corey, "and look like anybody you wish them to resemble. Is Leslie still home-sick for the bean-pots of her native Boston?" "She is getting over it, I fancy," replied Mrs. Bellingham. "She's very much taken up with Mr. Blake's enterprises, and leads a very exciting life. She says she's like people who have been home from Europe three years; she's past the most poignant stage of regret, and hasn't reached the second, when they feel that they must go again." Lapham leaned a little toward Mrs. Corey, and said of a picture which he saw on the wall opposite, "Picture of your daughter, I presume?" "No; my daughter's grandmother. It's a Stewart Newton; he painted a great many Salem beauties. She was a Miss Polly Burroughs. My daughter IS like her, don't you think?" They both looked at Nanny Corey and then at the portrait. "Those pretty old-fashioned dresses are coming in again. I'm not surprised you took it for her. The others"--she referred to the other portraits more or less darkling on the walls--"are my people; mostly Copleys." These names, unknown to Lapham, went to his head like the wine he was drinking; they seemed to carry light for the moment, but a film of deeper darkness followed. He heard Charles Bellingham telling funny stories to Irene and trying to amuse the girl; she was laughing, and seemed very happy. From time to time Bellingham took part in the general talk between the host and James Bellingham and Miss Kingsbury and that minister, Mr. Sewell. They talked of people mostly; it astonished Lapham to hear with what freedom they talked. They discussed these persons unsparingly; James Bellingham spoke of a man known to Lapham for his business success and great wealth as not a gentleman; his cousin Charles said he was surprised that the fellow had kept from being governor so long. When the latter turned from Irene to make one of these excursions into the general talk, young Corey talked to her; and Lapham caught some words from which it seemed that they were speaking of Penelope. It vexed him to think she had not come; she could have talked as well as any of them; she was just as bright; and Lapham was aware that Irene was not as bright, though when he looked at her face, triumphant in its young beauty and fondness, he said to himself that it did not make any difference. He felt that he was not holding up his end of the line, however. When some one spoke to him he could only summon a few words of reply, that seemed to lead to nothing; things often came into his mind appropriate to what they were saying, but before he could get them out they were off on something else; they jumped about so, he could not keep up; but he felt, all the same, that he was not doing himself justice. At one time the talk ran off upon a subject that Lapham had never heard talked of before; but again he was vexed that Penelope was not there, to have her say; he believed that her say would have been worth hearing. Miss Kingsbury leaned forward and asked Charles Bellingham if he had read Tears, Idle Tears, the novel that was making such a sensation; and when he said no, she said she wondered at him. "It's perfectly heart-breaking, as you'll imagine from the name; but there's such a dear old-fashioned hero and heroine in it, who keep dying for each other all the way through, and making the most wildly satisfactory and unnecessary sacrifices for each other. You feel as if you'd done them yourself." "Ah, that's the secret of its success," said Bromfield Corey. "It flatters the reader by painting the characters colossal, but with his limp and stoop, so that he feels himself of their supernatural proportions. You've read it, Nanny?" "Yes," said his daughter. "It ought to have been called Slop, Silly Slop." "Oh, not quite SLOP, Nanny," pleaded Miss Kingsbury. "It's astonishing," said Charles Bellingham, "how we do like the books that go for our heart-strings. And I really suppose that you can't put a more popular thing than self-sacrifice into a novel. We do like to see people suffering sublimely." "There was talk some years ago," said James Bellingham, "about novels going out." "They're just coming in!" cried Miss Kingsbury. "Yes," said Mr. Sewell, the minister. "And I don't think there ever was a time when they formed the whole intellectual experience of more people. They do greater mischief than ever." "Don't be envious, parson," said the host. "No," answered Sewell. "I should be glad of their help. But those novels with old-fashioned heroes and heroines in them--excuse me, Miss Kingsbury--are ruinous!" "Don't you feel like a moral wreck, Miss Kingsbury?" asked the host. But Sewell went on: "The novelists might be the greatest possible help to us if they painted life as it is, and human feelings in their true proportion and relation, but for the most part they have been and are altogether noxious." This seemed sense to Lapham; but Bromfield Corey asked: "But what if life as it is isn't amusing? Aren't we to be amused?" "Not to our hurt," sturdily answered the minister. "And the self-sacrifice painted in most novels like this----" "Slop, Silly Slop?" suggested the proud father of the inventor of the phrase. "Yes--is nothing but psychical suicide, and is as wholly immoral as the spectacle of a man falling upon his sword." "Well, I don't know but you're right, parson," said the host; and the minister, who had apparently got upon a battle-horse of his, careered onward in spite of some tacit attempts of his wife to seize the bridle. "Right? To be sure I am right. The whole business of love, and love-making and marrying, is painted by the novelists in a monstrous disproportion to the other relations of life. Love is very sweet, very pretty----" "Oh, THANK you, Mr. Sewell," said Nanny Corey, in a way that set them all laughing. "But it's the affair, commonly, of very young people, who have not yet character and experience enough to make them interesting. In novels it's treated, not only as if it were the chief interest of life, but the sole interest of the lives of two ridiculous young persons; and it is taught that love is perpetual, that the glow of a true passion lasts for ever; and that it is sacrilege to think or act otherwise." "Well, but isn't that true, Mr. Sewell?" pleaded Miss Kingsbury. "I have known some most estimable people who had married a second time," said the minister, and then he had the applause with him. Lapham wanted to make some open recognition of his good sense, but could not. "I suppose the passion itself has been a good deal changed," said Bromfield Corey, "since the poets began to idealise it in the days of chivalry." "Yes; and it ought to be changed again," said Mr. Sewell. "What! Back?" "I don't say that. But it ought to be recognised as something natural and mortal, and divine honours, which belong to righteousness alone, ought not to be paid it." "Oh, you ask too much, parson," laughed his host, and the talk wandered away to something else. It was not an elaborate dinner; but Lapham was used to having everything on the table at once, and this succession of dishes bewildered him; he was afraid perhaps he was eating too much. He now no longer made any pretence of not drinking his wine, for he was thirsty, and there was no more water, and he hated to ask for any. The ice-cream came, and then the fruit. Suddenly Mrs. Corey rose, and said across the table to her husband, "I suppose you will want your coffee here." And he replied, "Yes; we'll join you at tea." The ladies all rose, and the gentlemen got up with them. Lapham started to follow Mrs. Corey, but the other men merely stood in their places, except young Corey, who ran and opened the door for his mother. Lapham thought with shame that it was he who ought to have done that; but no one seemed to notice, and he sat down again gladly, after kicking out one of his legs which had gone to sleep. They brought in cigars with coffee, and Bromfield Corey advised Lapham to take one that he chose for him. Lapham confessed that he liked a good cigar about as well as anybody, and Corey said: "These are new. I had an Englishman here the other day who was smoking old cigars in the superstition that tobacco improved with age, like wine." "Ah," said Lapham, "anybody who had ever lived off a tobacco country could tell him better than that." With the fuming cigar between his lips he felt more at home than he had before. He turned sidewise in his chair and, resting one arm on the back, intertwined the fingers of both hands, and smoked at large ease. James Bellingham came and sat down by him. "Colonel Lapham, weren't you with the 96th Vermont when they charged across the river in front of Pickensburg, and the rebel battery opened fire on them in the water?" Lapham slowly shut his eyes and slowly dropped his head for assent, letting out a white volume of smoke from the corner of his mouth. "I thought so," said Bellingham. "I was with the 85th Massachusetts, and I sha'n't forget that slaughter. We were all new to it still. Perhaps that's why it made such an impression." "I don't know," suggested Charles Bellingham. "Was there anything much more impressive afterward? I read of it out in Missouri, where I was stationed at the time, and I recollect the talk of some old army men about it. They said that death-rate couldn't be beaten. I don't know that it ever was." "About one in five of us got out safe," said Lapham, breaking his cigar-ash off on the edge of a plate. James Bellingham reached him a bottle of Apollinaris. He drank a glass, and then went on smoking. They all waited, as if expecting him to speak, and then Corey said: "How incredible those things seem already! You gentlemen KNOW that they happened; but are you still able to believe it?" "Ah, nobody FEELS that anything happened," said Charles Bellingham. "The past of one's experience doesn't differ a great deal from the past of one's knowledge. It isn't much more probable; it's really a great deal less vivid than some scenes in a novel that one read when a boy." "I'm not sure of that," said James Bellingham. "Well, James, neither am I," consented his cousin, helping himself from Lapham's Apollinaris bottle. "There would be very little talking at dinner if one only said the things that one was sure of." The others laughed, and Bromfield Corey remarked thoughtfully, "What astonishes the craven civilian in all these things is the abundance--the superabundance--of heroism. The cowards were the exception; the men that were ready to die, the rule." "The woods were full of them," said Lapham, without taking his cigar from his mouth. "That's a nice little touch in School," interposed Charles Bellingham, "where the girl says to the fellow who was at Inkerman, 'I should think you would be so proud of it,' and he reflects a while, and says, 'Well, the fact is, you know, there were so many of us.'" "Yes, I remember that," said James Bellingham, smiling for pleasure in it. "But I don't see why you claim the credit of being a craven civilian, Bromfield," he added, with a friendly glance at his brother-in-law, and with the willingness Boston men often show to turn one another's good points to the light in company; bred so intimately together at school and college and in society, they all know these points. "A man who was out with Garibaldi in '48," continued James Bellingham. "Oh, a little amateur red-shirting," Corey interrupted in deprecation. "But even if you choose to dispute my claim, what has become of all the heroism? Tom, how many club men do you know who would think it sweet and fitting to die for their country?" "I can't think of a great many at the moment, sir," replied the son, with the modesty of his generation. "And I couldn't in '61," said his uncle. "Nevertheless they were there." "Then your theory is that it's the occasion that is wanting," said Bromfield Corey. "But why shouldn't civil service reform, and the resumption of specie payment, and a tariff for revenue only, inspire heroes? They are all good causes." "It's the occasion that's wanting," said James Bellingham, ignoring the persiflage. "And I'm very glad of it." "So am I," said Lapham, with a depth of feeling that expressed itself in spite of the haze in which his brain seemed to float. There was a great deal of the talk that he could not follow; it was too quick for him; but here was something he was clear of. "I don't want to see any more men killed in my time." Something serious, something sombre must lurk behind these words, and they waited for Lapham to say more; but the haze closed round him again, and he remained silent, drinking Apollinaris. "We non-combatants were notoriously reluctant to give up fighting," said Mr. Sewell, the minister; "but I incline to think Colonel Lapham and Mr. Bellingham may be right. I dare say we shall have the heroism again if we have the occasion. Till it comes, we must content ourselves with the every-day generosities and sacrifices. They make up in quantity what they lack in quality, perhaps." "They're not so picturesque," said Bromfield Corey. "You can paint a man dying for his country, but you can't express on canvas a man fulfilling the duties of a good citizen." "Perhaps the novelists will get at him by and by," suggested Charles Bellingham. "If I were one of these fellows, I shouldn't propose to myself anything short of that." "What? the commonplace?" asked his cousin. "Commonplace? The commonplace is just that light, impalpable, aerial essence which they've never got into their confounded books yet. The novelist who could interpret the common feelings of commonplace people would have the answer to 'the riddle of the painful earth' on his tongue." "Oh, not so bad as that, I hope," said the host; and Lapham looked from one to the other, trying to make out what they were at. He had never been so up a tree before. "I suppose it isn't well for us to see human nature at white heat habitually," continued Bromfield Corey, after a while. "It would make us vain of our species. Many a poor fellow in that war and in many another has gone into battle simply and purely for his country's sake, not knowing whether, if he laid down his life, he should ever find it again, or whether, if he took it up hereafter, he should take it up in heaven or hell. Come, parson!" he said, turning to the minister, "what has ever been conceived of omnipotence, of omniscience, so sublime, so divine as that?" "Nothing," answered the minister quietly. "God has never been imagined at all. But if you suppose such a man as that was Authorised, I think it will help you to imagine what God must be." "There's sense in that," said Lapham. He took his cigar out of his mouth, and pulled his chair a little toward the table, on which he placed his ponderous fore-arms. "I want to tell you about a fellow I had in my own company when we first went out. We were all privates to begin with; after a while they elected me captain--I'd had the tavern stand, and most of 'em knew me. But Jim Millon never got to be anything more than corporal; corporal when he was killed." The others arrested themselves in various attitudes of attention, and remained listening to Lapham with an interest that profoundly flattered him. Now, at last, he felt that he was holding up his end of the rope. "I can't say he went into the thing from the highest motives, altogether; our motives are always pretty badly mixed, and when there's such a hurrah-boys as there was then, you can't tell which is which. I suppose Jim Millon's wife was enough to account for his going, herself. She was a pretty bad assortment," said Lapham, lowering his voice and glancing round at the door to make sure that it was shut, "and she used to lead Jim ONE kind of life. Well, sir," continued Lapham, synthetising his auditors in that form of address, "that fellow used to save every cent of his pay and send it to that woman. Used to get me to do it for him. I tried to stop him. 'Why, Jim,' said I, 'you know what she'll do with it.' 'That's so, Cap,' says he, 'but I don't know what she'll do without it.' And it did keep her straight--straight as a string--as long as Jim lasted. Seemed as if there was something mysterious about it. They had a little girl,--about as old as my oldest girl,--and Jim used to talk to me about her. Guess he done it as much for her as for the mother; and he said to me before the last action we went into, 'I should like to turn tail and run, Cap. I ain't comin' out o' this one. But I don't suppose it would do.' 'Well, not for you, Jim,' said I. 'I want to live,' he says; and he bust out crying right there in my tent. 'I want to live for poor Molly and Zerrilla'--that's what they called the little one; I dunno where they got the name. 'I ain't ever had half a chance; and now she's doing better, and I believe we should get along after this.' He set there cryin' like a baby. But he wa'n't no baby when he went into action. I hated to look at him after it was over, not so much because he'd got a ball that was meant for me by a sharpshooter--he saw the devil takin' aim, and he jumped to warn me--as because he didn't look like Jim; he looked like--fun; all desperate and savage. I guess he died hard." The story made its impression, and Lapham saw it. "Now I say," he resumed, as if he felt that he was going to do himself justice, and say something to heighten the effect his story had produced. At the same time he was aware of a certain want of clearness. He had the idea, but it floated vague, elusive, in his brain. He looked about as if for something to precipitate it in tangible shape. "Apollinaris?" asked Charles Bellingham, handing the bottle from the other side. He had drawn his chair closer than the rest to Lapham's, and was listening with great interest. When Mrs. Corey asked him to meet Lapham, he accepted gladly. "You know I go in for that sort of thing, Anna. Since Leslie's affair we're rather bound to do it. And I think we meet these practical fellows too little. There's always something original about them." He might naturally have believed that the reward of his faith was coming. "Thanks, I will take some of this wine," said Lapham, pouring himself a glass of Madeira from a black and dusty bottle caressed by a label bearing the date of the vintage. He tossed off the wine, unconscious of its preciousness, and waited for the result. That cloudiness in his brain disappeared before it, but a mere blank remained. He not only could not remember what he was going to say, but he could not recall what they had been talking about. They waited, looking at him, and he stared at them in return. After a while he heard the host saying, "Shall we join the ladies?" Lapham went, trying to think what had happened. It seemed to him a long time since he had drunk that wine. Miss Corey gave him a cup of tea, where he stood aloof from his wife, who was talking with Miss Kingsbury and Mrs. Sewell; Irene was with Miss Nanny Corey. He could not hear what they were talking about; but if Penelope had come, he knew that she would have done them all credit. He meant to let her know how he felt about her behaviour when he got home. It was a shame for her to miss such a chance. Irene was looking beautiful, as pretty as all the rest of them put together, but she was not talking, and Lapham perceived that at a dinner-party you ought to talk. He was himself conscious of having, talked very well. He now wore an air of great dignity, and, in conversing with the other gentlemen, he used a grave and weighty deliberation. Some of them wanted him to go into the library. There he gave his ideas of books. He said he had not much time for anything but the papers; but he was going to have a complete library in his new place. He made an elaborate acknowledgment to Bromfield Corey of his son's kindness in suggesting books for his library; he said that he had ordered them all, and that he meant to have pictures. He asked Mr. Corey who was about the best American painter going now. "I don't set up to be a judge of pictures, but I know what I like," he said. He lost the reserve which he had maintained earlier, and began to boast. He himself introduced the subject of his paint, in a natural transition from pictures; he said Mr. Corey must take a run up to Lapham with him some day, and see the Works; they would interest him, and he would drive him round the country; he kept most of his horses up there, and he could show Mr. Corey some of the finest Jersey grades in the country. He told about his brother William, the judge at Dubuque; and a farm he had out there that paid for itself every year in wheat. As he cast off all fear, his voice rose, and he hammered his arm-chair with the thick of his hand for emphasis. Mr. Corey seemed impressed; he sat perfectly quiet, listening, and Lapham saw the other gentlemen stop in their talk every now and then to listen. After this proof of his ability to interest them, he would have liked to have Mrs. Lapham suggest again that he was unequal to their society, or to the society of anybody else. He surprised himself by his ease among men whose names had hitherto overawed him. He got to calling Bromfield Corey by his surname alone. He did not understand why young Corey seemed so preoccupied, and he took occasion to tell the company how he had said to his wife the first time he saw that fellow that he could make a man of him if he had him in the business; and he guessed he was not mistaken. He began to tell stories of the different young men he had had in his employ. At last he had the talk altogether to himself; no one else talked, and he talked unceasingly. It was a great time; it was a triumph. He was in this successful mood when word came to him that Mrs. Lapham was going; Tom Corey seemed to have brought it, but he was not sure. Anyway, he was not going to hurry. He made cordial invitations to each of the gentlemen to drop in and see him at his office, and would not be satisfied till he had exacted a promise from each. He told Charles Bellingham that he liked him, and assured James Bellingham that it had always been his ambition to know him, and that if any one had said when he first came to Boston that in less than ten years he should be hobnobbing with Jim Bellingham, he should have told that person he lied. He would have told anybody he lied that had told him ten years ago that a son of Bromfield Corey would have come and asked him to take him into the business. Ten years ago he, Silas Lapham, had come to Boston a little worse off than nothing at all, for he was in debt for half the money that he had bought out his partner with, and here he was now worth a million, and meeting you gentlemen like one of you. And every cent of that was honest money,--no speculation,--every copper of it for value received. And here, only the other day, his old partner, who had been going to the dogs ever since he went out of the business, came and borrowed twenty thousand dollars of him! Lapham lent it because his wife wanted him to: she had always felt bad about the fellow's having to go out of the business. He took leave of Mr. Sewell with patronising affection, and bade him come to him if he ever got into a tight place with his parish work; he would let him have all the money he wanted; he had more money than he knew what to do with. "Why, when your wife sent to mine last fall," he said, turning to Mr. Corey, "I drew my cheque for five hundred dollars, but my wife wouldn't take more than one hundred; said she wasn't going to show off before Mrs. Corey. I call that a pretty good joke on Mrs. Corey. I must tell her how Mrs. Lapham done her out of a cool four hundred dollars." He started toward the door of the drawing-room to take leave of the ladies; but Tom Corey was at his elbow, saying, "I think Mrs. Lapham is waiting for you below, sir," and in obeying the direction Corey gave him toward another door he forgot all about his purpose, and came away without saying good-night to his hostess. Mrs. Lapham had not known how soon she ought to go, and had no idea that in her quality of chief guest she was keeping the others. She stayed till eleven o'clock, and was a little frightened when she found what time it was; but Mrs. Corey, without pressing her to stay longer, had said it was not at all late. She and Irene had had a perfect time. Everybody had been very polite, on the way home they celebrated the amiability of both the Miss Coreys and of Miss Kingsbury. Mrs. Lapham thought that Mrs. Bellingham was about the pleasantest person she ever saw; she had told her all about her married daughter who had married an inventor and gone to live in Omaha--a Mrs. Blake. "If it's that car-wheel Blake," said Lapham proudly, "I know all about him. I've sold him tons of the paint." "Pooh, papa! How you do smell of smoking!" cried Irene. "Pretty strong, eh?" laughed Lapham, letting down a window of the carriage. His heart was throbbing wildly in the close air, and he was glad of the rush of cold that came in, though it stopped his tongue, and he listened more and more drowsily to the rejoicings that his wife and daughter exchanged. He meant to have them wake Penelope up and tell her what she had lost; but when he reached home he was too sleepy to suggest it. He fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, full of supreme triumph. But in the morning his skull was sore with the unconscious, night-long ache; and he rose cross and taciturn. They had a silent breakfast. In the cold grey light of the morning the glories of the night before showed poorer. Here and there a painful doubt obtruded itself and marred them with its awkward shadow. Penelope sent down word that she was not well, and was not coming to breakfast, and Lapham was glad to go to his office without seeing her. He was severe and silent all day with his clerks, and peremptory with customers. Of Corey he was slyly observant, and as the day wore away he grew more restively conscious. He sent out word by his office-boy that he would like to see Mr. Corey for a few minutes after closing. The type-writer girl had lingered too, as if she wished to speak with him, and Corey stood in abeyance as she went toward Lapham's door. "Can't see you to-night, Zerrilla," he said bluffly, but not unkindly. "Perhaps I'll call at the house, if it's important." "It is," said the girl, with a spoiled air of insistence. "Well," said Lapham, and, nodding to Corey to enter, he closed the door upon her. Then he turned to the young, man and demanded: "Was I drunk last night?" XV. LAPHAM'S strenuous face was broken up with the emotions that had forced him to this question: shame, fear of the things that must have been thought of him, mixed with a faint hope that he might be mistaken, which died out at the shocked and pitying look in Corey's eyes. "Was I drunk?" he repeated. "I ask you, because I was never touched by drink in my life before, and I don't know." He stood with his huge hands trembling on the back of his chair, and his dry lips apart, as he stared at Corey. "That is what every one understood, Colonel Lapham," said the young man. "Every one saw how it was. Don't----" "Did they talk it over after I left?" asked Lapham vulgarly. "Excuse me," said Corey, blushing, "my father doesn't talk his guests over with one another." He added, with youthful superfluity, "You were among gentlemen." "I was the only one that wasn't a gentleman there!" lamented Lapham. "I disgraced you! I disgraced my family! I mortified your father before his friends!" His head dropped. "I showed that I wasn't fit to go with you. I'm not fit for any decent place. What did I say? What did I do?" he asked, suddenly lifting his head and confronting Corey. "Out with it! If you could bear to see it and hear it, I had ought to bear to know it!" "There was nothing--really nothing," said Corey. "Beyond the fact that you were not quite yourself, there was nothing whatever. My father DID speak of it to me," he confessed, "when we were alone. He said that he was afraid we had not been thoughtful of you, if you were in the habit of taking only water; I told him I had not seen wine at your table. The others said nothing about you." "Ah, but what did they think?" "Probably what we did: that it was purely a misfortune--an accident." "I wasn't fit to be there," persisted Lapham. "Do you want to leave?" he asked, with savage abruptness. "Leave?" faltered the young man. "Yes; quit the business? Cut the whole connection?" "I haven't the remotest idea of it!" cried Corey in amazement. "Why in the world should I?" "Because you're a gentleman, and I'm not, and it ain't right I should be over you. If you want to go, I know some parties that would be glad to get you. I will give you up if you want to go before anything worse happens, and I shan't blame you. I can help you to something better than I can offer you here, and I will." "There's no question of my going, unless you wish it," said Corey. "If you do----" "Will you tell your father," interrupted Lapham, "that I had a notion all the time that I was acting the drunken blackguard, and that I've suffered for it all day? Will you tell him I don't want him to notice me if we ever meet, and that I know I'm not fit to associate with gentlemen in anything but a business way, if I am that?" "Certainly I shall do nothing of the kind," retorted Corey. "I can't listen to you any longer. What you say is shocking to me--shocking in a way you can't think." "Why, man!" exclaimed Lapham, with astonishment; "if I can stand it, YOU can!" "No," said Corey, with a sick look, "that doesn't follow. You may denounce yourself, if you will; but I have my reasons for refusing to hear you--my reasons why I CAN'T hear you. If you say another word I must go away." "I don't understand you," faltered Lapham, in bewilderment, which absorbed even his shame. "You exaggerate the effect of what has happened," said the young man. "It's enough, more than enough, for you to have mentioned the matter to me, and I think it's unbecoming in me to hear you." He made a movement toward the door, but Lapham stopped him with the tragic humility of his appeal. "Don't go yet! I can't let you. I've disgusted you,--I see that; but I didn't mean to. I--I take it back." "Oh, there's nothing to take back," said Corey, with a repressed shudder for the abasement which he had seen. "But let us say no more about it--think no more. There wasn't one of the gentlemen present last night who didn't understand the matter precisely as my father and I did, and that fact must end it between us two." He went out into the larger office beyond, leaving Lapham helpless to prevent his going. It had become a vital necessity with him to think the best of Lapham, but his mind was in a whirl of whatever thoughts were most injurious. He thought of him the night before in the company of those ladies and gentlemen, and he quivered in resentment of his vulgar, braggart, uncouth nature. He recognised his own allegiance to the exclusiveness to which he was born and bred, as a man perceives his duty to his country when her rights are invaded. His eye fell on the porter going about in his shirt-sleeves to make the place fast for the night, and he said to himself that Dennis was not more plebeian than his master; that the gross appetites, the blunt sense, the purblind ambition, the stupid arrogance were the same in both, and the difference was in a brute will that probably left the porter the gentler man of the two. The very innocence of Lapham's life in the direction in which he had erred wrought against him in the young man's mood: it contained the insult of clownish inexperience. Amidst the stings and flashes of his wounded pride, all the social traditions, all the habits of feeling, which he had silenced more and more by force of will during the past months, asserted their natural sway, and he rioted in his contempt of the offensive boor, who was even more offensive in his shame than in his trespass. He said to himself that he was a Corey, as if that were somewhat; yet he knew that at the bottom of his heart all the time was that which must control him at last, and which seemed sweetly to be suffering his rebellion, secure of his submission in the end. It was almost with the girl's voice that it seemed to plead with him, to undo in him, effect by effect, the work of his indignant resentment, to set all things in another and fairer light, to give him hopes, to suggest palliations, to protest against injustices. It WAS in Lapham's favour that he was so guiltless in the past, and now Corey asked himself if it were the first time he could have wished a guest at his father's table to have taken less wine; whether Lapham was not rather to be honoured for not knowing how to contain his folly where a veteran transgressor might have held his tongue. He asked himself, with a thrill of sudden remorse, whether, when Lapham humbled himself in the dust so shockingly, he had shown him the sympathy to which such ABANDON had the right; and he had to own that he had met him on the gentlemanly ground, sparing himself and asserting the superiority of his sort, and not recognising that Lapham's humiliation came from the sense of wrong, which he had helped to accumulate upon him by superfinely standing aloof and refusing to touch him. He shut his desk and hurried out into the early night, not to go anywhere, but to walk up and down, to try to find his way out of the chaos, which now seemed ruin, and now the materials out of which fine actions and a happy life might be shaped. Three hours later he stood at Lapham's door. At times what he now wished to do had seemed for ever impossible, and again it had seemed as if he could not wait a moment longer. He had not been careless, but very mindful of what he knew must be the feelings of his own family in regard to the Laphams, and he had not concealed from himself that his family had great reason and justice on their side in not wishing him to alienate himself from their common life and associations. The most that he could urge to himself was that they had not all the reason and justice; but he had hesitated and delayed because they had so much. Often he could not make it appear right that he should merely please himself in what chiefly concerned himself. He perceived how far apart in all their experiences and ideals the Lapham girls and his sisters were; how different Mrs. Lapham was from his mother; how grotesquely unlike were his father and Lapham; and the disparity had not always amused him. He had often taken it very seriously, and sometimes he said that he must forego the hope on which his heart was set. There had been many times in the past months when he had said that he must go no further, and as often as he had taken this stand he had yielded it, upon this or that excuse, which he was aware of trumping up. It was part of the complication that he should be unconscious of the injury he might be doing to some one besides his family and himself; this was the defect of his diffidence; and it had come to him in a pang for the first time when his mother said that she would not have the Laphams think she wished to make more of the acquaintance than he did; and then it had come too late. Since that he had suffered quite as much from the fear that it might not be as that it might be so; and now, in the mood, romantic and exalted, in which he found himself concerning Lapham, he was as far as might be from vain confidence. He ended the question in his own mind by affirming to himself that he was there, first of all, to see Lapham and give him an ultimate proof of his own perfect faith and unabated respect, and to offer him what reparation this involved for that want of sympathy--of humanity--which he had shown. XVI. THE Nova Scotia second-girl who answered Corey's ring said that Lapham had not come home yet. "Oh," said the young man, hesitating on the outer step. "I guess you better come in," said the girl, "I'll go and see when they're expecting him." Corey was in the mood to be swayed by any chance. He obeyed the suggestion of the second-girl's patronising friendliness, and let her shut him into the drawing-room, while she went upstairs to announce him to Penelope. "Did you tell him father wasn't at home?" "Yes. He seemed so kind of disappointed, I told him to come in, and I'd see when he WOULD be in," said the girl, with the human interest which sometimes replaces in the American domestic the servile deference of other countries. A gleam of amusement passed over Penelope's face, as she glanced at herself in the glass. "Well," she cried finally, dropping from her shoulders the light shawl in which she had been huddled over a book when Corey rang, "I will go down." "All right," said the girl, and Penelope began hastily to amend the disarray of her hair, which she tumbled into a mass on the top of her little head, setting off the pale dark of her complexion with a flash of crimson ribbon at her throat. She moved across the carpet once or twice with the quaint grace that belonged to her small figure, made a dissatisfied grimace at it in the glass, caught a handkerchief out of a drawer and slid it into her pocket, and then descended to Corey. The Lapham drawing-room in Nankeen Square was in the parti-coloured paint which the Colonel had hoped to repeat in his new house: the trim of the doors and windows was in light green and the panels in salmon; the walls were a plain tint of French grey paper, divided by gilt mouldings into broad panels with a wide stripe of red velvet paper running up the corners; the chandelier was of massive imitation bronze; the mirror over the mantel rested on a fringed mantel-cover of green reps, and heavy curtains of that stuff hung from gilt lambrequin frames at the window; the carpet was of a small pattern in crude green, which, at the time Mrs. Lapham bought it, covered half the new floors in Boston. In the panelled spaces on the walls were some stone-coloured landscapes, representing the mountains and canyons of the West, which the Colonel and his wife had visited on one of the early official railroad excursions. In front of the long windows looking into the Square were statues, kneeling figures which turned their backs upon the company within-doors, and represented allegories of Faith and Prayer to people without. A white marble group of several figures, expressing an Italian conception of Lincoln Freeing the Slaves,--a Latin negro and his wife,--with our Eagle flapping his wings in approval, at Lincoln's feet, occupied one corner, and balanced the what-not of an earlier period in another. These phantasms added their chill to that imparted by the tone of the walls, the landscapes, and the carpets, and contributed to the violence of the contrast when the chandelier was lighted up full glare, and the heat of the whole furnace welled up from the registers into the quivering atmosphere on one of the rare occasions when the Laphams invited company. Corey had not been in this room before; the family had always received him in what they called the sitting-room. Penelope looked into this first, and then she looked into the parlour, with a smile that broke into a laugh as she discovered him standing under the single burner which the second-girl had lighted for him in the chandelier. "I don't understand how you came to be put in there," she said, as she led the way to the cozier place, "unless it was because Alice thought you were only here on probation, anyway. Father hasn't got home yet, but I'm expecting him every moment; I don't know what's keeping him. Did the girl tell you that mother and Irene were out?" "No, she didn't say. It's very good of you to see me." She had not seen the exaltation which he had been feeling, he perceived with half a sigh; it must all be upon this lower level; perhaps it was best so. "There was something I wished to say to your father----I hope," he broke off, "you're better to-night." "Oh yes, thank you," said Penelope, remembering that she had not been well enough to go to dinner the night before. "We all missed you very much." "Oh, thank you! I'm afraid you wouldn't have missed me if I had been there." "Oh yes, we should," said Corey, "I assure you." They looked at each other. "I really think I believed I was saying something," said the girl. "And so did I," replied the young man. They laughed rather wildly, and then they both became rather grave. He took the chair she gave him, and looked across at her, where she sat on the other side of the hearth, in a chair lower than his, with her hands dropped in her lap, and the back of her head on her shoulders as she looked up at him. The soft-coal fire in the grate purred and flickered; the drop-light cast a mellow radiance on her face. She let her eyes fall, and then lifted them for an irrelevant glance at the clock on the mantel. "Mother and Irene have gone to the Spanish Students' concert." "Oh, have they?" asked Corey; and he put his hat, which he had been holding in his hand, on the floor beside his chair. She looked down at it for no reason, and then looked up at his face for no other, and turned a little red. Corey turned a little red himself. She who had always been so easy with him now became a little constrained. "Do you know how warm it is out-of-doors?" he asked. "No, is it warm? I haven't been out all day." "It's like a summer night." She turned her face towards the fire, and then started abruptly. "Perhaps it's too warm for you here?" "Oh no, it's very comfortable." "I suppose it's the cold of the last few days that's still in the house. I was reading with a shawl on when you came." "I interrupted you." "Oh no. I had finished the book. I was just looking over it again." "Do you like to read books over?" "Yes; books that I like at all." "That was it?" asked Corey. The girl hesitated. "It has rather a sentimental name. Did you ever read it?--Tears, Idle Tears." "Oh yes; they were talking of that last night; it's a famous book with ladies. They break their hearts over it. Did it make you cry?" "Oh, it's pretty easy to cry over a book," said Penelope, laughing; "and that one is very natural till you come to the main point. Then the naturalness of all the rest makes that seem natural too; but I guess it's rather forced." "Her giving him up to the other one?" "Yes; simply because she happened to know that the other one had cared for him first. Why should she have done it? What right had she?" "I don't know. I suppose that the self-sacrifice----" "But it WASN'T self-sacrifice--or not self-sacrifice alone. She was sacrificing him too; and for some one who couldn't appreciate him half as much as she could. I'm provoked with myself when I think how I cried over that book--for I did cry. It's silly--it's wicked for any one to do what that girl did. Why can't they let people have a chance to behave reasonably in stories?" "Perhaps they couldn't make it so attractive," suggested Corey, with a smile. "It would be novel, at any rate," said the girl. "But so it would in real life, I suppose," she added. "I don't know. Why shouldn't people in love behave sensibly?" "That's a very serious question," said Penelope gravely. "I couldn't answer it," and she left him the embarrassment of supporting an inquiry which she had certainly instigated herself. She seemed to have finally recovered her own ease in doing this. "Do you admire our autumnal display, Mr. Corey?" "Your display?" "The trees in the Square. WE think it's quite equal to an opening at Jordan & Marsh's." "Ah, I'm afraid you wouldn't let me be serious even about your maples." "Oh yes, I should--if you like to be serious." "Don't you?" "Well not about serious matters. That's the reason that book made me cry." "You make fun of everything. Miss Irene was telling me last night about you." "Then it's no use for me to deny it so soon. I must give Irene a talking to." "I hope you won't forbid her to talk about you!" She had taken up a fan from the table, and held it, now between her face and the fire, and now between her face and him. Her little visage, with that arch, lazy look in it, topped by its mass of dusky hair, and dwindling from the full cheeks to the small chin, had a Japanese effect in the subdued light, and it had the charm which comes to any woman with happiness. It would be hard to say how much of this she perceived that he felt. They talked about other things a while, and then she came back to what he had said. She glanced at him obliquely round her fan, and stopped moving it. "Does Irene talk about me?" she asked. "I think so--yes. Perhaps it's only I who talk about you. You must blame me if it's wrong," he returned. "Oh, I didn't say it was wrong," she replied. "But I hope if you said anything very bad of me you'll let me know what it was, so that I can reform----" "No, don't change, please!" cried the young man. Penelope caught her breath, but went on resolutely,--"or rebuke you for speaking evil of dignities." She looked down at the fan, now flat in her lap, and tried to govern her head, but it trembled, and she remained looking down. Again they let the talk stray, and then it was he who brought it back to themselves, as if it had not left them. "I have to talk OF you," said Corey, "because I get to talk TO you so seldom." "You mean that I do all the talking when we're--together?" She glanced sidewise at him; but she reddened after speaking the last word. "We're so seldom together," he pursued. "I don't know what you mean----" "Sometimes I've thought--I've been afraid that you avoided me." "Avoided you?" "Yes! Tried not to be alone with me." She might have told him that there was no reason why she should be alone with him, and that it was very strange he should make this complaint of her. But she did not. She kept looking down at the fan, and then she lifted her burning face and looked at the clock again. "Mother and Irene will be sorry to miss you," she gasped. He instantly rose and came towards her. She rose too, and mechanically put out her hand. He took it as if to say good-night. "I didn't mean to send you away," she besought him. "Oh, I'm not going," he answered simply. "I wanted to say--to say that it's I who make her talk about you. To say I----There is something I want to say to you; I've said it so often to myself that I feel as if you must know it." She stood quite still, letting him keep her hand, and questioning his face with a bewildered gaze. "You MUST know--she must have told you--she must have guessed----" Penelope turned white, but outwardly quelled the panic that sent the blood to her heart. "I--I didn't expect--I hoped to have seen your father--but I must speak now, whatever----I love you!" She freed her hand from both of those he had closed upon it, and went back from him across the room with a sinuous spring. "ME!" Whatever potential complicity had lurked in her heart, his words brought her only immeasurable dismay. He came towards her again. "Yes, you. Who else?" She fended him off with an imploring gesture. "I thought--I--it was----" She shut her lips tight, and stood looking at him where he remained in silent amaze. Then her words came again, shudderingly. "Oh, what have you done?" "Upon my soul," he said, with a vague smile, "I don't know. I hope no harm?" "Oh, don't laugh!" she cried, laughing hysterically herself. "Unless you want me to think you the greatest wretch in the world!" "I?" he responded. "For heaven's sake tell me what you mean!" "You know I can't tell you. Can you say--can you put your hand on your heart and say that--you--say you never meant--that you meant me--all along?" "Yes!--yes! Who else? I came here to see your father, and to tell him that I wished to tell you this--to ask him----But what does it matter? You must have known it--you must have seen--and it's for you to answer me. I've been abrupt, I know, and I've startled you; but if you love me, you can forgive that to my loving you so long before I spoke." She gazed at him with parted lips. "Oh, mercy! What shall I do? If it's true--what you say--you must go!" she said. "And you must never come any more. Do you promise that?" "Certainly not," said the young man. "Why should I promise such a thing--so abominably wrong? I could obey if you didn't love me----" "Oh, I don't! Indeed I don't! Now will you obey." "No. I don't believe you." "Oh!" He possessed himself of her hand again. "My love--my dearest! What is this trouble, that you can't tell it? It can't be anything about yourself. If it is anything about any one else, it wouldn't make the least difference in the world, no matter what it was. I would be only too glad to show by any act or deed I could that nothing could change me towards you." "Oh, you don't understand!" "No, I don't. You must tell me." "I will never do that." "Then I will stay here till your mother comes, and ask her what it is." "Ask HER?" "Yes! Do you think I will give you up till I know why I must?" "You force me to it! Will you go if I tell you, and never let any human creature know what you have said to me?" "Not unless you give me leave." "That will be never. Well, then----" She stopped, and made two or three ineffectual efforts to begin again. "No, no! I can't. You must go!" "I will not go!" "You said you--loved me. If you do, you will go." He dropped the hands he had stretched towards her, and she hid her face in her own. "There!" she said, turning it suddenly upon him. "Sit down there. And will you promise me--on your honour--not to speak--not to try to persuade me--not to--touch me? You won't touch me?" "I will obey you, Penelope." "As if you were never to see me again? As if I were dying?" "I will do what you say. But I shall see you again; and don't talk of dying. This is the beginning of life----" "No. It's the end," said the girl, resuming at last something of the hoarse drawl which the tumult of her feeling had broken into those half-articulate appeals. She sat down too, and lifted her face towards him. "It's the end of life for me, because I know now that I must have been playing false from the beginning. You don't know what I mean, and I can never tell you. It isn't my secret--it's some one else's. You--you must never come here again. I can't tell you why, and you must never try to know. Do you promise?" "You can forbid me. I must do what you say." "I do forbid you, then. And you shall not think I am cruel----" "How could I think that?" "Oh, how hard you make it!" Corey laughed for very despair. "Can I make it easier by disobeying you?" "I know I am talking crazily. But I'm not crazy." "No, no," he said, with some wild notion of comforting her; "but try to tell me this trouble! There is nothing under heaven--no calamity, no sorrow--that I wouldn't gladly share with you, or take all upon myself if I could!" "I know! But this you can't. Oh, my----" "Dearest! Wait! Think! Let me ask your mother--your father----" She gave a cry. "No! If you do that, you will make me hate you! Will you----" The rattling of a latch-key was heard in the outer door. "Promise!" cried Penelope. "Oh, I promise!" "Good-bye!" She suddenly flung her arms round his neck, and, pressing her cheek tight against his, flashed out of the room by one door as her father entered it by another. Corey turned to him in a daze. "I--I called to speak with you--about a matter----But it's so late now. I'll--I'll see you to-morrow." "No time like the present," said Lapham, with a fierceness that did not seem referable to Corey. He had his hat still on, and he glared at the young man out of his blue eyes with a fire that something else must have kindled there. "I really can't now," said Corey weakly. "It will do quite as well to-morrow. Good night, sir." "Good night," answered Lapham abruptly, following him to the door, and shutting it after him. "I think the devil must have got into pretty much everybody to-night," he muttered, coming back to the room, where he put down his hat. Then he went to the kitchen-stairs and called down, "Hello, Alice! I want something to eat!" XVII. "WHAT's the reason the girls never get down to breakfast any more?" asked Lapham, when he met his wife at the table in the morning. He had been up an hour and a half, and he spoke with the severity of a hungry man. "It seems to me they don't amount to ANYthing. Here I am, at my time of life, up the first one in the house. I ring the bell for the cook at quarter-past six every morning, and the breakfast is on the table at half-past seven right along, like clockwork, but I never see anybody but you till I go to the office." "Oh yes, you do, Si," said his wife soothingly. "The girls are nearly always down. But they're young, and it tires them more than it does us to get up early." "They can rest afterwards. They don't do anything after they ARE up," grumbled Lapham. "Well, that's your fault, ain't it? You oughtn't to have made so much money, and then they'd have had to work." She laughed at Lapham's Spartan mood, and went on to excuse the young people. "Irene's been up two nights hand running, and Penelope says she ain't well. What makes you so cross about the girls? Been doing something you're ashamed of?" "I'll tell you when I've been doing anything to be ashamed of," growled Lapham. "Oh no, you won't!" said his wife jollily. "You'll only be hard on the rest of us. Come now, Si; what is it?" Lapham frowned into his coffee with sulky dignity, and said, without looking up, "I wonder what that fellow wanted here last night?" "What fellow?" "Corey. I found him here when I came home, and he said he wanted to see me; but he wouldn't stop." "Where was he?" "In the sitting-room." "Was Pen there?" "I didn't see her." Mrs. Lapham paused, with her hand on the cream-jug. "Why, what in the land did he want? Did he say he wanted you?" "That's what he said." "And then he wouldn't stay?" "Well, then, I'll tell you just what it is, Silas Lapham. He came here"--she looked about the room and lowered her voice--"to see you about Irene, and then he hadn't the courage." "I guess he's got courage enough to do pretty much what he wants to," said Lapham glumly. "All I know is, he was here. You better ask Pen about it, if she ever gets down." "I guess I shan't wait for her," said Mrs. Lapham; and, as her husband closed the front door after him, she opened that of her daughter's room and entered abruptly. The girl sat at the window, fully dressed, and as if she had been sitting there a long time. Without rising, she turned her face towards her mother. It merely showed black against the light, and revealed nothing till her mother came close to her with successive questions. "Why, how long have you been up, Pen? Why don't you come to your breakfast? Did you see Mr. Corey when he called last night? Why, what's the matter with you? What have you been crying about?" "Have I been crying?" "Yes! Your cheeks are all wet!" "I thought they were on fire. Well, I'll tell you what's happened." She rose, and then fell back in her chair. "Lock the door!" she ordered, and her mother mechanically obeyed. "I don't want Irene in here. There's nothing the matter. Only, Mr. Corey offered himself to me last night." Her mother remained looking at her, helpless, not so much with amaze, perhaps, as dismay. "Oh, I'm not a ghost! I wish I was! You had better sit down, mother. You have got to know all about it." Mrs. Lapham dropped nervelessly into the chair at the other window, and while the girl went slowly but briefly on, touching only the vital points of the story, and breaking at times into a bitter drollery, she sat as if without the power to speak or stir. "Well, that's all, mother. I should say I had dreamt, it, if I had slept any last night; but I guess it really happened." The mother glanced round at the bed, and said, glad to occupy herself delayingly with the minor care: "Why, you have been sitting up all night! You will kill yourself." "I don't know about killing myself, but I've been sitting up all night," answered the girl. Then, seeing that her mother remained blankly silent again, she demanded, "Why don't you blame me, mother? Why don't you say that I led him on, and tried to get him away from her? Don't you believe I did?" Her mother made her no answer, as if these ravings of self-accusal needed none. "Do you think," she asked simply, "that he got the idea you cared for him?" "He knew it! How could I keep it from him? I said I didn't--at first!" "It was no use," sighed the mother. "You might as well said you did. It couldn't help Irene any, if you didn't." "I always tried to help her with him, even when I----" "Yes, I know. But she never was equal to him. I saw that from the start; but I tried to blind myself to it. And when he kept coming----" "You never thought of me!" cried the girl, with a bitterness that reached her mother's heart. "I was nobody! I couldn't feel! No one could care for me!" The turmoil of despair, of triumph, of remorse and resentment, which filled her soul, tried to express itself in the words. "No," said the mother humbly. "I didn't think of you. Or I didn't think of you enough. It did come across me sometimes that may be----But it didn't seem as if----And your going on so for Irene----" "You let me go on. You made me always go and talk with him for her, and you didn't think I would talk to him for myself. Well, I didn't!" "I'm punished for it. When did you--begin to care for him!" "How do I know? What difference does it make? It's all over now, no matter when it began. He won't come here any more, unless I let him." She could not help betraying her pride in this authority of hers, but she went on anxiously enough, "What will you say to Irene? She's safe as far as I'm concerned; but if he don't care for her, what will you do?" "I don't know what to do," said Mrs. Lapham. She sat in an apathy from which she apparently could not rouse herself. "I don't see as anything can be done." Penelope laughed in a pitying derision. "Well, let things go on then. But they won't go on." "No, they won't go on," echoed her mother. "She's pretty enough, and she's capable; and your father's got the money--I don't know what I'm saying! She ain't equal to him, and she never was. I kept feeling it all the time, and yet I kept blinding myself." "If he had ever cared for her," said Penelope, "it wouldn't have mattered whether she was equal to him or not. I'M not equal to him either." Her mother went on: "I might have thought it was you; but I had got set----Well! I can see it all clear enough, now it's too late. I don't know what to do." "And what do you expect me to do?" demanded the girl. "Do you want ME to go to Irene and tell her that I've got him away from her?" "O good Lord!" cried Mrs. Lapham. "What shall I do? What do you want I should do, Pen?" "Nothing for me," said Penelope. "I've had it out with myself. Now do the best you can for Irene." "I couldn't say you had done wrong, if you was to marry him to-day." "Mother!" "No, I couldn't. I couldn't say but what you had been good and faithfull all through, and you had a perfect right to do it. There ain't any one to blame. He's behaved like a gentleman, and I can see now that he never thought of her, and that it was you all the while. Well, marry him, then! He's got the right, and so have you." "What about Irene? I don't want you to talk about me. I can take care of myself." "She's nothing but a child. It's only a fancy with her. She'll get over it. She hain't really got her heart set on him." "She's got her heart set on him, mother. She's got her whole life set on him. You know that." "Yes, that's so," said the mother, as promptly as if she had been arguing to that rather than the contrary effect. "If I could give him to her, I would. But he isn't mine to give." She added in a burst of despair, "He isn't mine to keep!" "Well," said Mrs. Lapham, "she has got to bear it. I don't know what's to come of it all. But she's got to bear her share of it." She rose and went toward the door. Penelope ran after her in a sort of terror. "You're not going to tell Irene?" she gasped, seizing her mother by either shoulder. "Yes, I am," said Mrs. Lapham. "If she's a woman grown, she can bear a woman's burden." "I can't let you tell Irene," said the girl, letting fall her face on her mother's neck. "Not Irene," she moaned. "I'm afraid to let you. How can I ever look at her again?" "Why, you haven't done anything, Pen," said her mother soothingly. "I wanted to! Yes, I must have done something. How could I help it? I did care for him from the first, and I must have tried to make him like me. Do you think I did? No, no! You mustn't tell Irene! Not-- not--yet! Mother! Yes! I did try to get him from her!" she cried, lifting her head, and suddenly looking her mother in the face with those large dim eyes of hers. "What do you think? Even last night! It was the first time I ever had him all to myself, for myself, and I know now that I tried to make him think that I was pretty and--funny. And I didn't try to make him think of her. I knew that I pleased him, and I tried to please him more. Perhaps I could have kept him from saying that he cared for me; but when I saw he did--I must have seen it--I couldn't. I had never had him to myself, and for myself before. I needn't have seen him at all, but I wanted to see him; and when I was sitting there alone with him, how do I know what I did to let him feel that I cared for him? Now, will you tell Irene? I never thought he did care for me, and never expected him to. But I liked him. Yes--I did like him! Tell her that! Or else I will." "If it was to tell her he was dead," began Mrs. Lapham absently. "How easy it would be!" cried the girl in self-mockery. "But he's worse than dead to her; and so am I. I've turned it over a million ways, mother; I've looked at it in every light you can put it in, and I can't make anything but misery out of it. You can see the misery at the first glance, and you can't see more or less if you spend your life looking at it." She laughed again, as if the hopelessness of the thing amused her. Then she flew to the extreme of self-assertion. "Well, I HAVE a right to him, and he has a right to me. If he's never done anything to make her think he cared for her,--and I know he hasn't; it's all been our doing, then he's free and I'm free. We can't make her happy whatever we do; and why shouldn't I----No, that won't do! I reached that point before!" She broke again into her desperate laugh. "You may try now, mother!" "I'd best speak to your father first----" Penelope smiled a little more forlornly than she had laughed. "Well, yes; the Colonel will have to know. It isn't a trouble that I can keep to myself exactly. It seems to belong to too many other people." Her mother took a crazy encouragement from her return to her old way of saying things. "Perhaps he can think of something." "Oh, I don't doubt but the Colonel will know just what to do!" "You mustn't be too down-hearted about it. It--it'll all come right----" "You tell Irene that, mother." Mrs. Lapham had put her hand on the door-key; she dropped it, and looked at the girl with a sort of beseeching appeal for the comfort she could not imagine herself. "Don't look at me, mother," said Penelope, shaking her head. "You know that if Irene were to die without knowing it, it wouldn't come right for me." "Pen!" "I've read of cases where a girl gives up the man that loves her so as to make some other girl happy that the man doesn't love. That might be done." "Your father would think you were a fool," said Mrs. Lapham, finding a sort of refuge in her strong disgust for the pseudo heroism. "No! If there's to be any giving up, let it be by the one that shan't make anybody but herself suffer. There's trouble and sorrow enough in the world, without MAKING it on purpose!" She unlocked the door, but Penelope slipped round and set herself against it. "Irene shall not give up!" "I will see your father about it," said the mother. "Let me out now----" "Don't let Irene come here!" "No. I will tell her that you haven't slept. Go to bed now, and try to get some rest. She isn't up herself yet. You must have some breakfast." "No; let me sleep if I can. I can get something when I wake up. I'll come down if I can't sleep. Life has got to go on. It does when there's a death in the house, and this is only a little worse." "Don't you talk nonsense!" cried Mrs. Lapham, with angry authority. "Well, a little better, then," said Penelope, with meek concession. Mrs. Lapham attempted to say something, and could not. She went out and opened Irene's door. The girl lifted her head drowsily from her pillow "Don't disturb your sister when you get up, Irene. She hasn't slept well----" "PLEASE don't talk! I'm almost DEAD with sleep!" returned Irene. "Do go, mamma! I shan't disturb her." She turned her face down in the pillow, and pulled the covering up over her ears. The mother slowly closed the door and went downstairs, feeling bewildered and baffled almost beyond the power to move. The time had been when she would have tried to find out why this judgment had been sent upon her. But now she could not feel that the innocent suffering of others was inflicted for her fault; she shrank instinctively from that cruel and egotistic misinterpretation of the mystery of pain and loss. She saw her two children, equally if differently dear to her, destined to trouble that nothing could avert, and she could not blame either of them; she could not blame the means of this misery to them; he was as innocent as they, and though her heart was sore against him in this first moment, she could still be just to him in it. She was a woman who had been used to seek the light by striving; she had hitherto literally worked to it. But it is the curse of prosperity that it takes work away from us, and shuts that door to hope and health of spirit. In this house, where everything had come to be done for her, she had no tasks to interpose between her and her despair. She sat down in her own room and let her hands fall in her lap,--the hands that had once been so helpful and busy,--and tried to think it all out. She had never heard of the fate that was once supposed to appoint the sorrows of men irrespective of their blamelessness or blame, before the time when it came to be believed that sorrows were penalties; but in her simple way she recognised something like that mythic power when she rose from her struggle with the problem, and said aloud to herself, "Well, the witch is in it." Turn which way she would, she saw no escape from the misery to come--the misery which had come already to Penelope and herself, and that must come to Irene and her father. She started when she definitely thought of her husband, and thought with what violence it would work in every fibre of his rude strength. She feared that, and she feared something worse--the effect which his pride and ambition might seek to give it; and it was with terror of this, as well as the natural trust with which a woman must turn to her husband in any anxiety at last, that she felt she could not wait for evening to take counsel with him. When she considered how wrongly he might take it all, it seemed as if it were already known to him, and she was impatient to prevent his error. She sent out for a messenger, whom she despatched with a note to his place of business: "Silas, I should like to ride with you this afternoon. Can't you come home early? Persis." And she was at dinner with Irene, evading her questions about Penelope, when answer came that he would be at the house with the buggy at half-past two. It is easy to put off a girl who has but one thing in her head; but though Mrs. Lapham could escape without telling anything of Penelope, she could not escape seeing how wholly Irene was engrossed with hopes now turned so vain and impossible. She was still talking of that dinner, of nothing but that dinner, and begging for flattery of herself and praise of him, which her mother had till now been so ready to give. "Seems to me you don't take very much interest, mamma!" she said, laughing and blushing at one point. "Yes,--yes, I do," protested Mrs. Lapham, and then the girl prattled on. "I guess I shall get one of those pins that Nanny Corey had in her hair. I think it would become me, don't you?" "Yes; but Irene--I don't like to have you go on so, till--unless he's said something to show--You oughtn't to give yourself up to thinking----" But at this the girl turned so white, and looked such reproach at her, that she added frantically: "Yes, get the pin. It is just the thing for you! But don't disturb Penelope. Let her alone till I get back. I'm going out to ride with your father. He'll be here in half an hour. Are you through? Ring, then. Get yourself that fan you saw the other day. Your father won't say anything; he likes to have you look well. I could see his eyes on you half the time the other night." "I should have liked to have Pen go with me," said Irene, restored to her normal state of innocent selfishness by these flatteries. "Don't you suppose she'll be up in time? What's the matter with her that she didn't sleep?" "I don't know. Better let her alone." "Well," submitted Irene. XVIII. MRS. LAPHAM went away to put on her bonnet and cloak, and she was waiting at the window when her husband drove up. She opened the door and ran down the steps. "Don't get out; I can help myself in," and she clambered to his side, while he kept the fidgeting mare still with voice and touch. "Where do you want I should go?" he asked, turning the buggy. "Oh, I don't care. Out Brookline way, I guess. I wish you hadn't brought this fool of a horse," she gave way petulantly. "I wanted to have a talk." "When I can't drive this mare and talk too, I'll sell out altogether," said Lapham. "She'll be quiet enough when she's had her spin." "Well," said his wife; and while they were making their way across the city to the Milldam she answered certain questions he asked about some points in the new house. "I should have liked to have you stop there," he began; but she answered so quickly, "Not to-day," that he gave it up and turned his horse's head westward when they struck Beacon Street. He let the mare out, and he did not pull her in till he left the Brighton road and struck off under the low boughs that met above one of the quiet streets of Brookline, where the stone cottages, with here and there a patch of determined ivy on their northern walls, did what they could to look English amid the glare of the autumnal foliage. The smooth earthen track under the mare's hoofs was scattered with flakes of the red and yellow gold that made the air luminous around them, and the perspective was gay with innumerable tints and tones. "Pretty sightly," said Lapham, with a long sigh, letting the reins lie loose in his vigilant hand, to which he seemed to relegate the whole charge of the mare. "I want to talk with you about Rogers, Persis. He's been getting in deeper and deeper with me; and last night he pestered me half to death to go in with him in one of his schemes. I ain't going to blame anybody, but I hain't got very much confidence in Rogers. And I told him so last night." "Oh, don't talk to me about Rogers!" his wife broke in. "There's something a good deal more important than Rogers in the world, and more important than your business. It seems as if you couldn't think of anything else--that and the new house. Did you suppose I wanted to ride so as to talk Rogers with you?" she demanded, yielding to the necessity a wife feels of making her husband pay for her suffering, even if he has not inflicted it. "I declare----" "Well, hold on, now!" said Lapham. "What DO you want to talk about? I'm listening." His wife began, "Why, it's just this, Silas Lapham!" and then she broke off to say, "Well, you may wait, now--starting me wrong, when it's hard enough anyway." Lapham silently turned his whip over and over in his hand and waited. "Did you suppose," she asked at last, "that that young Corey had been coming to see Irene?" "I don't know what I supposed," replied Lapham sullenly. "You always said so." He looked sharply at her under his lowering brows. "Well, he hasn't," said Mrs. Lapham; and she replied to the frown that blackened on her husband's face. "And I can tell you what, if you take it in that way I shan't speak another word." "Who's takin' it what way?" retorted Lapham savagely. "What are you drivin' at?" "I want you should promise that you'll hear me out quietly." "I'll hear you out if you'll give me a chance. I haven't said a word yet." "Well, I'm not going to have you flying into forty furies, and looking like a perfect thunder-cloud at the very start. I've had to bear it, and you've got to bear it too." "Well, let me have a chance at it, then." "It's nothing to blame anybody about, as I can see, and the only question is, what's the best thing to do about it. There's only one thing we can do; for if he don't care for the child, nobody wants to make him. If he hasn't been coming to see her, he hasn't, and that's all there is to it." "No, it ain't!" exclaimed Lapham. "There!" protested his wife. "If he hasn't been coming to see her, what HAS he been coming for?" "He's been coming to see Pen!" cried the wife. "NOW are you satisfied?" Her tone implied that he had brought it all upon them; but at the sight of the swift passions working in his face to a perfect comprehension of the whole trouble, she fell to trembling, and her broken voice lost all the spurious indignation she had put into it. "O Silas! what are we going to do about it? I'm afraid it'll kill Irene." Lapham pulled off the loose driving-glove from his right hand with the fingers of his left, in which the reins lay. He passed it over his forehead, and then flicked from it the moisture it had gathered there. He caught his breath once or twice, like a man who meditates a struggle with superior force and then remains passive in its grasp. His wife felt the need of comforting him, as she had felt the need of afflicting him. "I don't say but what it can be made to come out all right in the end. All I say is, I don't see my way clear yet." "What makes you think he likes Pen?" he asked quietly. "He told her so last night, and she told me this morning. Was he at the office to-day?" "Yes, he was there. I haven't been there much myself. He didn't say anything to me. Does Irene know?" "No; I left her getting ready to go out shopping. She wants to get a pin like the one Nanny Corey had on." "O my Lord!" groaned Lapham. "It's been Pen from the start, I guess, or almost from the start. I don't say but what he was attracted some by Irene at the very first; but I guess it's been Pen ever since he saw her; and we've taken up with a notion, and blinded ourselves with it. Time and again I've had my doubts whether he cared for Irene any; but I declare to goodness, when he kept coming, I never hardly thought of Pen, and I couldn't help believing at last he DID care for Irene. Did it ever strike you he might be after Pen?" "No. I took what you said. I supposed you knew." "Do you blame me, Silas?" she asked timidly. "No. What's the use of blaming? We don't either of us want anything but the children's good. What's it all of it for, if it ain't for that? That's what we've both slaved for all our lives." "Yes, I know. Plenty of people LOSE their children," she suggested. "Yes, but that don't comfort me any. I never was one to feel good because another man felt bad. How would you have liked it if some one had taken comfort because his boy lived when ours died? No, I can't do it. And this is worse than death, someways. That comes and it goes; but this looks as if it was one of those things that had come to stay. The way I look at it, there ain't any hope for anybody. Suppose we don't want Pen to have him; will that help Irene any, if he don't want her? Suppose we don't want to let him have either; does that help either!" "You talk," exclaimed Mrs. Lapham, "as if our say was going to settle it. Do you suppose that Penelope Lapham is a girl to take up with a fellow that her sister is in love with, and that she always thought was in love with her sister, and go off and be happy with him? Don't you believe but what it would come back to her, as long as she breathed the breath of life, how she'd teased her about him, as I've heard Pen tease Irene, and helped to make her think he was in love with her, by showing that she thought so herself? It's ridiculous!" Lapham seemed quite beaten down by this argument. His huge head hung forward over his breast; the reins lay loose in his moveless hand; the mare took her own way. At last he lifted his face and shut his heavy jaws. "Well?" quavered his wife. "Well," he answered, "if he wants her, and she wants him, I don't see what that's got to do with it." He looked straight forward, and not at his wife. She laid her hands on the reins. "Now, you stop right here, Silas Lapham! If I thought that--if I really believed you could be willing to break that poor child's heart, and let Pen disgrace herself by marrying a man that had as good as killed her sister, just because you wanted Bromfield Corey's son for a son-in-law----" Lapham turned his face now, and gave her a look. "You had better NOT believe that, Persis! Get up!" he called to the mare, without glancing at her, and she sprang forward. "I see you've got past being any use to yourself on this subject." "Hello!" shouted a voice in front of him. "Where the devil you goin' to?" "Do you want to KILL somebody!" shrieked his wife. There was a light crash, and the mare recoiled her length, and separated their wheels from those of the open buggy in front which Lapham had driven into. He made his excuses to the occupant; and the accident relieved the tension of their feelings, and left them far from the point of mutual injury which they had reached in their common trouble and their unselfish will for their children's good. It was Lapham who resumed the talk. "I'm afraid we can't either of us see this thing in the right light. We're too near to it. I wish to the Lord there was somebody to talk to about it." "Yes," said his wife; "but there ain't anybody." "Well, I dunno," suggested Lapham, after a moment; "why not talk to the minister of your church? May be he could see some way out of it." Mrs. Lapham shook her head hopelessly. "It wouldn't do. I've never taken up my connection with the church, and I don't feel as if I'd got any claim on him." "If he's anything of a man, or anything of a preacher, you HAVE got a claim on him," urged Lapham; and he spoiled his argument by adding, "I've contributed enough MONEY to his church." "Oh, that's nothing," said Mrs. Lapham. "I ain't well enough acquainted with Dr. Langworthy, or else I'm TOO well. No; if I was to ask any one, I should want to ask a total stranger. But what's the use, Si? Nobody could make us see it any different from what it is, and I don't know as I should want they should." It blotted out the tender beauty of the day, and weighed down their hearts ever more heavily within them. They ceased to talk of it a hundred times, and still came back to it. They drove on and on. It began to be late. "I guess we better go back, Si," said his wife; and as he turned without speaking, she pulled her veil down and began to cry softly behind it, with low little broken sobs. Lapham started the mare up and drove swiftly homeward. At last his wife stopped crying and began trying to find her pocket. "Here, take mine, Persis," he said kindly, offering her his handkerchief, and she took it and dried her eyes with it. "There was one of those fellows there the other night," he spoke again, when his wife leaned back against the cushions in peaceful despair, "that I liked the looks of about as well as any man I ever saw. I guess he was a pretty good man. It was that Mr. Sewell." He looked at his wife, but she did not say anything. "Persis," he resumed, "I can't bear to go back with nothing settled in our minds. I can't bear to let you." "We must, Si," returned his wife, with gentle gratitude. Lapham groaned. "Where does he live?" she asked. "On Bolingbroke Street. He gave me his number." "Well, it wouldn't do any good. What could he say to us?" "Oh, I don't know as he could say anything," said Lapham hopelessly; and neither of them said anything more till they crossed the Milldam and found themselves between the rows of city houses. "Don't drive past the new house, Si," pleaded his wife. "I couldn't bear to see it. Drive--drive up Bolingbroke Street. We might as well see where he DOES live." "Well," said Lapham. He drove along slowly. "That's the place," he said finally, stopping the mare and pointing with his whip. "It wouldn't do any good," said his wife, in a tone which he understood as well as he understood her words. He turned the mare up to the curbstone. "You take the reins a minute," he said, handing them to his wife. He got down and rang the bell, and waited till the door opened; then he came back and lifted his wife out. "He's in," he said. He got the hitching-weight from under the buggy-seat and made it fast to the mare's bit. "Do you think she'll stand with that?" asked Mrs. Lapham. "I guess so. If she don't, no matter." "Ain't you afraid she'll take cold," she persisted, trying to make delay. "Let her!" said Lapham. He took his wife's trembling hand under his arm, and drew her to the door. "He'll think we're crazy," she murmured in her broken pride. "Well, we ARE," said Lapham. "Tell him we'd like to see him alone a while," he said to the girl who was holding the door ajar for him, and she showed him into the reception-room, which had been the Protestant confessional for many burdened souls before their time, coming, as they did, with the belief that they were bowed down with the only misery like theirs in the universe; for each one of us must suffer long to himself before he can learn that he is but one in a great community of wretchedness which has been pitilessly repeating itself from the foundation of the world. They were as loath to touch their trouble when the minister came in as if it were their disgrace; but Lapham did so at last, and, with a simple dignity which he had wanted in his bungling and apologetic approaches, he laid the affair clearly before the minister's compassionate and reverent eye. He spared Corey's name, but he did not pretend that it was not himself and his wife and their daughters who were concerned. "I don't know as I've got any right to trouble you with this thing," he said, in the moment while Sewell sat pondering the case, "and I don't know as I've got any warrant for doing it. But, as I told my wife here, there was something about you--I don't know whether it was anything you SAID exactly--that made me feel as if you could help us. I guess I didn't say so much as that to her; but that's the way I felt. And here we are. And if it ain't all right." "Surely," said Sewell, "it's all right. I thank you for coming--for trusting your trouble to me. A time comes to every one of us when we can't help ourselves, and then we must get others to help us. If people turn to me at such a time, I feel sure that I was put into the world for something--if nothing more than to give my pity, my sympathy." The brotherly words, so plain, so sincere, had a welcome in them that these poor outcasts of sorrow could not doubt. "Yes," said Lapham huskily, and his wife began to wipe the tears again under her veil. Sewell remained silent, and they waited till he should speak. "We can be of use to one another here, because we can always be wiser for some one else than we can for ourselves. We can see another's sins and errors in a more merciful light--and that is always a fairer light--than we can our own; and we can look more sanely at others' afflictions." He had addressed these words to Lapham; now he turned to his wife. "If some one had come to you, Mrs. Lapham, in just this perplexity, what would you have thought?" "I don't know as I understand you," faltered Mrs. Lapham. Sewell repeated his words, and added, "I mean, what do you think some one else ought to do in your place?" "Was there ever any poor creatures in such a strait before?" she asked, with pathetic incredulity. "There's no new trouble under the sun," said the minister. "Oh, if it was any one else, I should say--I should say--Why, of course! I should say that their duty was to let----" She paused. "One suffer instead of three, if none is to blame?" suggested Sewell. "That's sense, and that's justice. It's the economy of pain which naturally suggests itself, and which would insist upon itself, if we were not all perverted by traditions which are the figment of the shallowest sentimentality. Tell me, Mrs. Lapham, didn't this come into your mind when you first learned how matters stood?" "Why, yes, it flashed across me. But I didn't think it could be right." "And how was it with you, Mr. Lapham?" "Why, that's what I thought, of course. But I didn't see my way----" "No," cried the minister, "we are all blinded, we are all weakened by a false ideal of self-sacrifice. It wraps us round with its meshes, and we can't fight our way out of it. Mrs. Lapham, what made you feel that it might be better for three to suffer than one?" "Why, she did herself. I know she would die sooner than take him away from her." "I supposed so!" cried the minister bitterly. "And yet she is a sensible girl, your daughter?" "She has more common-sense----" "Of course! But in such a case we somehow think it must be wrong to use our common-sense. I don't know where this false ideal comes from, unless it comes from the novels that befool and debauch almost every intelligence in some degree. It certainly doesn't come from Christianity, which instantly repudiates it when confronted with it. Your daughter believes, in spite of her common-sense, that she ought to make herself and the man who loves her unhappy, in order to assure the life-long wretchedness of her sister, whom he doesn't love, simply because her sister saw him and fancied him first! And I'm sorry to say that ninety-nine young people out of a hundred--oh, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand!--would consider that noble and beautiful and heroic; whereas you know at the bottom of your hearts that it would be foolish and cruel and revolting. You know what marriage is! And what it must be without love on both sides." The minister had grown quite heated and red in the face. "I lose all patience!" he went on vehemently. "This poor child of yours has somehow been brought to believe that it will kill her sister if her sister does not have what does not belong to her, and what it is not in the power of all the world, or any soul in the world, to give her. Her sister will suffer--yes, keenly!--in heart and in pride; but she will not die. You will suffer too, in your tenderness for her; but you must do your duty. You must help her to give up. You would be guilty if you did less. Keep clearly in mind that you are doing right, and the only possible good. And God be with you!" XIX. "HE talked sense, Persis," said Lapham gently, as he mounted to his wife's side in the buggy and drove slowly homeward through the dusk. "Yes, he talked sense," she admitted. But she added bitterly, "I guess, if he had it to DO! Oh, he's right, and it's got to be done. There ain't any other way for it. It's sense; and, yes, it's justice." They walked to their door after they left the horse at the livery stable around the corner, where Lapham kept it. "I want you should send Irene up to our room as soon as we get in, Silas." "Why, ain't you going to have any supper first?" faltered Lapham with his latch-key in the lock. "No. I can't lose a minute. If I do, I shan't do it at all." "Look here, Persis," said her husband tenderly, "let me do this thing." "Oh, YOU!" said his wife, with a woman's compassionate scorn for a man's helplessness in such a case. "Send her right up. And I shall feel----" She stopped to spare him. Then she opened the door, and ran up to her room without waiting to speak to Irene, who had come into the hall at the sound of her father's key in the door. "I guess your mother wants to see you upstairs," said Lapham, looking away. Her mother turned round and faced the girl's wondering look as Irene entered the chamber, so close upon her that she had not yet had time to lay off her bonnet; she stood with her wraps still on her arm. "Irene!" she said harshly, "there is something you have got to bear. It's a mistake we've all made. He don't care anything for you. He never did. He told Pen so last night. He cares for her." The sentences had fallen like blows. But the girl had taken them without flinching. She stood up immovable, but the delicate rose-light of her complexion went out and left her colourless. She did not offer to speak. "Why don't you say something?" cried her mother. "Do you want to kill me, Irene?" "Why should I want to hurt you, mamma?" the girl replied steadily, but in an alien voice. "There's nothing to say. I want to see Pen a minute." She turned and left the room. As she mounted the stairs that led to her own and her sister's rooms on the floor above, her mother helplessly followed. Irene went first to her own room at the front of the house, and then came out leaving the door open and the gas flaring behind her. The mother could see that she had tumbled many things out of the drawers of her bureau upon the marble top. She passed her mother, where she stood in the entry. "You can come too, if you want to, mamma," she said. She opened Penelope's door without knocking, and went in. Penelope sat at the window, as in the morning. Irene did not go to her; but she went and laid a gold hair-pin on her bureau, and said, without looking at her, "There's a pin that I got to-day, because it was like his sister's. It won't become a dark person so well, but you can have it." She stuck a scrap of paper in the side of Penelope's mirror. "There's that account of Mr. Stanton's ranch. You'll want to read it, I presume." She laid a withered boutonniere on the bureau beside the pin. "There's his button-hole bouquet. He left it by his plate, and I stole it." She had a pine-shaving fantastically tied up with a knot of ribbon, in her hand. She held it a moment; then, looking deliberately at Penelope, she went up to her, and dropped it in her lap without a word. She turned, and, advancing a few steps, tottered and seemed about to fall. Her mother sprang forward with an imploring cry, "O 'Rene, 'Rene, 'Rene!" Irene recovered herself before her mother could reach her. "Don't touch me," she said icily. "Mamma, I'm going to put on my things. I want papa to walk with me. I'm choking here." "I--I can't let you go out, Irene, child," began her mother. "You've got to," replied the girl. "Tell papa ta hurry his supper." "O poor soul! He doesn't want any supper. HE knows it too." "I don't want to talk about that. Tell him to get ready." She left them once more. Mrs. Lapham turned a hapless glance upon Penelope. "Go and tell him, mother," said the girl. "I would, if I could. If she can walk, let her. It's the only thing for her." She sat still; she did not even brush to the floor the fantastic thing that lay in her lap, and that sent up faintly the odour of the sachet powder with which Irene liked to perfume her boxes. Lapham went out with the unhappy child, and began to talk with her, crazily, incoherently, enough. She mercifully stopped him. "Don't talk, papa. I don't want any one should talk with me." He obeyed, and they walked silently on and on. In their aimless course they reached the new house on the water side of Beacon, and she made him stop, and stood looking up at it. The scaffolding which had so long defaced the front was gone, and in the light of the gas-lamp before it all the architectural beauty of the facade was suggested, and much of the finely felt detail was revealed. Seymour had pretty nearly satisfied himself in that rich facade; certainly Lapham had not stinted him of the means. "Well," said the girl, "I shall never live in it," and she began to walk on. Lapham's sore heart went down, as he lumbered heavily after her. "Oh yes, you will, Irene. You'll have lots of good times there yet." "No," she answered, and said nothing more about it. They had not talked of their trouble at all, and they did not speak of it now. Lapham understood that she was trying to walk herself weary, and he was glad to hold his peace and let her have her way. She halted him once more before the red and yellow lights of an apothecary's window. "Isn't there something they give you to make you sleep?" she asked vaguely. "I've got to sleep to-night!" Lapham trembled. "I guess you don't want anything, Irene." "Yes, I do! Get me something!" she retorted wilfully. "If you don't, I shall die. I MUST sleep." They went in, and Lapham asked for something to make a nervous person sleep. Irene stood poring over the show-case full of brushes and trinkets, while the apothecary put up the bromide, which he guessed would be about the best thing. She did not show any emotion; her face was like a stone, while her father's expressed the anguish of his sympathy. He looked as if he had not slept for a week; his fat eyelids drooped over his glassy eyes, and his cheeks and throat hung flaccid. He started as the apothecary's cat stole smoothly up and rubbed itself against his leg; and it was to him that the man said, "You want to take a table-spoonful of that, as long as you're awake. I guess it won't take a great many to fetch you." "All right," said Lapham, and paid and went out. "I don't know but I SHALL want some of it," he said, with a joyless laugh. Irene came closer up to him and took his arm. He laid his heavy paw on her gloved fingers. After a while she said, "I want you should let me go up to Lapham to-morrow." "To Lapham? Why, to-morrow's Sunday, Irene! You can't go to-morrow." "Well, Monday, then. I can live through one day here." "Well," said the father passively. He made no pretence of asking her why she wished to go, nor any attempt to dissuade her. "Give me that bottle," she said, when he opened the door at home for her, and she ran up to her own room. The next morning Irene came to breakfast with her mother; the Colonel and Penelope did not appear, and Mrs. Lapham looked sleep-broken and careworn. The girl glanced at her. "Don't you fret about me, mamma," she said. "I shall get along." She seemed herself as steady and strong as rock. "I don't like to see you keeping up so, Irene," replied her mother. "It'll be all the worse for you when you do break. Better give way a little at the start." "I shan't break, and I've given way all I'm going to. I'm going to Lapham to-morrow,--I want you should go with me, mamma,--and I guess I can keep up one day here. All about it is, I don't want you should say anything, or LOOK anything. And, whatever I do, I don't want you should try to stop me. And, the first thing, I'm going to take her breakfast up to her. Don't!" she cried, intercepting the protest on her mother's lips. "I shall not let it hurt Pen, if I can help it. She's never done a thing nor thought a thing to wrong me. I had to fly out at her last night; but that's all over now, and I know just what I've got to bear." She had her way unmolested. She carried Penelope's breakfast to her, and omitted no care or attention that could make the sacrifice complete, with an heroic pretence that she was performing no unusual service. They did not speak, beyond her saying, in a clear dry note, "Here's your breakfast, Pen," and her sister's answering, hoarsely and tremulously, "Oh, thank you, Irene." And, though two or three times they turned their faces toward each other while Irene remained in the room, mechanically putting its confusion to rights, their eyes did not meet. Then Irene descended upon the other rooms, which she set in order, and some of which she fiercely swept and dusted. She made the beds; and she sent the two servants away to church as soon as they had eaten their breakfast, telling them that she would wash their dishes. Throughout the morning her father and mother heard her about the work of getting dinner, with certain silences which represented the moments when she stopped and stood stock-still, and then, readjusting her burden, forced herself forward under it again. They sat alone in the family room, out of which their two girls seemed to have died. Lapham could not read his Sunday papers, and she had no heart to go to church, as she would have done earlier in life when in trouble. Just then she was obscurely feeling that the church was somehow to blame for that counsel of Mr. Sewell's on which they had acted. "I should like to know," she said, having brought the matter up, "whether he would have thought it was such a light matter if it had been his own children. Do you suppose he'd have been so ready to act on his own advice if it HAD been?" "He told us the right thing to do, Persis,--the only thing. We couldn't let it go on," urged her husband gently. "Well, it makes me despise Pen! Irene's showing twice the character that she is, this very minute." The mother said this so that the father might defend her daughter to her. He did not fail. "Irene's got the easiest part, the way I look at it. And you'll see that Pen'll know how to behave when the time comes." "What do you want she should do?" "I haven't got so far as that yet. What are we going to do about Irene?" "What do you want Pen should do," repeated Mrs. Lapham, "when it comes to it?" "Well, I don't want she should take him, for ONE thing," said Lapham. This seemed to satisfy Mrs. Lapham as to her husband, and she said in defence of Corey, "Why, I don't see what HE'S done. It's all been our doing." "Never mind that now. What about Irene?" "She says she's going to Lapham to-morrow. She feels that she's got to get away somewhere. It's natural she should." "Yes, and I presume it will be about the best thing FOR her. Shall you go with her?" "Yes." "Well." He comfortlessly took up a newspaper again, and she rose with a sigh, and went to her room to pack some things for the morrow's journey. After dinner, when Irene had cleared away the last trace of it in kitchen and dining-room with unsparing punctilio, she came downstairs, dressed to go out, and bade her father come to walk with her again. It was a repetition of the aimlessness of the last night's wanderings. They came back, and she got tea for them, and after that they heard her stirring about in her own room, as if she were busy about many things; but they did not dare to look in upon her, even after all the noises had ceased, and they knew she had gone to bed. "Yes; it's a thing she's got to fight out by herself," said Mrs Lapham. "I guess she'll get along," said Lapham. "But I don't want you should misjudge Pen either. She's all right too. She ain't to blame." "Yes, I know. But I can't work round to it all at once. I shan't misjudge her, but you can't expect me to get over it right away." "Mamma," said Irene, when she was hurrying their departure the next morning, "what did she tell him when he asked her?" "Tell him?" echoed the mother; and after a while she added, "She didn't tell him anything." "Did she say anything, about me?" "She said he mustn't come here any more." Irene turned and went into her sister's room. "Good-bye, Pen," she said, kissing her with an effect of not seeing or touching her. "I want you should tell him all about it. If he's half a man, he won't give up till he knows why you won't have him; and he has a right to know." "It wouldn't make any difference. I couldn't have him after----" "That's for you to say. But if you don't tell him about me, I will." "'Rene!" "Yes! You needn't say I cared for him. But you can say that you all thought he--cared for--me." "O Irene----" "Don't!" Irene escaped from the arms that tried to cast themselves about her. "You are all right, Pen. You haven't done anything. You've helped me all you could. But I can't--yet." She went out of the room and summoned Mrs. Lapham with a sharp "Now, mamma!" and went on putting the last things into her trunks. The Colonel went to the station with them, and put them on the train. He got them a little compartment to themselves in the Pullman car; and as he stood leaning with his lifted hands against the sides of the doorway, he tried to say something consoling and hopeful: "I guess you'll have an easy ride, Irene. I don't believe it'll be dusty, any, after the rain last night." "Don't you stay till the train starts, papa," returned the girl, in rigid rejection of his futilities. "Get off, now." "Well, if you want I should," he said, glad to be able to please her in anything. He remained on the platform till the cars started. He saw Irene bustling about in the compartment, making her mother comfortable for the journey; but Mrs. Lapham did not lift her head. The train moved off, and he went heavily back to his business. From time to time during the day, when he caught a glimpse of him, Corey tried to make out from his face whether he knew what had taken place between him and Penelope. When Rogers came in about time of closing, and shut himself up with Lapham in his room, the young man remained till the two came out together and parted in their salutationless fashion. Lapham showed no surprise at seeing Corey still there, and merely answered, "Well!" when the young man said that he wished to speak with him, and led the way back to his room. Corey shut the door behind them. "I only wish to speak to you in case you know of the matter already; for otherwise I'm bound by a promise." "I guess I know what you mean. It's about Penelope." "Yes, it's about Miss Lapham. I am greatly attached to her--you'll excuse my saying it; I couldn't excuse myself if I were not." "Perfectly excusable," said Lapham. "It's all right." "Oh, I'm glad to hear you say that!" cried the young fellow joyfully. "I want you to believe that this isn't a new thing or an unconsidered thing with me--though it seemed so unexpected to her." Lapham fetched a deep sigh. "It's all right as far as I'm concerned--or her mother. We've both liked you first-rate." "Yes?" "But there seems to be something in Penelope's mind--I don't know--" The Colonel consciously dropped his eyes. "She referred to something--I couldn't make out what--but I hoped--I hoped--that with your leave I might overcome it--the barrier--whatever it was. Miss Lapham--Penelope--gave me the hope--that I was--wasn't--indifferent to her----" "Yes, I guess that's so," said Lapham. He suddenly lifted his head, and confronted the young fellow's honest face with his own face, so different in its honesty. "Sure you never made up to any one else at the same time?" "NEVER! Who could imagine such a thing? If that's all, I can easily." "I don't say that's all, nor that that's it. I don't want you should go upon that idea. I just thought, may be--you hadn't thought of it." "No, I certainly hadn't thought of it! Such a thing would have been so impossible to me that I couldn't have thought of it; and it's so shocking to me now that I don't know what to say to it." "Well, don't take it too much to heart," said Lapham, alarmed at the feeling he had excited; "I don't say she thought so. I was trying to guess--trying to----" "If there is anything I can say or do to convince you----" "Oh, it ain't necessary to say anything. I'm all right." "But Miss Lapham! I may see her again? I may try to convince her that----" He stopped in distress, and Lapham afterwards told his wife that he kept seeing the face of Irene as it looked when he parted with her in the car; and whenever he was going to say yes, he could not open his lips. At the same time he could not help feeling that Penelope had a right to what was her own, and Sewell's words came back to him. Besides, they had already put Irene to the worst suffering. Lapham compromised, as he imagined. "You can come round to-night and see ME, if you want to," he said; and he bore grimly the gratitude that the young man poured out upon him. Penelope came down to supper and took her mother's place at the head of the table. Lapham sat silent in her presence as long as he could bear it. Then he asked, "How do you feel to-night, Pen?" "Oh, like a thief," said the girl. "A thief that hasn't been arrested yet." Lapham waited a while before he said, "Well, now, your mother and I want you should hold up on that a while." "It isn't for you to say. It's something I can't hold up on." "Yes, I guess you can. If I know what's happened, then what's happened is a thing that nobody is to blame for. And we want you should make the best of it and not the worst. Heigh? It ain't going to help Irene any for you to hurt yourself--or anybody else; and I don't want you should take up with any such crazy notion. As far as heard from, you haven't stolen anything, and whatever you've got belongs to you." "Has he been speaking to you, father?" "Your mother's been speaking to me." "Has HE been speaking to you?" "That's neither here nor there." "Then he's broken his word, and I will never speak to him again!" "If he was any such fool as to promise that he wouldn't talk to me on a subject"--Lapham drew a deep breath, and then made the plunge--"that I brought up----" "Did you bring it up?" "The same as brought up--the quicker he broke his word the better; and I want you should act upon that idea. Recollect that it's my business, and your mother's business, as well as yours, and we're going to have our say. He hain't done anything wrong, Pen, nor anything that he's going to be punished for. Understand that. He's got to have a reason, if you're not going to have him. I don't say you've got to have him; I want you should feel perfectly free about that; but I DO say you've got to give him a reason." "Is he coming here?" "I don't know as you'd call it COMING----" "Yes, you do, father!" said the girl, in forlorn amusement at his shuffling. "He's coming here to see ME----" "When's he coming?" "I don't know but he's coming to-night." "And you want I should see him?" "I don't know but you'd better." "All right. I'll see him." Lapham drew a long deep breath of suspicion inspired by this acquiescence. "What you going to do?" he asked presently. "I don't know yet," answered the girl sadly. "It depends a good deal upon what he does." "Well," said Lapham, with the hungriness of unsatisfied anxiety in his tone. When Corey's card was brought into the family-room where he and Penelope were sitting, he went into the parlour to find him. "I guess Penelope wants to see you," he said; and, indicating the family-room, he added, "She's in there," and did not go back himself. Corey made his way to the girl's presence with open trepidation, which was not allayed by her silence and languor. She sat in the chair where she had sat the other night, but she was not playing with a fan now. He came toward her, and then stood faltering. A faint smile quivered over her face at the spectacle of his subjection. "Sit down, Mr. Corey," she said. "There's no reason why we shouldn't talk it over quietly; for I know you will think I'm right." "I'm sure of that," he answered hopefully. "When I saw that your father knew of it to-day, I asked him to let me see you again. I'm afraid that I broke my promise to you--technically----" "It had to be broken." He took more courage at her words. "But I've only come to do whatever you say, and not to be an--annoyance to you----" "Yes, you have to know; but I couldn't tell you before. Now they all think I should." A tremor of anxiety passed over the young man's face, on which she kept her eyes steadily fixed. "We supposed it--it was--Irene----" He remained blank a moment, and then he said with a smile of relief, of deprecation, of protest, of amazement, of compassion-- "OH! Never! Never for an instant! How could you think such a thing? It was impossible! I never thought of her. But I see--I see! I can explain--no, there's nothing to explain! I have never knowingly done or said a thing from first to last to make you think that. I see how terrible it is!" he said; but he still smiled, as if he could not take it seriously. "I admired her beauty--who could help doing that?--and I thought her very good and sensible. Why, last winter in Texas, I told Stanton about our meeting in Canada, and we agreed--I only tell you to show you how far I always was from what you thought--that he must come North and try to see her, and--and--of course, it all sounds very silly!--and he sent her a newspaper with an account of his ranch in it----" "She thought it came from you." "Oh, good heavens! He didn't tell me till after he'd done it. But he did it for a part of our foolish joke. And when I met your sister again, I only admired her as before. I can see, now, how I must have seemed to be seeking her out; but it was to talk of you with her--I never talked of anything else if I could help it, except when I changed the subject because I was ashamed to be always talking of you. I see how distressing it is for all of you. But tell me that you believe me!" "Yes, I must. It's all been our mistake----" "It has indeed! But there's no mistake about my loving you, Penelope," he said; and the old-fashioned name, at which she had often mocked, was sweet to her from his lips. "That only makes it worse!" she answered. "Oh no!" he gently protested. "It makes it better. It makes it right. How is it worse? How is it wrong?" "Can't you see? You must understand all now! Don't you see that if she believed so too, and if she----" She could not go on. "Did she--did your sister--think that too?" gasped Corey. "She used to talk with me about you; and when you say you care for me now, it makes me feel like the vilest hypocrite in the world. That day you gave her the list of books, and she came down to Nantasket, and went on about you, I helped her to flatter herself--oh! I don't see how she can forgive me. But she knows I can never forgive myself! That's the reason she can do it. I can see now," she went on, "how I must have been trying to get you from her. I can't endure it! The only way is for me never to see you or speak to you again!" She laughed forlornly. "That would be pretty hard on you, if you cared." "I do care--all the world!" "Well, then, it would if you were going to keep on caring. You won't long, if you stop coming now." "Is this all, then? Is it the end?" "It's--whatever it is. I can't get over the thought of her. Once I thought I could, but now I see that I can't. It seems to grow worse. Sometimes I feel as if it would drive me crazy." He sat looking at her with lacklustre eyes. The light suddenly came back into them. "Do you think I could love you if you had been false to her? I know you have been true to her, and truer still to yourself. I never tried to see her, except with the hope of seeing you too. I supposed she must know that I was in love with you. From the first time I saw you there that afternoon, you filled my fancy. Do you think I was flirting with the child, or--no, you don't think that! We have not done wrong. We have not harmed any one knowingly. We have a right to each other----" "No! no! you must never speak to me of this again. If you do, I shall know that you despise me." "But how will that help her? I don't love HER." "Don't say that to me! I have said that to myself too much." "If you forbid me to love you, it won't make me love her," he persisted. She was about to speak, but she caught her breath without doing so, and merely stared at him. "I must do what you say," he continued. "But what good will it do her? You can't make her happy by making yourself unhappy." "Do you ask me to profit by a wrong?" "Not for the world. But there is no wrong!" "There is something--I don't know what. There's a wall between us. I shall dash myself against it as long as I live; but that won't break it." "Oh!" he groaned. "We have done no wrong. Why should we suffer from another's mistake as if it were our sin?" "I don't know. But we must suffer." "Well, then, I WILL not, for my part, and I will not let you. If you care for me----" "You had no right to know it." "You make it my privilege to keep you from doing wrong for the right's sake. I'm sorry, with all my heart and soul, for this error; but I can't blame myself, and I won't deny myself the happiness I haven't done anything to forfeit. I will never give you up. I will wait as long as you please for the time when you shall feel free from this mistake; but you shall be mine at last. Remember that. I might go away for months--a year, even; but that seems a cowardly and guilty thing, and I'm not afraid, and I'm not guilty, and I'm going to stay here and try to see you." She shook her head. "It won't change anything? Don't you see that there's no hope for us?" "When is she coming back?" he asked. "I don't know. Mother wants father to come and take her out West for a while." "She's up there in the country with your mother yet?" "Yes." He was silent; then he said desperately-- "Penelope, she is very young; and perhaps--perhaps she might meet----" "It would make no difference. It wouldn't change it for me." "You are cruel--cruel to yourself, if you love me, and cruel to me. Don't you remember that night--before I spoke--you were talking of that book; and you said it was foolish and wicked to do as that girl did. Why is it different with you, except that you give me nothing, and can never give me anything when you take yourself away? If it were anybody else, I am sure you would say----" "But it isn't anybody else, and that makes it impossible. Sometimes I think it might be if I would only say so to myself, and then all that I said to her about you comes up----" "I will wait. It can't always come up. I won't urge you any longer now. But you will see it differently--more clearly. Good-bye--no! Good night! I shall come again to-morrow. It will surely come right, and, whatever happens, you have done no wrong. Try to keep that in mind. I am so happy, in spite of all!" He tried to take her hand, but she put it behind her. "No, no! I can't let you--yet!" XX. AFTER a week Mrs. Lapham returned, leaving Irene alone at the old homestead in Vermont. "She's comfortable there--as comfortable as she can be anywheres, I guess," she said to her husband as they drove together from the station, where he had met her in obedience to her telegraphic summons. "She keeps herself busy helping about the house; and she goes round amongst the hands in their houses. There's sickness, and you know how helpful she is where there's sickness. She don't complain any. I don't know as I've heard a word out of her mouth since we left home; but I'm afraid it'll wear on her, Silas." "You don't look over and above well yourself, Persis," said her husband kindly. "Oh, don't talk about me. What I want to know is whether you can't get the time to run off with her somewhere. I wrote to you about Dubuque. She'll work herself down, I'm afraid; and THEN I don't know as she'll be over it. But if she could go off, and be amused--see new people----" "I could MAKE the time," said Lapham, "if I had to. But, as it happens, I've got to go out West on business,--I'll tell you about it,--and I'll take Irene along." "Good!" said his wife. "That's about the best thing I've heard yet. Where you going?" "Out Dubuque way." "Anything the matter with Bill's folks?" "No. It's business." "How's Pen?" "I guess she ain't much better than Irene." "He been about any?" "Yes. But I can't see as it helps matters much." "Tchk!" Mrs. Lapham fell back against the carriage cushions. "I declare, to see her willing to take the man that we all thought wanted her sister! I can't make it seem right." "It's right," said Lapham stoutly; "but I guess she ain't willing; I wish she was. But there don't seem to be any way out of the thing, anywhere. It's a perfect snarl. But I don't want you should be anyways ha'sh with Pen." Mrs. Lapham answered nothing; but when she met Penelope she gave the girl's wan face a sharp look, and began to whimper on her neck. Penelope's tears were all spent. "Well, mother," she said, "you come back almost as cheerful as you went away. I needn't ask if 'Rene's in good spirits. We all seem to be overflowing with them. I suppose this is one way of congratulating me. Mrs. Corey hasn't been round to do it yet." "Are you--are you engaged to him, Pen?" gasped her mother. "Judging by my feelings, I should say not. I feel as if it was a last will and testament. But you'd better ask him when he comes." "I can't bear to look at him." "I guess he's used to that. He don't seem to expect to be looked at. Well! we're all just where we started. I wonder how long it will keep up." Mrs. Lapham reported to her husband when he came home at night--he had left his business to go and meet her, and then, after a desolate dinner at the house, had returned to the office again--that Penelope was fully as bad as Irene. "And she don't know how to work it off. Irene keeps doing; but Pen just sits in her room and mopes. She don't even read. I went up this afternoon to scold her about the state the house was in--you can see that Irene's away by the perfect mess; but when I saw her through the crack of the door I hadn't the heart. She sat there with her hands in her lap, just staring. And, my goodness! she JUMPED so when she saw me; and then she fell back, and began to laugh, and said she, 'I thought it was my ghost, mother!' I felt as if I should give way." Lapham listened jadedly, and answered far from the point. "I guess I've got to start out there pretty soon, Persis." "How soon?" "Well, to-morrow morning." Mrs. Lapham sat silent. Then, "All right," she said. "I'll get you ready." "I shall run up to Lapham for Irene, and then I'll push on through Canada. I can get there about as quick." "Is it anything you can tell me about, Silas?" "Yes," said Lapham. "But it's a long story, and I guess you've got your hands pretty full as it is. I've been throwing good money after bad,--the usual way,--and now I've got to see if I can save the pieces." After a moment Mrs. Lapham asked, "Is it--Rogers?" "It's Rogers." "I didn't want you should get in any deeper with him." "No. You didn't want I should press him either; and I had to do one or the other. And so I got in deeper." "Silas," said his wife, "I'm afraid I made you!" "It's all right, Persis, as far forth as that goes. I was glad to make it up with him--I jumped at the chance. I guess Rogers saw that he had a soft thing in me, and he's worked it for all it was worth. But it'll all come out right in the end." Lapham said this as if he did not care to talk any more about it. He added casually, "Pretty near everybody but the fellows that owe ME seem to expect me to do a cash business, all of a sudden." "Do you mean that you've got payments to make, and that people are not paying YOU?" Lapham winced a little. "Something like that," he said, and he lighted a cigar. "But when I tell you it's all right, I mean it, Persis. I ain't going to let the grass grow under my feet, though,--especially while Rogers digs the ground away from the roots." "What are you going to do?" "If it has to come to that, I'm going to squeeze him." Lapham's countenance lighted up with greater joy than had yet visited it since the day they had driven out to Brookline. "Milton K. Rogers is a rascal, if you want to know; or else all the signs fail. But I guess he'll find he's got his come-uppance." Lapham shut his lips so that the short, reddish-grey beard stuck straight out on them. "What's he done?" "What's he done? Well, now, I'll tell you what he's done, Persis, since you think Rogers is such a saint, and that I used him so badly in getting him out of the business. He's been dabbling in every sort of fool thing you can lay your tongue to,--wild-cat stocks, patent-rights, land speculations, oil claims,--till he's run through about everything. But he did have a big milling property out on the line of the P. Y. & X.,--saw-mills and grist-mills and lands,--and for the last eight years he's been doing a land-office business with 'em--business that would have made anybody else rich. But you can't make Milton K. Rogers rich, any more than you can fat a hide-bound colt. It ain't in him. He'd run through Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Tom Scott rolled into one in less than six months, give him a chance, and come out and want to borrow money of you. Well, he won't borrow any more money of ME; and if he thinks I don't know as much about that milling property as he does he's mistaken. I've taken his mills, but I guess I've got the inside track; Bill's kept me posted; and now I'm going out there to see how I can unload; and I shan't mind a great deal if Rogers is under the load when it's off once." "I don't understand you, Silas." "Why, it's just this. The Great Lacustrine & Polar Railroad has leased the P. Y. & X. for ninety-nine years,--bought it, practically,--and it's going to build car-works right by those mills, and it may want them. And Milton K. Rogers knew it when he turned 'em in on me." "Well, if the road wants them, don't that make the mills valuable? You can get what you ask for them!" "Can I? The P. Y. & X. is the only road that runs within fifty miles of the mills, and you can't get a foot of lumber nor a pound of flour to market any other way. As long as he had a little local road like the P. Y. & X. to deal with, Rogers could manage; but when it come to a big through line like the G. L. & P., he couldn't stand any chance at all. If such a road as that took a fancy to his mills, do you think it would pay what he asked? No, sir! He would take what the road offered, or else the road would tell him to carry his flour and lumber to market himself." "And do you suppose he knew the G. L. & P. wanted the mills when he turned them in on you?" asked Mrs. Lapham aghast, and falling helplessly into his alphabetical parlance. The Colonel laughed scoffingly. "Well, when Milton K. Rogers don't know which side his bread's buttered on! I don't understand," he added thoughtfully, "how he's always letting it fall on the buttered side. But such a man as that is sure to have a screw loose in him somewhere." Mrs. Lapham sat discomfited. All that she could say was, "Well, I want you should ask yourself whether Rogers would ever have gone wrong, or got into these ways of his, if it hadn't been for your forcing him out of the business when you did. I want you should think whether you're not responsible for everything he's done since." "You go and get that bag of mine ready," said Lapham sullenly. "I guess I can take care of myself. And Milton K. Rogers too," he added. That evening Corey spent the time after dinner in his own room, with restless excursions to the library, where his mother sat with his father and sisters, and showed no signs of leaving them. At last, in coming down, he encountered her on the stairs, going up. They both stopped consciously. "I would like to speak with you, mother. I have been waiting to see you alone." "Come to my room," she said. "I have a feeling that you know what I want to say," he began there. She looked up at him where he stood by the chimney-piece, and tried to put a cheerful note into her questioning "Yes?" "Yes; and I have a feeling that you won't like it--that you won't approve of it. I wish you did--I wish you could!" "I'm used to liking and approving everything you do, Tom. If I don't like this at once, I shall try to like it--you know that--for your sake, whatever it is." "I'd better be short," he said, with a quick sigh. "It's about Miss Lapham." He hastened to add, "I hope it isn't surprising to you. I'd have told you before, if I could." "No, it isn't surprising. I was afraid--I suspected something of the kind." They were both silent in a painful silence. "Well, mother?" he asked at last. "If it's something you've quite made up mind to----" "It is!" "And if you've already spoken to her----" "I had to do that first, of course." "There would be no use of my saying anything, even if I disliked it." "You do dislike it!" "No--no! I can't say that. Of course I should have preferred it if you had chosen some nice girl among those that you had been brought up with--some friend or associate of your sisters, whose people we had known----" "Yes, I understand that, and I can assure you that I haven't been indifferent to your feelings. I have tried to consider them from the first, and it kept me hesitating in a way that I'm ashamed to think of; for it wasn't quite right towards--others. But your feelings and my sisters' have been in my mind, and if I couldn't yield to what I supposed they must be, entirely----" Even so good a son and brother as this, when it came to his love affair, appeared to think that he had yielded much in considering the feelings of his family at all. His mother hastened to comfort him. "I know--I know. I've seen for some time that this might happen, Tom, and I have prepared myself for it. I have talked it over with your father, and we both agreed from the beginning that you were not to be hampered by our feeling. Still--it is a surprise. It must be." "I know it. I can understand your feeling. But I'm sure that it's one that will last only while you don't know her well." "Oh, I'm sure of that, Tom. I'm sure that we shall all be fond of her,--for your sake at first, even--and I hope she'll like us." "I am quite certain of that," said Corey, with that confidence which experience does not always confirm in such cases. "And your taking it as you do lifts a tremendous load off me." But he sighed so heavily, and looked so troubled, that his mother said, "Well, now, you mustn't think of that any more. We wish what is for your happiness, my son, and we will gladly reconcile ourselves to anything that might have been disagreeable. I suppose we needn't speak of the family. We must both think alike about them. They have their--drawbacks, but they are thoroughly good people, and I satisfied myself the other night that they were not to be dreaded." She rose, and put her arm round his neck. "And I wish you joy, Tom! If she's half as good as you are, you will both be very happy." She was going to kiss him, but something in his looks stopped her--an absence, a trouble, which broke out in his words. "I must tell you, mother! There's been a complication--a mistake--that's a blight on me yet, and that it sometimes seems as if we couldn't escape from. I wonder if you can help us! They all thought I meant--the other sister." "O Tom! But how COULD they?" "I don't know. It seemed so glaringly plain--I was ashamed of making it so outright from the beginning. But they did. Even she did, herself!" "But where could they have thought your eyes were--your taste? It wouldn't be surprising if any one were taken with that wonderful beauty; and I'm sure she's good too. But I'm astonished at them! To think you could prefer that little, black, odd creature, with her joking and----" "MOTHER!" cried the young man, turning a ghastly face of warning upon her. "What do you mean, Tom?" "Did you--did--did you think so too--that it was IRENE I meant?" "Why, of course!" He stared at her hopelessly. "O my son!" she said, for all comment on the situation. "Don't reproach me, mother! I couldn't stand it." "No. I didn't mean to do that. But how--HOW could it happen?" "I don't know. When she first told me that they had understood it so, I laughed--almost--it was so far from me. But now when you seem to have had the same idea--Did you all think so?" "Yes." They remained looking at each other. Then Mrs. Corey began: "It did pass through my mind once--that day I went to call upon them--that it might not be as we thought; but I knew so little of--of----" "Penelope," Corey mechanically supplied. "Is that her name?--I forgot--that I only thought of you in relation to her long enough to reject the idea; and it was natural after our seeing something of the other one last year, that I might suppose you had formed some--attachment----" "Yes; that's what they thought too. But I never thought of her as anything but a pretty child. I was civil to her because you wished it; and when I met her here again, I only tried to see her so that I could talk with her about her sister." "You needn't defend yourself to ME, Tom," said his mother, proud to say it to him in his trouble. "It's a terrible business for them, poor things," she added. "I don't know how they could get over it. But, of course, sensible people must see----" "They haven't got over it. At least she hasn't. Since it's happened, there's been nothing that hasn't made me prouder and fonder of her! At first I WAS charmed with her--my fancy was taken; she delighted me--I don't know how; but she was simply the most fascinating person I ever saw. Now I never think of that. I only think how good she is--how patient she is with me, and how unsparing she is of herself. If she were concerned alone--if I were not concerned too--it would soon end. She's never had a thought for anything but her sister's feeling and mine from the beginning. I go there,--I know that I oughtn't, but I can't help it,--and she suffers it, and tries not to let me see that she is suffering it. There never was any one like her--so brave, so true, so noble. I won't give her up--I can't. But it breaks my heart when she accuses herself of what was all MY doing. We spend our time trying to reason out of it, but we always come back to it at last, and I have to hear her morbidly blaming herself. Oh!" Doubtless Mrs. Corey imagined some reliefs to this suffering, some qualifications of this sublimity in a girl she had disliked so distinctly; but she saw none in her son's behaviour, and she gave him her further sympathy. She tried to praise Penelope, and said that it was not to be expected that she could reconcile herself at once to everything. "I shouldn't have liked it in her if she had. But time will bring it all right. And if she really cares for you----" "I extorted that from her." "Well, then, you must look at it in the best light you can. There is no blame anywhere, and the mortification and pain is something that must be lived down. That's all. And don't let what I said grieve you, Tom. You know I scarcely knew her, and I--I shall be sure to like any one you like, after all." "Yes, I know," said the young man drearily. "Will you tell father?" "If you wish." "He must know. And I couldn't stand any more of this, just yet--any more mistake." "I will tell him," said Mrs. Corey; and it was naturally the next thing for a woman who dwelt so much on decencies to propose: "We must go to call on her--your sisters and I. They have never seen her even; and she mustn't be allowed to think we're indifferent to her, especially under the circumstances." "Oh no! Don't go--not yet," cried Corey, with an instinctive perception that nothing could be worse for him. "We must wait--we must be patient. I'm afraid it would be painful to her now." He turned away without speaking further; and his mother's eyes followed him wistfully to the door. There were some questions that she would have liked to ask him; but she had to content herself with trying to answer them when her husband put them to her. There was this comfort for her always in Bromfield Corey, that he never was much surprised at anything, however shocking or painful. His standpoint in regard to most matters was that of the sympathetic humorist who would be glad to have the victim of circumstance laugh with him, but was not too much vexed when the victim could not. He laughed now when his wife, with careful preparation, got the facts of his son's predicament fully under his eye. "Really, Bromfield," she said, "I don't see how you can laugh. Do you see any way out of it?" "It seems to me that the way has been found already. Tom has told his love to the right one, and the wrong one knows it. Time will do the rest." "If I had so low an opinion of them all as that, it would make me very unhappy. It's shocking to think of it." "It is upon the theory of ladies and all young people," said her husband, with a shrug, feeling his way to the matches on the mantel, and then dropping them with a sign, as if recollecting that he must not smoke there. "I've no doubt Tom feels himself an awful sinner. But apparently he's resigned to his sin; he isn't going to give her up." "I'm glad to say, for the sake of human nature, that SHE isn't resigned--little as I like her," cried Mrs. Corey. Her husband shrugged again. "Oh, there mustn't be any indecent haste. She will instinctively observe the proprieties. But come, now, Anna! you mustn't pretend to me here, in the sanctuary of home, that practically the human affections don't reconcile themselves to any situation that the human sentiments condemn. Suppose the wrong sister had died: would the right one have had any scruple in marrying Tom, after they had both 'waited a proper time,' as the phrase is?" "Bromfield, you're shocking!" "Not more shocking than reality. You may regard this as a second marriage." He looked at her with twinkling eyes, full of the triumph the spectator of his species feels in signal exhibitions of human nature. "Depend upon it, the right sister will be reconciled; the wrong one will be consoled; and all will go merry as a marriage bell--a second marriage bell. Why, it's quite like a romance!" Here he laughed outright again. "Well," sighed the wife, "I could almost wish the right one, as you call her, would reject Tom, I dislike her so much." "Ah, now you're talking business, Anna," said her husband, with his hands spread behind the back he turned comfortably to the fire. "The whole Lapham tribe is distasteful to me. As I don't happen to have seen our daughter-in-law elect, I have still the hope--which you're disposed to forbid me--that she may not be quite so unacceptable as the others." "Do you really feel so, Bromfield?" anxiously inquired his wife. "Yes--I think I do;" and he sat down, and stretched out his long legs toward the fire. "But it's very inconsistent of you to oppose the matter now, when you've shown so much indifference up to this time. You've told me, all along, that it was of no use to oppose it." "So I have. I was convinced of that at the beginning, or my reason was. You know very well that I am equal to any trial, any sacrifice, day after to-morrow; but when it comes to-day it's another thing. As long as this crisis decently kept its distance, I could look at it with an impartial eye; but now that it seems at hand, I find that, while my reason is still acquiescent, my nerves are disposed to--excuse the phrase--kick. I ask myself, what have I done nothing for, all my life, and lived as a gentleman should, upon the earnings of somebody else, in the possession of every polite taste and feeling that adorns leisure, if I'm to come to this at last? And I find no satisfactory answer. I say to myself that I might as well have yielded to the pressure all round me, and gone to work, as Tom has." Mrs. Corey looked at him forlornly, divining the core of real repugnance that existed in his self-satire. "I assure you, my dear," he continued, "that the recollection of what I suffered from the Laphams at that dinner of yours is an anguish still. It wasn't their behaviour,--they behaved well enough--or ill enough; but their conversation was terrible. Mrs. Lapham's range was strictly domestic; and when the Colonel got me in the library, he poured mineral paint all over me, till I could have been safely warranted not to crack or scale in any climate. I suppose we shall have to see a good deal of them. They will probably come here every Sunday night to tea. It's a perspective without a vanishing-point." "It may not be so bad, after all," said his wife; and she suggested for his consolation that he knew very little about the Laphams yet. He assented to the fact. "I know very little about them, and about my other fellow-beings. I dare say that I should like the Laphams better if I knew them better. But in any case, I resign myself. And we must keep in view the fact that this is mainly Tom's affair, and if his affections have regulated it to his satisfaction, we must be content." "Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "And perhaps it won't turn out so badly. It's a great comfort to know that you feel just as I do about it." "I do," said her husband, "and more too." It was she and her daughters who would be chiefly annoyed by the Lapham connection; she knew that. But she had to begin to bear the burden by helping her husband to bear his light share of it. To see him so depressed dismayed her, and she might well have reproached him more sharply than she did for showing so much indifference, when she was so anxious, at first. But that would not have served any good end now. She even answered him patiently when he asked her, "What did you say to Tom when he told you it was the other one?" "What could I say? I could do nothing, but try to take back what I had said against her." "Yes, you had quite enough to do, I suppose. It's an awkward business. If it had been the pretty one, her beauty would have been our excuse. But the plain one--what do you suppose attracted him in her?" Mrs. Corey sighed at the futility of the question. "Perhaps I did her injustice. I only saw her a few moments. Perhaps I got a false impression. I don't think she's lacking in sense, and that's a great thing. She'll be quick to see that we don't mean unkindness, and can't, by anything we say or do, when she's Tom's wife." She pronounced the distasteful word with courage, and went on: "The pretty one might not have been able to see that. She might have got it into her head that we were looking down on her; and those insipid people are terribly stubborn. We can come to some understanding with this one; I'm sure of that." She ended by declaring that it was now their duty to help Tom out of his terrible predicament. "Oh, even the Lapham cloud has a silver lining," said Corey. "In fact, it seems really to have all turned out for the best, Anna; though it's rather curious to find you the champion of the Lapham side, at last. Confess, now, that the right girl has secretly been your choice all along, and that while you sympathise with the wrong one, you rejoice in the tenacity with which the right one is clinging to her own!" He added with final seriousness, "It's just that she should, and, so far as I understand the case, I respect her for it." "Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "It's natural, and it's right." But she added, "I suppose they're glad of him on any terms." "That is what I have been taught to believe," said her husband. "When shall we see our daughter-in-law elect? I find myself rather impatient to have that part of it over." Mrs. Corey hesitated. "Tom thinks we had better not call, just yet." "She has told him of your terrible behaviour when you called before?" "No, Bromfield! She couldn't be so vulgar as that?" "But anything short of it?" XXI. LAPHAM was gone a fortnight. He was in a sullen humour when he came back, and kept himself shut close within his own den at the office the first day. He entered it in the morning without a word to his clerks as he passed through the outer room, and he made no sign throughout the forenoon, except to strike savagely on his desk-bell from time to time, and send out to Walker for some book of accounts or a letter-file. His boy confidentially reported to Walker that the old man seemed to have got a lot of papers round; and at lunch the book-keeper said to Corey, at the little table which they had taken in a corner together, in default of seats at the counter, "Well, sir, I guess there's a cold wave coming." Corey looked up innocently, and said, "I haven't read the weather report." "Yes, sir," Walker continued, "it's coming. Areas of rain along the whole coast, and increased pressure in the region of the private office. Storm-signals up at the old man's door now." Corey perceived that he was speaking figuratively, and that his meteorology was entirely personal to Lapham. "What do you mean?" he asked, without vivid interest in the allegory, his mind being full of his own tragi-comedy. "Why, just this: I guess the old man's takin' in sail. And I guess he's got to. As I told you the first time we talked about him, there don't any one know one-quarter as much about the old man's business as the old man does himself; and I ain't betraying any confidence when I say that I guess that old partner of his has got pretty deep into his books. I guess he's over head and ears in 'em, and the old man's gone in after him, and he's got a drownin' man's grip round his neck. There seems to be a kind of a lull--kind of a dead calm, I call it--in the paint market just now; and then again a ten-hundred-thousand-dollar man don't build a hundred-thousand-dollar house without feeling the drain, unless there's a regular boom. And just now there ain't any boom at all. Oh, I don't say but what the old man's got anchors to windward; guess he HAS; but if he's GOIN' to leave me his money, I wish he'd left it six weeks ago. Yes, sir, I guess there's a cold wave comin'; but you can't generally 'most always tell, as a usual thing, where the old man's concerned, and it's ONLY a guess." Walker began to feed in his breaded chop with the same nervous excitement with which he abandoned himself to the slangy and figurative excesses of his talks. Corey had listened with a miserable curiosity and compassion up to a certain moment, when a broad light of hope flashed upon him. It came from Lapham's potential ruin; and the way out of the labyrinth that had hitherto seemed so hopeless was clear enough, if another's disaster would befriend him, and give him the opportunity to prove the unselfishness of his constancy. He thought of the sum of money that was his own, and that he might offer to lend, or practically give, if the time came; and with his crude hopes and purposes formlessly exulting in his heart, he kept on listening with an unchanged countenance. Walker could not rest till he had developed the whole situation, so far as he knew it. "Look at the stock we've got on hand. There's going to be an awful shrinkage on that, now! And when everybody is shutting down, or running half-time, the works up at Lapham are going full chip, just the same as ever. Well, it's his pride. I don't say but what it's a good sort of pride, but he likes to make his brags that the fire's never been out in the works since they started, and that no man's work or wages has ever been cut down yet at Lapham, it don't matter WHAT the times are. Of course," explained Walker, "I shouldn't talk so to everybody; don't know as I should talk so to anybody but you, Mr. Corey." "Of course," assented Corey. "Little off your feed to-day," said Walker, glancing at Corey's plate. "I got up with a headache." "Well, sir, if you're like me you'll carry it round all day, then. I don't know a much meaner thing than a headache--unless it's earache, or toothache, or some other kind of ache I'm pretty hard to suit, when it comes to diseases. Notice how yellow the old man looked when he came in this morning? I don't like to see a man of his build look yellow--much." About the middle of the afternoon the dust-coloured face of Rogers, now familiar to Lapham's clerks, showed itself among them. "Has Colonel Lapham returned yet?" he asked, in his dry, wooden tones, of Lapham's boy. "Yes, he's in his office," said the boy; and as Rogers advanced, he rose and added, "I don't know as you can see him to-day. His orders are not to let anybody in." "Oh, indeed!" said Rogers; "I think he will see ME!" and he pressed forward. "Well, I'll have to ask," returned the boy; and hastily preceding Rogers, he put his head in at Lapham's door, and then withdrew it. "Please to sit down," he said; "he'll see you pretty soon;" and, with an air of some surprise, Rogers obeyed. His sere, dull-brown whiskers and the moustache closing over both lips were incongruously and illogically clerical in effect, and the effect was heightened for no reason by the parchment texture of his skin; the baldness extending to the crown of his head was like a baldness made up for the stage. What his face expressed chiefly was a bland and beneficent caution. Here, you must have said to yourself, is a man of just, sober, and prudent views, fixed purposes, and the good citizenship that avoids debt and hazard of every kind. "What do you want?" asked Lapham, wheeling round in his swivel-chair as Rogers entered his room, and pushing the door shut with his foot, without rising. Rogers took the chair that was not offered him, and sat with his hat-brim on his knees, and its crown pointed towards Lapham. "I want to know what you are going to do," he answered with sufficient self-possession. "I'll tell you, first, what I've done," said Lapham. "I've been to Dubuque, and I've found out all about that milling property you turned in on me. Did you know that the G. L. & P. had leased the P. Y. & X.?" "I some suspected that it might." "Did you know it when you turned the property in on me? Did you know that the G. L. & P. wanted to buy the mills?" "I presumed the road would give a fair price for them," said Rogers, winking his eyes in outward expression of inwardly blinking the point. "You lie," said Lapham, as quietly as if correcting him in a slight error; and Rogers took the word with equal sang froid. "You knew the road wouldn't give a fair price for the mills. You knew it would give what it chose, and that I couldn't help myself, when you let me take them. You're a thief, Milton K. Rogers, and you stole money I lent you." Rogers sat listening, as if respectfully considering the statements. "You knew how I felt about that old matter--or my wife did; and that I wanted to make it up to you, if you felt anyway badly used. And you took advantage of it. You've got money out of me, in the first place, on securities that wa'n't worth thirty-five cents on the dollar, and you've let me in for this thing, and that thing, and you've bled me every time. And all I've got to show for it is a milling property on a line of road that can squeeze me, whenever it wants to, as dry as it pleases. And you want to know what I'm going to do? I'm going to squeeze YOU. I'm going to sell these collaterals of yours,"--he touched a bundle of papers among others that littered his desk,--"and I'm going to let the mills go for what they'll fetch. I ain't going to fight the G. L. & P." Lapham wheeled about in his chair and turned his burly back on his visitor, who sat wholly unmoved. "There are some parties," he began, with a dry tranquillity ignoring Lapham's words, as if they had been an outburst against some third person, who probably merited them, but in whom he was so little interested that he had been obliged to use patience in listening to his condemnation,--"there are some English parties who have been making inquiries in regard to those mills." "I guess you're lying, Rogers," said Lapham, without looking round. "Well, all that I have to ask is that you will not act hastily." "I see you don't think I'm in earnest!" cried Lapham, facing fiercely about. "You think I'm fooling, do you?" He struck his bell, and "William," he ordered the boy who answered it, and who stood waiting while he dashed off a note to the brokers and enclosed it with the bundle of securities in a large envelope, "take these down to Gallop & Paddock's, in State Street, right away. Now go!" he said to Rogers, when the boy had closed the door after him; and he turned once more to his desk. Rogers rose from his chair, and stood with his hat in his hand. He was not merely dispassionate in his attitude and expression, he was impartial. He wore the air of a man who was ready to return to business whenever the wayward mood of his interlocutor permitted. "Then I understand," he said, "that you will take no action in regard to the mills till I have seen the parties I speak of." Lapham faced about once more, and sat looking up into the visage of Rogers in silence. "I wonder what you're up to," he said at last; "I should like to know." But as Rogers made no sign of gratifying his curiosity, and treated this last remark of Lapham's as of the irrelevance of all the rest, he said, frowning, "You bring me a party that will give me enough for those mills to clear me of you, and I'll talk to you. But don't you come here with any man of straw. And I'll give you just twenty-four hours to prove yourself a swindler again." Once more Lapham turned his back, and Rogers, after looking thoughtfully into his hat a moment, cleared his throat, and quietly withdrew, maintaining to the last his unprejudiced demeanour. Lapham was not again heard from, as Walker phrased it, during the afternoon, except when the last mail was taken in to him; then the sound of rending envelopes, mixed with that of what seemed suppressed swearing, penetrated to the outer office. Somewhat earlier than the usual hour for closing, he appeared there with his hat on and his overcoat buttoned about him. He said briefly to his boy, "William, I shan't be back again this afternoon," and then went to Miss Dewey and left a number of letters on her table to be copied, and went out. Nothing had been said, but a sense of trouble subtly diffused itself through those who saw him go out. That evening as he sat down with his wife alone at tea, he asked, "Ain't Pen coming to supper?" "No, she ain't," said his wife. "I don't know as I like the way she's going on, any too well. I'm afraid, if she keeps on, she'll be down sick. She's got deeper feelings than Irene." Lapham said nothing, but having helped himself to the abundance of his table in his usual fashion, he sat and looked at his plate with an indifference that did not escape the notice of his wife. "What's the matter with YOU?" she asked. "Nothing. I haven't got any appetite." "What's the matter?" she persisted. "Trouble's the matter; bad luck and lots of it's the matter," said Lapham. "I haven't ever hid anything from you, Persis, well you asked me, and it's too late to begin now. I'm in a fix. I'll tell you what kind of a fix, if you think it'll do you any good; but I guess you'll be satisfied to know that it's a fix." "How much of a one?" she asked with a look of grave, steady courage in her eyes. "Well, I don't know as I can tell, just yet," said Lapham, avoiding this look. "Things have been dull all the fall, but I thought they'd brisk up come winter. They haven't. There have been a lot of failures, and some of 'em owed me, and some of 'em had me on their paper; and----" Lapham stopped. "And what?" prompted his wife. He hesitated before he added, "And then--Rogers." "I'm to blame for that," said Mrs. Lapham. "I forced you to it." "No; I was as willing to go into it as what you were," answered Lapham. "I don't want to blame anybody." Mrs. Lapham had a woman's passion for fixing responsibility; she could not help saying, as soon as acquitted, "I warned you against him, Silas. I told you not to let him get in any deeper with you." "Oh yes. I had to help him to try to get my money back. I might as well poured water into a sieve. And now--" Lapham stopped. "Don't be afraid to speak out to me, Silas Lapham. If it comes to the worst, I want to know it--I've got to know it. What did I ever care for the money? I've had a happy home with you ever since we were married, and I guess I shall have as long as you live, whether we go on to the Back Bay, or go back to the old house at Lapham. I know who's to blame, and I blame myself. It was my forcing Rogers on to you." She came back to this with her helpless longing, inbred in all Puritan souls, to have some one specifically suffer for the evil in the world, even if it must be herself. "It hasn't come to the worst yet, Persis," said her husband. "But I shall have to hold up on the new house a little while, till I can see where I am." "I shouldn't care if we had to sell it," cried his wife, in passionate self-condemnation. "I should be GLAD if we had to, as far as I'm concerned." "I shouldn't," said Lapham. "I know!" said his wife; and she remembered ruefully how his heart was set on it. He sat musing. "Well, I guess it's going to come out all right in the end. Or, if it ain't," he sighed, "we can't help it. May be Pen needn't worry so much about Corey, after all," he continued, with a bitter irony new to him. "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good. And there's a chance," he ended, with a still bitterer laugh, "that Rogers will come to time, after all." "I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. Lapham, with a gleam of hope in her eyes. "What chance?" "One in ten million," said Lapham; and her face fell again. "He says there are some English parties after him to buy these mills." "Well?" "Well, I gave him twenty-four hours to prove himself a liar." "You don't believe there are any such parties?" "Not in THIS world." "But if there were?" "Well, if there were, Persis----But pshaw!" "No, no!" she pleaded eagerly. "It don't seem as if he COULD be such a villain. What would be the use of his pretending? If he brought the parties to you." "Well," said Lapham scornfully, "I'd let them have the mills at the price Rogers turned 'em in on me at. I don't want to make anything on 'em. But guess I shall hear from the G. L. & P. first. And when they make their offer, I guess I'll have to accept it, whatever it is. I don't think they'll have a great many competitors." Mrs. Lapham could not give up her hope. "If you could get your price from those English parties before they knew that the G. L. & P. wanted to buy the mills, would it let you out with Rogers?" "Just about," said Lapham. "Then I know he'll move heaven and earth to bring it about. I KNOW you won't be allowed to suffer for doing him a kindness, Silas. He CAN'T be so ungrateful! Why, why SHOULD he pretend to have any such parties in view when he hasn't? Don't you be down-hearted, Si. You'll see that he'll be round with them to-morrow." Lapham laughed, but she urged so many reasons for her belief in Rogers that Lapham began to rekindle his own faith a little. He ended by asking for a hot cup of tea; and Mrs. Lapham sent the pot out and had a fresh one steeped for him. After that he made a hearty supper in the revulsion from his entire despair; and they fell asleep that night talking hopefully of his affairs, which he laid before her fully, as he used to do when he first started in business. That brought the old times back, and he said: "If this had happened then, I shouldn't have cared much. I was young then, and I wasn't afraid of anything. But I noticed that after I passed fifty I began to get scared easier. I don't believe I could pick up, now, from a regular knock-down." "Pshaw! YOU scared, Silas Lapham?" cried his wife proudly. "I should like to see the thing that ever scared you; or the knockdown that YOU couldn't pick up from!" "Is that so, Persis?" he asked, with the joy her courage gave him. In the middle of the night she called to him, in a voice which the darkness rendered still more deeply troubled: "Are you awake, Silas?" "Yes; I'm awake." "I've been thinking about those English parties, Si----" "So've I." "And I can't make it out but what you'd be just as bad as Rogers, every bit and grain, if you were to let them have the mills----" "And not tell 'em what the chances were with the G. L. & P.? I thought of that, and you needn't be afraid." She began to bewail herself, and to sob convulsively: "O Silas! O Silas!" Heaven knows in what measure the passion of her soul was mired with pride in her husband's honesty, relief from an apprehended struggle, and pity for him. "Hush, hush, Persis!" he besought her. "You'll wake Pen if you keep on that way. Don't cry any more! You mustn't." "Oh, let me cry, Silas! It'll help me. I shall be all right in a minute. Don't you mind." She sobbed herself quiet. "It does seem too hard," she said, when she could speak again, "that you have to give up this chance when Providence had fairly raised it up for you." "I guess it wa'n't Providence raised it up," said Lapham. "Any rate, it's got to go. Most likely Rogers was lyin', and there ain't any such parties; but if there were, they couldn't have the mills from me without the whole story. Don't you be troubled, Persis. I'm going to pull through all right." "Oh, I ain't afraid. I don't suppose but what there's plenty would help you, if they knew you needed it, Si." "They would if they knew I DIDN'T need it," said Lapham sardonically. "Did you tell Bill how you stood?" "No, I couldn't bear to. I've been the rich one so long, that I couldn't bring myself to own up that I was in danger." "Yes." "Besides, it didn't look so ugly till to-day. But I guess we shan't let ugly looks scare us." "No." XXII. THE morning postman brought Mrs. Lapham a letter from Irene, which was chiefly significant because it made no reference whatever to the writer or her state of mind. It gave the news of her uncle's family; it told of their kindness to her; her cousin Will was going to take her and his sisters ice-boating on the river, when it froze. By the time this letter came, Lapham had gone to his business, and the mother carried it to Penelope to talk over. "What do you make out of it?" she asked; and without waiting to be answered she said, "I don't know as I believe in cousins marrying, a great deal; but if Irene and Will were to fix it up between 'em----" She looked vaguely at Penelope. "It wouldn't make any difference as far as I was concerned," replied the girl listlessly. Mrs. Lapham lost her patience. "Well, then, I'll tell you what, Penelope!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps it'll make a difference to you if you know that your father's in REAL trouble. He's harassed to death, and he was awake half the night, talking about it. That abominable Rogers has got a lot of money away from him; and he's lost by others that he's helped,"--Mrs. Lapham put it in this way because she had no time to be explicit,--"and I want you should come out of your room now, and try to be of some help and comfort to him when he comes home to-night. I guess Irene wouldn't mope round much, if she was here," she could not help adding. The girl lifted herself on her elbow. "What's that you say about father?" she demanded eagerly. "Is he in trouble? Is he going to lose his money? Shall we have to stay in this house?" "We may be very GLAD to stay in this house," said Mrs. Lapham, half angry with herself for having given cause for the girl's conjectures, and half with the habit of prosperity in her child, which could conceive no better of what adversity was. "And I want you should get up and show that you've got some feeling for somebody in the world besides yourself." "Oh, I'll get UP!" said the girl promptly, almost cheerfully. "I don't say it's as bad now as it looked a little while ago," said her mother, conscientiously hedging a little from the statement which she had based rather upon her feelings than her facts. "Your father thinks he'll pull through all right, and I don't know but what he will. But I want you should see if you can't do something to cheer him up and keep him from getting so perfectly down-hearted as he seems to get, under the load he's got to carry. And stop thinking about yourself a while, and behave yourself like a sensible girl." "Yes, yes," said the girl; "I will. You needn't be troubled about me any more." Before she left her room she wrote a note, and when she came down she was dressed to go out-of-doors and post it herself. The note was to Corey:-- "Do not come to see me any more till you hear from me. I have a reason which I cannot give you now; and you must not ask what it is." All day she went about in a buoyant desperation, and she came down to meet her father at supper. "Well, Persis," he said scornfully, as he sat down, "we might as well saved our good resolutions till they were wanted. I guess those English parties have gone back on Rogers." "Do you mean he didn't come?" "He hadn't come up to half-past five," said Lapham. "Tchk!" uttered his wife. "But I guess I shall pull through without Mr. Rogers," continued Lapham. "A firm that I didn't think COULD weather it is still afloat, and so far forth as the danger goes of being dragged under with it, I'm all right." Penelope came in. "Hello, Pen!" cried her father. "It ain't often I meet YOU nowadays." He put up his hand as she passed his chair, and pulled her down and kissed her. "No," she said; "but I thought I'd come down to-night and cheer you up a little. I shall not talk; the sight of me will be enough." Her father laughed out. "Mother been telling you? Well, I WAS pretty blue last night; but I guess I was more scared than hurt. How'd you like to go to the theatre to-night? Sellers at the Park. Heigh?" "Well, I don't know. Don't you think they could get along without me there?" "No; couldn't work it at all," cried the Colonel. "Let's all go. Unless," he added inquiringly, "there's somebody coming here?" "There's nobody coming," said Penelope. "Good! Then we'll go. Mother, don't you be late now." "Oh, I shan't keep you waiting," said Mrs. Lapham. She had thought of telling what a cheerful letter she had got from Irene; but upon the whole it seemed better not to speak of Irene at all just then. After they returned from the theatre, where the Colonel roared through the comedy, with continual reference of his pleasure to Penelope, to make sure that she was enjoying it too, his wife said, as if the whole affair had been for the girl's distraction rather than his, "I don't believe but what it's going to come out all right about the children;" and then she told him of the letter, and the hopes she had founded upon it. "Well, perhaps you're right, Persis," he consented. "I haven't seen Pen so much like herself since it happened. I declare, when I see the way she came out to-night, just to please you, I don't know as I want you should get over all your troubles right away." "I guess there'll be enough to keep Pen going for a while yet," said the Colonel, winding up his watch. But for a time there was a relief, which Walker noted, in the atmosphere at the office, and then came another cold wave, slighter than the first, but distinctly felt there, and succeeded by another relief. It was like the winter which was wearing on to the end of the year, with alternations of freezing weather, and mild days stretching to weeks, in which the snow and ice wholly disappeared. It was none the less winter, and none the less harassing for these fluctuations, and Lapham showed in his face and temper the effect of like fluctuations in his affairs. He grew thin and old, and both at home and at his office he was irascible to the point of offence. In these days Penelope shared with her mother the burden of their troubled home, and united with her in supporting the silence or the petulance of the gloomy, secret man who replaced the presence of jolly prosperity there. Lapham had now ceased to talk of his troubles, and savagely resented his wife's interference. "You mind your own business, Persis," he said one day, "if you've got any;" and after that she left him mainly to Penelope, who did not think of asking him questions. "It's pretty hard on you, Pen," she said. "That makes it easier for me," returned the girl, who did not otherwise refer to her own trouble. In her heart she had wondered a little at the absolute obedience of Corey, who had made no sign since receiving her note. She would have liked to ask her father if Corey was sick; she would have liked him to ask her why Corey did not come any more. Her mother went on-- "I don't believe your father knows WHERE he stands. He works away at those papers he brings home here at night, as if he didn't half know what he was about. He always did have that close streak in him, and I don't suppose but what he's been going into things he don't want anybody else to know about, and he's kept these accounts of his own." Sometimes he gave Penelope figures to work at, which he would not submit to his wife's nimbler arithmetic. Then she went to bed and left them sitting up till midnight, struggling with problems in which they were both weak. But she could see that the girl was a comfort to her father, and that his troubles were a defence and shelter to her. Some nights she could hear them going out together, and then she lay awake for their return from their long walk. When the hour or day of respite came again, the home felt it first. Lapham wanted to know what the news from Irene was; he joined his wife in all her cheerful speculations, and tried to make her amends for his sullen reticence and irritability. Irene was staying on at Dubuque. There came a letter from her, saying that her uncle's people wanted her to spend the winter there. "Well, let her," said Lapham. "It'll be the best thing for her." Lapham himself had letters from his brother at frequent intervals. His brother was watching the G. L. & P., which as yet had made no offer for the mills. Once, when one of these letters came, he submitted to his wife whether, in the absence of any positive information that the road wanted the property, he might not, with a good conscience, dispose of it to the best advantage to anybody who came along. She looked wistfully at him; it was on the rise from a season of deep depression with him. "No, Si," she said; "I don't see how you could do that." He did not assent and submit, as he had done at first, but began to rail at the unpracticality of women; and then he shut some papers he had been looking over into his desk, and flung out of the room. One of the papers had slipped through the crevice of the lid, and lay upon the floor. Mrs. Lapham kept on at her sewing, but after a while she picked the paper up to lay it on the desk. Then she glanced at it, and saw that it was a long column of dates and figures, recording successive sums, never large ones, paid regularly to "Wm. M." The dates covered a year, and the sum amounted at least to several hundreds. Mrs. Lapham laid the paper down on the desk, and then she took it up again and put it into her work-basket, meaning to give it to him. When he came in she saw him looking absent-mindedly about for something, and then going to work upon his papers, apparently without it. She thought she would wait till he missed it definitely, and then give him the scrap she had picked up. It lay in her basket, and after some days it found its way under the work in it, and she forgot it. XXIII. SINCE New Year's there had scarcely been a mild day, and the streets were full of snow, growing foul under the city feet and hoofs, and renewing its purity from the skies with repeated falls, which in turn lost their whiteness, beaten down, and beaten black and hard into a solid bed like iron. The sleighing was incomparable, and the air was full of the din of bells; but Lapham's turnout was not of those that thronged the Brighton road every afternoon; the man at the livery-stable sent him word that the mare's legs were swelling. He and Corey had little to do with each other. He did not know how Penelope had arranged it with Corey; his wife said she knew no more than he did, and he did not like to ask the girl herself, especially as Corey no longer came to the house. He saw that she was cheerfuller than she had been, and helpfuller with him and her mother. Now and then Lapham opened his troubled soul to her a little, letting his thought break into speech without preamble or conclusion. Once he said-- "Pen, I presume you know I'm in trouble." "We all seem to be there," said the girl. "Yes, but there's a difference between being there by your own fault and being there by somebody else's." "I don't call it his fault," she said. "I call it mine," said the Colonel. The girl laughed. Her thought was of her own care, and her father's wholly of his. She must come to his ground. "What have you been doing wrong?" "I don't know as you'd call it wrong. It's what people do all the time. But I wish I'd let stocks alone. It's what I always promised your mother I would do. But there's no use cryin' over spilt milk; or watered stock, either." "I don't think there's much use crying about anything. If it could have been cried straight, it would have been all right from the start," said the girl, going back to her own affair; and if Lapham had not been so deeply engrossed in his, he might have seen how little she cared for all that money could do or undo. He did not observe her enough to see how variable her moods were in those days, and how often she sank from some wild gaiety into abject melancholy; how at times she was fiercely defiant of nothing at all, and at others inexplicably humble and patient. But no doubt none of these signs had passed unnoticed by his wife, to whom Lapham said one day, when he came home, "Persis, what's the reason Pen don't marry Corey?" "You know as well as I do, Silas," said Mrs. Lapham, with an inquiring look at him for what lay behind his words. "Well, I think it's all tomfoolery, the way she's going on. There ain't any rhyme nor reason to it." He stopped, and his wife waited. "If she said the word, I could have some help from them." He hung his head, and would not meet his wife's eye. "I guess you're in a pretty bad way, Si," she said pityingly, "or you wouldn't have come to that." "I'm in a hole," said Lapham, "and I don't know where to turn. You won't let me do anything about those mills----" "Yes, I'll let you," said his wife sadly. He gave a miserable cry. "You know I can't do anything, if you do. O my Lord!" She had not seen him so low as that before. She did not know what to say. She was frightened, and could only ask, "Has it come to the worst?" "The new house has got to go," he answered evasively. She did not say anything. She knew that the work on the house had been stopped since the beginning of the year. Lapham had told the architect that he preferred to leave it unfinished till the spring, as there was no prospect of their being able to get into it that winter; and the architect had agreed with him that it would not hurt it to stand. Her heart was heavy for him, though she could not say so. They sat together at the table, where she had come to be with him at his belated meal. She saw that he did not eat, and she waited for him to speak again, without urging him to take anything. They were past that. "And I've sent orders to shut down at the Works," he added. "Shut down at the Works!" she echoed with dismay. She could not take it in. The fire at the Works had never been out before since it was first kindled. She knew how he had prided himself upon that; how he had bragged of it to every listener, and had always lugged the fact in as the last expression of his sense of success. "O Silas!" "What's the use?" he retorted. "I saw it was coming a month ago. There are some fellows out in West Virginia that have been running the paint as hard as they could. They couldn't do much; they used to put it on the market raw. But lately they got to baking it, and now they've struck a vein of natural gas right by their works, and they pay ten cents for fuel, where I pay a dollar, and they make as good a paint. Anybody can see where it's going to end. Besides, the market's over-stocked. It's glutted. There wa'n't anything to do but to shut DOWN, and I've SHUT down." "I don't know what's going to become of the hands in the middle of the winter, this way," said Mrs. Lapham, laying hold of one definite thought which she could grasp in the turmoil of ruin that whirled before her eyes. "I don't care what becomes of the hands," cried Lapham. "They've shared my luck; now let 'em share the other thing. And if you're so very sorry for the hands, I wish you'd keep a little of your pity for ME. Don't you know what shutting down the Works means?" "Yes, indeed I do, Silas," said his wife tenderly. "Well, then!" He rose, leaving his supper untasted, and went into the sitting-room, where she presently found him, with that everlasting confusion of papers before him on the desk. That made her think of the paper in her work-basket, and she decided not to make the careworn, distracted man ask her for it, after all. She brought it to him. He glanced blankly at it and then caught it from her, turning red and looking foolish. "Where'd you get that?" "You dropped it on the floor the other night, and I picked it up. Who is 'Wm. M.'?" "'Wm. M.'!" he repeated, looking confusedly at her, and then at the paper. "Oh,--it's nothing." He tore the paper into small pieces, and went and dropped them into the fire. When Mrs. Lapham came into the room in the morning, before he was down, she found a scrap of the paper, which must have fluttered to the hearth; and glancing at it she saw that the words were "Mrs. M." She wondered what dealings with a woman her husband could have, and she remembered the confusion he had shown about the paper, and which she had thought was because she had surprised one of his business secrets. She was still thinking of it when he came down to breakfast, heavy-eyed, tremulous, with deep seams and wrinkles in his face. After a silence which he did not seem inclined to break, "Silas," she asked, "who is 'Mrs. M.'?" He stared at her. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Don't you?" she returned mockingly. "When you do, you tell me. Do you want any more coffee?" "No." "Well, then, you can ring for Alice when you've finished. I've got some things to attend to." She rose abruptly, and left the room. Lapham looked after her in a dull way, and then went on with his breakfast. While he still sat at his coffee, she flung into the room again, and dashed some papers down beside his plate. "Here are some more things of yours, and I'll thank you to lock them up in your desk and not litter my room with them, if you please." Now he saw that she was angry, and it must be with him. It enraged him that in such a time of trouble she should fly out at him in that way. He left the house without trying to speak to her. That day Corey came just before closing, and, knocking at Lapham's door, asked if he could speak with him a few moments. "Yes," said Lapham, wheeling round in his swivel-chair and kicking another towards Corey. "Sit down. I want to talk to you. I'd ought to tell you you're wasting your time here. I spoke the other day about your placin' yourself better, and I can help you to do it, yet. There ain't going to be the out-come for the paint in the foreign markets that we expected, and I guess you better give it up." "I don't wish to give it up," said the young fellow, setting his lips. "I've as much faith in it as ever; and I want to propose now what I hinted at in the first place. I want to put some money into the business." "Some money!" Lapham leaned towards him, and frowned as if he had not quite understood, while he clutched the arms of his chair. "I've got about thirty thousand dollars that I could put in, and if you don't want to consider me a partner--I remember that you objected to a partner--you can let me regard it as an investment. But I think I see the way to doing something at once in Mexico, and I should like to feel that I had something more than a drummer's interest in the venture." The men sat looking into each other's eyes. Then Lapham leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his hand hard and slowly over his face. His features were still twisted with some strong emotion when he took it away. "Your family know about this?" "My Uncle James knows." "He thinks it would be a good plan for you?" "He thought that by this time I ought to be able to trust my own judgment." "Do you suppose I could see your uncle at his office?" "I imagine he's there." "Well, I want to have a talk with him, one of these days." He sat pondering a while, and then rose, and went with Corey to his door. "I guess I shan't change my mind about taking you into the business in that way," he said coldly. "If there was any reason why I shouldn't at first, there's more now." "Very well, sir," answered the young man, and went to close his desk. The outer office was empty; but while Corey was putting his papers in order it was suddenly invaded by two women, who pushed by the protesting porter on the stairs and made their way towards Lapham's room. One of them was Miss Dewey, the type-writer girl, and the other was a woman whom she would resemble in face and figure twenty years hence, if she led a life of hard work varied by paroxysms of hard drinking. "That his room, Z'rilla?" asked this woman, pointing towards Lapham's door with a hand that had not freed itself from the fringe of dirty shawl under which it had hung. She went forward without waiting for the answer, but before she could reach it the door opened, and Lapham stood filling its space. "Look here, Colonel Lapham!" began the woman, in a high key of challenge. "I want to know if this is the way you're goin' back on me and Z'rilla?" "What do you want?" asked Lapham. "What do I want? What do you s'pose I want? I want the money to pay my month's rent; there ain't a bite to eat in the house; and I want some money to market." Lapham bent a frown on the woman, under which she shrank back a step. "You've taken the wrong way to get it. Clear out!" "I WON'T clear out!" said the woman, beginning to whimper. "Corey!" said Lapham, in the peremptory voice of a master,--he had seemed so indifferent to Corey's presence that the young man thought he must have forgotten he was there,--"Is Dennis anywhere round?" "Yissor," said Dennis, answering for himself from the head of the stairs, and appearing in the ware-room. Lapham spoke to the woman again. "Do you want I should call a hack, or do you want I should call an officer?" The woman began to cry into an end of her shawl. "I don't know what we're goin' to do." "You're going to clear out," said Lapham. "Call a hack, Dennis. If you ever come here again, I'll have you arrested. Mind that! Zerrilla, I shall want you early to-morrow morning." "Yes, sir," said the girl meekly; she and her mother shrank out after the porter. Lapham shut his door without a word. At lunch the next day Walker made himself amends for Corey's reticence by talking a great deal. He talked about Lapham, who seemed to have, more than ever since his apparent difficulties began, the fascination of an enigma for his book-keeper, and he ended by asking, "Did you see that little circus last night?" "What little circus?" asked Corey in his turn. "Those two women and the old man. Dennis told me about it. I told him if he liked his place he'd better keep his mouth shut." "That was very good advice," said Corey. "Oh, all right, if you don't want to talk. Don't know as I should in your place," returned Walker, in the easy security he had long felt that Corey had no intention of putting on airs with him. "But I'll tell you what: the old man can't expect it of everybody. If he keeps this thing up much longer, it's going to be talked about. You can't have a woman walking into your place of business, and trying to bulldoze you before your porter, without setting your porter to thinking. And the last thing you want a porter to do is to think; for when a porter thinks, he thinks wrong." "I don't see why even a porter couldn't think right about that affair," replied Corey. "I don't know who the woman was, though I believe she was Miss Dewey's mother; but I couldn't see that Colonel Lapham showed anything but a natural resentment of her coming to him in that way. I should have said she was some rather worthless person whom he'd been befriending, and that she had presumed upon his kindness." "Is that so? What do you think of his never letting Miss Dewey's name go on the books?" "That it's another proof it's a sort of charity of his. That's the only way to look at it." "Oh, I'M all right." Walker lighted a cigar and began to smoke, with his eyes closed to a fine straight line. "It won't do for a book-keeper to think wrong, any more than a porter, I suppose. But I guess you and I don't think very different about this thing." "Not if you think as I do," replied Corey steadily; "and I know you would do that if you had seen the 'circus' yourself. A man doesn't treat people who have a disgraceful hold upon him as he treated them." "It depends upon who he is," said Walker, taking his cigar from his mouth. "I never said the old man was afraid of anything." "And character," continued Corey, disdaining to touch the matter further, except in generalities, "must go for something. If it's to be the prey of mere accident and appearance, then it goes for nothing." "Accidents will happen in the best regulated families," said Walker, with vulgar, good-humoured obtuseness that filled Corey with indignation. Nothing, perhaps, removed his matter-of-fact nature further from the commonplace than a certain generosity of instinct, which I should not be ready to say was always infallible. That evening it was Miss Dewey's turn to wait for speech with Lapham after the others were gone. He opened his door at her knock, and stood looking at her with a worried air. "Well, what do you want, Zerrilla?" he asked, with a sort of rough kindness. "I want to know what I'm going to do about Hen. He's back again; and he and mother have made it up, and they both got to drinking last night after I went home, and carried on so that the neighbours came in." Lapham passed his hand over his red and heated face. "I don't know what I'm going to do. You're twice the trouble that my own family is, now. But I know what I'd do, mighty quick, if it wasn't for you, Zerrilla," he went on relentingly. "I'd shut your mother up somewheres, and if I could get that fellow off for a three years' voyage----" "I declare," said Miss Dewey, beginning to whimper, "it seems as if he came back just so often to spite me. He's never gone more than a year at the furthest, and you can't make it out habitual drunkenness, either, when it's just sprees. I'm at my wit's end." "Oh, well, you mustn't cry around here," said Lapham soothingly. "I know it," said Miss Dewey. "If I could get rid of Hen, I could manage well enough with mother. Mr. Wemmel would marry me if I could get the divorce. He's said so over and over again." "I don't know as I like that very well," said Lapham, frowning. "I don't know as I want you should get married in any hurry again. I don't know as I like your going with anybody else just yet." "Oh, you needn't be afraid but what it'll be all right. It'll be the best thing all round, if I can marry him." "Well!" said Lapham impatiently; "I can't think about it now. I suppose they've cleaned everything out again?" "Yes, they have," said Zerrilla; "there isn't a cent left." "You're a pretty expensive lot," said Lapham. "Well, here!" He took out his pocket-book and gave her a note. "I'll be round to-night and see what can be done." He shut himself into his room again, and Zerrilla dried her tears, put the note into her bosom, and went her way. Lapham kept the porter nearly an hour later. It was then six o'clock, the hour at which the Laphams usually had tea; but all custom had been broken up with him during the past months, and he did not go home now. He determined, perhaps in the extremity in which a man finds relief in combating one care with another, to keep his promise to Miss Dewey, and at the moment when he might otherwise have been sitting down at his own table he was climbing the stairs to her lodging in the old-fashioned dwelling which had been portioned off into flats. It was in a region of depots, and of the cheap hotels, and "ladies' and gents'" dining-rooms, and restaurants with bars, which abound near depots; and Lapham followed to Miss Dewey's door a waiter from one of these, who bore on a salver before him a supper covered with a napkin. Zerrilla had admitted them, and at her greeting a young fellow in the shabby shore-suit of a sailor, buttoning imperfectly over the nautical blue flannel of his shirt, got up from where he had been sitting, on one side of the stove, and stood infirmly on his feet, in token of receiving the visitor. The woman who sat on the other side did not rise, but began a shrill, defiant apology. "Well, I don't suppose but what you'll think we're livin' on the fat o' the land, right straight along, all the while. But it's just like this. When that child came in from her work, she didn't seem to have the spirit to go to cookin' anything, and I had such a bad night last night I was feelin' all broke up, and s'd I, what's the use, anyway? By the time the butcher's heaved in a lot o' bone, and made you pay for the suet he cuts away, it comes to the same thing, and why not GIT it from the rest'rant first off, and save the cost o' your fire? s'd I." "What have you got there under your apron? A bottle?" demanded Lapham, who stood with his hat on and his hands in his pockets, indifferent alike to the ineffective reception of the sailor and the chair Zerrilla had set him. "Well, yes, it's a bottle," said the woman, with an assumption of virtuous frankness. "It's whisky; I got to have something to rub my rheumatism with." "Humph!" grumbled Lapham. "You've been rubbing HIS rheumatism too, I see." He twisted his head in the direction of the sailor, now softly and rhythmically waving to and fro on his feet. "He hain't had a drop to-day in THIS house!" cried the woman. "What are you doing around here?" said Lapham, turning fiercely upon him. "You've got no business ashore. Where's your ship? Do you think I'm going to let you come here and eat your wife out of house and home, and then give money to keep the concern going?" "Just the very words I said when he first showed his face here, yist'day. Didn't I, Z'rilla?" said the woman, eagerly joining in the rebuke of her late boon companion. "You got no business here, Hen, s'd I. You can't come here to live on me and Z'rilla, s'd I. You want to go back to your ship, s'd I. That's what I said." The sailor mumbled, with a smile of tipsy amiability for Lapham, something about the crew being discharged. "Yes," the woman broke in, "that's always the way with these coasters. Why don't you go off on some them long v'y'ges? s'd I. It's pretty hard when Mr. Wemmel stands ready to marry Z'rilla and provide a comfortable home for us both--I hain't got a great many years more to live, and I SHOULD like to get some satisfaction out of 'em, and not be beholden and dependent all my days,--to have Hen, here, blockin' the way. I tell him there'd be more money for him in the end; but he can't seem to make up his mind to it." "Well, now, look here," said Lapham. "I don't care anything about all that. It's your own business, and I'm not going to meddle with it. But it's my business who lives off me; and so I tell you all three, I'm willing to take care of Zerrilla, and I'm willing to take care of her mother----" "I guess if it hadn't been for that child's father," the mother interpolated, "you wouldn't been here to tell the tale, Colonel Lapham." "I know all about that," said Lapham. "But I'll tell you what, Mr. Dewey, I'm not going to support YOU." "I don't see what Hen's done," said the old woman impartially. "He hasn't done anything, and I'm going to stop it. He's got to get a ship, and he's got to get out of this. And Zerrilla needn't come back to work till he does. I'm done with you all." "Well, I vow," said the mother, "if I ever heard anything like it! Didn't that child's father lay down his life for you? Hain't you said it yourself a hundred times? And don't she work for her money, and slave for it mornin', noon, and night? You talk as if we was beholden to you for the very bread in our mouths. I guess if it hadn't been for Jim, you wouldn't been here crowin' over us." "You mind what I say. I mean business this time," said Lapham, turning to the door. The woman rose and followed him, with her bottle in her hand. "Say, Colonel! what should you advise Z'rilla to do about Mr. Wemmel? I tell her there ain't any use goin' to the trouble to git a divorce without she's sure about him. Don't you think we'd ought to git him to sign a paper, or something, that he'll marry her if she gits it? I don't like to have things going at loose ends the way they are. It ain't sense. It ain't right." Lapham made no answer to the mother anxious for her child's future, and concerned for the moral questions involved. He went out and down the stairs, and on the pavement at the lower door he almost struck against Rogers, who had a bag in his hand, and seemed to be hurrying towards one of the depots. He halted a little, as if to speak to Lapham; but Lapham turned his back abruptly upon him, and took the other direction. The days were going by in a monotony of adversity to him, from which he could no longer escape, even at home. He attempted once or twice to talk of his troubles to his wife, but she repulsed him sharply; she seemed to despise and hate him; but he set himself doggedly to make a confession to her, and he stopped her one night, as she came into the room where he sat--hastily upon some errand that was to take her directly away again. "Persis, there's something I've got to tell you." She stood still, as if fixed against her will, to listen. "I guess you know something about it already, and I guess it set you against me." "Oh, I guess not, Colonel Lapham. You go your way, and I go mine. That's all." She waited for him to speak, listening with a cold, hard smile on her face. "I don't say it to make favour with you, because I don't want you to spare me, and I don't ask you; but I got into it through Milton K. Rogers." "Oh!" said Mrs. Lapham contemptuously. "I always felt the way I said about it--that it wa'n't any better than gambling, and I say so now. It's like betting on the turn of a card; and I give you my word of honour, Persis, that I never was in it at all till that scoundrel began to load me up with those wild-cat securities of his. Then it seemed to me as if I ought to try to do something to get somewhere even. I know it's no excuse; but watching the market to see what the infernal things were worth from day to day, and seeing it go up, and seeing it go down, was too much for me; and, to make a long story short, I began to buy and sell on a margin--just what I told you I never would do. I seemed to make something--I did make something; and I'd have stopped, I do believe, if I could have reached the figure I'd set in my own mind to start with; but I couldn't fetch it. I began to lose, and then I began to throw good money after bad, just as I always did with everything that Rogers ever came within a mile of. Well, what's the use? I lost the money that would have carried me out of this, and I shouldn't have had to shut down the Works, or sell the house, or----" Lapham stopped. His wife, who at first had listened with mystification, and then dawning incredulity, changing into a look of relief that was almost triumph, lapsed again into severity. "Silas Lapham, if you was to die the next minute, is this what you started to tell me?" "Why, of course it is. What did you suppose I started to tell you?" "And--look me in the eyes!--you haven't got anything else on your mind now?" "No! There's trouble enough, the Lord knows; but there's nothing else to tell you. I suppose Pen gave you a hint about it. I dropped something to her. I've been feeling bad about it, Persis, a good while, but I hain't had the heart to speak of it. I can't expect you to say you like it. I've been a fool, I'll allow, and I've been something worse, if you choose to say so; but that's all. I haven't hurt anybody but myself--and you and the children." Mrs. Lapham rose and said, with her face from him, as she turned towards the door, "It's all right, Silas. I shan't ever bring it up against you." She fled out of the room, but all that evening she was very sweet with him, and seemed to wish in all tacit ways to atone for her past unkindness. She made him talk of his business, and he told her of Corey's offer, and what he had done about it. She did not seem to care for his part in it, however; at which Lapham was silently disappointed a little, for he would have liked her to praise him. "He did it on account of Pen!" "Well, he didn't insist upon it, anyway," said Lapham, who must have obscurely expected that Corey would recognise his own magnanimity by repeating his offer. If the doubt that follows a self-devoted action--the question whether it was not after all a needless folly--is mixed, as it was in Lapham's case, with the vague belief that we might have done ourselves a good turn without great risk of hurting any one else by being a little less unselfish, it becomes a regret that is hard to bear. Since Corey spoke to him, some things had happened that gave Lapham hope again. "I'm going to tell her about it," said his wife, and she showed herself impatient to make up for the time she had lost. "Why didn't you tell me before, Silas?" "I didn't know we were on speaking terms before," said Lapham sadly. "Yes, that's true," she admitted, with a conscious flush. "I hope he won't think Pen's known about it all this while." XXIV. THAT evening James Bellingham came to see Corey after dinner, and went to find him in his own room. "I've come at the instance of Colonel Lapham," said the uncle. "He was at my office to-day, and I had a long talk with him. Did you know that he was in difficulties?" "I fancied that he was in some sort of trouble. And I had the book-keeper's conjectures--he doesn't really know much about it." "Well, he thinks it time--on all accounts--that you should know how he stands, and why he declined that proposition of yours. I must say he has behaved very well--like a gentleman." "I'm not surprised." "I am. It's hard to behave like a gentleman where your interest is vitally concerned. And Lapham doesn't strike me as a man who's in the habit of acting from the best in him always." "Do any of us?" asked Corey. "Not all of us, at any rate," said Bellingham. "It must have cost him something to say no to you, for he's just in that state when he believes that this or that chance, however small, would save him." Corey was silent. "Is he really in such a bad way?" "It's hard to tell just where he stands. I suspect that a hopeful temperament and fondness for round numbers have always caused him to set his figures beyond his actual worth. I don't say that he's been dishonest about it, but he's had a loose way of estimating his assets; he's reckoned his wealth on the basis of his capital, and some of his capital is borrowed. He's lost heavily by some of the recent failures, and there's been a terrible shrinkage in his values. I don't mean merely in the stock of paint on hand, but in a kind of competition which has become very threatening. You know about that West Virginian paint?" Corey nodded. "Well, he tells me that they've struck a vein of natural gas out there which will enable them to make as good a paint as his own at a cost of manufacturing so low that they can undersell him everywhere. If this proves to be the case, it will not only drive his paint out of the market, but will reduce the value of his Works--the whole plant--at Lapham to a merely nominal figure." "I see," said Corey dejectedly. "I've understood that he had put a great deal of money into his Works." "Yes, and he estimated his mine there at a high figure. Of course it will be worth little or nothing if the West Virginia paint drives his out. Then, besides, Lapham has been into several things outside of his own business, and, like a good many other men who try outside things, he's kept account of them himself; and he's all mixed up about them. He's asked me to look into his affairs with him, and I've promised to do so. Whether he can be tided over his difficulties remains to be seen. I'm afraid it will take a good deal of money to do it--a great deal more than he thinks, at least. He believes comparatively little would do it. I think differently. I think that anything less than a great deal would be thrown away on him. If it were merely a question of a certain sum--even a large sum--to keep him going, it might be managed; but it's much more complicated. And, as I say, it must have been a trial to him to refuse your offer." This did not seem to be the way in which Bellingham had meant to conclude. But he said no more; and Corey made him no response. He remained pondering the case, now hopefully, now doubtfully, and wondering, whatever his mood was, whether Penelope knew anything of the fact with which her mother went nearly at the same moment to acquaint her. "Of course, he's done it on your account," Mrs. Lapham could not help saying. "Then he was very silly. Does he think I would let him give father money? And if father lost it for him, does he suppose it would make it any easier for me? I think father acted twice as well. It was very silly." In repeating the censure, her look was not so severe as her tone; she even smiled a little, and her mother reported to her father that she acted more like herself than she had yet since Corey's offer. "I think, if he was to repeat his offer, she would have him now," said Mrs. Lapham. "Well, I'll let her know if he does," said the Colonel. "I guess he won't do it to you!" she cried. "Who else will he do it to?" he demanded. They perceived that they had each been talking of a different offer. After Lapham went to his business in the morning the postman brought another letter from Irene, which was full of pleasant things that were happening to her; there was a great deal about her cousin Will, as she called him. At the end she had written, "Tell Pen I don't want she should be foolish." "There!" said Mrs. Lapham. "I guess it's going to come out right, all round;" and it seemed as if even the Colonel's difficulties were past. "When your father gets through this, Pen," she asked impulsively, "what shall you do?" "What have you been telling Irene about me?" "Nothing much. What should you do?" "It would be a good deal easier to say what I should do if father didn't," said the girl. "I know you think it was nice in him to make your father that offer," urged the mother. "It was nice, yes; but it was silly," said the girl. "Most nice things are silly, I suppose," she added. She went to her room and wrote a letter. It was very long, and very carefully written; and when she read it over, she tore it into small pieces. She wrote another one, short and hurried, and tore that up too. Then she went back to her mother, in the family room, and asked to see Irene's letter, and read it over to herself. "Yes, she seems to be having a good time," she sighed. "Mother, do you think I ought to let Mr. Corey know that I know about it?" "Well, I should think it would be a pleasure to him," said Mrs. Lapham judicially. "I'm not so sure of that the way I should have to tell him. I should begin by giving him a scolding. Of course, he meant well by it, but can't you see that it wasn't very flattering! How did he expect it would change me?" "I don't believe he ever thought of that." "Don't you? Why?" "Because you can see that he isn't one of that kind. He might want to please you without wanting to change you by what he did." "Yes. He must have known that nothing would change me,--at least, nothing that he could do. I thought of that. I shouldn't like him to feel that I couldn't appreciate it, even if I did think it was silly. Should you write to him?" "I don't see why not." "It would be too pointed. No, I shall just let it go. I wish he hadn't done it." "Well, he has done it." "And I've tried to write to him about it--two letters: one so humble and grateful that it couldn't stand up on its edge, and the other so pert and flippant. Mother, I wish you could have seen those two letters! I wish I had kept them to look at if I ever got to thinking I had any sense again. They would take the conceit out of me." "What's the reason he don't come here any more?" "Doesn't he come?" asked Penelope in turn, as if it were something she had not noticed particularly. "You'd ought to know." "Yes." She sat silent a while. "If he doesn't come, I suppose it's because he's offended at something I did." "What did you do?" "Nothing. I--wrote to him--a little while ago. I suppose it was very blunt, but I didn't believe he would be angry at it. But this--this that he's done shows he was angry, and that he wasn't just seizing the first chance to get out of it." "What have you done, Pen?" demanded her mother sharply. "Oh, I don't know. All the mischief in the world, I suppose. I'll tell you. When you first told me that father was in trouble with his business, I wrote to him not to come any more till I let him. I said I couldn't tell him why, and he hasn't been here since. I'm sure I don't know what it means." Her mother looked at her with angry severity. "Well, Penelope Lapham! For a sensible child, you ARE the greatest goose I ever saw. Did you think he would come here and SEE if you wouldn't let him come?" "He might have written," urged the girl. Her mother made that despairing "Tchk!" with her tongue, and fell back in her chair. "I should have DESPISED him if he had written. He's acted just exactly right, and you--you've acted--I don't know HOW you've acted. I'm ashamed of you. A girl that could be so sensible for her sister, and always say and do just the right thing, and then when it comes to herself to be such a DISGUSTING simpleton!" "I thought I ought to break with him at once, and not let him suppose that there was any hope for him or me if father was poor. It was my one chance, in this whole business, to do anything heroic, and I jumped at it. You mustn't think, because I can laugh at it now, that I wasn't in earnest, mother! I WAS--dead! But the Colonel has gone to ruin so gradually, that he's spoilt everything. I expected that he would be bankrupt the next day, and that then HE would understand what I meant. But to have it drag along for a fortnight seems to take all the heroism out of it, and leave it as flat!" She looked at her mother with a smile that shone through her tears, and a pathos that quivered round her jesting lips. "It's easy enough to be sensible for other people. But when it comes to myself, there I am! Especially, when I want to do what I oughtn't so much that it seems as if doing what I didn't want to do MUST be doing what I ought! But it's been a great success one way, mother. It's helped me to keep up before the Colonel. If it hadn't been for Mr. Corey's staying away, and my feeling so indignant with him for having been badly treated by me, I shouldn't have been worth anything at all." The tears started down her cheeks, but her mother said, "Well, now, go along, and write to him. It don't matter what you say, much; and don't be so very particular." Her third attempt at a letter pleased her scarcely better than the rest, but she sent it, though it seemed so blunt and awkward. She wrote:-- DEAR FRIEND,--I expected when I sent you that note, that you would understand, almost the next day, why I could not see you any more. You must know now, and you must not think that if anything happened to my father, I should wish you to help him. But that is no reason why I should not thank you, and I do thank you, for offering. It was like you, I will say that. Yours sincerely, PENELOPE LAPHAM. She posted her letter, and he sent his reply in the evening, by hand:-- DEAREST,--What I did was nothing, till you praised it. Everything I have and am is yours. Won't you send a line by the bearer, to say that I may come to see you? I know how you feel; but I am sure that I can make you think differently. You must consider that I loved you without a thought of your father's circumstances, and always shall. T. C. The generous words were blurred to her eyes by the tears that sprang into them. But she could only write in answer:-- "Please do not come; I have made up my mind. As long as this trouble is hanging over us, I cannot see you. And if father is unfortunate, all is over between us." She brought his letter to her mother, and told her what she had written in reply. Her mother was thoughtful a while before she said, with a sigh, "Well, I hope you've begun as you can carry out, Pen." "Oh, I shall not have to carry out at all. I shall not have to do anything. That's one comfort--the only comfort." She went away to her own room, and when Mrs. Lapham told her husband of the affair, he was silent at first, as she had been. Then he said, "I don't know as I should have wanted her to done differently; I don't know as she could. If I ever come right again, she won't have anything to feel meeching about; and if I don't, I don't want she should be beholden to anybody. And I guess that's the way she feels." The Coreys in their turn sat in judgment on the fact which their son felt bound to bring to their knowledge. "She has behaved very well," said Mrs. Corey, to whom her son had spoken. "My dear," said her husband, with his laugh, "she has behaved TOO well. If she had studied the whole situation with the most artful eye to its mastery, she could not possibly have behaved better." The process of Lapham's financial disintegration was like the course of some chronic disorder, which has fastened itself upon the constitution, but advances with continual reliefs, with apparent amelioration, and at times seems not to advance at all, when it gives hope of final recovery not only to the sufferer, but to the eye of science itself. There were moments when James Bellingham, seeing Lapham pass this crisis and that, began to fancy that he might pull through altogether; and at these moments, when his adviser could not oppose anything but experience and probability to the evidence of the fact, Lapham was buoyant with courage, and imparted his hopefulness to his household. Our theory of disaster, of sorrow, of affliction, borrowed from the poets and novelists, is that it is incessant; but every passage in our own lives and in the lives of others, so far as we have witnessed them, teaches us that this is false. The house of mourning is decorously darkened to the world, but within itself it is also the house of laughing. Bursts of gaiety, as heartfelt as its grief, relieve the gloom, and the stricken survivors have their jests together, in which the thought of the dead is tenderly involved, and a fond sense, not crazier than many others, of sympathy and enjoyment beyond the silence, justifies the sunnier mood before sorrow rushes back, deploring and despairing, and making it all up again with the conventional fitness of things. Lapham's adversity had this quality in common with bereavement. It was not always like the adversity we figure in allegory; it had its moments of being like prosperity, and if upon the whole it was continual, it was not incessant. Sometimes there was a week of repeated reverses, when he had to keep his teeth set and to hold on hard to all his hopefulness; and then days came of negative result or slight success, when he was full of his jokes at the tea-table, and wanted to go to the theatre, or to do something to cheer Penelope up. In some miraculous way, by some enormous stroke of success which should eclipse the brightest of his past prosperity, he expected to do what would reconcile all difficulties, not only in his own affairs, but in hers too. "You'll see," he said to his wife; "it's going to come out all right. Irene'll fix it up with Bill's boy, and then she'll be off Pen's mind; and if things go on as they've been going for the last two days, I'm going to be in a position to do the favours myself, and Pen can feel that SHE'S makin' a sacrifice, and then I guess may be she'll do it. If things turn out as I expect now, and times ever do get any better generally, I can show Corey that I appreciate his offer. I can offer him the partnership myself then." Even in the other moods, which came when everything had been going wrong, and there seemed no way out of the net, there were points of consolation to Lapham and his wife. They rejoiced that Irene was safe beyond the range of their anxieties, and they had a proud satisfaction that there had been no engagement between Corey and Penelope, and that it was she who had forbidden it. In the closeness of interest and sympathy in which their troubles had reunited them, they confessed to each other that nothing would have been more galling to their pride than the idea that Lapham should not have been able to do everything for his daughter that the Coreys might have expected. Whatever happened now, the Coreys could not have it to say that the Laphams had tried to bring any such thing about. Bellingham had lately suggested an assignment to Lapham, as the best way out of his difficulties. It was evident that he had not the money to meet his liabilities at present, and that he could not raise it without ruinous sacrifices, that might still end in ruin after all. If he made the assignment, Bellingham argued, he could gain time and make terms; the state of things generally would probably improve, since it could not be worse, and the market, which he had glutted with his paint, might recover and he could start again. Lapham had not agreed with him. When his reverses first began it had seemed easy for him to give up everything, to let the people he owed take all, so only they would let him go out with clean hands; and he had dramatised this feeling in his talk with his wife, when they spoke together of the mills on the G. L. & P. But ever since then it had been growing harder, and he could not consent even to seem to do it now in the proposed assignment. He had not found other men so very liberal or faithful with him; a good many of them appeared to have combined to hunt him down; a sense of enmity towards all his creditors asserted itself in him; he asked himself why they should not suffer a little too. Above all, he shrank from the publicity of the assignment. It was open confession that he had been a fool in some way; he could not bear to have his family--his brother the judge, especially, to whom he had always appeared the soul of business wisdom--think him imprudent or stupid. He would make any sacrifice before it came to that. He determined in parting with Bellingham to make the sacrifice which he had oftenest in his mind, because it was the hardest, and to sell his new house. That would cause the least comment. Most people would simply think that he had got a splendid offer, and with his usual luck had made a very good thing of it; others who knew a little more about him would say that he was hauling in his horns, but they could not blame him; a great many other men were doing the same in those hard times--the shrewdest and safest men: it might even have a good effect. He went straight from Bellingham's office to the real-estate broker in whose hands he meant to put his house, for he was not the sort of man to shilly-shally when he had once made up his mind. But he found it hard to get his voice up out of his throat, when he said he guessed he would get the broker to sell that new house of his on the water side of Beacon. The broker answered cheerfully, yes; he supposed Colonel Lapham knew it was a pretty dull time in real estate? and Lapham said yes, he knew that, but he should not sell at a sacrifice, and he did not care to have the broker name him or describe the house definitely unless parties meant business. Again the broker said yes; and he added, as a joke Lapham would appreciate, that he had half a dozen houses on the water side of Beacon, on the same terms; that nobody wanted to be named or to have his property described. It did, in fact, comfort Lapham a little to find himself in the same boat with so many others; he smiled grimly, and said in his turn, yes, he guessed that was about the size of it with a good many people. But he had not the heart to tell his wife what he had done, and he sat taciturn that whole evening, without even going over his accounts, and went early to bed, where he lay tossing half the night before he fell asleep. He slept at last only upon the promise he made himself that he would withdraw the house from the broker's hands; but he went heavily to his own business in the morning without doing so. There was no such rush, anyhow, he reflected bitterly; there would be time to do that a month later, probably. It struck him with a sort of dismay when a boy came with a note from a broker, saying that a party who had been over the house in the fall had come to him to know whether it could be bought, and was willing to pay the cost of the house up to the time he had seen it. Lapham took refuge in trying to think who the party could be; he concluded that it must have been somebody who had gone over it with the architect, and he did not like that; but he was aware that this was not an answer to the broker, and he wrote that he would give him an answer in the morning. Now that it had come to the point, it did not seem to him that he could part with the house. So much of his hope for himself and his children had gone into it that the thought of selling it made him tremulous and sick. He could not keep about his work steadily, and with his nerves shaken by want of sleep, and the shock of this sudden and unexpected question, he left his office early, and went over to look at the house and try to bring himself to some conclusion here. The long procession of lamps on the beautiful street was flaring in the clear red of the sunset towards which it marched, and Lapham, with a lump in his throat, stopped in front of his house and looked at their multitude. They were not merely a part of the landscape; they were a part of his pride and glory, his success, his triumphant life's work which was fading into failure in his helpless hands. He ground his teeth to keep down that lump, but the moisture in his eyes blurred the lamps, and the keen pale crimson against which it made them flicker. He turned and looked up, as he had so often done, at the window-spaces, neatly glazed for the winter with white linen, and recalled the night when he had stopped with Irene before the house, and she had said that she should never live there, and he had tried to coax her into courage about it. There was no such facade as that on the whole street, to his thinking. Through his long talks with the architect, he had come to feel almost as intimately and fondly as the architect himself the satisfying simplicity of the whole design and the delicacy of its detail. It appealed to him as an exquisite bit of harmony appeals to the unlearned ear, and he recognised the difference between this fine work and the obstreperous pretentiousness of the many overloaded house-fronts which Seymour had made him notice for his instruction elsewhere on the Back Bay. Now, in the depths of his gloom, he tried to think what Italian city it was where Seymour said he had first got the notion of treating brick-work in that way. He unlocked the temporary door with the key he always carried, so that he could let himself in and out whenever he liked, and entered the house, dim and very cold with the accumulated frigidity of the whole winter in it, and looking as if the arrest of work upon it had taken place a thousand years before. It smelt of the unpainted woods and the clean, hard surfaces of the plaster, where the experiments in decoration had left it untouched; and mingled with these odours was that of some rank pigments and metallic compositions which Seymour had used in trying to realise a certain daring novelty of finish, which had not proved successful. Above all, Lapham detected the peculiar odour of his own paint, with which the architect had been greatly interested one day, when Lapham showed it to him at the office. He had asked Lapham to let him try the Persis Brand in realising a little idea he had for the finish of Mrs. Lapham's room. If it succeeded they could tell her what it was, for a surprise. Lapham glanced at the bay-window in the reception-room, where he sat with his girls on the trestles when Corey first came by; and then he explored the whole house to the attic, in the light faintly admitted through the linen sashes. The floors were strewn with shavings and chips which the carpenters had left, and in the music-room these had been blown into long irregular windrows by the draughts through a wide rent in the linen sash. Lapham tried to pin it up, but failed, and stood looking out of it over the water. The ice had left the river, and the low tide lay smooth and red in the light of the sunset. The Cambridge flats showed the sad, sodden yellow of meadows stripped bare after a long sleep under snow; the hills, the naked trees, the spires and roofs had a black outline, as if they were objects in a landscape of the French school. The whim seized Lapham to test the chimney in the music-room; it had been tried in the dining-room below, and in his girls' fireplaces above, but here the hearth was still clean. He gathered some shavings and blocks together, and kindled them, and as the flame mounted gaily from them, he pulled up a nail-keg which he found there and sat down to watch it. Nothing could have been better; the chimney was a perfect success; and as Lapham glanced out of the torn linen sash he said to himself that that party, whoever he was, who had offered to buy his house might go to the devil; he would never sell it as long as he had a dollar. He said that he should pull through yet; and it suddenly came into his mind that, if he could raise the money to buy out those West Virginia fellows, he should be all right, and would have the whole game in his own hand. He slapped himself on the thigh, and wondered that he had never thought of that before; and then, lighting a cigar with a splinter from the fire, he sat down again to work the scheme out in his own mind. He did not hear the feet heavily stamping up the stairs, and coming towards the room where he sat; and the policeman to whom the feet belonged had to call out to him, smoking at his chimney-corner, with his back turned to the door, "Hello! what are you doing here?" "What's that to you?" retorted Lapham, wheeling half round on his nail-keg. "I'll show you," said the officer, advancing upon him, and then stopping short as he recognised him. "Why, Colonel Lapham! I thought it was some tramp got in here!" "Have a cigar?" said Lapham hospitably. "Sorry there ain't another nail-keg." The officer took the cigar. "I'll smoke it outside. I've just come on, and I can't stop. Tryin' your chimney?" "Yes, I thought I'd see how it would draw, in here. It seems to go first-rate." The policeman looked about him with an eye of inspection. "You want to get that linen window, there, mended up." "Yes, I'll speak to the builder about that. It can go for one night." The policeman went to the window and failed to pin the linen together where Lapham had failed before. "I can't fix it." He looked round once more, and saying, "Well, good night," went out and down the stairs. Lapham remained by the fire till he had smoked his cigar; then he rose and stamped upon the embers that still burned with his heavy boots, and went home. He was very cheerful at supper. He told his wife that he guessed he had a sure thing of it now, and in another twenty-four hours he should tell her just how. He made Penelope go to the theatre with him, and when they came out, after the play, the night was so fine that he said they must walk round by the new house and take a look at it in the starlight. He said he had been there before he came home, and tried Seymour's chimney in the music-room, and it worked like a charm. As they drew near Beacon Street they were aware of unwonted stir and tumult, and presently the still air transmitted a turmoil of sound, through which a powerful and incessant throbbing made itself felt. The sky had reddened above them, and turning the corner at the Public Garden, they saw a black mass of people obstructing the perspective of the brightly-lighted street, and out of this mass a half-dozen engines, whose strong heart-beats had already reached them, sent up volumes of fire-tinged smoke and steam from their funnels. Ladders were planted against the facade of a building, from the roof of which a mass of flame burnt smoothly upward, except where here and there it seemed to pull contemptuously away from the heavy streams of water which the firemen, clinging like great beetles to their ladders, poured in upon it. Lapham had no need to walk down through the crowd, gazing and gossiping, with shouts and cries and hysterical laughter, before the burning house, to make sure that it was his. "I guess I done it, Pen," was all he said. Among the people who were looking at it were a party who seemed to have run out from dinner in some neighbouring house; the ladies were fantastically wrapped up, as if they had flung on the first things they could seize. "Isn't it perfectly magnificent!" cried a pretty girl. "I wouldn't have missed it on any account. Thank you so much, Mr. Symington, for bringing us out!" "Ah, I thought you'd like it," said this Mr. Symington, who must have been the host; "and you can enjoy it without the least compunction, Miss Delano, for I happen to know that the house belongs to a man who could afford to burn one up for you once a year." "Oh, do you think he would, if I came again?" "I haven't the least doubt of it. We don't do things by halves in Boston." "He ought to have had a coat of his noncombustible paint on it," said another gentleman of the party. Penelope pulled her father away toward the first carriage she could reach of a number that had driven up. "Here, father! get into this." "No, no; I couldn't ride," he answered heavily, and he walked home in silence. He greeted his wife with, "Well, Persis, our house is gone! And I guess I set it on fire myself;" and while he rummaged among the papers in his desk, still with his coat and hat on, his wife got the facts as she could from Penelope. She did not reproach him. Here was a case in which his self-reproach must be sufficiently sharp without any edge from her. Besides, her mind was full of a terrible thought. "O Silas," she faltered, "they'll think you set it on fire to get the insurance!" Lapham was staring at a paper which he held in his hand. "I had a builder's risk on it, but it expired last week. It's a dead loss." "Oh, thank the merciful Lord!" cried his wife. "Merciful!" said Lapham. "Well, it's a queer way of showing it." He went to bed, and fell into the deep sleep which sometimes follows a great moral shock. It was perhaps rather a torpor than a sleep. XXV. LAPHAM awoke confused, and in a kind of remoteness from the loss of the night before, through which it loomed mistily. But before he lifted his head from the pillow, it gathered substance and weight against which it needed all his will to bear up and live. In that moment he wished that he had not wakened, that he might never have wakened; but he rose, and faced the day and its cares. The morning papers brought the report of the fire, and the conjectured loss. The reporters somehow had found out the fact that the loss fell entirely upon Lapham; they lighted up the hackneyed character of their statements with the picturesque interest OF the coincidence that the policy had expired only the week before; heaven knows how they knew it. They said that nothing remained of the building but the walls; and Lapham, on his way to business, walked up past the smoke-stained shell. The windows looked like the eye-sockets of a skull down upon the blackened and trampled snow of the street; the pavement was a sheet of ice, and the water from the engines had frozen, like streams of tears, down the face of the house, and hung in icy tags from the window-sills and copings. He gathered himself up as well as he could, and went on to his office. The chance of retrieval that had flashed upon him, as he sat smoking by that ruined hearth the evening before, stood him in such stead now as a sole hope may; and he said to himself that, having resolved not to sell his house, he was no more crippled by its loss than he would have been by letting his money lie idle in it; what he might have raised by mortgage on it could be made up in some other way; and if they would sell he could still buy out the whole business of that West Virginia company, mines, plant, stock on hand, good-will, and everything, and unite it with his own. He went early in the afternoon to see Bellingham, whose expressions of condolence for his loss he cut short with as much politeness as he knew how to throw into his impatience. Bellingham seemed at first a little dazzled with the splendid courage of his scheme; it was certainly fine in its way; but then he began to have his misgivings. "I happen to know that they haven't got much money behind them," urged Lapham. "They'll jump at an offer." Bellingham shook his head. "If they can show profit on the old manufacture, and prove they can make their paint still cheaper and better hereafter, they can have all the money they want. And it will be very difficult for you to raise it if you're threatened by them. With that competition, you know what your plant at Lapham would be worth, and what the shrinkage on your manufactured stock would be. Better sell out to them," he concluded, "if they will buy." "There ain't money enough in this country to buy out my paint," said Lapham, buttoning up his coat in a quiver of resentment. "Good afternoon, sir." Men are but grown-up boys after all. Bellingham watched this perversely proud and obstinate child fling petulantly out of his door, and felt a sympathy for him which was as truly kind as it was helpless. But Lapham was beginning to see through Bellingham, as he believed. Bellingham was, in his way, part of that conspiracy by which Lapham's creditors were trying to drive him to the wall. More than ever now he was glad that he had nothing to do with that cold-hearted, self-conceited race, and that the favours so far were all from his side. He was more than ever determined to show them, every one of them, high and low, that he and his children could get along without them, and prosper and triumph without them. He said to himself that if Penelope were engaged to Corey that very minute, he would make her break with him. He knew what he should do now, and he was going to do it without loss of time. He was going on to New York to see those West Virginia people; they had their principal office there, and he intended to get at their ideas, and then he intended to make them an offer. He managed this business better than could possibly have been expected of a man in his impassioned mood. But when it came really to business, his practical instincts, alert and wary, came to his aid against the passions that lay in wait to betray after they ceased to dominate him. He found the West Virginians full of zeal and hope, but in ten minutes he knew that they had not yet tested their strength in the money market, and had not ascertained how much or how little capital they could command. Lapham himself, if he had had so much, would not have hesitated to put a million dollars into their business. He saw, as they did not see, that they had the game in their own hands, and that if they could raise the money to extend their business, they could ruin him. It was only a question of time, and he was on the ground first. He frankly proposed a union of their interests. He admitted that they had a good thing, and that he should have to fight them hard; but he meant to fight them to the death unless they could come to some sort of terms. Now, the question was whether they had better go on and make a heavy loss for both sides by competition, or whether they had better form a partnership to run both paints and command the whole market. Lapham made them three propositions, each of which was fair and open: to sell out to them altogether; to buy them out altogether; to join facilities and forces with them, and go on in an invulnerable alliance. Let them name a figure at which they would buy, a figure at which they would sell, a figure at which they would combine,--or, in other words, the amount of capital they needed. They talked all day, going out to lunch together at the Astor House, and sitting with their knees against the counter on a row of stools before it for fifteen minutes of reflection and deglutition, with their hats on, and then returning to the basement from which they emerged. The West Virginia company's name was lettered in gilt on the wide low window, and its paint, in the form of ore, burnt, and mixed, formed a display on the window shelf Lapham examined it and praised it; from time to time they all recurred to it together; they sent out for some of Lapham's paint and compared it, the West Virginians admitting its former superiority. They were young fellows, and country persons, like Lapham, by origin, and they looked out with the same amused, undaunted provincial eyes at the myriad metropolitan legs passing on the pavement above the level of their window. He got on well with them. At last, they said what they would do. They said it was nonsense to talk of buying Lapham out, for they had not the money; and as for selling out, they would not do it, for they knew they had a big thing. But they would as soon use his capital to develop it as anybody else's, and if he could put in a certain sum for this purpose, they would go in with him. He should run the works at Lapham and manage the business in Boston, and they would run the works at Kanawha Falls and manage the business in New York. The two brothers with whom Lapham talked named their figure, subject to the approval of another brother at Kanawha Falls, to whom they would write, and who would telegraph his answer, so that Lapham could have it inside of three days. But they felt perfectly sure that he would approve; and Lapham started back on the eleven o'clock train with an elation that gradually left him as he drew near Boston, where the difficulties of raising this sum were to be over come. It seemed to him, then, that those fellows had put it up on him pretty steep, but he owned to himself that they had a sure thing, and that they were right in believing they could raise the same sum elsewhere; it would take all OF it, he admitted, to make their paint pay on the scale they had the right to expect. At their age, he would not have done differently; but when he emerged, old, sore, and sleep-broken, from the sleeping-car in the Albany depot at Boston, he wished with a pathetic self-pity that they knew how a man felt at his age. A year ago, six months ago, he would have laughed at the notion that it would be hard to raise the money. But he thought ruefully of that immense stock of paint on hand, which was now a drug in the market, of his losses by Rogers and by the failures of other men, of the fire that had licked up so many thousands in a few hours; he thought with bitterness of the tens of thousands that he had gambled away in stocks, and of the commissions that the brokers had pocketed whether he won or lost; and he could not think of any securities on which he could borrow, except his house in Nankeen Square, or the mine and works at Lapham. He set his teeth in helpless rage when he thought of that property out on the G. L. & P., that ought to be worth so much, and was worth so little if the Road chose to say so. He did not go home, but spent most of the day shining round, as he would have expressed it, and trying to see if he could raise the money. But he found that people of whom he hoped to get it were in the conspiracy which had been formed to drive him to the wall. Somehow, there seemed a sense of his embarrassments abroad. Nobody wanted to lend money on the plant at Lapham without taking time to look into the state of the business; but Lapham had no time to give, and he knew that the state of the business would not bear looking into. He could raise fifteen thousand on his Nankeen Square house, and another fifteen on his Beacon Street lot, and this was all that a man who was worth a million by rights could do! He said a million, and he said it in defiance of Bellingham, who had subjected his figures to an analysis which wounded Lapham more than he chose to show at the time, for it proved that he was not so rich and not so wise as he had seemed. His hurt vanity forbade him to go to Bellingham now for help or advice; and if he could have brought himself to ask his brothers for money, it would have been useless; they were simply well-to-do Western people, but not capitalists on the scale he required. Lapham stood in the isolation to which adversity so often seems to bring men. When its test was applied, practically or theoretically, to all those who had seemed his friends, there was none who bore it; and he thought with bitter self-contempt of the people whom he had befriended in their time of need. He said to himself that he had been a fool for that; and he scorned himself for certain acts of scrupulosity by which he had lost money in the past. Seeing the moral forces all arrayed against him, Lapham said that he would like to have the chance offered him to get even with them again; he thought he should know how to look out for himself. As he understood it, he had several days to turn about in, and he did not let one day's failure dishearten him. The morning after his return he had, in fact, a gleam of luck that gave him the greatest encouragement for the moment. A man came in to inquire about one of Rogers's wild-cat patents, as Lapham called them, and ended by buying it. He got it, of course, for less than Lapham took it for, but Lapham was glad to be rid of it for something, when he had thought it worth nothing; and when the transaction was closed, he asked the purchaser rather eagerly if he knew where Rogers was; it was Lapham's secret belief that Rogers had found there was money in the thing, and had sent the man to buy it. But it appeared that this was a mistake; the man had not come from Rogers, but had heard of the patent in another way; and Lapham was astonished in the afternoon, when his boy came to tell him that Rogers was in the outer office, and wished to speak with him. "All right," said Lapham, and he could not command at once the severity for the reception of Rogers which he would have liked to use. He found himself, in fact, so much relaxed towards him by the morning's touch of prosperity that he asked him to sit down, gruffly, of course, but distinctly; and when Rogers said in his lifeless way, and with the effect of keeping his appointment of a month before, "Those English parties are in town, and would like to talk with you in reference to the mills," Lapham did not turn him out-of-doors. He sat looking at him, and trying to make out what Rogers was after; for he did not believe that the English parties, if they existed, had any notion of buying his mills. "What if they are not for sale?" he asked. "You know that I've been expecting an offer from the G. L. & P." "I've kept watch of that. They haven't made you any offer," said Rogers quietly. "And did you think," demanded Lapham, firing up, "that I would turn them in on somebody else as you turned them in on me, when the chances are that they won't be worth ten cents on the dollar six months from now?" "I didn't know what you would do," said Rogers non-committally. "I've come here to tell you that these parties stand ready to take the mills off your hands at a fair valuation--at the value I put upon them when I turned them in." "I don't believe you!" cried Lapham brutally, but a wild predatory hope made his heart leap so that it seemed to turn over in his breast. "I don't believe there are any such parties to begin with; and in the next place, I don't believe they would buy at any such figure; unless--unless you've lied to them, as you've lied to me. Did you tell them about the G. L. & P.?" Rogers looked compassionately at him, but he answered, with unvaried dryness, "I did not think that necessary." Lapham had expected this answer, and he had expected or intended to break out in furious denunciation of Rogers when he got it; but he only found himself saying, in a sort of baffled gasp, "I wonder what your game is!" Rogers did not reply categorically, but he answered, with his impartial calm, and as if Lapham had said nothing to indicate that he differed at all with him as to disposing of the property in the way he had suggested: "If we should succeed in selling, I should be able to repay you your loans, and should have a little capital for a scheme that I think of going into." "And do you think that I am going to steal these men's money to help you plunder somebody in a new scheme?" answered Lapham. The sneer was on behalf of virtue, but it was still a sneer. "I suppose the money would be useful to you too, just now." "Why?" "Because I know that you have been trying to borrow." At this proof of wicked omniscience in Rogers, the question whether he had better not regard the affair as a fatality, and yield to his destiny, flashed upon Lapham; but he answered, "I shall want money a great deal worse than I've ever wanted it yet, before I go into such rascally business with you. Don't you know that we might as well knock these parties down on the street, and take the money out of their pockets?" "They have come on," answered Rogers, "from Portland to see you. I expected them some weeks ago, but they disappointed me. They arrived on the Circassian last night; they expected to have got in five days ago, but the passage was very stormy." "Where are they?" asked Lapham, with helpless irrelevance, and feeling himself somehow drifted from his moorings by Rogers's shipping intelligence. "They are at Young's. I told them we would call upon them after dinner this evening; they dine late." "Oh, you did, did you?" asked Lapham, trying to drop another anchor for a fresh clutch on his underlying principles. "Well, now, you go and tell them that I said I wouldn't come." "Their stay is limited," remarked Rogers. "I mentioned this evening because they were not certain they could remain over another night. But if to-morrow would suit you better----" "Tell 'em I shan't come at all," roared Lapham, as much in terror as defiance, for he felt his anchor dragging. "Tell 'em I shan't come at all! Do you understand that?" "I don't see why you should stickle as to the matter of going to them," said Rogers; "but if you think it will be better to have them approach you, I suppose I can bring them to you." "No, you can't! I shan't let you! I shan't see them! I shan't have anything to do with them. NOW do you understand?" "I inferred from our last interview," persisted Rogers, unmoved by all this violent demonstration of Lapham's, "that you wished to meet these parties. You told me that you would give me time to produce them; and I have promised them that you would meet them; I have committed myself." It was true that Lapham had defied Rogers to bring on his men, and had implied his willingness to negotiate with them. That was before he had talked the matter over with his wife, and perceived his moral responsibility in it; even she had not seen this at once. He could not enter into this explanation with Rogers; he could only say, "I said I'd give you twenty-four hours to prove yourself a liar, and you did it. I didn't say twenty-four days." "I don't see the difference," returned Rogers. "The parties are here now, and that proves that I was acting in good faith at the time. There has been no change in the posture of affairs. You don't know now any more than you knew then that the G. L. & P. is going to want the property. If there's any difference, it's in favour of the Road's having changed its mind." There was some sense in this, and Lapham felt it--felt it only too eagerly, as he recognised the next instant. Rogers went on quietly: "You're not obliged to sell to these parties when you meet them; but you've allowed me to commit myself to them by the promise that you would talk with them." "'Twan't a promise," said Lapham. "It was the same thing; they have come out from England on my guaranty that there was such and such an opening for their capital; and now what am I to say to them? It places me in a ridiculous position." Rogers urged his grievance calmly, almost impersonally, making his appeal to Lapham's sense of justice. "I CAN'T go back to those parties and tell them you won't see them. It's no answer to make. They've got a right to know why you won't see them." "Very well, then!" cried Lapham; "I'll come and TELL them why. Who shall I ask for? When shall I be there?" "At eight o'clock, please," said Rogers, rising, without apparent alarm at his threat, if it was a threat. "And ask for me; I've taken a room at the hotel for the present." "I won't keep you five minutes when I get there," said Lapham; but he did not come away till ten o'clock. It appeared to him as if the very devil was in it. The Englishmen treated his downright refusal to sell as a piece of bluff, and talked on as though it were merely the opening of the negotiation. When he became plain with them in his anger, and told them why he would not sell, they seemed to have been prepared for this as a stroke of business, and were ready to meet it. "Has this fellow," he demanded, twisting his head in the direction of Rogers, but disdaining to notice him otherwise, "been telling you that it's part of my game to say this? Well, sir, I can tell you, on my side, that there isn't a slipperier rascal unhung in America than Milton K. Rogers!" The Englishmen treated this as a piece of genuine American humour, and returned to the charge with unabated courage. They owned now, that a person interested with them had been out to look at the property, and that they were satisfied with the appearance of things. They developed further the fact that they were not acting solely, or even principally, in their own behalf, but were the agents of people in England who had projected the colonisation of a sort of community on the spot, somewhat after the plan of other English dreamers, and that they were satisfied, from a careful inspection, that the resources and facilities were those best calculated to develop the energy and enterprise of the proposed community. They were prepared to meet Mr. Lapham--Colonel, they begged his pardon, at the instance of Rogers--at any reasonable figure, and were quite willing to assume the risks he had pointed out. Something in the eyes of these men, something that lurked at an infinite depth below their speech, and was not really in their eyes when Lapham looked again, had flashed through him a sense of treachery in them. He had thought them the dupes of Rogers; but in that brief instant he had seen them--or thought he had seen them--his accomplices, ready to betray the interests of which they went on to speak with a certain comfortable jocosity, and a certain incredulous slight of his show of integrity. It was a deeper game than Lapham was used to, and he sat looking with a sort of admiration from one Englishman to the other, and then to Rogers, who maintained an exterior of modest neutrality, and whose air said, "I have brought you gentlemen together as the friend of all parties, and I now leave you to settle it among yourselves. I ask nothing, and expect nothing, except the small sum which shall accrue to me after the discharge of my obligations to Colonel Lapham." While Rogers's presence expressed this, one of the Englishmen was saying, "And if you have any scruple in allowin' us to assume this risk, Colonel Lapham, perhaps you can console yourself with the fact that the loss, if there is to be any, will fall upon people who are able to bear it--upon an association of rich and charitable people. But we're quite satisfied there will be no loss," he added savingly. "All you have to do is to name your price, and we will do our best to meet it." There was nothing in the Englishman's sophistry very shocking to Lapham. It addressed itself in him to that easy-going, not evilly intentioned, potential immorality which regards common property as common prey, and gives us the most corrupt municipal governments under the sun--which makes the poorest voter, when he has tricked into place, as unscrupulous in regard to others' money as an hereditary prince. Lapham met the Englishman's eye, and with difficulty kept himself from winking. Then he looked away, and tried to find out where he stood, or what he wanted to do. He could hardly tell. He had expected to come into that room and unmask Rogers, and have it over. But he had unmasked Rogers without any effect whatever, and the play had only begun. He had a whimsical and sarcastic sense of its being very different from the plays at the theatre. He could not get up and go away in silent contempt; he could not tell the Englishmen that he believed them a pair of scoundrels and should have nothing to do with them; he could no longer treat them as innocent dupes. He remained baffled and perplexed, and the one who had not spoken hitherto remarked-- "Of course we shan't 'aggle about a few pound, more or less. If Colonel Lapham's figure should be a little larger than ours, I've no doubt 'e'll not be too 'ard upon us in the end." Lapham appreciated all the intent of this subtle suggestion, and understood as plainly as if it had been said in so many words, that if they paid him a larger price, it was to be expected that a certain portion of the purchase-money was to return to their own hands. Still he could not move; and it seemed to him that he could not speak. "Ring that bell, Mr. Rogers," said the Englishman who had last spoken, glancing at the annunciator button in the wall near Rogers's head, "and 'ave up something 'of, can't you? I should like TO wet me w'istle, as you say 'ere, and Colonel Lapham seems to find it rather dry work." Lapham jumped to his feet, and buttoned his overcoat about him. He remembered with terror the dinner at Corey's where he had disgraced and betrayed himself, and if he went into this thing at all, he was going into it sober. "I can't stop," he said, "I must be going." "But you haven't given us an answer yet, Mr. Lapham," said the first Englishman with a successful show of dignified surprise. "The only answer I can give you now is, NO," said Lapham. "If you want another, you must let me have time to think it over." "But 'ow much time?" said the other Englishman. "We're pressed for time ourselves, and we hoped for an answer--'oped for a hanswer," he corrected himself, "at once. That was our understandin' with Mr. Rogers." "I can't let you know till morning, anyway," said Lapham, and he went out, as his custom often was, without any parting salutation. He thought Rogers might try to detain him; but Rogers had remained seated when the others got to their feet, and paid no attention to his departure. He walked out into the night air, every pulse throbbing with the strong temptation. He knew very well those men would wait, and gladly wait, till the morning, and that the whole affair was in his hands. It made him groan in spirit to think that it was. If he had hoped that some chance might take the decision from him, there was no such chance, in the present or future, that he could see. It was for him alone to commit this rascality--if it was a rascality--or not. He walked all the way home, letting one car after another pass him on the street, now so empty of other passing, and it was almost eleven o'clock when he reached home. A carriage stood before his house, and when he let himself in with his key, he heard talking in the family-room. It came into his head that Irene had got back unexpectedly, and that the sight of her was somehow going to make it harder for him; then he thought it might be Corey, come upon some desperate pretext to see Penelope; but when he opened the door he saw, with a certain absence of surprise, that it was Rogers. He was standing with his back to the fireplace, talking to Mrs. Lapham, and he had been shedding tears; dry tears they seemed, and they had left a sort of sandy, glistening trace on his cheeks. Apparently he was not ashamed of them, for the expression with which he met Lapham was that of a man making a desperate appeal in his own cause, which was identical with that of humanity, if not that of justice. "I some expected," began Rogers, "to find you here----" "No, you didn't," interrupted Lapham; "you wanted to come here and make a poor mouth to Mrs. Lapham before I got home." "I knew that Mrs. Lapham would know what was going on," said Rogers more candidly, but not more virtuously, for that he could not, "and I wished her to understand a point that I hadn't put to you at the hotel, and that I want you should consider. And I want you should consider me a little in this business too; you're not the only one that's concerned, I tell you, and I've been telling Mrs. Lapham that it's my one chance; that if you don't meet me on it, my wife and children will be reduced to beggary." "So will mine," said Lapham, "or the next thing to it." "Well, then, I want you to give me this chance to get on my feet again. You've no right to deprive me of it; it's unchristian. In our dealings with each other we should be guided by the Golden Rule, as I was saying to Mrs. Lapham before you came in. I told her that if I knew myself, I should in your place consider the circumstances of a man in mine, who had honourably endeavoured to discharge his obligations to me, and had patiently borne my undeserved suspicions. I should consider that man's family, I told Mrs. Lapham." "Did you tell her that if I went in with you and those fellows, I should be robbing the people who trusted them?" "I don't see what you've got to do with the people that sent them here. They are rich people, and could bear it if it came to the worst. But there's no likelihood, now, that it will come to the worst; you can see yourself that the Road has changed its mind about buying. And here am I without a cent in the world; and my wife is an invalid. She needs comforts, she needs little luxuries, and she hasn't even the necessaries; and you want to sacrifice her to a mere idea! You don't know in the first place that the Road will ever want to buy; and if it does, the probability is that with a colony like that planted on its line, it would make very different terms from what it would with you or me. These agents are not afraid, and their principals are rich people; and if there was any loss, it would be divided up amongst them so that they wouldn't any of them feel it." Lapham stole a troubled glance at his wife, and saw that there was no help in her. Whether she was daunted and confused in her own conscience by the outcome, so evil and disastrous, of the reparation to Rogers which she had forced her husband to make, or whether her perceptions had been blunted and darkened by the appeals which Rogers had now used, it would be difficult to say. Probably there was a mixture of both causes in the effect which her husband felt in her, and from which he turned, girding himself anew, to Rogers. "I have no wish to recur to the past," continued Rogers, with growing superiority. "You have shown a proper spirit in regard to that, and you have done what you could to wipe it out." "I should think I had," said Lapham. "I've used up about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars trying." "Some of my enterprises," Rogers admitted, "have been unfortunate, seemingly; but I have hopes that they will yet turn out well--in time. I can't understand why you should be so mindful of others now, when you showed so little regard for me then. I had come to your aid at a time when you needed help, and when you got on your feet you kicked me out of the business. I don't complain, but that is the fact; and I had to begin again, after I had supposed myself settled in life, and establish myself elsewhere." Lapham glanced again at his wife; her head had fallen; he could see that she was so rooted in her old remorse for that questionable act of his, amply and more than fully atoned for since, that she was helpless, now in the crucial moment, when he had the utmost need of her insight. He had counted upon her; he perceived now that when he had thought it was for him alone to decide, he had counted upon her just spirit to stay his own in its struggle to be just. He had not forgotten how she held out against him only a little while ago, when he asked her whether he might not rightfully sell in some such contingency as this; and it was not now that she said or even looked anything in favour of Rogers, but that she was silent against him, which dismayed Lapham. He swallowed the lump that rose in his throat, the self-pity, the pity for her, the despair, and said gently, "I guess you better go to bed, Persis. It's pretty late." She turned towards the door, when Rogers said, with the obvious intention of detaining her through her curiosity-- "But I let that pass. And I don't ask now that you should sell to these men." Mrs. Lapham paused, irresolute. "What are you making this bother for, then?" demanded Lapham. "What DO you want?" "What I've been telling your wife here. I want you should sell to me. I don't say what I'm going to do with the property, and you will not have an iota of responsibility, whatever happens." Lapham was staggered, and he saw his wife's face light up with eager question. "I want that property," continued Rogers, "and I've got the money to buy it. What will you take for it? If it's the price you're standing out for----" "Persis," said Lapham, "go to bed," and he gave her a look that meant obedience for her. She went out of the door, and left him with his tempter. "If you think I'm going to help you whip the devil round the stump, you're mistaken in your man, Milton Rogers," said Lapham, lighting a cigar. "As soon as I sold to you, you would sell to that other pair of rascals. I smelt 'em out in half a minute." "They are Christian gentlemen," said Rogers. "But I don't purpose defending them; and I don't purpose telling you what I shall or shall not do with the property when it is in my hands again. The question is, Will you sell, and, if so, what is your figure? You have got nothing whatever to do with it after you've sold." It was perfectly true. Any lawyer would have told him the same. He could not help admiring Rogers for his ingenuity, and every selfish interest of his nature joined with many obvious duties to urge him to consent. He did not see why he should refuse. There was no longer a reason. He was standing out alone for nothing, any one else would say. He smoked on as if Rogers were not there, and Rogers remained before the fire as patient as the clock ticking behind his head on the mantel, and showing the gleam of its pendulum beyond his face on either side. But at last he said, "Well?" "Well," answered Lapham, "you can't expect me to give you an answer to-night, any more than before. You know that what you've said now hasn't changed the thing a bit. I wish it had. The Lord knows, I want to be rid of the property fast enough." "Then why don't you sell to me? Can't you see that you will not be responsible for what happens after you have sold?" "No, I can't see that; but if I can by morning, I'll sell." "Why do you expect to know any better by morning? You're wasting time for nothing!" cried Rogers, in his disappointment. "Why are you so particular? When you drove me out of the business you were not so very particular." Lapham winced. It was certainly ridiculous for man who had once so selfishly consulted his own interests to be stickling now about the rights of others. "I guess nothing's going to happen overnight," he answered sullenly. "Anyway, I shan't say what I shall do till morning." "What time can I see you in the morning?" "Half-past nine." Rogers buttoned his coat, and went out of the room without another word. Lapham followed him to close the street-door after him. His wife called down to him from above as he approached the room again, "Well?" "I've told him I'd let him know in the morning." "Want I should come down and talk with you?" "No," answered Lapham, in the proud bitterness which his isolation brought, "you couldn't do any good." He went in and shut the door, and by and by his wife heard him begin walking up and down; and then the rest of the night she lay awake and listened to him walking up and down. But when the first light whitened the window, the words of the Scripture came into her mind: "And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.... And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." She could not ask him anything when they met, but he raised his dull eyes after the first silence, and said, "I don't know what I'm going to say to Rogers." She could not speak; she did not know what to say, and she saw her husband when she followed him with her eyes from the window, drag heavily down toward the corner, where he was to take, the horse-car. He arrived rather later than usual at his office, and he found his letters already on his table. There was one, long and official-looking, with a printed letter-heading on the outside, and Lapham had no need to open it in order to know that it was the offer of the Great Lacustrine & Polar Railroad for his mills. But he went mechanically through the verification of his prophetic fear, which was also his sole hope, and then sat looking blankly at it. Rogers came promptly at the appointed time, and Lapham handed him the letter. He must have taken it all in at a glance, and seen the impossibility of negotiating any further now, even with victims so pliant and willing as those Englishmen. "You've ruined me!" Rogers broke out. "I haven't a cent left in the world! God help my poor wife!" He went out, and Lapham remained staring at the door which closed upon him. This was his reward for standing firm for right and justice to his own destruction: to feel like a thief and a murderer. XXVI. LATER in the forenoon came the despatch from the West Virginians in New York, saying their brother assented to their agreement; and it now remained for Lapham to fulfil his part of it. He was ludicrously far from able to do this; and unless he could get some extension of time from them, he must lose this chance, his only chance, to retrieve himself. He spent the time in a desperate endeavour to raise the money, but he had not raised the half of it when the banks closed. With shame in his heart he went to Bellingham, from whom he had parted so haughtily, and laid his plan before him. He could not bring himself to ask Bellingham's help, but he told him what he proposed to do. Bellingham pointed out that the whole thing was an experiment, and that the price asked was enormous, unless a great success were morally certain. He advised delay, he advised prudence; he insisted that Lapham ought at least to go out to Kanawha Falls, and see the mines and works before he put any such sum into the development of the enterprise. "That's all well enough," cried Lapham; "but if I don't clinch this offer within twenty-four hours, they'll withdraw it, and go into the market; and then where am I?" "Go on and see them again," said Bellingham. "They can't be so peremptory as that with you. They must give you time to look at what they want to sell. If it turns out what you hope, then--I'll see what can be done. But look into it thoroughly." "Well!" cried Lapham, helplessly submitting. He took out his watch, and saw that he had forty minutes to catch the four o'clock train. He hurried back to his office, and put together some papers preparatory to going, and despatched a note by his boy to Mrs. Lapham saying that he was starting for New York, and did not know just when he should get back. The early spring day was raw and cold. As he went out through the office he saw the clerks at work with their street-coats and hats on; Miss Dewey had her jacket dragged up on her shoulders, and looked particularly comfortless as she operated her machine with her red fingers. "What's up?" asked Lapham, stopping a moment. "Seems to be something the matter with the steam," she answered, with the air of unmerited wrong habitual with so many pretty women who have to work for a living. "Well, take your writer into my room. There's a fire in the stove there," said Lapham, passing out. Half an hour later his wife came into the outer office. She had passed the day in a passion of self-reproach, gradually mounting from the mental numbness in which he had left her, and now she could wait no longer to tell him that she saw how she had forsaken him in his hour of trial and left him to bear it alone. She wondered at herself in shame and dismay; she wondered that she could have been so confused as to the real point by that old wretch of a Rogers, that she could have let him hoodwink her so, even for a moment. It astounded her that such a thing should have happened, for if there was any virtue upon which this good woman prided herself, in which she thought herself superior to her husband, it was her instant and steadfast perception of right and wrong, and the ability to choose the right to her own hurt. But she had now to confess, as each of us has had likewise to confess in his own case, that the very virtue on which she had prided herself was the thing that had played her false; that she had kept her mind so long upon that old wrong which she believed her husband had done this man that she could not detach it, but clung to the thought of reparation for it when she ought to have seen that he was proposing a piece of roguery as the means. The suffering which Lapham must inflict on him if he decided against him had been more to her apprehension than the harm he might do if he decided for him. But now she owned her limitations to herself, and above everything in the world she wished the man whom her conscience had roused and driven on whither her intelligence had not followed, to do right, to do what he felt to be right, and nothing else. She admired and revered him for going beyond her, and she wished to tell him that she did not know what he had determined to do about Rogers, but that she knew it was right, and would gladly abide the consequences with him, whatever they were. She had not been near his place of business for nearly a year, and her heart smote her tenderly as she looked about her there, and thought of the early days when she knew as much about the paint as he did; she wished that those days were back again. She saw Corey at his desk, and she could not bear to speak to him; she dropped her veil that she need not recognise him, and pushed on to Lapham's room, and opening the door without knocking, shut it behind her. Then she became aware with intolerable disappointment that her husband was not there. Instead, a very pretty girl sat at his desk, operating a typewriter. She seemed quite at home, and she paid Mrs. Lapham the scant attention which such young women often bestow upon people not personally interesting to them. It vexed the wife that any one else should seem to be helping her husband about business that she had once been so intimate with; and she did not at all like the girl's indifference to her presence. Her hat and sack hung on a nail in one corner, and Lapham's office coat, looking intensely like him to his wife's familiar eye, hung on a nail in the other corner; and Mrs. Lapham liked even less than the girl's good looks this domestication of her garments in her husband's office. She began to ask herself excitedly why he should be away from his office when she happened to come; and she had not the strength at the moment to reason herself out of her unreasonableness. "When will Colonel Lapham be in, do you suppose?" she sharply asked of the girl. "I couldn't say exactly," replied the girl, without looking round. "Has he been out long?" "I don't know as I noticed," said the girl, looking up at the clock, without looking at Mrs. Lapham. She went on working her machine. "Well, I can't wait any longer," said the wife abruptly. "When Colonel Lapham comes in, you please tell him Mrs. Lapham wants to see him." The girl started to her feet and turned toward Mrs. Lapham with a red and startled face, which she did not lift to confront her. "Yes--yes--I will," she faltered. The wife went home with a sense of defeat mixed with an irritation about this girl which she could not quell or account for. She found her husband's message, and it seemed intolerable that he should have gone to New York without seeing her; she asked herself in vain what the mysterious business could be that took him away so suddenly. She said to herself that he was neglecting her; he was leaving her out a little too much; and in demanding of herself why he had never mentioned that girl there in his office, she forgot how much she had left herself out of his business life. That was another curse of their prosperity. Well, she was glad the prosperity was going; it had never been happiness. After this she was going to know everything as she used. She tried to dismiss the whole matter till Lapham returned; and if there had been anything for her to do in that miserable house, as she called it in her thought, she might have succeeded. But again the curse was on her; there was nothing to do; and the looks of that girl kept coming back to her vacancy, her disoccupation. She tried to make herself something to do, but that beauty, which she had not liked, followed her amid the work of overhauling the summer clothing, which Irene had seen to putting away in the fall. Who was the thing, anyway? It was very strange, her being there; why did she jump up in that frightened way when Mrs. Lapham had named herself? After dark, that evening, when the question had worn away its poignancy from mere iteration, a note for Mrs. Lapham was left at the door by a messenger who said there was no answer. "A note for me?" she said, staring at the unknown, and somehow artificial-looking, handwriting of the superscription. Then she opened it and read: "Ask your husband about his lady copying-clerk. A Friend and Well-wisher," who signed the note, gave no other name. Mrs. Lapham sat helpless with it in her hand. Her brain reeled; she tried to fight the madness off; but before Lapham came back the second morning, it had become, with lessening intervals of sanity and release, a demoniacal possession. She passed the night without sleep, without rest, in the frenzy of the cruellest of the passions, which covers with shame the unhappy soul it possesses, and murderously lusts for the misery of its object. If she had known where to find her husband in New York, she would have followed him; she waited his return in an ecstasy of impatience. In the morning he came back, looking spent and haggard. She saw him drive up to the door, and she ran to let him in herself. "Who is that girl you've got in your office, Silas Lapham?" she demanded, when her husband entered. "Girl in my office?" "Yes! Who is she? What is she doing there?" "Why, what have you heard about her?" "Never you mind what I've heard. Who is she? IS IT MRS. M. THAT YOU GAVE THAT MONEY TO? I want to know who she is! I want to know what a respectable man, with grown-up girls of his own, is doing with such a looking thing as that in his office? I want to know how long she's been there? I want to know what she's there at all for?" He had mechanically pushed her before him into the long, darkened parlour, and he shut himself in there with her now, to keep the household from hearing her lifted voice. For a while he stood bewildered, and could not have answered if he would, and then he would not. He merely asked, "Have I ever accused you of anything wrong, Persis?" "You no need to!" she answered furiously, placing herself against the closed door. "Did you ever know me to do anything out of the way?" "That isn't what I asked you." "Well, I guess you may find out about that girl yourself. Get away from the door." "I won't get away from the door." She felt herself set lightly aside, and her husband opened the door and went out. "I WILL find out about her," she screamed after him. "I'll find out, and I'll disgrace you. I'll teach you how to treat me----" The air blackened round her: she reeled to the sofa and then she found herself waking from a faint. She did not know how long she had lain there, she did not care. In a moment her madness came whirling back upon her. She rushed up to his room; it was empty; the closet-doors stood ajar and the drawers were open; he must have packed a bag hastily and fled. She went out and wandered crazily up and down till she found a hack. She gave the driver her husband's business address, and told him to drive there as fast as he could; and three times she lowered the window to put her head out and ask him if he could not hurry. A thousand things thronged into her mind to support her in her evil will. She remembered how glad and proud that man had been to marry her, and how everybody said she was marrying beneath her when she took him. She remembered how good she had always been to him, how perfectly devoted, slaving early and late to advance him, and looking out for his interests in all things, and sparing herself in nothing. If it had not been for her, he might have been driving stage yet; and since their troubles had begun, the troubles which his own folly and imprudence had brought on them, her conduct had been that of a true and faithful wife. Was HE the sort of man to be allowed to play her false with impunity? She set her teeth and drew her breath sharply through them when she thought how willingly she had let him befool her, and delude her about that memorandum of payments to Mrs. M., because she loved him so much, and pitied him for his cares and anxieties. She recalled his confusion, his guilty looks. She plunged out of the carriage so hastily when she reached the office that she did not think of paying the driver; and he had to call after her when she had got half-way up the stairs. Then she went straight to Lapham's room, with outrage in her heart. There was again no one there but that type-writer girl; she jumped to her feet in a fright, as Mrs. Lapham dashed the door to behind her and flung up her veil. The two women confronted each other. "Why, the good land!" cried Mrs. Lapham, "ain't you Zerrilla Millon?" "I--I'm married," faltered the girl "My name's Dewey, now." "You're Jim Millon's daughter, anyway. How long have you been here?" "I haven't been here regularly; I've been here off and on ever since last May." "Where's your mother?" "She's here--in Boston." Mrs. Lapham kept her eyes on the girl, but she dropped, trembling, into her husband's chair, and a sort of amaze and curiosity were in her voice instead of the fury she had meant to put there. "The Colonel," continued Zerrilla, "he's been helping us, and he's got me a type-writer, so that I can help myself a little. Mother's doing pretty well now; and when Hen isn't around we can get along." "That your husband?" "I never wanted to marry him; but he promised to try to get something to do on shore; and mother was all for it, because he had a little property then, and I thought may be I'd better. But it's turned out just as I said and if he don't stay away long enough this time to let me get the divorce,--he's agreed to it, time and again,--I don't know what we're going to do." Zerrilla's voice fell, and the trouble which she could keep out of her face usually, when she was comfortably warmed and fed and prettily dressed, clouded it in the presence of a sympathetic listener. "I saw it was you, when you came in the other day," she went on; "but you didn't seem to know me. I suppose the Colonel's told you that there's a gentleman going to marry me--Mr. Wemmel's his name--as soon as I get the divorce; but sometimes I'm completely discouraged; it don't seem as if I ever could get it." Mrs. Lapham would not let her know that she was ignorant of the fact attributed to her knowledge. She remained listening to Zerrilla, and piecing out the whole history of her presence there from the facts of the past, and the traits of her husband's character. One of the things she had always had to fight him about was that idea of his that he was bound to take care of Jim Millon's worthless wife and her child because Millon had got the bullet that was meant for him. It was a perfect superstition of his; she could not beat it out of him; but she had made him promise the last time he had done anything for that woman that it should BE the last time. He had then got her a little house in one of the fishing ports, where she could take the sailors to board and wash for, and earn an honest living if she would keep straight. That was five or six years ago, and Mrs. Lapham had heard nothing of Mrs. Millon since; she had heard quite enough of her before; and had known her idle and baddish ever since she was the worst little girl at school in Lumberville, and all through her shameful girlhood, and the married days which she had made so miserable to the poor fellow who had given her his decent name and a chance to behave herself. Mrs. Lapham had no mercy on Moll Millon, and she had quarrelled often enough with her husband for befriending her. As for the child, if the mother would put Zerrilla out with some respectable family, that would be ONE thing; but as long as she kept Zerrilla with her, she was against letting her husband do anything for either of them. He had done ten times as much for them now as he had any need to, and she had made him give her his solemn word that he would do no more. She saw now that she was wrong to make him give it, and that he must have broken it again and again for the reason that he had given when she once scolded him for throwing away his money on that hussy-- "When I think of Jim Millon, I've got to; that's all." She recalled now that whenever she had brought up the subject of Mrs. Millon and her daughter, he had seemed shy of it, and had dropped it with some guess that they were getting along now. She wondered that she had not thought at once of Mrs. Millon when she saw that memorandum about Mrs. M.; but the woman had passed so entirely out of her life, that she had never dreamt of her in connection with it. Her husband had deceived her, yet her heart was no longer hot against him, but rather tenderly grateful that his deceit was in this sort, and not in that other. All cruel and shameful doubt of him went out of it. She looked at this beautiful girl, who had blossomed out of her knowledge since she saw her last, and she knew that she was only a blossomed weed, of the same worthless root as her mother, and saved, if saved, from the same evil destiny, by the good of her father in her; but so far as the girl and her mother were concerned, Mrs. Lapham knew that her husband was to blame for nothing but his wilful, wrong-headed, kind-heartedness, which her own exactions had turned into deceit. She remained a while, questioning the girl quietly about herself and her mother, and then, with a better mind towards Zerrilla, at least, than she had ever had before, she rose up and went out. There must have been some outer hint of the exhaustion in which the subsidence of her excitement had left her within, for before she had reached the head of the stairs, Corey came towards her. "Can I be of any use to you, Mrs. Lapham? The Colonel was here just before you came in, on his way to the train." "Yes,--yes. I didn't know--I thought perhaps I could catch him here. But it don't matter. I wish you would let some one go with me to get a carriage," she begged feebly. "I'll go with you myself," said the young fellow, ignoring the strangeness in her manner. He offered her his arm in the twilight of the staircase, and she was glad to put her trembling hand through it, and keep it there till he helped her into a hack which he found for her. He gave the driver her direction, and stood looking a little anxiously at her. "I thank you; I am all right now," she said, and he bade the man drive on. When she reached home she went to bed, spent with the tumult of her emotions and sick with shame and self-reproach. She understood now, as clearly as if he had told her in as many words, that if he had befriended those worthless jades--the Millons characterised themselves so, even to Mrs. Lapham's remorse--secretly and in defiance of her, it was because he dreaded her blame, which was so sharp and bitter, for what he could not help doing. It consoled her that he had defied her, deceived her; when he came back she should tell him that; and then it flashed upon her that she did not know where he was gone, or whether he would ever come again. If he never came, it would be no more than she deserved; but she sent for Penelope, and tried to give herself hopes of escape from this just penalty. Lapham had not told his daughter where he was going; she had heard him packing his bag, and had offered to help him; but he had said he could do it best, and had gone off, as he usually did, without taking leave of any one. "What were you talking about so loud, down in the parlour," she asked her mother, "just before he came up. Is there any new trouble?" "No; it was nothing." "I couldn't tell. Once I thought you were laughing." She went about, closing the curtains on account of her mother's headache, and doing awkwardly and imperfectly the things that Irene would have done so skilfully for her comfort. The day wore away to nightfall, and then Mrs. Lapham said she MUST know. Penelope said there was no one to ask; the clerks would all be gone home, and her mother said yes, there was Mr. Corey; they could send and ask him; he would know. The girl hesitated. "Very well," she said, then, scarcely above a whisper, and she presently laughed huskily. "Mr. Corey seems fated to come in, somewhere. I guess it's a Providence, mother." She sent off a note, inquiring whether he could tell her just where her father had expected to be that night; and the answer came quickly back that Corey did not know, but would look up the book-keeper and inquire. This office brought him in person, an hour later, to tell Penelope that the Colonel was to be at Lapham that night and next day. "He came in from New York, in a great hurry, and rushed off as soon as he could pack his bag," Penelope explained, "and we hadn't a chance to ask him where he was to be to-night. And mother wasn't very well, and----" "I thought she wasn't looking well when she was at the office to-day. And so I thought I would come rather than send," Corey explained in his turn. "Oh, thank you!" "If there is anything I can do--telegraph Colonel Lapham, or anything?" "Oh no, thank you; mother's better now. She merely wanted to be sure where he was." He did not offer to go, upon this conclusion of his business, but hoped he was not keeping her from her mother. She thanked him once again, and said no, that her mother was much better since she had had a cup of tea; and then they looked at each other, and without any apparent exchange of intelligence he remained, and at eleven o'clock he was still there. He was honest in saying he did not know it was so late; but he made no pretence of being sorry, and she took the blame to herself. "I oughtn't to have let you stay," she said. "But with father gone, and all that trouble hanging over us----" She was allowing him to hold her hand a moment at the door, to which she had followed him. "I'm so glad you could let me!" he said, "and I want to ask you now when I may come again. But if you need me, you'll----" A sharp pull at the door-bell outside made them start asunder, and at a sign from Penelope, who knew that the maids were abed by this time, he opened it. "Why, Irene!" shrieked the girl. Irene entered with the hackman, who had driven her unheard to the door, following with her small bags, and kissed her sister with resolute composure. "That's all," she said to the hackman. "I gave my checks to the expressman," she explained to Penelope. Corey stood helpless. Irene turned upon him, and gave him her hand. "How do you do, Mr. Corey?" she said, with a courage that sent a thrill of admiring gratitude through him. "Where's mamma, Pen? Papa gone to bed?" Penelope faltered out some reply embodying the facts, and Irene ran up the stairs to her mother's room. Mrs. Lapham started up in bed at her apparition. "Irene Lapham." "Uncle William thought he ought to tell me the trouble papa was in; and did you think I was going to stay off there junketing, while you were going through all this at home, and Pen acting so silly, too? You ought to have been ashamed to let me stay so long! I started just as soon as I could pack. Did you get my despatch? I telegraphed from Springfield. But it don't matter, now. Here I am. And I don't think I need have hurried on Pen's account," she added, with an accent prophetic of the sort of old maid she would become, if she happened not to marry. "Did you see him?" asked her mother. "It's the first time he's been here since she told him he mustn't come." "I guess it isn't the last time, by the looks," said Irene, and before she took off her bonnet she began to undo some of Penelope's mistaken arrangements of the room. At breakfast, where Corey and his mother met the next morning before his father and sisters came down, he told her, with embarrassment which told much more, that he wished now that she would go and call upon the Laphams. Mrs. Corey turned a little pale, but shut her lips tight and mourned in silence whatever hopes she had lately permitted herself. She answered with Roman fortitude: "Of course, if there's anything between you and Miss Lapham, your family ought to recognise it." "Yes," said Corey. "You were reluctant to have me call at first, but now if the affair is going on----" "It is! I hope--yes, it is!" "Then I ought to go and see her, with your sisters; and she ought to come here and--we ought all to see her and make the matter public. We can't do so too soon. It will seem as if we were ashamed if we don't." "Yes, you are quite right, mother," said the young man gratefully, "and I feel how kind and good you are. I have tried to consider you in this matter, though I don't seem to have done so; I know what your rights are, and I wish with all my heart that I were meeting even your tastes perfectly. But I know you will like her when you come to know her. It's been very hard for her every way--about her sister,--and she's made a great sacrifice for me. She's acted nobly." Mrs. Corey, whose thoughts cannot always be reported, said she was sure of it, and that all she desired was her son's happiness. "She's been very unwilling to consider it an engagement on that account, and on account of Colonel Lapham's difficulties. I should like to have you go, now, for that very reason. I don't know just how serious the trouble is; but it isn't a time when we can seem indifferent." The logic of this was not perhaps so apparent to the glasses of fifty as to the eyes of twenty-six; but Mrs. Corey, however she viewed it, could not allow herself to blench before the son whom she had taught that to want magnanimity was to be less than gentlemanly. She answered, with what composure she could, "I will take your sisters," and then she made some natural inquiries about Lapham's affairs. "Oh, I hope it will come out all right," Corey said, with a lover's vague smile, and left her. When his father came down, rubbing his long hands together, and looking aloof from all the cares of the practical world, in an artistic withdrawal, from which his eye ranged over the breakfast-table before he sat down, Mrs. Corey told him what she and their son had been saying. He laughed, with a delicate impersonal appreciation of the predicament. "Well, Anna, you can't say but if you ever were guilty of supposing yourself porcelain, this is a just punishment of your arrogance. Here you are bound by the very quality on which you've prided yourself to behave well to a bit of earthenware who is apparently in danger of losing the gilding that rendered her tolerable." "We never cared for the money," said Mrs. Corey. "You know that." "No; and now we can't seem to care for the loss of it. That would be still worse. Either horn of the dilemma gores us. Well, we still have the comfort we had in the beginning; we can't help ourselves; and we should only make bad worse by trying. Unless we can look to Tom's inamorata herself for help." Mrs. Corey shook her head so gloomily that her husband broke off with another laugh. But at the continued trouble of her face, he said, sympathetically: "My dear, I know it's a very disagreeable affair; and I don't think either of us has failed to see that it was so from the beginning. I have had my way of expressing my sense of it, and you yours, but we have always been of the same mind about it. We would both have preferred to have Tom marry in his own set; the Laphams are about the last set we could have wished him to marry into. They ARE uncultivated people, and so far as I have seen them, I'm not able to believe that poverty will improve them. Still, it may. Let us hope for the best, and let us behave as well as we know how. I'm sure YOU will behave well, and I shall try. I'm going with you to call on Miss Lapham. This is a thing that can't be done by halves!" He cut his orange in the Neapolitan manner, and ate it in quarters. XXVII. IRENE did not leave her mother in any illusion concerning her cousin Will and herself. She said they had all been as nice to her as they could be, and when Mrs. Lapham hinted at what had been in her thoughts,--or her hopes, rather,--Irene severely snubbed the notion. She said that he was as good as engaged to a girl out there, and that he had never dreamt of her. Her mother wondered at her severity; in these few months the girl had toughened and hardened; she had lost all her babyish dependence and pliability; she was like iron; and here and there she was sharpened to a cutting edge. It had been a life and death struggle with her; she had conquered, but she had also necessarily lost much. Perhaps what she had lost was not worth keeping; but at any rate she had lost it. She required from her mother a strict and accurate account of her father's affairs, so far as Mrs Lapham knew them; and she showed a business-like quickness in comprehending them that Penelope had never pretended to. With her sister she ignored the past as completely as it was possible to do; and she treated both Corey and Penelope with the justice which their innocence of voluntary offence deserved. It was a difficult part, and she kept away from them as much as she could. She had been easily excused, on a plea of fatigue from her journey, when Mr. and Mrs. Corey had called the day after her arrival, and Mrs. Lapham being still unwell, Penelope received them alone. The girl had instinctively judged best that they should know the worst at once, and she let them have the full brunt of the drawing-room, while she was screwing her courage up to come down and see them. She was afterwards--months afterwards--able to report to Corey that when she entered the room his father was sitting with his hat on his knees, a little tilted away from the Emancipation group, as if he expected the Lincoln to hit him, with that lifted hand of benediction; and that Mrs. Corey looked as if she were not sure but the Eagle pecked. But for the time being Penelope was as nearly crazed as might be by the complications of her position, and received her visitors with a piteous distraction which could not fail of touching Bromfield Corey's Italianised sympatheticism. He was very polite and tender with her at first, and ended by making a joke with her, to which Penelope responded, in her sort. He said he hoped they parted friends, if not quite acquaintances; and she said she hoped they would be able to recognise each other if they ever met again. "That is what I meant by her pertness," said Mrs Corey, when they were driving away. "Was it very pert?" he queried. "The child had to answer something." "I would much rather she had answered nothing, under the circumstances," said Mrs. Corey. "However!" she added hopelessly. "Oh, she's a merry little grig, you can see that, and there's no harm in her. I can understand a little why a formal fellow like Tom should be taken with her. She hasn't the least reverence, I suppose, and joked with the young man from the beginning. You must remember, Anna, that there was a time when you liked my joking." "It was a very different thing!" "But that drawing-room," pursued Corey; "really, I don't see how Tom stands that. Anna, a terrible thought occurs to me! Fancy Tom being married in front of that group, with a floral horse-shoe in tuberoses coming down on either side of it!" "Bromfield!" cried his wife, "you are unmerciful." "No, no, my dear," he argued; "merely imaginative. And I can even imagine that little thing finding Tom just the least bit slow, at times, if it were not for his goodness. Tom is so kind that I'm convinced he sometimes feels your joke in his heart when his head isn't quite clear about it. Well, we will not despond, my dear." "Your father seemed actually to like her," Mrs. Corey reported to her daughters, very much shaken in her own prejudices by the fact. If the girl were not so offensive to his fastidiousness, there might be some hope that she was not so offensive as Mrs. Corey had thought. "I wonder how she will strike YOU," she concluded, looking from one daughter to another, as if trying to decide which of them would like Penelope least. Irene's return and the visit of the Coreys formed a distraction for the Laphams in which their impending troubles seemed to hang further aloof; but it was only one of those reliefs which mark the course of adversity, and it was not one of the cheerful reliefs. At any other time, either incident would have been an anxiety and care for Mrs. Lapham which she would have found hard to bear; but now she almost welcomed them. At the end of three days Lapham returned, and his wife met him as if nothing unusual had marked their parting; she reserved her atonement for a fitter time; he would know now from the way she acted that she felt all right towards him. He took very little note of her manner, but met his family with an austere quiet that puzzled her, and a sort of pensive dignity that refined his rudeness to an effect that sometimes comes to such natures after long sickness, when the animal strength has been taxed and lowered. He sat silent with her at the table after their girls had left them alone, and seeing that he did not mean to speak, she began to explain why Irene had come home, and to praise her. "Yes, she done right," said Lapham. "It was time for her to come," he added gently. Then he was silent again, and his wife told him of Corey's having been there, and of his father's and mother's calling. "I guess Pen's concluded to make it up," she said. "Well, we'll see about that," said Lapham; and now she could no longer forbear to ask him about his affairs. "I don't know as I've got any right to know anything about it," she said humbly, with remote allusion to her treatment of him. "But I can't help wanting to know. How ARE things going, Si?" "Bad," he said, pushing his plate from him, and tilting himself back in his chair. "Or they ain't going at all. They've stopped." "What do you mean, Si?" she persisted, tenderly. "I've got to the end of my string. To-morrow I shall call a meeting of my creditors, and put myself in their hands. If there's enough left to satisfy them, I'm satisfied." His voice dropped in his throat; he swallowed once or twice, and then did not speak. "Do you mean that it's all over with you?" she asked fearfully. He bowed his big head, wrinkled and grizzled; and after awhile he said, "It's hard to realise it; but I guess there ain't any doubt about it." He drew a long breath, and then he explained to her about the West Virginia people, and how he had got an extension of the first time they had given him, and had got a man to go up to Lapham with him and look at the works,--a man that had turned up in New York, and wanted to put money in the business. His money would have enabled Lapham to close with the West Virginians. "The devil was in it, right straight along," said Lapham. "All I had to do was to keep quiet about that other company. It was Rogers and his property right over again. He liked the look of things, and he wanted to go into the business, and he had the money--plenty; it would have saved me with those West Virginia folks. But I had to tell him how I stood. I had to tell him all about it, and what I wanted to do. He began to back water in a minute, and the next morning I saw that it was up with him. He's gone back to New York. I've lost my last chance. Now all I've got to do is to save the pieces." "Will--will--everything go?" she asked. "I can't tell, yet. But they shall have a chance at everything--every dollar, every cent. I'm sorry for you, Persis--and the girls." "Oh, don't talk of US!" She was trying to realise that the simple, rude soul to which her heart clove in her youth, but which she had put to such cruel proof, with her unsparing conscience and her unsparing tongue, had been equal to its ordeals, and had come out unscathed and unstained. He was able in his talk to make so little of them; he hardly seemed to see what they were; he was apparently not proud of them, and certainly not glad; if they were victories of any sort, he bore them with the patience of defeat. His wife wished to praise him, but she did not know how; so she offered him a little reproach, in which alone she touched the cause of her behaviour at parting. "Silas," she asked, after a long gaze at him, "why didn't you tell me you had Jim Millon's girl there?" "I didn't suppose you'd like it, Persis," he answered. "I did intend to tell you at first, but then I put--I put it off. I thought you'd come round some day, and find it out for yourself." "I'm punished," said his wife, "for not taking enough interest in your business to even come near it. If we're brought back to the day of small things, I guess it's a lesson for me, Silas." "Oh, I don't know about the lesson," he said wearily. That night she showed him the anonymous scrawl which had kindled her fury against him. He turned it listlessly over in his hand. "I guess I know who it's from," he said, giving it back to her, "and I guess you do too, Persis." "But how--how could he----" "Mebbe he believed it," said Lapham, with patience that cut her more keenly than any reproach. "YOU did." Perhaps because the process of his ruin had been so gradual, perhaps because the excitement of preceding events had exhausted their capacity for emotion, the actual consummation of his bankruptcy brought a relief, a repose to Lapham and his family, rather than a fresh sensation of calamity. In the shadow of his disaster they returned to something like their old, united life; they were at least all together again; and it will be intelligible to those whom life has blessed with vicissitude, that Lapham should come home the evening after he had given up everything, to his creditors, and should sit down to his supper so cheerful that Penelope could joke him in the old way, and tell him that she thought from his looks they had concluded to pay him a hundred cents on every dollar he owed them. As James Bellingham had taken so much interest in his troubles from the first, Lapham thought he ought to tell him, before taking the final step, just how things stood with him, and what he meant to do. Bellingham made some futile inquiries about his negotiations with the West Virginians, and Lapham told him they had come to nothing. He spoke of the New York man, and the chance that he might have sold out half his business to him. "But, of course, I had to let him know how it was about those fellows." "Of course," said Bellingham, not seeing till afterwards the full significance of Lapham's action. Lapham said nothing about Rogers and the Englishmen. He believed that he had acted right in that matter, and he was satisfied; but he did not care to have Bellingham, or anybody, perhaps, think he had been a fool. All those who were concerned in his affairs said he behaved well, and even more than well, when it came to the worst. The prudence, the good sense, which he had shown in the first years of his success, and of which his great prosperity seemed to have bereft him, came back, and these qualities, used in his own behalf, commended him as much to his creditors as the anxiety he showed that no one should suffer by him; this even made some of them doubtful of his sincerity. They gave him time, and there would have been no trouble in his resuming on the old basis, if the ground had not been cut from under him by the competition of the West Virginia company. He saw himself that it was useless to try to go on in the old way, and he preferred to go back and begin the world anew where he had first begun it, in the hills at Lapham. He put the house at Nankeen Square, with everything else he had, into the payment of his debts, and Mrs. Lapham found it easier to leave it for the old farmstead in Vermont than it would have been to go from that home of many years to the new house on the water side of Beacon. This thing and that is embittered to us, so that we may be willing to relinquish it; the world, life itself, is embittered to most of us, so that we are glad to have done with them at last; and this home was haunted with such memories to each of those who abandoned it that to go was less exile than escape. Mrs. Lapham could not look into Irene's room without seeing the girl there before her glass, tearing the poor little keep-sakes of her hapless fancy from their hiding-places to take them and fling them in passionate renunciation upon her sister; she could not come into the sitting-room, where her little ones had grown up, without starting at the thought of her husband sitting so many weary nights at his desk there, trying to fight his way back to hope out of the ruin into which he was slipping. When she remembered that night when Rogers came, she hated the place. Irene accepted her release from the house eagerly, and was glad to go before and prepare for the family at Lapham. Penelope was always ashamed of her engagement there; it must seem better somewhere else and she was glad to go too. No one but Lapham in fact, felt the pang of parting in all its keenness. Whatever regret the others had was softened to them by the likeness of their flitting to many of those removals for the summer which they made in the late spring when they left Nankeen Square; they were going directly into the country instead of to the seaside first; but Lapham, who usually remained in town long after they had gone, knew all the difference. For his nerves there was no mechanical sense of coming back; this was as much the end of his proud, prosperous life as death itself could have been. He was returning to begin life anew, but he knew as well as he knew that he should not find his vanished youth in his native hills, that it could never again be the triumph that it had been. That was impossible, not only in his stiffened and weakened forces, but in the very nature of things. He was going back, by grace of the man whom he owed money, to make what he could out of the one chance which his successful rivals had left him. In one phase his paint had held its own against bad times and ruinous competition, and it was with the hope of doing still more with the Persis Brand that he now set himself to work. The West Virginia people confessed that they could not produce those fine grades, and they willingly left the field to him. A strange, not ignoble friendliness existed between Lapham and the three brothers; they had used him fairly; it was their facilities that had conquered him, not their ill-will; and he recognised in them without enmity the necessity to which he had yielded. If he succeeded in his efforts to develop his paint in this direction, it must be for a long time on a small scale compared with his former business, which it could never equal, and he brought to them the flagging energies of an elderly man. He was more broken than he knew by his failure; it did not kill, as it often does, but it weakened the spring once so strong and elastic. He lapsed more and more into acquiescence with his changed condition, and that bragging note of his was rarely sounded. He worked faithfully enough in his enterprise, but sometimes he failed to seize occasions that in his younger days he would have turned to golden account. His wife saw in him a daunted look that made her heart ache for him. One result of his friendly relations with the West Virginia people was that Corey went in with them, and the fact that he did so solely upon Lapham's advice, and by means of his recommendation, was perhaps the Colonel's proudest consolation. Corey knew the business thoroughly, and after half a year at Kanawha Falls and in the office at New York, he went out to Mexico and Central America, to see what could be done for them upon the ground which he had theoretically studied with Lapham. Before he went he came up to Vermont, and urged Penelope to go with him. He was to be first in the city of Mexico, and if his mission was successful he was to be kept there and in South America several years, watching the new railroad enterprises and the development of mechanical agriculture and whatever other undertakings offered an opening for the introduction of the paint. They were all young men together, and Corey, who had put his money into the company, had a proprietary interest in the success which they were eager to achieve. "There's no more reason now and no less than ever there was," mused Penelope, in counsel with her mother, "why I should say Yes, or why I should say No. Everything else changes, but this is just where it was a year ago. It don't go backward, and it don't go forward. Mother, I believe I shall take the bit in my teeth--if anybody will put it there!" "It isn't the same as it was," suggested her mother. "You can see that Irene's all over it." "That's no credit to me," said Penelope. "I ought to be just as much ashamed as ever." "You no need ever to be ashamed." "That's true, too," said the girl. "And I can sneak off to Mexico with a good conscience if I could make up my mind to it." She laughed. "Well, if I could be SENTENCED to be married, or somebody would up and forbid the banns! I don't know what to do about it." Her mother left her to carry her hesitation back to Corey, and she said now, they had better go all over it and try to reason it out. "And I hope that whatever I do, it won't be for my own sake, but for--others!" Corey said he was sure of that, and looked at her with eyes of patient tenderness. "I don't say it is wrong," she proceeded, rather aimlessly, "but I can't make it seem right. I don't know whether I can make you understand, but the idea of being happy, when everybody else is so miserable, is more than I can endure. It makes me wretched." "Then perhaps that's your share of the common suffering," suggested Corey, smiling. "Oh, you know it isn't! You know it's nothing. Oh! One of the reasons is what I told you once before, that as long as father is in trouble I can't let you think of me. Now that he's lost everything--?" She bent her eyes inquiringly upon him, as if for the effect of this argument. "I don't think that's a very good reason," he answered seriously, but smiling still. "Do you believe me when I tell you that I love you?" "Why, I suppose I must," she said, dropping her eyes. "Then why shouldn't I think all the more of you on account of your father's loss? You didn't suppose I cared for you because he was prosperous?" There was a shade of reproach, ever so delicate and gentle, in his smiling question, which she felt. "No, I couldn't think such a thing of you. I--I don't know what I meant. I meant that----" She could not go on and say that she had felt herself more worthy of him because of her father's money; it would not have been true; yet there was no other explanation. She stopped, and cast a helpless glance at him. He came to her aid. "I understand why you shouldn't wish me to suffer by your father's misfortunes." "Yes, that was it; and there is too great a difference every way. We ought to look at that again. You mustn't pretend that you don't know it, for that wouldn't be true. Your mother will never like me, and perhaps--perhaps I shall not like her." "Well," said Corey, a little daunted, "you won't have to marry my family." "Ah, that isn't the point!" "I know it," he admitted. "I won't pretend that I don't see what you mean; but I'm sure that all the differences would disappear when you came to know my family better. I'm not afraid but you and my mother will like each other--she can't help it!" he exclaimed, less judicially than he had hitherto spoken, and he went on to urge some points of doubtful tenability. "We have our ways, and you have yours; and while I don't say but what you and my mother and sisters would be a little strange together at first, it would soon wear off, on both sides. There can't be anything hopelessly different in you all, and if there were it wouldn't be any difference to me." "Do you think it would be pleasant to have you on my side against your mother?" "There won't be any sides. Tell me just what it is you're afraid of." "Afraid?" "Thinking of, then." "I don't know. It isn't anything they say or do," she explained, with her eyes intent on his. "It's what they are. I couldn't be natural with them, and if I can't be natural with people, I'm disagreeable." "Can you be natural with me?" "Oh, I'm not afraid of you. I never was. That was the trouble, from the beginning." "Well, then, that's all that's necessary. And it never was the least trouble to me!" "It made me untrue to Irene." "You mustn't say that! You were always true to her." "She cared for you first." "Well, but I never cared for her at all!" he besought her. "She thought you did." "That was nobody's fault, and I can't let you make it yours. My dear----" "Wait. We must understand each other," said Penelope, rising from her seat to prevent an advance he was making from his; "I want you to realise the whole affair. Should you want a girl who hadn't a cent in the world, and felt different in your mother's company, and had cheated and betrayed her own sister?" "I want you!" "Very well, then, you can't have me. I should always despise myself. I ought to give you up for all these reasons. Yes, I must." She looked at him intently, and there was a tentative quality in her affirmations. "Is this your answer?" he said. "I must submit. If I asked too much of you, I was wrong. And--good-bye." He held out his hand, and she put hers in it. "You think I'm capricious and fickle!" she said. "I can't help it--I don't know myself. I can't keep to one thing for half a day at a time. But it's right for us to part--yes, it must be. It must be," she repeated; "and I shall try to remember that. Good-bye! I will try to keep that in my mind, and you will too--you won't care, very soon! I didn't mean THAT--no; I know how true you are; but you will soon look at me differently; and see that even IF there hadn't been this about Irene, I was not the one for you. You do think so, don't you?" she pleaded, clinging to his hand. "I am not at all what they would like--your family; I felt that. I am little, and black, and homely, and they don't understand my way of talking, and now that we've lost everything--No, I'm not fit. Good-bye. You're quite right, not to have patience with me any longer. I've tried you enough. I ought to be willing to marry you against their wishes if you want me to, but I can't make the sacrifice--I'm too selfish for that----" All at once she flung herself on his breast. "I can't even give you up! I shall never dare look any one in the face again. Go, go! But take me with you! I tried to do without you! I gave it a fair trial, and it was a dead failure. O poor Irene! How could she give you up?" Corey went back to Boston immediately, and left Penelope, as he must, to tell her sister that they were to be married. She was spared from the first advance toward this by an accident or a misunderstanding. Irene came straight to her after Corey was gone, and demanded, "Penelope Lapham, have you been such a ninny as to send that man away on my account?" Penelope recoiled from this terrible courage; she did not answer directly, and Irene went on, "Because if you did, I'll thank you to bring him back again. I'm not going to have him thinking that I'm dying for a man that never cared for me. It's insulting, and I'm not going to stand it. Now, you just send for him!" "Oh, I will, 'Rene," gasped Penelope. And then she added, shamed out of her prevarication by Irene's haughty magnanimity, "I have. That is--he's coming back----" Irene looked at her a moment, and then, whatever thought was in her mind, said fiercely, "Well!" and left her to her dismay--her dismay and her relief, for they both knew that this was the last time they should ever speak of that again. The marriage came after so much sorrow and trouble, and the fact was received with so much misgiving for the past and future, that it brought Lapham none of the triumph in which he had once exulted at the thought of an alliance with the Coreys. Adversity had so far been his friend that it had taken from him all hope of the social success for which people crawl and truckle, and restored him, through failure and doubt and heartache, the manhood which his prosperity had so nearly stolen from him. Neither he nor his wife thought now that their daughter was marrying a Corey; they thought only that she was giving herself to the man who loved her, and their acquiescence was sobered still further by the presence of Irene. Their hearts were far more with her. Again and again Mrs. Lapham said she did not see how she could go through it. "I can't make it seem right," she said. "It IS right," steadily answered the Colonel. "Yes, I know. But it don't SEEM so." It would be easy to point out traits in Penelope's character which finally reconciled all her husband's family and endeared her to them. These things continually happen in novels; and the Coreys, as they had always promised themselves to do, made the best, and not the worst of Tom's marriage. They were people who could value Lapham's behaviour as Tom reported it to them. They were proud of him, and Bromfield Corey, who found a delicate, aesthetic pleasure in the heroism with which Lapham had withstood Rogers and his temptations--something finely dramatic and unconsciously effective,--wrote him a letter which would once have flattered the rough soul almost to ecstasy, though now he affected to slight it in showing it. "It's all right if it makes it more comfortable for Pen," he said to his wife. But the differences remained uneffaced, if not uneffaceable, between the Coreys and Tom Corey's wife. "If he had only married the Colonel!" subtly suggested Nanny Corey. There was a brief season of civility and forbearance on both sides, when he brought her home before starting for Mexico, and her father-in-law made a sympathetic feint of liking Penelope's way of talking, but it is questionable if even he found it so delightful as her husband did. Lily Corey made a little, ineffectual sketch of her, which she put by with other studies to finish up, sometime, and found her rather picturesque in some ways. Nanny got on with her better than the rest, and saw possibilities for her in the country to which she was going. "As she's quite unformed, socially," she explained to her mother, "there is a chance that she will form herself on the Spanish manner, if she stays there long enough, and that when she comes back she will have the charm of, not olives, perhaps, but tortillas, whatever they are: something strange and foreign, even if it's borrowed. I'm glad she's going to Mexico. At that distance we can--correspond." Her mother sighed, and said bravely that she was sure they all got on very pleasantly as it was, and that she was perfectly satisfied if Tom was. There was, in fact, much truth in what she said of their harmony with Penelope. Having resolved, from the beginning, to make the best of the worst, it might almost be said that they were supported and consoled in their good intentions by a higher power. This marriage had not, thanks to an over-ruling Providence, brought the succession of Lapham teas upon Bromfield Corey which he had dreaded; the Laphams were far off in their native fastnesses, and neither Lily nor Nanny Corey was obliged to sacrifice herself to the conversation of Irene; they were not even called upon to make a social demonstration for Penelope at a time when, most people being still out of town, it would have been so easy; she and Tom had both begged that there might be nothing of that kind; and though none of the Coreys learned to know her very well in the week she spent with them, they did not find it hard to get on with her. There were even moments when Nanny Corey, like her father, had glimpses of what Tom had called her humour, but it was perhaps too unlike their own to be easily recognisable. Whether Penelope, on her side, found it more difficult to harmonise, I cannot say. She had much more of the harmonising to do, since they were four to one; but then she had gone through so much greater trials before. When the door of their carriage closed and it drove off with her and her husband to the station, she fetched a long sigh. "What is it?" asked Corey, who ought to have known better. "Oh, nothing. I don't think I shall feel strange amongst the Mexicans now." He looked at her with a puzzled smile, which grew a little graver, and then he put his arm round her and drew her closer to him. This made her cry on his shoulder. "I only meant that I should have you all to myself." There is no proof that she meant more, but it is certain that our manners and customs go for more in life than our qualities. The price that we pay for civilisation is the fine yet impassable differentiation of these. Perhaps we pay too much; but it will not be possible to persuade those who have the difference in their favour that this is so. They may be right; and at any rate, the blank misgiving, the recurring sense of disappointment to which the young people's departure left the Coreys is to be considered. That was the end of their son and brother for them; they felt that; and they were not mean or unamiable people. He remained three years away. Some changes took place in that time. One of these was the purchase by the Kanawha Falls Company of the mines and works at Lapham. The transfer relieved Lapham of the load of debt which he was still labouring under, and gave him an interest in the vaster enterprise of the younger men, which he had once vainly hoped to grasp all in his own hand. He began to tell of this coincidence as something very striking; and pushing on more actively the special branch of the business left to him, he bragged, quite in his old way, of its enormous extension. His son-in-law, he said, was pushing it in Mexico and Central America: an idea that they had originally had in common. Well, young blood was what was wanted in a thing of that kind. Now, those fellows out in West Virginia: all young, and a perfect team! For himself, he owned that he had made mistakes; he could see just where the mistakes were--put his finger right on them. But one thing he could say: he had been no man's enemy but his own; every dollar, every cent had gone to pay his debts; he had come out with clean hands. He said all this, and much more, to Mr. Sewell the summer after he sold out, when the minister and his wife stopped at Lapham on their way across from the White Mountains to Lake Champlain; Lapham had found them on the cars, and pressed them to stop off. There were times when Mrs. Lapham had as great pride in the clean-handedness with which Lapham had come out as he had himself, but her satisfaction was not so constant. At those times, knowing the temptations he had resisted, she thought him the noblest and grandest of men; but no woman could endure to live in the same house with a perfect hero, and there were other times when she reminded him that if he had kept his word to her about speculating in stocks, and had looked after the insurance of his property half as carefully as he had looked after a couple of worthless women who had no earthly claim on him, they would not be where they were now. He humbly admitted it all, and left her to think of Rogers herself. She did not fail to do so, and the thought did not fail to restore him to her tenderness again. I do not know how it is that clergymen and physicians keep from telling their wives the secrets confided to them; perhaps they can trust their wives to find them out for themselves whenever they wish. Sewell had laid before his wife the case of the Laphams after they came to consult with him about Corey's proposal to Penelope, for he wished to be confirmed in his belief that he had advised them soundly; but he had not given her their names, and he had not known Corey's himself. Now he had no compunctions in talking the affair over with her without the veil of ignorance which she had hitherto assumed, for she declared that as soon as she heard of Corey's engagement to Penelope, the whole thing had flashed upon her. "And that night at dinner I could have told the child that he was in love with her sister by the way he talked about her; I heard him; and if she had not been so blindly in love with him herself, she would have known it too. I must say, I can't help feeling a sort of contempt for her sister." "Oh, but you must not!" cried Sewell. "That is wrong, cruelly wrong. I'm sure that's out of your novel-reading, my dear, and not out of your heart. Come! It grieves me to hear you say such a thing as that." "Oh, I dare say this pretty thing has got over it--how much character she has got!--and I suppose she'll see somebody else." Sewell had to content himself with this partial concession. As a matter of fact, unless it was the young West Virginian who had come on to arrange the purchase of the Works, Irene had not yet seen any one, and whether there was ever anything between them is a fact that would need a separate inquiry. It is certain that at the end of five years after the disappointment which she met so bravely, she was still unmarried. But she was even then still very young, and her life at Lapham had been varied by visits to the West. It had also been varied by an invitation, made with the politest resolution by Mrs. Corey, to visit in Boston, which the girl was equal to refusing in the same spirit. Sewell was intensely interested in the moral spectacle which Lapham presented under his changed conditions. The Colonel, who was more the Colonel in those hills than he could ever have been on the Back Bay, kept him and Mrs. Sewell over night at his house; and he showed the minister minutely round the Works and drove him all over his farm. For this expedition he employed a lively colt which had not yet come of age, and an open buggy long past its prime, and was no more ashamed of his turnout than of the finest he had ever driven on the Milldam. He was rather shabby and slovenly in dress, and he had fallen unkempt, after the country fashion, as to his hair and beard and boots. The house was plain, and was furnished with the simpler moveables out of the house in Nankeen Square. There were certainly all the necessaries, but no luxuries unless the statues of Prayer and Faith might be so considered. The Laphams now burned kerosene, of course, and they had no furnace in the winter; these were the only hardships the Colonel complained of; but he said that as soon as the company got to paying dividends again,--he was evidently proud of the outlays that for the present prevented this,--he should put in steam heat and naphtha-gas. He spoke freely of his failure, and with a confidence that seemed inspired by his former trust in Sewell, whom, indeed, he treated like an intimate friend, rather than an acquaintance of two or three meetings. He went back to his first connection with Rogers, and he put before Sewell hypothetically his own conclusions in regard to the matter. "Sometimes," he said, "I get to thinking it all over, and it seems to me I done wrong about Rogers in the first place; that the whole trouble came from that. It was just like starting a row of bricks. I tried to catch up and stop 'em from going, but they all tumbled, one after another. It wa'n't in the nature of things that they could be stopped till the last brick went. I don't talk much with my wife, any more about it; but I should like to know how it strikes you." "We can trace the operation of evil in the physical world," replied the minister, "but I'm more and more puzzled about it in the moral world. There its course is often so very obscure; and often it seems to involve, so far as we can see, no penalty whatever. And in your own case, as I understand, you don't admit--you don't feel sure--that you ever actually did wrong this man----" "Well, no; I don't. That is to say----" He did not continue, and after a while Sewell said, with that subtle kindness of his, "I should be inclined to think--nothing can be thrown quite away; and it can't be that our sins only weaken us--that your fear of having possibly behaved selfishly toward this man kept you on your guard, and strengthened you when you were brought face to face with a greater"--he was going to say temptation, but he saved Lapham's pride, and said--"emergency." "Do you think so?" "I think that there may be truth in what I suggest." "Well, I don't know what it was," said Lapham; "all I know is that when it came to the point, although I could see that I'd got to go under unless I did it--that I couldn't sell out to those Englishmen, and I couldn't let that man put his money into my business without I told him just how things stood." As Sewell afterwards told his wife, he could see that the loss of his fortune had been a terrible trial to Lapham, just because his prosperity had been so gross and palpable; and he had now a burning desire to know exactly how, at the bottom of his heart, Lapham still felt. "And do you ever have any regrets?" he delicately inquired of him. "About what I done? Well, it don't always seem as if I done it," replied Lapham. "Seems sometimes as if it was a hole opened for me, and I crept out of it. I don't know," he added thoughtfully, biting the corner of his stiff moustache. "I don't know as I should always say it paid; but if I done it, and the thing was to do over again, right in the same way, I guess I should have to do it." 
7381	----	and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS by ANTHONY TROLLOPE First published in serial form in the _Fortnightly Review_ from July, 1871, to February, 1873, and in book form in 1872 CONTENTS I. Lizzie Greystock II. Lady Eustace III. Lucy Morris IV. Frank Greystock V. The Eustace Necklace VI. Lady Linlithgow's Mission VII. Mr. Burke's Speeches VIII. The Conquering Hero Comes IX. Showing What the Miss Fawns Said, and What Mrs. Hittaway Thought X. Lizzie and Her Lover XI. Lord Fawn at His Office XII. "I Only Thought of It" XIII. Showing What Frank Greystock Did XIV. "Doan't Thou Marry for Munny" XV. "I'll Give You a Hundred Guinea Brooch" XVI. Certainly an Heirloom XVII. The Diamonds Are Seen in Public XVIII. "And I Have Nothing to Give" XIX. "As My Brother" XX. The Diamonds Become Troublesome XXI. "Ianthe's Soul" XXII. Lady Eustace Procures a Pony for the Use of Her Cousin XXIII. Frank Greystock's First Visit to Portray XXIV. Showing What Frank Greystock Thought About Marriage XXV. Mr. Dove's Opinion XXVI. Mr. Gowran Is Very Funny XXVII. Lucy Morris Misbehaves XXVIII. Mr. Dove in His Chambers XXIX. "I Had Better Go Away" XXX. Mr. Greystock's Troubles XXXI. Frank Greystock's Second Visit to Portray XXXII. Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway in Scotland XXXIII. "It Won't Be True" XXXIV. Lady Linlithgow at Home XXXV. Too Bad for Sympathy XXXVI. Lizzie's Guests XXXVII. Lizzie's First Day XXXVIII. Nappie's Grey Horse XXXIX. Sir Griffin Takes an Unfair Advantage XL. "You Are Not Angry?" XLI. "Likewise the Bears in Couples Agree" XLII. Sunday Morning XLIII. Life at Portray XLIV. A Midnight Adventure XLV. The Journey to London XLVI. Lucy Morris in Brook Street XLVII. Matching Priory XLVIII. Lizzie's Condition XLIX. Bunfit and Gager L. In Hertford Street LI. Confidence LII. Mrs. Carbuncle Goes to the Theatre LIII. Lizzie's Sick-Room LIV. "I Suppose I May Say a Word" LV. Quints or Semitenths LVI. Job's Comforters LVII. Humpty Dumpty LVIII. "The Fiddle with One String" LIX. Mr. Gowran Up in London LX. "Let It Be As Though It Had Never Been" LXI. Lizzie's Great Friend LXII. "You Know Where My Heart Is" LXIII. The Corsair Is Afraid LXIV. Lizzie's Last Scheme LXV. Tribute LXVI. The Aspirations of Mr. Emilius LXVII. The Eye of the Public LXVIII. The Major LXIX. "I Cannot Do It" LXX. Alas! LXXI. Lizzie Is Threatened with the Treadmill LXXII. Lizzie Triumphs LXXIII. Lizzie's Last Lover LXXIV. Lizzie at the Police-Court LXXV. Lord George Gives His Reasons LXXVI. Lizzie Returns to Scotland LXXVII. The Story of Lucy Morris Is Concluded LXXVIII. The Trial LXXIX. Once More at Portray LXXX. What Was Said About It All at Matching VOLUME I CHAPTER I Lizzie Greystock It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies,--who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two,--that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself. We will tell the story of Lizzie Greystock from the beginning, but we will not dwell over it at great length, as we might do if we loved her. She was the only child of old Admiral Greystock, who in the latter years of his life was much perplexed by the possession of a daughter. The admiral was a man who liked whist, wine,--and wickedness in general we may perhaps say, and whose ambition it was to live every day of his life up to the end of it. People say that he succeeded, and that the whist, wine, and wickedness were there, at the side even of his dying bed. He had no particular fortune, and yet his daughter, when she was little more than a child, went about everywhere with jewels on her fingers, and red gems hanging round her neck, and yellow gems pendent from her ears, and white gems shining in her black hair. She was hardly nineteen when her father died and she was taken home by that dreadful old termagant, her aunt, Lady Linlithgow. Lizzie would have sooner gone to any other friend or relative, had there been any other friend or relative to take her possessed of a house in town. Her uncle, Dean Greystock, of Bobsborough, would have had her, and a more good-natured old soul than the dean's wife did not exist,--and there were three pleasant, good-tempered girls in the deanery, who had made various little efforts at friendship with their cousin Lizzie; but Lizzie had higher ideas for herself than life in the deanery at Bobsborough. She hated Lady Linlithgow. During her father's lifetime, when she hoped to be able to settle herself before his death, she was not in the habit of concealing her hatred for Lady Linlithgow. Lady Linlithgow was not indeed amiable or easily managed. But when the admiral died, Lizzie did not hesitate for a moment in going to the old "vulturess," as she was in the habit of calling the countess in her occasional correspondence with the girls at Bobsborough. The admiral died greatly in debt;--so much so that it was a marvel how tradesmen had trusted him. There was literally nothing left for anybody,--and Messrs. Harter and Benjamin of Old Bond Street condescended to call at Lady Linlithgow's house in Brook Street, and to beg that the jewels supplied during the last twelve months might be returned. Lizzie protested that there were no jewels,--nothing to signify, nothing worth restoring. Lady Linlithgow had seen the diamonds, and demanded an explanation. They had been "parted with," by the admiral's orders,--so said Lizzie,--for the payment of other debts. Of this Lady Linlithgow did not believe a word, but she could not get at any exact truth. At that moment the jewels were in very truth pawned for money which had been necessary for Lizzie's needs. Certain things must be paid for,--one's own maid for instance; and one must have some money in one's pocket for railway-trains and little knick-knacks which cannot be had on credit. Lizzie when she was nineteen knew how to do without money as well as most girls; but there were calls which she could not withstand, debts which even she must pay. She did not, however, drop her acquaintance with Messrs. Harter and Benjamin. Before her father had been dead eight months, she was closeted with Mr. Benjamin, transacting a little business with him. She had come to him, she told him, the moment she was of age, and was willing to make herself responsible for the debt, signing any bill, note, or document which the firm might demand from her, to that effect. Of course she had nothing of her own, and never would have anything. That Mr. Benjamin knew. As for payment of the debt by Lady Linlithgow, who for a countess was as poor as Job, Mr. Benjamin, she was quite sure, did not expect anything of the kind. But-- Then Lizzie paused, and Mr. Benjamin, with the sweetest and wittiest of smiles, suggested that perhaps Miss Greystock was going to be married. Lizzie, with a pretty maiden blush, admitted that such a catastrophe was probable. She had been asked in marriage by Sir Florian Eustace. Now Mr. Benjamin knew, as all the world knew, that Sir Florian Eustace was a very rich man indeed; a man in no degree embarrassed, and who could pay any amount of jewellers' bills for which claim might be made upon him. Well; what did Miss Greystock want? Mr. Benjamin did not suppose that Miss Greystock was actuated simply by a desire to have her old bills paid by her future husband. Miss Greystock wanted a loan sufficient to take the jewels out of pawn. She would then make herself responsible for the full amount due. Mr. Benjamin said that he would make a few inquiries. "But you won't betray me," said Lizzie, "for the match might be off." Mr. Benjamin promised to be more than cautious. There was not so much of falsehood as might have been expected in the statement which Lizzie Greystock made to the jeweller. It was not true that she was of age, and therefore no future husband would be legally liable for any debt which she might then contract. And it was not true that Sir Florian Eustace had asked her in marriage. Those two little blemishes in her statement must be admitted. But it was true that Sir Florian was at her feet, and that by a proper use of her various charms,--the pawned jewels included,--she might bring him to an offer. Mr. Benjamin made his inquiries, and acceded to the proposal. He did not tell Miss Greystock that she had lied to him in that matter of her age, though he had discovered the lie. Sir Florian would no doubt pay the bill for his wife without any arguments as to the legality of the claim. From such information as Mr. Benjamin could acquire he thought that there would be a marriage, and that the speculation was on the whole in his favour. Lizzie recovered her jewels and Mr. Benjamin was in possession of a promissory note purporting to have been executed by a person who was no longer a minor. The jeweller was ultimately successful in his views,--and so was the lady. Lady Linlithgow saw the jewels come back, one by one, ring added to ring on the little taper fingers, the rubies for the neck, and the pendent yellow earrings. Though Lizzie was in mourning for her father, still these things were allowed to be visible. The countess was not the woman to see them without inquiry, and she inquired vigorously. She threatened, stormed, and protested. She attempted even a raid upon the young lady's jewel-box. But she was not successful. Lizzie snapped and snarled and held her own,--for at that time the match with Sir Florian was near its accomplishment, and the countess understood too well the value of such a disposition of her niece to risk it at the moment by any open rupture. The little house in Brook Street,--for the house was very small and very comfortless,--a house that had been squeezed in, as it were, between two others without any fitting space for it,--did not contain a happy family. One bedroom, and that the biggest, was appropriated to the Earl of Linlithgow, the son of the countess, a young man who passed perhaps five nights in town during the year. Other inmate there was none besides the aunt and the niece and the four servants,--of whom one was Lizzie's own maid. Why should such a countess have troubled herself with the custody of such a niece? Simply because the countess regarded it as a duty. Lady Linlithgow was worldly, stingy, ill-tempered, selfish, and mean. Lady Linlithgow would cheat a butcher out of a mutton-chop, or a cook out of a month's wages, if she could do so with some slant of legal wind in her favour. She would tell any number of lies to carry a point in what she believed to be social success. It was said of her that she cheated at cards. In back-biting, no venomous old woman between Bond Street and Park Lane could beat her,--or, more wonderful still, no venomous old man at the clubs. But nevertheless she recognised certain duties,--and performed them, though she hated them. She went to church, not merely that people might see her there,--as to which in truth she cared nothing,--but because she thought it was right. And she took in Lizzie Greystock, whom she hated almost as much as she did sermons, because the admiral's wife had been her sister, and she recognised a duty. But, having thus bound herself to Lizzie,--who was a beauty,--of course it became the first object of her life to get rid of Lizzie by a marriage. And, though she would have liked to think that Lizzie would be tormented all her days, though she thoroughly believed that Lizzie deserved to be tormented, she set her heart upon a splendid match. She would at any rate be able to throw it daily in her niece's teeth that the splendour was of her doing. Now a marriage with Sir Florian Eustace would be very splendid, and therefore she was unable to go into the matter of the jewels with that rigour which in other circumstances she would certainly have displayed. The match with Sir Florian Eustace,--for a match it came to be,--was certainly very splendid. Sir Florian was a young man about eight-and-twenty, very handsome, of immense wealth, quite unencumbered, moving in the best circles, popular, so far prudent that he never risked his fortune on the turf or in gambling-houses, with the reputation of a gallant soldier, and a most devoted lover. There were two facts concerning him which might, or might not, be taken as objections. He was vicious, and--he was dying. When a friend, intending to be kind, hinted the latter circumstance to Lady Linlithgow, the countess blinked and winked and nodded, and then swore that she had procured medical advice on the subject. Medical advice declared that Sir Florian was not more likely to die than another man,--if only he would get married; all of which statement on her ladyship's part was a lie. When the same friend hinted the same thing to Lizzie herself, Lizzie resolved that she would have her revenge upon that friend. At any rate the courtship went on. We have said that Sir Florian was vicious;--but he was not altogether a bad man, nor was he vicious in the common sense of the word. He was one who denied himself no pleasure, let the cost be what it might in health, pocket, or morals. Of sin or wickedness he had probably no distinct idea. In virtue, as an attribute of the world around him, he had no belief. Of honour he thought very much, and had conceived a somewhat noble idea that because much had been given to him much was demanded of him. He was haughty, polite,--and very generous. There was almost a nobility even about his vices. And he had a special gallantry of which it is hard to say whether it is or is not to be admired. They told him that he was like to die,--very like to die, if he did not change his manner of living. Would he go to Algiers for a period? Certainly not. He would do no such thing. If he died, there was his brother John left to succeed him. And the fear of death never cast a cloud over that grandly beautiful brow. They had all been short-lived,--the Eustaces. Consumption had swept a hecatomb of victims from the family. But still they were grand people, and never were afraid of death. And then Sir Florian fell in love. Discussing this matter with his brother, who was perhaps his only intimate friend, he declared that if the girl he loved would give herself to him, he would make what atonement he could to her for his own early death by a princely settlement. John Eustace, who was somewhat nearly concerned in the matter, raised no objection to this proposal. There was ever something grand about these Eustaces. Sir Florian was a grand gentleman; but surely he must have been dull of intellect, slow of discernment, blear-eyed in his ways about the town, when he took Lizzie Greystock,--of all the women whom he could find in the world,--to be the purest, the truest, and the noblest. It has been said of Sir Florian that he did not believe in virtue. He freely expressed disbelief in the virtue of women around him,--in the virtue of women of all ranks. But he believed in his mother and sisters as though they were heaven-born; and he was one who could believe in his wife as though she were the queen of heaven. He did believe in Lizzie Greystock, thinking that intellect, purity, truth, and beauty, each perfect in its degree, were combined in her. The intellect and beauty were there;--but, for the purity and truth--; how could it have been that such a one as Sir Florian Eustace should have been so blind! Sir Florian was not, indeed, a clever man; but he believed himself to be a fool. And believing himself to be a fool, he desired, nay, painfully longed, for some of those results of cleverness which might, he thought, come to him, from contact with a clever woman. Lizzie read poetry well, and she read verses to him,--sitting very near to him, almost in the dark, with a shaded lamp throwing its light on her book. He was astonished to find how sweet a thing was poetry. By himself he could never read a line, but as it came from her lips it seemed to charm him. It was a new pleasure, and one which, though he had ridiculed it, he had so often coveted! And then she told him of such wondrous thoughts,--such wondrous joys in the world which would come from thinking! He was proud, I have said, and haughty; but he was essentially modest and humble in his self-estimation. How divine was this creature, whose voice to him was as that of a goddess! Then he spoke out to her, with his face a little turned from her. Would she be his wife? But, before she answered him, let her listen to him. They had told him that an early death must probably be his fate. He did not himself feel that it must be so. Sometimes he was ill,--very ill; but often he was well. If she would run the risk with him he would endeavour to make her such recompense as might come from his wealth. The speech he made was somewhat long, and as he made it he hardly looked into her face. But it was necessary to him that he should be made to know by some signal from her how it was going with her feelings. As he spoke of his danger, there came a gurgling little trill of wailing from her throat, a soft, almost musical sound of woe, which seemed to add an unaccustomed eloquence to his words. When he spoke of his own hope the sound was somewhat changed, but it was still continued. When he alluded to the disposition of his fortune, she was at his feet. "Not that," she said, "not that!" He lifted her, and with his arm round her waist he tried to tell her what it would be his duty to do for her. She escaped from his arm and would not listen to him. But,--but--! When he began to talk of love again, she stood with her forehead bowed against his bosom. Of course the engagement was then a thing accomplished. But still the cup might slip from her lips. Her father was now dead but ten months, and what answer could she make when the common pressing petition for an early marriage was poured into her ear? This was in July, and it would never do that he should be left, unmarried, to the rigour of another winter. She looked into his face and knew that she had cause for fear. Oh, heavens! if all these golden hopes should fall to the ground, and she should come to be known only as the girl who had been engaged to the late Sir Florian! But he himself pressed the marriage on the same ground. "They tell me," he said, "that I had better get a little south by the beginning of October. I won't go alone. You know what I mean;--eh, Lizzie?" Of course she married him in September. They spent a honeymoon of six weeks at a place he had in Scotland, and the first blow came upon him as they passed through London, back from Scotland, on their way to Italy. Messrs. Harter and Benjamin sent in their little bill, which amounted to something over £400, and other little bills were sent in. Sir Florian was a man by whom such bills would certainly be paid, but by whom they would not be paid without his understanding much and conceiving more as to their cause and nature. How much he really did understand she was never quite aware;--but she did know that he detected her in a positive falsehood. She might certainly have managed the matter better than she did; and had she admitted everything there might probably have been but few words about it. She did not, however, understand the nature of the note she had signed, and thought that simply new bills would be presented by the jewellers to her husband. She gave a false account of the transaction, and the lie was detected. I do not know that she cared very much. As she was utterly devoid of true tenderness, so also was she devoid of conscience. They went abroad, however; and by the time the winter was half over in Naples, he knew what his wife was;--and before the end of the spring he was dead. She had so far played her game well, and had won her stakes. What regrets, what remorse she suffered when she knew that he was going from her,--and then knew that he was gone, who can say? As man is never strong enough to take unmixed delight in good, so may we presume also that he cannot be quite so weak as to find perfect satisfaction in evil. There must have been qualms as she looked at his dying face, soured with the disappointment she had brought upon him, and listened to the harsh querulous voice that was no longer eager in the expressions of love. There must have been some pang when she reflected that the cruel wrong which she had inflicted on him had probably hurried him to his grave. As a widow, in the first solemnity of her widowhood, she was wretched and would see no one. Then she returned to England and shut herself up in a small house at Brighton. Lady Linlithgow offered to go to her, but she begged that she might be left to herself. For a few short months the awe arising from the rapidity with which it had all occurred did afflict her. Twelve months since she had hardly known the man who was to be her husband. Now she was a widow,--a widow very richly endowed,--and she bore beneath her bosom the fruit of her husband's love. But, even in these early days, friends and enemies did not hesitate to say that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself; for it was known by all concerned that in the settlements made she had been treated with unwonted generosity. CHAPTER II Lady Eustace There were circumstances in her position which made it impossible that Lizzie Greystock,--or Lady Eustace, as we must now call her,--should be left altogether to herself in the modest widow's retreat which she had found at Brighton. It was then April, and it was known that if all things went well with her, she would be a mother before the summer was over. On what the Fates might ordain in this matter immense interests were dependent. If a son should be born he would inherit everything, subject, of course, to his mother's settlement. If a daughter, to her would belong the great personal wealth which Sir Florian had owned at the time of his death. Should there be no son, John Eustace, the brother, would inherit the estates in Yorkshire which had been the backbone of the Eustace wealth. Should no child be born, John Eustace would inherit everything that had not been settled upon or left to the widow. Sir Florian had made a settlement immediately before his marriage, and a will immediately afterwards. Of what he had done then, nothing had been altered in those sad Italian days. The settlement had been very generous. The whole property in Scotland was to belong to Lizzie for her life,--and after her death was to go to a second son, if such second son there should be. By the will money was left to her, more than would be needed for any possible temporary emergency. When she knew how it was all arranged,--as far as she did know it,--she was aware that she was a rich woman. For so clever a woman she was infinitely ignorant as to the possession and value of money and land and income,--though, perhaps, not more ignorant than are most young girls under twenty-one. As for the Scotch property,--she thought that it was her own, for ever, because there could not now be a second son,--and yet was not quite sure whether it would be her own at all if she had no son. Concerning that sum of money left to her, she did not know whether it was to come out of the Scotch property or be given to her separately,--and whether it was to come annually or to come only once. She had received, while still in Naples, a letter from the family lawyer, giving her such details of the will as it was necessary that she should know, and now she longed to ask questions, to have her belongings made plain to her, and to realise her wealth. She had brilliant prospects; and yet, through it all, there was a sense of loneliness that nearly killed her. Would it not have been much better if her husband had lived, and still worshipped her, and still allowed her to read poetry to him? But she had read no poetry to him after that affair of Messrs. Harter and Benjamin. The reader has, or will have, but little to do with these days, and may be hurried on through the twelve, or even twenty-four months which followed the death of poor Sir Florian. The question of the heirship, however, was very grave, and early in the month of May Lady Eustace was visited by her husband's uncle, Bishop Eustace, of Bobsborough. The bishop had been the younger brother of Sir Florian's father,--was at this time a man about fifty, very active and very popular,--and was one who stood high in the world, even among bishops. He suggested to his niece-in-law that it was very expedient that, during her coming hour of trial, she should not absent herself from her husband's family, and at last persuaded her to take up her residence at the palace at Bobsborough till such time as the event should be over. Lady Eustace was taken to the palace, and in due time a son was born. John, who was now the uncle of the heir, came down, and, with the frankest good humour, declared that he would devote himself to the little head of the family. He had been left as guardian, and the management of the great family estates was to be in his hands. Lizzie had read no poetry to him, and he had never liked her, and the bishop did not like her, and the ladies of the bishop's family disliked her very much, and it was thought by them that the dean's people,--the Dean of Bobsborough was Lizzie's uncle,--were not very fond of Lizzie since Lizzie had so raised herself in the world as to want no assistance from them. But still they were bound to do their duty by her as the widow of the late and the mother of the present baronet. And they did not find much cause of complaining as to Lizzie's conduct in these days. In that matter of the great family diamond necklace,--which certainly should not have been taken to Naples at all, and as to which the jeweller had told the lawyer and the lawyer had told John Eustace that it certainly should not now be detained among the widow's own private property,--the bishop strongly recommended that nothing should be said at present. The mistake, if there was a mistake, could be remedied at any time. And nothing in those very early days was said about the great Eustace necklace, which afterwards became so famous. Why Lizzie should have been so generally disliked by the Eustaces, it might be hard to explain. While she remained at the palace she was very discreet,--and perhaps demure. It may be said they disliked her expressed determination to cut her aunt, Lady Linlithgow;--for they knew that Lady Linlithgow had been, at any rate, a friend to Lizzie Greystock. There are people who can be wise within a certain margin, but beyond that commit great imprudences. Lady Eustace submitted herself to the palace people for that period of her prostration, but she could not hold her tongue as to her future intentions. She would, too, now and then ask of Mrs. Eustace, and even of her daughter, an eager, anxious question about her own property. "She is dying to handle her money," said Mrs. Eustace to the bishop. "She is only like the rest of the world in that," said the bishop. "If she would be really open, I wouldn't mind it," said Mrs. Eustace. None of them liked her,--and she did not like them. She remained at the palace for six months, and at the end of that time she went to her own place in Scotland. Mrs. Eustace had strongly advised her to ask her aunt, Lady Linlithgow, to accompany her, but in refusing to do this, Lizzie was quite firm. She had endured Lady Linlithgow for that year between her father's death and her marriage; she was now beginning to dare to hope for the enjoyment of the good things which she had won, and the presence of the dowager-countess,--"the vulturess,"--was certainly not one of these good things. In what her enjoyment was to consist, she had not as yet quite formed a definite conclusion. She liked jewels. She liked admiration. She liked the power of being arrogant to those around her. And she liked good things to eat. But there were other matters that were also dear to her. She did like music,--though it may be doubted whether she would ever play it or even listen to it alone. She did like reading, and especially the reading of poetry,--though even in this she was false and pretentious, skipping, pretending to have read, lying about books, and making up her market of literature for outside admiration at the easiest possible cost of trouble. And she had some dream of being in love, and would take delight even in building castles in the air, which she would people with friends and lovers whom she would make happy with the most open-hearted benevolence. She had theoretical ideas of life which were not bad,--but in practice, she had gained her objects, and she was in a hurry to have liberty to enjoy them. There was considerable anxiety in the palace in reference to the future mode of life of Lady Eustace. Had it not been for that baby-heir, of course there would have been no cause for interference; but the rights of that baby were so serious and important that it was almost impossible not to interfere. The mother, however, gave some little signs that she did not intend to submit to much interference, and there was no real reason why she should not be as free as air. But did she really intend to go down to Portray Castle all alone;--that is, with her baby and nurses? This was ended by an arrangement, in accordance with which she was accompanied by her eldest cousin, Ellinor Greystock, a lady who was just ten years her senior. There could hardly be a better woman than Ellinor Greystock,--or a more good-humoured, kindly being. After many debates in the deanery and in the palace,--for there was much friendship between the two ecclesiastical establishments,--the offer was made and the advice given. Ellinor had accepted the martyrdom on the understanding that if the advice were accepted she was to remain at Portray Castle for three months. After a long discussion between Lady Eustace and the bishop's wife the offer was accepted, and the two ladies went to Scotland together. During those three months the widow still bided her time. Of her future ideas of life she said not a word to her companion. Of her infant she said very little. She would talk of books,--choosing such books as her cousin did not read; and she would interlard her conversation with much Italian, because her cousin did not know the language. There was a carriage kept by the widow, and they had themselves driven out together. Of real companionship there was none. Lizzie was biding her time, and at the end of the three months Miss Greystock thankfully, and, indeed, of necessity, returned to Bobsborough. "I've done no good," she said to her mother, "and have been very uncomfortable." "My dear," said her mother, "we have disposed of three months out of a two years' period of danger. In two years from Sir Florian's death she will be married again." When this was said Lizzie had been a widow nearly a year, and had bided her time upon the whole discreetly. Some foolish letters she had written,--chiefly to the lawyer about her money and property; and some foolish things she had said,--as when she told Ellinor Greystock that the Portray property was her own for ever, to do what she liked with it. The sum of money left to her by her husband had by that time been paid into her own hands, and she had opened a banker's account. The revenues from the Scotch estate,--some £4,000 a year,--were clearly her own for life. The family diamond-necklace was still in her possession, and no answer had been given by her to a postscript to a lawyer's letter in which a little advice had been given respecting it. At the end of another year, when she had just reached the age of twenty-two, and had completed her second year of widowhood, she was still Lady Eustace, thus contradicting the prophecy made by the dean's wife. It was then spring, and she had a house of her own in London. She had broken openly with Lady Linlithgow. She had opposed, though not absolutely refused, all overtures of brotherly care from John Eustace. She had declined a further invitation, both for herself and for her child, to the palace. And she had positively asserted her intention of keeping the diamonds. Her late husband, she said, had given the diamonds to her. As they were supposed to be worth £10,000, and were really family diamonds, the matter was felt by all concerned to be one of much importance. And she was oppressed by a heavy load of ignorance, which became serious from the isolation of her position. She had learned to draw cheques, but she had no other correct notion as to business. She knew nothing as to spending money, saving it, or investing it. Though she was clever, sharp, and greedy, she had no idea what her money would do, and what it would not; and there was no one whom she would trust to tell her. She had a young cousin, a barrister,--a son of the dean's, whom she perhaps liked better than any other of her relations,--but she declined advice even from her friend the barrister. She would have no dealings on her own behalf with the old family solicitor of the Eustaces,--the gentleman who had now applied very formally for the restitution of the diamonds; but had appointed other solicitors to act for her. Messrs. Mowbray and Mopus were of opinion that as the diamonds had been given into her hands by her husband without any terms as to their surrender, no one could claim them. Of the manner in which the diamonds had been placed in her hands, no one knew more than she chose to tell. But when she started with her house in town,--a modest little house in Mount Street, near the park,--just two years after her husband's death, she had a large circle of acquaintances. The Eustace people, and the Greystock people, and even the Linlithgow people, did not entirely turn their backs on her. The countess, indeed, was very venomous, as she well might be; but then the countess was known for her venom. The dean and his family were still anxious that she should be encouraged to discreet living, and, though they feared many things, thought that they had no ground for open complaint. The Eustace people were forbearing, and hoped the best. "D---- the necklace!" John Eustace had said, and the bishop unfortunately had heard him say it! "John," said the prelate, "whatever is to become of the bauble, you might express your opinion in more sensible language." "I beg your lordship's pardon," said John, "I only mean to say that I think we shouldn't trouble ourselves about a few stones." But the family lawyer, Mr. Camperdown, would by no means take this view of the matter. It was, however, generally thought that the young widow opened her campaign more prudently than had been expected. And now as so much has been said of the character and fortune and special circumstances of Lizzie Greystock, who became Lady Eustace as a bride, and Lady Eustace as a widow and a mother, all within the space of twelve months, it may be as well to give some description of her person and habits, such as they were at the period in which our story is supposed to have its commencement. It must be understood in the first place that she was very lovely;--much more so, indeed, now than when she had fascinated Sir Florian. She was small, but taller than she looked to be,--for her form was perfectly symmetrical. Her feet and hands might have been taken as models by a sculptor. Her figure was lithe, and soft, and slim, and slender. If it had a fault it was this,--that it had in it too much of movement. There were some who said that she was almost snake-like in her rapid bendings and the almost too easy gestures of her body; for she was much given to action, and to the expression of her thought by the motion of her limbs. She might certainly have made her way as an actress, had fortune called upon her to earn her bread in that fashion. And her voice would have suited the stage. It was powerful when she called upon it for power; but, at the same time, flexible and capable of much pretence at feeling. She could bring it to a whisper that would almost melt your heart with tenderness,--as she had melted Sir Florian's, when she sat near to him reading poetry; and then she could raise it to a pitch of indignant wrath befitting a Lady Macbeth when her husband ventured to rebuke her. And her ear was quite correct in modulating these tones. She knew,--and it must have been by instinct, for her culture in such matters was small,--how to use her voice so that neither its tenderness nor its wrath should be misapplied. There were pieces in verse that she could read,--things not wondrously good in themselves,--so that she would ravish you; and she would so look at you as she did it that you would hardly dare either to avert your eyes or to return her gaze. Sir Florian had not known whether to do the one thing or the other, and had therefore seized her in his arms. Her face was oval,--somewhat longer than an oval,--with little in it, perhaps nothing in it, of that brilliancy of colour which we call complexion. And yet the shades of her countenance were ever changing between the softest and most transparent white, and the richest, mellowest shades of brown. It was only when she simulated anger,--she was almost incapable of real anger,--that she would succeed in calling the thinnest streak of pink from her heart, to show that there was blood running in her veins. Her hair, which was nearly black,--but in truth with more of softness and of lustre than ever belong to hair that is really black,--she wore bound tight round her perfect forehead, with one long love-lock hanging over her shoulder. The form of her head was so good that she could dare to carry it without a chignon, or any adventitious adjuncts from an artiste's shop. Very bitter was she in consequence when speaking of the head-gear of other women. Her chin was perfect in its round, not over long,--as is the case with so many such faces, utterly spoiling the symmetry of the countenance. But it lacked a dimple, and therefore lacked feminine tenderness. Her mouth was perhaps faulty in being too small, or, at least, her lips were too thin. There was wanting from the mouth that expression of eager-speaking truthfulness which full lips will often convey. Her teeth were without flaw or blemish, even, small, white, and delicate; but perhaps they were shown too often. Her nose was small, but struck many as the prettiest feature of her face, so exquisite was the moulding of it, and so eloquent and so graceful the slight inflations of the transparent nostrils. Her eyes, in which she herself thought that the lustre of her beauty lay, were blue and clear, bright as cerulean waters. They were long large eyes,--but very dangerous. To those who knew how to read a face, there was danger plainly written in them. Poor Sir Florian had not known. But, in truth, the charm of her face did not lie in her eyes. This was felt by many even who could not read the book fluently. They were too expressive, too loud in their demands for attention, and they lacked tenderness. How few there are among women, few perhaps also among men, who know that the sweetest, softest, tenderest, truest eyes which a woman can carry in her head are green in colour! Lizzie's eyes were not tender,--neither were they true. But they were surmounted by the most wonderfully pencilled eyebrows that ever nature unassisted planted on a woman's face. We have said that she was clever. We must add that she had in truth studied much. She spoke French, understood Italian, and read German. She played well on the harp, and moderately well on the piano. She sang, at least in good taste and in tune. Of things to be learned by reading she knew much, having really taken diligent trouble with herself. She had learned much poetry by heart, and could apply it. She forgot nothing, listened to everything, understood quickly, and was desirous to show not only as a beauty but as a wit. There were men at this time who declared that she was simply the cleverest and the handsomest woman in England. As an independent young woman she was perhaps one of the richest. CHAPTER III Lucy Morris Although the first two chapters of this new history have been devoted to the fortunes and personal attributes of Lady Eustace, the historian begs his readers not to believe that that opulent and aristocratic Becky Sharp is to assume the dignity of heroine in the forthcoming pages. That there shall be any heroine the historian will not take upon himself to assert; but if there be a heroine, that heroine shall not be Lady Eustace. Poor Lizzie Greystock!--as men double her own age, and who had known her as a forward, capricious, spoilt child in her father's lifetime, would still call her. She did so many things, made so many efforts, caused so much suffering to others, and suffered so much herself throughout the scenes with which we are about to deal, that the story can hardly be told without giving her that prominence of place which has been assigned to her in the last two chapters. Nor does the chronicler dare to put forward Lucy Morris as a heroine. The real heroine, if it be found possible to arrange her drapery for her becomingly, and to put that part which she enacted into properly heroic words, shall stalk in among us at some considerably later period of the narrative, when the writer shall have accustomed himself to the flow of words, and have worked himself up to a state of mind fit for the reception of noble acting and noble speaking. In the meantime, let it be understood that poor little Lucy Morris was a governess in the house of old Lady Fawn, when our beautiful young widow established herself in Mount Street. Lady Eustace and Lucy Morris had known each other for many years,--had indeed been children together,--there having been some old family friendship between the Greystocks and the Morrises. When the admiral's wife was living, Lucy had, as a little girl of eight or nine, been her guest. She had often been a guest at the deanery. When Lady Eustace had gone down to the bishop's palace at Bobsborough, in order that an heir to the Eustaces might be born under an auspicious roof, Lucy Morris was with the Greystocks. Lucy, who was a year younger than Lizzie, had at that time been an orphan for the last four years. She too had been left penniless, but no such brilliant future awaited her as that which Lizzie had earned for herself. There was no countess-aunt to take her into her London house. The dean and the dean's wife and the dean's daughters had been her best friends, but they were not friends on whom she could be dependent. They were in no way connected with her by blood. Therefore, at the age of eighteen, she had gone out to be a child's governess. Then old Lady Fawn had heard of her virtues,--Lady Fawn, who had seven unmarried daughters running down from seven-and-twenty to thirteen, and Lucy Morris had been hired to teach English, French, German, and something of music to the two youngest Miss Fawns. During that visit at the deanery, when the heir of the Eustaces was being born, Lucy was undergoing a sort of probation for the Fawn establishment. The proposed engagement with Lady Fawn was thought to be a great thing for her. Lady Fawn was known as a miracle of Virtue, Benevolence, and Persistency. Every good quality that she possessed was so marked as to be worthy of being expressed with a capital. But her virtues were of that extraordinarily high character that there was no weakness in them,--no getting over them, no perverting them with follies or even exaggerations. When she heard of the excellencies of Miss Morris from the dean's wife, and then, after minutest investigation, learned the exact qualities of the young lady, she expressed herself willing to take Lucy into her house on special conditions. She must be able to teach music up to a certain point. "Then it's all over," said Lucy to the dean with her pretty smile,--that smile which caused all the old and middle-aged men to fall in love with her. "It's not over at all," said the dean. "You've got four months. Our organist is about as good a teacher as there is in England. You are clever and quick, and he shall teach you." So Lucy went to Bobsborough, and was afterwards accepted by Lady Fawn. While she was at the deanery there sprung up a renewed friendship between her and Lizzie. It was, indeed, chiefly a one-sided friendship; for Lucy, who was quick and unconsciously capable of reading that book to which we alluded in a previous chapter, was somewhat afraid of the rich widow. And when Lizzie talked to her of their old childish days, and quoted poetry, and spoke of things romantic,--as she was much given to do,--Lucy felt that the metal did not ring true. And then Lizzie had an ugly habit of abusing all her other friends behind their backs. Now Lucy did not like to hear the Greystocks abused, and would say so. "That's all very well, you little minx," Lizzie would say playfully, "but you know that they are all asses!" Lucy by no means thought that the Greystocks were asses, and was very strongly of opinion that one of them was as far removed from being an ass as any human being she had ever known. This one was Frank Greystock, the barrister. Of Frank Greystock some special--but, let it be hoped, very short--description must be given by-and-by. For the present it will be sufficient to declare that, during that short Easter holiday which he spent at his father's house in Bobsborough, he found Lucy Morris to be a most agreeable companion. "Remember her position," said Mrs. Dean to her son. "Her position! Well;--and what is her position mother?" "You know what I mean, Frank. She is as sweet a girl as ever lived, and a perfect lady. But with a governess, unless you mean to marry her, you should be more careful than with another girl, because you may do her such a world of mischief." "I don't see that at all." "If Lady Fawn knew that she had an admirer, Lady Fawn would not let her come into her house." "Then Lady Fawn is an idiot. If a girl be admirable, of course she will be admired. Who can hinder it?" "You know what I mean, Frank." "Yes--I do; well. I don't suppose I can afford to marry Lucy Morris. At any rate, mother, I will never say a word to raise a hope in her,--if it would be a hope--" "Of course it would be a hope." "I don't know that at all. But I will never say any such word to her,--unless I make up my mind that I can afford to marry her." "Oh, Frank, it would be impossible!" said Mrs. Dean. Mrs. Dean was a very good woman, but she had aspirations in the direction of filthy lucre on behalf of her children, or at least on behalf of this special child, and she did think it would be very nice if Frank would marry an heiress. This, however, was a long time ago, nearly two years ago; and many grave things had got themselves transacted since Lucy's visit to the deanery. She had become quite an old and an accustomed member of Lady Fawn's family. The youngest Fawn girl was not yet fifteen, and it was understood that Lucy was to remain with the Fawns for some quite indefinite time to come. Lady Fawn's eldest daughter, Mrs. Hittaway, had a family of her own, having been married ten or twelve years, and it was quite probable that Lucy might be transferred. Lady Fawn fully appreciated her treasure, and was, and ever had been, conscientiously anxious to make Lucy's life happy. But she thought that a governess should not be desirous of marrying, at any rate till a somewhat advanced period of life. A governess, if she were given to falling in love, could hardly perform her duties in life. No doubt, not to be a governess, but a young lady free from the embarrassing necessity of earning bread, free to have a lover and a husband, would be upon the whole nicer. So it is nicer to be born to £10,000 a year than to have to wish for £500. Lady Fawn could talk excellent sense on this subject by the hour, and always admitted that much was due to a governess who knew her place and did her duty. She was very fond of Lucy Morris, and treated her dependent with affectionate consideration;--but she did not approve of visits from Mr. Frank Greystock. Lucy, blushing up to the eyes, had once declared that she desired to have no personal visitors at Lady Fawn's house; but that, as regarded her own friendships, the matter was one for her own bosom. "Dear Miss Morris," Lady Fawn had said, "we understand each other so perfectly, and you are so good, that I am quite sure everything will be as it ought to be." Lady Fawn lived down at Richmond all the year through, in a large old-fashioned house with a large old-fashioned garden, called Fawn Court. After that speech of hers to Lucy, Frank Greystock did not call again at Fawn Court for many months, and it is possible that her ladyship had said a word also to him. But Lady Eustace, with her pretty little pair of grey ponies, would sometimes drive down to Richmond to see her "dear little old friend" Lucy, and her visits were allowed. Lady Fawn had expressed an opinion among her daughters that she did not see any harm in Lady Eustace. She thought that she rather liked Lady Eustace. But then Lady Fawn hated Lady Linlithgow as only two old women can hate each other;--and she had not heard the story of the diamond necklace. Lucy Morris certainly was a treasure,--a treasure though no heroine. She was a sweetly social, genial little human being whose presence in the house was ever felt to be like sunshine. She was never forward, but never bashful. She was always open to familiar intercourse without ever putting herself forward. There was no man or woman with whom she would not so talk as to make the man or woman feel that the conversation was remarkably pleasant,--and she could do the same with any child. She was an active, mindful, bright, energetic little thing to whom no work ever came amiss. She had catalogued the library,--which had been collected by the late Lord Fawn with peculiar reference to the Christian theology of the third and fourth centuries. She had planned the new flower-garden,--though Lady Fawn thought that she had done that herself. She had been invaluable during Clara Fawn's long illness. She knew every rule at croquet, and could play piquet. When the girls got up charades they had to acknowledge that everything depended on Miss Morris. They were good-natured, plain, unattractive girls, who spoke of her to her face as one who could easily do anything to which she might put her hand. Lady Fawn did really love her. Lord Fawn, the eldest son, a young man of about thirty-five, a Peer of Parliament and an Under-Secretary of State,--very prudent and very diligent,--of whom his mother and sisters stood in great awe, consulted her frequently and made no secret of his friendship. The mother knew her awful son well, and was afraid of nothing wrong in that direction. Lord Fawn had suffered a disappointment in love, but he had consoled himself with blue-books, and mastered his passion by incessant attendance at the India Board. The lady he had loved had been rich, and Lord Fawn was poor; but nevertheless he had mastered his passion. There was no fear that his feelings towards the governess would become too warm;--nor was it likely that Miss Morris should encounter danger in regard to him. It was quite an understood thing in the family that Lord Fawn must marry money. Lucy Morris was indeed a treasure. No brighter face ever looked into another to seek sympathy there, either in mirth or woe. There was a gleam in her eyes that was almost magnetic, so sure was she to obtain by it that community of interest which she desired,--though it were but for a moment. Lord Fawn was pompous, slow, dull, and careful; but even he had given way to it at once. Lady Fawn, too, was very careful, but she had owned to herself long since that she could not bear to look forward to any permanent severance. Of course Lucy would be made over to the Hittaways, whose mother lived in Warwick Square, and whose father was Chairman of the Board of Civil Appeals. The Hittaways were the only grandchildren with whom Lady Fawn had as yet been blessed, and of course Lucy must go to the Hittaways. She was but a little thing;--and it cannot be said of her, as of Lady Eustace, that she was a beauty. The charm of her face consisted in the peculiar, watery brightness of her eyes,--in the corners of which it would always seem that a diamond of a tear was lurking whenever any matter of excitement was afoot. Her light-brown hair was soft and smooth and pretty. As hair it was very well, but it had no speciality. Her mouth was somewhat large, but full of ever-varying expression. Her forehead was low and broad, with prominent temples, on which it was her habit to clasp tightly her little outstretched fingers as she sat listening to you. Of listeners she was the very best, for she would always be saying a word or two, just to help you,--the best word that could be spoken, and then again she would be hanging on your lips. There are listeners who show by their mode of listening that they listen as a duty,--not because they are interested. Lucy Morris was not such a one. She would take up your subject, whatever it was, and make it her own. There was forward just then a question as to whether the Sawab of Mygawb should have twenty millions of rupees paid to him and be placed upon a throne, or whether he should be kept in prison all his life. The British world generally could not be made to interest itself about the Sawab, but Lucy positively mastered the subject, and almost got Lord Fawn into a difficulty by persuading him to stand up against his chief on behalf of the injured prince. What else can be said of her face or personal appearance that will interest a reader? When she smiled, there was the daintiest little dimple on her cheek. And when she laughed, that little nose, which was not as well-shaped a nose as it might have been, would almost change its shape and cock itself up in its mirth. Her hands were very thin and long, and so were her feet,--by no means models as were those of her friend Lady Eustace. She was a little, thin, quick, graceful creature, whom it was impossible that you should see without wishing to have near you. A most unselfish little creature she was, but one who had a well-formed idea of her own identity. She was quite resolved to be somebody among her fellow-creatures,--not somebody in the way of marrying a lord or a rich man, or somebody in the way of being a beauty, or somebody as a wit; but somebody as having a purpose and a use in life. She was the humblest little thing in the world in regard to any possible putting of herself forward or needful putting of herself back; and yet, to herself, nobody was her superior. What she had was her own, whether it was the old grey silk dress which she had bought with the money she had earned, or the wit which nature had given her. And Lord Fawn's title was his own, and Lady Fawn's rank her own. She coveted no man's possessions,--and no woman's; but she was minded to hold by her own. Of present advantages or disadvantages,--whether she had the one or suffered from the other,--she thought not at all. It was her fault that she had nothing of feminine vanity. But no man or woman was ever more anxious to be effective, to persuade, to obtain belief, sympathy, and co-operation;--not for any result personal to herself, but because, by obtaining these things, she could be effective in the object then before her, be it what it might. One other thing may be told of her. She had given her heart,--for good and all, as she owned to herself,--to Frank Greystock. She had owned to herself that it was so, and had owned to herself that nothing could come of it. Frank was becoming a man of mark,--but was becoming a man of mark without much money. Of all men he was the last who could afford to marry a governess. And then, moreover, he had never said a word to make her think that he loved her. He had called on her once or twice at Fawn Court,--as why should he not? Seeing that there had been friendship between the families for so many years, who could complain of that? Lady Fawn, however, had--not complained, but just said a word. A word in season, how good is it? Lucy did not much regard the word spoken to herself; but when she reflected that a word must also have been spoken to Mr. Greystock,--otherwise how should it have been that he never came again?--that she did not like. In herself she regarded this passion of hers as a healthy man regards the loss of a leg or an arm. It is a great nuisance, a loss that maims the whole life,--a misfortune to be much regretted. But because a leg is gone, everything is not gone. A man with a wooden leg may stump about through much action, and may enjoy the keenest pleasures of humanity. He has his eyes left to him, and his ears, and his intellect. He will not break his heart for the loss of that leg. And so it was with Lucy Morris. She would still stump about and be very active. Eyes, ears, and intellect were left to her. Looking at her position, she told herself that a happy love could hardly have been her lot in life. Lady Fawn, she thought, was right. A governess should make up her mind to do without a lover. She had given away her heart, and yet she would do without a lover. When, on one dull, dark afternoon, as she was thinking of all this, Lord Fawn suddenly put into her hands a cruelly long printed document respecting the Sawab, she went to work upon it immediately. As she read it, she could not refrain from thinking how wonderfully Frank Greystock would plead the cause of the Indian prince, if the privilege of pleading it could be given to him. The spring had come round, with May and the London butterflies, at the time at which our story begins, and during six months Frank Greystock had not been at Fawn Court. Then one day Lady Eustace came down with her ponies, and her footman, and a new dear friend of hers, Miss Macnulty. While Miss Macnulty was being honoured by Lady Fawn, Lizzie had retreated to a corner with her old dear friend Lucy Morris. It was pretty to see how so wealthy and fashionable a woman as Lady Eustace could show so much friendship to a governess. "Have you seen Frank, lately?" said Lady Eustace, referring to her cousin the barrister. "Not for ever so long," said Lucy, with her cheeriest smile. "He is not going to prove a false knight?" asked Lady Eustace, in her lowest whisper. "I don't know that Mr. Greystock is much given to knighthood at all," said Lucy,--"unless it is to being made Sir Francis by his party." "Nonsense, my dear; as if I didn't know. I suppose Lady Fawn has been interfering--like an old cat as she is." "She is not an old cat, Lizzie! and I won't hear her called so. If you think so, you shouldn't come here. And she hasn't interfered. That is, she has done nothing that she ought not to have done." "Then she has interfered," said Lady Eustace, as she got up and walked across the room, with a sweet smile to the old cat. CHAPTER IV Frank Greystock Frank Greystock the barrister was the only son of the Dean of Bobsborough. Now the dean had a family of daughters,--not quite so numerous indeed as that of Lady Fawn, for there were only three of them,--and was by no means a rich man. Unless a dean have a private fortune, or has chanced to draw the happy lot of Durham in the lottery of deans, he can hardly be wealthy. At Bobsborough the dean was endowed with a large, rambling, picturesque, uncomfortable house, and with £1,500 a year. In regard to personal property it may be asserted of all the Greystocks that they never had any. They were a family of which the males would surely come to be deans and admirals, and the females would certainly find husbands. And they lived on the good things of the world, and mixed with wealthy people. But they never had any money. The Eustaces always had money, and the Bishop of Bobsborough was wealthy. The dean was a man very different from his brother the admiral, who had never paid anybody anything. The dean did pay; but he was a little slow in his payments, and money with him was never very plentiful. In these circumstances it became very expedient that Frank Greystock should earn his bread early in life. Nevertheless, he had chosen a profession which is not often lucrative at first. He had been called to the Bar, and had gone,--and was still going,--the circuit in which lies the cathedral city of Bobsborough. Bobsborough is not much of a town, and was honoured with the judges' visits only every other circuit. Frank began pretty well, getting some little work in London, and perhaps nearly enough to pay the cost of his circuit out of the county in which the cathedral was situated. But he began life after that impecunious fashion for which the Greystocks have been noted. Tailors, robemakers, and booksellers gave him trust, and did believe that they would get their money. And any persistent tradesman did get it. He did not actually hoist the black flag of impecuniosity, and proclaim his intention of preying generally upon the retail dealers, as his uncle the admiral had done. But he became known as a young man with whom money was "tight." All this had been going on for three or four years before he had met Lucy Morris at the deanery. He was then eight-and-twenty, and had been four years called. He was thirty when old Lady Fawn hinted to him that he had better not pay any more visits at Fawn Court. But things had much altered with him of late. At the time of that visit to the deanery he had made a sudden start in his profession. The Corporation of the City of London had brought an action against the Bank of England with reference to certain alleged encroachments, of which action, considerable as it was in all its interests, no further notice need be taken here than is given by the statement that a great deal of money in this cause had found its way among the lawyers. Some of it penetrated into the pocket of Frank Greystock; but he earned more than money, better than money, out of that affair. It was attributed to him by the attorneys that the Bank of England was saved from the necessity of reconstructing all its bullion-cellars, and he had made his character for industry. In the year after that the Bobsborough people were rather driven into a corner in search of a clever young Conservative candidate for the borough, and Frank Greystock was invited to stand. It was not thought that there was much chance of success, and the dean was against it. But Frank liked the honour and glory of the contest, and so did Frank's mother. Frank Greystock stood, and at the time in which he was warned away from Fawn Court had been nearly a year in Parliament. "Of course it does interfere with one's business," he had said to his father, "but then it brings one business also. A man with a seat in Parliament who shows that he means work will always get nearly as much work as he can do." Such was Frank's exposition to his father. It may perhaps not be found to hold water in all cases. Mrs. Dean was of course delighted with her son's success, and so were the girls. Women like to feel that the young men belonging to them are doing something in the world, so that a reflected glory may be theirs. It was pleasant to talk of Frank as member for the city. Brothers do not always care much for a brother's success, but a sister is generally sympathetic. If Frank would only marry money, there was nothing he might not achieve. That he would live to sit on the woolsack was now almost a certainty to the dear old lady. But in order that he might sit there comfortably it was necessary that he should at least abstain from marrying a poor wife. For there was fear at the deanery also in regard to Lucy Morris. "That notion of marrying money as you call it," Frank said to his second sister Margaret, "is the most disgusting idea in the world." "It is as easy to love a girl who has something as one who has nothing," said Margaret. "No,--it is not; because the girls with money are scarce, and those without it are plentiful,--an argument of which I don't suppose you see the force." Then Margaret for the moment was snubbed and retired. "Indeed, Frank, I think Lady Fawn was right," said the mother. "And I think she was quite wrong. If there be anything in it, it won't be expelled by Lady Fawn's interference. Do you think I should allow Lady Fawn to tell me not to choose such or such a woman for my wife?" "It's the habit of seeing her, my dear. Nobody loves Lucy Morris better than I do. We all like her. But, dear Frank, would it do for you to make her your wife?" Frank Greystock was silent for a moment, and then he answered his mother's question. "I am not quite sure whether it would or would not. But I do think this--that if I were bold enough to marry now, and to trust all to the future, and could get Lucy to be my wife, I should be doing a great thing. I doubt, however, whether I have the courage." All of which made the dean's wife uneasy. The reader, who has read so far, will perhaps think that Frank Greystock was in love with Lucy as Lucy was in love with him. But such was not exactly the case. To be in love, as an absolute, well-marked, acknowledged fact, is the condition of a woman more frequently and more readily than of a man. Such is not the common theory on the matter, as it is the man's business to speak, and the woman's business to be reticent. And the woman is presumed to have kept her heart free from any load of love, till she may accept the burthen with an assurance that it shall become a joy and a comfort to her. But such presumptions, though they may be very useful for the regulation of conduct, may not be always true. It comes more within the scope of a woman's mind, than that of a man's, to think closely and decide sharply on such a matter. With a man it is often chance that settles the question for him. He resolves to propose to a woman, or proposes without resolving, because she is close to him. Frank Greystock ridiculed the idea of Lady Fawn's interference in so high a matter as his love,--or abstinence from love. Nevertheless, had he been made a welcome guest at Fawn Court, he would undoubtedly have told his love to Lucy Morris. He was not a welcome guest, but had been banished; and, as a consequence of that banishment, he had formed no resolution in regard to Lucy, and did not absolutely know whether she was necessary to him or not. But Lucy Morris knew all about it. Moreover, it frequently happens with men that they fail to analyse these things, and do not make out for themselves any clear definition of what their feelings are or what they mean. We hear that a man has behaved badly to a girl, when the behaviour of which he has been guilty has resulted simply from want of thought. He has found a certain companionship to be agreeable to him, and he has accepted the pleasure without inquiry. Some vague idea has floated across his brain that the world is wrong in supposing that such friendship cannot exist without marriage, or question of marriage. It is simply friendship. And yet were his friend to tell him that she intended to give herself in marriage elsewhere, he would suffer all the pangs of jealousy, and would imagine himself to be horribly ill-treated! To have such a friend,--a friend whom he cannot or will not make his wife,--is no injury to him. To him it is simply a delight, an excitement in life, a thing to be known to himself only and not talked of to others, a source of pride and inward exultation. It is a joy to think of when he wakes, and a consolation in his little troubles. It dispels the weariness of life, and makes a green spot of holiday within his daily work. It is, indeed, death to her;--but he does not know it. Frank Greystock did think that he could not marry Lucy Morris without making an imprudent plunge into deep water, and yet he felt that Lady Fawn was an ill-natured old woman for hinting to him that he had better not, for the present, continue his visits to Fawn Court. "Of course you understand me, Mr. Greystock," she had said, meaning to be civil. "When Miss Morris has left us,--should she ever leave us,--I should be most happy to see you." "What on earth would take me to Fawn Court, if Lucy were not there!" he said to himself,--not choosing to appreciate Lady Fawn's civility. Frank Greystock was at this time nearly thirty years old. He was a good-looking, but not strikingly handsome man; thin, of moderate height, with sharp grey eyes, a face clean shorn with the exception of a small whisker, with wiry, strong dark hair, which was already beginning to show a tinge of grey;--the very opposite in appearance to his late friend Sir Florian Eustace. He was quick, ready-witted, self-reliant, and not over scrupulous in the outward things of the world. He was desirous of doing his duty to others, but he was specially desirous that others should do their duty to him. He intended to get on in the world, and believed that happiness was to be achieved by success. He was certainly made for the profession which he had adopted. His father, looking to certain morsels of Church patronage which occasionally came in his way, and to the fact that he and the bishop were on most friendly terms, had wished his son to take orders. But Frank had known himself and his own qualities too well to follow his father's advice. He had chosen to be a barrister, and now, at thirty, he was in Parliament. He had been asked to stand for Bobsborough in the Conservative interest, and as a Conservative he had been returned. Those who invited him knew probably but little of his own political beliefs or feelings,--did not, probably, know whether he had any. His father was a fine old Tory of the ancient school, who thought that things were going from bad to worse, but was able to live happily in spite of his anticipations. The dean was one of those old-world politicians,--we meet them every day, and they are generally pleasant people,--who enjoy the politics of the side to which they belong without any special belief in them. If pressed hard they will almost own that their so-called convictions are prejudices. But not for worlds would they be rid of them. When two or three of them meet together, they are as freemasons, who are bound by a pleasant bond which separates them from the outer world. They feel among themselves that everything that is being done is bad,--even though that everything is done by their own party. It was bad to interfere with Charles, bad to endure Cromwell, bad to banish James, bad to put up with William. The House of Hanover was bad. All interference with prerogative has been bad. The Reform bill was very bad. Encroachment on the estates of the bishops was bad. Emancipation of Roman Catholics was the worst of all. Abolition of corn-laws, church-rates, and oaths and tests were all bad. The meddling with the Universities has been grievous. The treatment of the Irish Church has been Satanic. The overhauling of schools is most injurious to English education. Education bills and Irish land bills were all bad. Every step taken has been bad. And yet to them old England is of all countries in the world the best to live in, and is not at all the less comfortable because of the changes that have been made. These people are ready to grumble at every boon conferred on them, and yet to enjoy every boon. They know, too, their privileges, and, after a fashion, understand their position. It is picturesque, and it pleases them. To have been always in the right and yet always on the losing side; always being ruined, always under persecution from a wild spirit of republican-demagogism,--and yet never to lose anything, not even position or public esteem, is pleasant enough. A huge, living, daily increasing grievance that does one no palpable harm, is the happiest possession that a man can have. There is a large body of such men in England, and, personally, they are the very salt of the nation. He who said that all Conservatives are stupid did not know them. Stupid Conservatives there may be,--and there certainly are very stupid Radicals. The well-educated, widely-read Conservative, who is well assured that all good things are gradually being brought to an end by the voice of the people, is generally the pleasantest man to be met. But he is a Buddhist, possessing a religious creed which is altogether dark and mysterious to the outer world. Those who watch the ways of the advanced Buddhist hardly know whether the man does believe himself in his hidden god, but men perceive that he is respectable, self-satisfied, and a man of note. It is of course from the society of such that Conservative candidates are to be sought; but, alas, it is hard to indoctrinate young minds with the old belief, since new theories of life have become so rife! Nevertheless Frank Greystock, when he was invited to stand for Bobsborough in the Conservative interest, had not for a moment allowed any political heterodoxy on his own part to stand in the way of his advancement. It may, perhaps, be the case that a barrister is less likely to be influenced by personal convictions in taking his side in politics than any other man who devotes himself to public affairs. No slur on the profession is intended by this suggestion. A busy, clever, useful man, who has been at work all his life, finds that his own progress towards success demands from him that he shall become a politician. The highest work of a lawyer can only be reached through political struggle. As a large-minded man of the world, peculiarly conversant with the fact that every question has two sides, and that as much may often be said on one side as on the other, he has probably not become violent in his feelings as a political partisan. Thus he sees that there is an opening here or an opening there, and the offence in either case is not great to him. With Frank Greystock the matter was very easy. There certainly was no apostasy. He had now and again attacked his father's ultra-Toryism, and rebuked his mother and sisters when they spoke of Gladstone as Apollyon, and called John Bright the Abomination of Desolation. But it was easy to him to fancy himself a Conservative, and as such he took his seat in the House without any feeling of discomfort. During the first four months of his first session he had not spoken,--but he had made himself useful. He had sat on one or two Committees, though as a barrister he might have excused himself, and had done his best to learn the forms of the House. But he had already begun to find that the time which he devoted to Parliament was much wanted for his profession. Money was very necessary to him. Then a new idea was presented to him. John Eustace and Greystock were very intimate,--as also had been Sir Florian and Greystock. "I tell you what I wish you'd do, Greystock," Eustace said to him one day, as they were standing idly together in the lobby of the House. For John Eustace was also in Parliament. "Anything to oblige you, my friend." "It's only a trifle," said Eustace. "Just to marry your cousin, my brother's widow." "By Jove,--I wish I had the chance!" "I don't see why you shouldn't. She is sure to marry somebody, and at her age so she ought. She's not twenty-three yet. We could trust you,--with the child and all the rest of it. As it is, she is giving us a deal of trouble." "But, my dear fellow--" "I know she's fond of you. You were dining there last Sunday. "And so was Fawn. Lord Fawn is the man to marry Lizzie. You see if he doesn't. He was uncommonly sweet on her the other night, and really interested her about the Sawab." "She'll never be Lady Fawn," said John Eustace. "And to tell the truth, I shouldn't care to have to deal with Lord Fawn. He would be infinitely troublesome; and I can hardly wash my hands of her affairs. She's worth nearly £5,000 a year as long as she lives, and I really don't think that she's much amiss." "Much amiss! I don't know whether she's not the prettiest woman I ever saw," said Greystock. "Yes;--but I mean in conduct, and all that. She is making herself queer; and Camperdown, our lawyer, means to jump upon her; but it's only because she doesn't know what she ought to be at, and what she ought not. You could tell her." "It wouldn't suit me at all to have to quarrel with Camperdown," said the barrister, laughing. "You and he would settle everything in five minutes, and it would save me a world of trouble," said Eustace. "Fawn is your man;--take my word for it," said Greystock, as he walked back into the House. * * * * * Dramatists, when they write their plays, have a delightful privilege of prefixing a list of their personages;--and the dramatists of old used to tell us who was in love with whom, and what were the blood relationships of all the persons. In such a narrative as this, any proceeding of that kind would be unusual,--and therefore the poor narrator has been driven to expend his first four chapters in the mere task of introducing his characters. He regrets the length of these introductions, and will now begin at once the action of his story. CHAPTER V The Eustace Necklace John Eustace, Lady Eustace's brother-in-law, had told his friend Greystock, the lady's cousin, that Mr. Camperdown the lawyer intended to "jump upon" that lady. Making such allowance and deduction from the force of these words as the slang expression requires, we may say that John Eustace was right. Mr. Camperdown was in earnest, and did intend to obtain the restoration of those jewels. Mr. Camperdown was a gentleman of about sixty, who had been lawyer to Sir Florian's father, and whose father had been lawyer to Sir Florian's grandfather. His connexion with the property and with the family was of a nature to allow him to take almost any liberty with the Eustaces. When therefore John Eustace, in regard to those diamonds, had pleaded that the heir in his long minority would obtain ample means of buying more diamonds, and of suggesting that the plunder for the sake of tranquillity should be allowed, Mr. Camperdown took upon himself to say that he'd "be ---- if he'd put up with it!" "I really don't know what you are to do," said John Eustace. "I'll file a bill in Chancery if it's necessary," said the old lawyer. "Heaven on earth! as trustee how are you to reconcile yourself to such a robbery? They represent £500 a year for ever, and she is to have them simply because she chooses to take them!" "I suppose Florian could have given them away. At any rate he could have sold them." "I don't know that," said Mr. Camperdown. "I have not looked as yet, but I think that this necklace has been made an heirloom. At any rate it represents an amount of property that shouldn't and couldn't be made over legally without some visible evidence of transfer. It's as clear a case of stealing as I ever knew in my life, and as bad a case. She hadn't a farthing, and she has got the whole of the Ayrshire property for her life. She goes about and tells everybody that it's hers to sell to-morrow if she pleases to sell it! No, John;--" Mr. Camperdown had known Eustace when he was a boy, and had watched him become a man, and hadn't yet learned to drop the name by which he had called the boy,--"we mustn't allow it. What do you think of her applying to me for an income to support her child,--a baby not yet two years old?" Mr. Camperdown had been very adverse to all the circumstances of Sir Florian's marriage, and had subjected himself to Sir Florian's displeasure for expressing his opinion. He had tried to explain that as the lady brought no money into the family she was not entitled to such a jointure as Sir Florian was determined to lavish upon her. But Sir Florian had been obstinate,--both in regard to the settlement and the will. It was not till after Sir Florian's death that this terrible matter of the jewels had even suggested itself to Mr. Camperdown. The jewellers in whose custody the things had been since the death of the late Lady Eustace had mentioned the affair to him immediately on the young widow's return from Naples. Sir Florian had withdrawn, not all the jewels, but by far the most valuable of them, from the jewellers' care on his return to London from their marriage tour to Scotland, and this was the result. The jewellers were at that time without any doubt as to the date at which the necklace was taken from them. Mr. Camperdown's first attempt was made by a most courteous and even complimentary note, in which he suggested to Lady Eustace that it would be for the advantage of all parties that the family jewels should be kept together. Lizzie as she read this note smiled, and said to herself that she did not exactly see how her own interests would be best served by such an arrangement. She made no answer to Mr. Camperdown's note. Some months after this, when the heir was born, and as Lady Eustace was passing through London on her journey from Bobsborough to Portray, a meeting had been arranged between her and Mr. Camperdown. She had endeavoured by all the wiles she knew to avoid this meeting, but it had been forced upon her. She had been almost given to understand that unless she submitted to it, she would not be able to draw her income from the Portray property. Messrs. Mowbray and Mopus had advised her to submit. "My husband gave me a necklace, and they want me to give it back," she had said to Mr. Mopus. "Do nothing of the kind," Mr. Mopus had replied. "If you find it necessary, refer Mr. Camperdown to us. We will answer him." The interview had taken place, during which Mr. Camperdown took the trouble to explain very plainly and more than once that the income from the Portray property belonged to Lady Eustace for her life only. It would after her death be rejoined, of necessity, to the rest of the Eustace property. This was repeated to Lady Eustace in the presence of John Eustace; but she made no remark on being so informed. "You understand the nature of the settlement, Lady Eustace?" Mr. Camperdown had said. "I believe I understand everything," she replied. Then, just at the close of the interview, he asked a question about the jewels. Lady Eustace at first made no reply. "They might as well be sent back to Messrs. Garnett's," said Mr. Camperdown. "I don't know that I have any to send back," she answered; and then she escaped before Mr. Camperdown was able to arrange any further attack. "I can manage with her better by letter than I can personally," he said to John Eustace. Lawyers such as Mr. Camperdown are slow, and it was three or four months after that when he wrote a letter in his own name to Lady Eustace, explaining to her, still courteously, that it was his business to see that the property of the Eustace family was placed in fit hands, and that a certain valuable necklace of diamonds, which was an heirloom of the family, and which was undeniably the property of the heir, was believed to be in her custody. As such property was peculiarly subject to risks, would she have the kindness to make arrangements for handing over the necklace to the custody of the Messrs. Garnett? To this letter Lizzie made no answer whatever, nor did she to a second note, calling attention to the first. When John Eustace told Greystock that Camperdown intended to "jump on" Lady Eustace, the following further letter had been written by the firm;--but up to that time Lizzie had not replied to it: 62, New Square, Lincoln's Inn, May 5, 186--. MADAM, It is our duty as attorneys acting on behalf of the estate of your late husband Sir Florian Eustace, and in the interest of your son, his heir, to ask for restitution of a certain valuable diamond necklace which is believed to be now in the possession of your ladyship. Our senior partner, Mr. Camperdown, has written to your ladyship more than once on the subject, but has not been honoured with any reply. Doubtless had there been any mistake as to the necklace being in your hands we should have been so informed. The diamonds were withdrawn from Messrs. Garnett's, the jewellers, by Sir Florian soon after his marriage, and were, no doubt, entrusted to your keeping. They are appanages of the family which should not be in your hands as the widow of the late baronet, and they constitute an amount of property which certainly cannot be alienated from the family without inquiry or right, as might any trifling article either of use or ornament. The jewels are valued at over £10,000. We are reluctantly compelled, by the fact of your having left unanswered three letters from Mr. Camperdown, Senior, on the subject, to explain to you that if attention be not paid to this letter, we shall be obliged, in the performance of our duty, to take legal steps for the restitution of the property. We have the honour to be, Madam, Your ladyship's most obedient servants, CAMPERDOWN & SON. To Lady Eustace. &c. &c. A few days after it was sent old Mr. Camperdown got the letter-book of the office and read the letter to John Eustace. "I don't see how you're to get them," said Eustace. "We'll throw upon her the burthen of showing that they have become legally her property. She can't do it." "Suppose she sold them?" "We'll follow them up. £10,000, my dear John! God bless my soul! it's a magnificent dowry for a daughter,--an ample provision for a younger son. And she is to be allowed to filch it, as other widows filch china cups, and a silver teaspoon or two! It's quite a common thing, but I never heard of such a haul as this." "It will be very unpleasant," said Eustace. "And then she still goes about everywhere declaring that the Portray property is her own. She's a bad lot. I knew it from the first. Of course we shall have trouble." Then Mr. Eustace explained to the lawyer that their best way out of it all would be to get the widow married to some respectable husband. She was sure to marry sooner or later,--so John Eustace said,--and any "decently decent" fellow would be easier to deal with than she herself. "He must be very indecently indecent if he is not," said Mr. Camperdown. But Mr. Eustace did not name Frank Greystock the barrister as the probable future decent husband. When Lizzie first got the letter, which she did on the day after the visit at Fawn Court of which mention has been made, she put it by unread for a couple of days. She opened it, not knowing the clerk's handwriting, but read only the first line and the signature. For two days she went on with the ordinary affairs and amusements of her life, as though no such letter had reached her; but she was thinking of it all the time. The diamonds were in her possession, and she had had them valued by her old friend Mr. Benjamin--of the firm of Harter and Benjamin. Mr. Benjamin had suggested that stones of such a value should not be left to the risk of an ordinary London house; but Lizzie had felt that if Mr. Benjamin got them into his hands, Mr. Benjamin might perhaps not return them. Messrs. Camperdown and Garnett between them might form a league with Mr. Benjamin. Where would she be, should Mr. Benjamin tell her that under some legal sanction he had given the jewels up to Mr. Camperdown? She hinted to Mr. Benjamin that she would perhaps sell them if she got a good offer. Mr. Benjamin, who was very familiar with her, hinted that there might be a little family difficulty. "Oh, none in the least," said Lizzie;--"but I don't think I shall part with them." Then she gave Mr. Benjamin an order for a strong box, which was supplied to her. The strong box, which was so heavy that she could barely lift it herself, was now in her London bedroom. On the morning of the third day she read the letter. Miss Macnulty was staying with her, but she had not said a word to Miss Macnulty about the letter. She read it up in her own bedroom, and then sat down to think about it. Sir Florian, as he had handed to her the stones for the purpose of a special dinner party which had been given to them when passing through London, had told her that they were family jewels. "That setting was done for my mother," he said, "but it is already old. When we are at home again they shall be reset." Then he had added some little husband's joke as to a future daughter-in-law who should wear them. Nevertheless she was not sure whether the fact of their being so handed to her did not make them her own. She had spoken a second time to Mr. Mopus, and Mr. Mopus had asked her whether there existed any family deed as to the diamonds. She had heard of no such deed, nor did Mr. Camperdown mention such a deed. After reading the letter once she read it a dozen times; and then, like a woman, made up her mind that her safest course would be not to answer it. But yet she felt sure that something unpleasant would come of it. Mr. Camperdown was not a man to take up such a question and to let it drop. Legal steps! What did legal steps mean, and what could they do to her? Would Mr. Camperdown be able to put her in prison,--or to take away from her the estate of Portray? She could swear that her husband had given them to her, and could invent any form of words she pleased as accompanying the gift. No one else had been near them then. But she was, and felt herself to be absolutely, alarmingly ignorant, not only of the laws, but of custom in such matters. Messrs. Mowbray and Mopus and Mr. Benjamin were the allies to whom she looked for guidance; but she was wise enough to know that Mowbray and Mopus, and Harter and Benjamin were not trustworthy, whereas Camperdown and Son and the Messrs. Garnett were all as firm as rocks and as respectable as the Bank of England. Circumstances,--unfortunate circumstances,--drove her to Harter and Benjamin and to Mowbray and Mopus, while she would have taken so much delight in feeling the strong honesty of the other people to be on her side! She would have talked to her friends about Mr. Camperdown and the people at Garnett's with so much satisfaction! But ease, security, and even respectability may be bought too dearly. Ten thousand pounds! Was she prepared to surrender such a sum as that? She had, indeed, already realised the fact that it might be very difficult to touch the money. When she had suggested to Mr. Benjamin that he should buy the jewels, that worthy tradesman had by no means jumped at the offer. Of what use to her would be a necklace always locked up in an iron box, which box, for aught she knew, myrmidons from Mr. Camperdown might carry off during her absence from the house? Would it not be better to come to terms and surrender? But then what should the terms be? If only there had been a friend whom she could consult; a friend whom she could consult on a really friendly footing!--not a simply respectable, off-handed, high-minded friend, who would advise her as a matter of course to make restitution. Her uncle the dean, or her cousin Frank, or old Lady Fawn, would be sure to give her such advice as that. There are people who are so very high-minded when they have to deal with the interests of their friends! What if she were to ask Lord Fawn? Thoughts of a second marriage had, of course, crossed Lady Eustace's mind, and they were by no means the worst thoughts that found a place there. She had a grand idea,--this selfish, hard-fisted little woman, who could not bring herself to abandon the plunder on which she had laid her hand,--a grand idea of surrendering herself and all her possessions to a great passion. For Florian Eustace she had never cared. She had sat down by his side, and looked into his handsome face, and read poetry to him,--because of his wealth, and because it had been indispensable to her to settle herself well. And he had been all very well,--a generous, open-hearted, chivalrous, irascible, but rather heavy-minded gentleman; but she had never been in love with him. Now she desired to be so in love that she could surrender everything to her love. There was as yet nothing of such love in her bosom. She had seen no one who had so touched her. But she was alive to the romance of the thing, and was in love with the idea of being in love. "Ah," she would say to herself in her moments of solitude, "if I had a Corsair of my own, how I would sit on watch for my lover's boat by the sea-shore!" And she believed it of herself, that she could do so. But it would also be very nice to be a peeress,--so that she might, without any doubt, be one of the great ladies of London. As a baronet's widow with a large income, she was already almost a great lady; but she was quite alive to a suspicion that she was not altogether strong in her position. The bishop's people and the dean's people did not quite trust her. The Camperdowns and Garnetts utterly distrusted her. The Mopuses and Benjamins were more familiar than they would be with a really great lady. She was sharp enough to understand all this. Should it be Lord Fawn or should it be a Corsair? The worst of Lord Fawn was the undoubted fact that he was not himself a great man. He could, no doubt, make his wife a peeress; but he was poor, encumbered with a host of sisters, dull as a blue-book, and possessed of little beyond his peerage to recommend him. If she could only find a peer, unmarried, with a dash of the Corsair about him! In the meantime, what was she to do about the jewels? There was staying with her at this time a certain Miss Macnulty, who was related, after some distant fashion, to old Lady Linlithgow, and who was as utterly destitute of possessions or means of existence as any unfortunate, well-born, and moderately-educated, middle-aged woman in London. To live upon her friends, such as they might be, was the only mode of life within her reach. It was not that she had chosen such dependence; nor, indeed, had she endeavoured to reject it. It had come to her as a matter of course,--either that or the poor-house. As to earning her bread, except by that attendance which a poor friend gives,--the idea of any possibility that way had never entered her head. She could do nothing,--except dress like a lady with the smallest possible cost, and endeavour to be obliging. Now, at this moment, her condition was terribly precarious. She had quarrelled with Lady Linlithgow, and had been taken in by her old friend Lizzie,--her old enemy might, perhaps, be a truer expression,--because of that quarrel. But a permanent home had not even been promised to her; and poor Miss Macnulty was aware that even a permanent home with Lady Eustace would not be an unmixed blessing. In her way, Miss Macnulty was an honest woman. They were sitting together one May afternoon in the little back drawing-room in Mount Street. They had dined early, were now drinking tea, and intended to go to the opera. It was six o'clock, and was still broad day, but the thick coloured blind was kept across the single window, and the folding doors of the room were nearly closed, and there was a feeling of evening in the room. The necklace during the whole day had been so heavy on Lizzie's heart, that she had been unable to apply her thoughts to the building of that castle in the air in which the Corsair was to reign supreme, but not alone. "My dear," she said,--she generally called Miss Macnulty my dear,--"you know that box I had made by the jewellers." "You mean the safe." "Well,--yes; only it isn't a safe. A safe is a great big thing. I had it made especially for the diamonds Sir Florian gave me." "I supposed it was so." "I wonder whether there's any danger about it?" "If I were you, Lady Eustace, I wouldn't keep them in the house. I should have them kept where Sir Florian kept them. Suppose anybody should come and murder you!" "I'm not a bit afraid of that," said Lizzie. "I should be. And what will you do with it when you go to Scotland?" "I took them with me before;--in my own care. I know that wasn't safe. I wish I knew what to do with them!" "There are people who keep such things," said Miss Macnulty. Then Lizzie paused a moment. She was dying for counsel and for confidence. "I cannot trust them anywhere," she said. "It is just possible there may be a lawsuit about them." "How a lawsuit?" "I cannot explain it all, but I am very unhappy about it. They want me to give them up;--but my husband gave them to me, and for his sake I will not do so. When he threw them round my neck he told me that they were my own;--so he did. How can a woman give up such a present,--from a husband,--who is dead? As to the value, I care nothing. But I won't do it." By this time Lady Eustace was in tears, and had so far succeeded as to have produced some amount of belief in Miss Macnulty's mind. "If they are your own, they can't take them from you," said Miss Macnulty. "They sha'n't. They shall find that I've got some spirit left." Then she reflected that a real Corsair lover would protect her jewels for her;--would guard them against a score of Camperdowns. But she doubted whether Lord Fawn would do much in that way. Then the door was opened, and Lord Fawn was announced. It was not at all unusual with Lord Fawn to call on the widow at this hour. Mount Street is not exactly in the way from the India Office to the House of Lords; but a Hansom cab can make it almost in the way. Of neglect of official duty Lord Fawn was never guilty; but a half hour for private business or for relaxation between one stage of duty and another,--can any Minister grudge so much to an indefatigable follower? Lady Eustace had been in tears as he was announced, but the light of the room was so low that the traces of them could hardly be seen. She was in her Corsair state of mind, divided between her jewels and her poetry, and caring not very much for the increased rank which Lord Fawn could give her. "The Sawab's case is coming on in the House of Commons this very night," he said, in answer to a question from Miss Macnulty. Then he turned to Lady Eustace. "Your cousin, Mr. Greystock, is going to ask a question in the House." "Shall you be there to answer him?" asked Miss Macnulty innocently. "Oh dear, no. But I shall be present. A peer can go, you know." Then Lord Fawn, at considerable length, explained to the two ladies the nature and condition of the British Parliament. Miss Macnulty experienced an innocent pleasure in having such things told to her by a lord. Lady Eustace knew that this was the way in which Lord Fawn made love, and thought that from him it was as good as any other way. If she were to marry a second time simply with the view of being a peeress, of having a respected husband, and making good her footing in the world, she would as lief listen to parliamentary details and the prospects of the Sawab as to any other matters. She knew very well that no Corsair propensities would be forthcoming from Lord Fawn. Lord Fawn had just worked himself round to the Sawab again, when Frank Greystock entered the room. "Now we have both the Houses represented," said Lady Eustace, as she welcomed her cousin. "You intend to ask your question about the Sawab to-night?" asked Lord Fawn, with intense interest, feeling that, had it been his lot to perform that task before he went to his couch, he would at this moment have been preparing his little speech. But Frank Greystock had not come to his cousin's house to talk of the Prince of the Mygawb territory. When his friend Eustace had suggested to him that he should marry the widow, he had ridiculed the idea;--but nevertheless he had thought of it a good deal. He was struggling hard, working diligently, making for himself a character in Parliament, succeeding,--so said all his friends,--as a barrister. He was a rising young man, one of those whose names began to be much in the mouths of other men;--but still he was poor. It seemed to himself that among other good gifts that of economy had not been bestowed upon him. He owed a little money, and though he owed it, he went on spending his earnings. He wanted just such a lift in the world as a wife with an income would give him. As for looking about for a girl whom he could honestly love, and who should have a fortune of her own as well as beauty, birth, and all the other things,--that was out of his reach. If he talked to himself of love, if he were ever to acknowledge to himself that love was to have sway over him, then must Lucy Morris be the mistress of his heart. He had come to know enough about himself to be aware of that;--but he knew also that he had said nothing binding him to walk in that path. It was quite open to him to indulge a discreet ambition without dishonour. Therefore he also had come to call upon the beautiful widow. The courtship with her he knew need not be long. He could ask her to marry him to-morrow,--as for that matter to-day,--without a feeling of hesitation. She might accept him or might reject him; but, as he said to himself, in neither case would any harm be done. An idea of the same kind flitted across Lizzie's mind as she sat and talked to the two gentlemen. She knew that her cousin Frank was poor, but she thought that she could fall in love with him. He was not exactly a Corsair;--but he was a man who had certain Corsair propensities. He was bold and dashing, unscrupulous and clever, a man to make a name for himself, and one to whom a woman could endure to be obedient. There could be no question as to choice between him and Lord Fawn, if she were to allow herself to choose by liking. And she thought that Frank Greystock would keep the necklace, if he himself were made to have an interest in the necklace; whereas Lord Fawn would undoubtedly surrender it at once to Mr. Camperdown. Lord Fawn had some slight idea of waiting to see the cousin go; but as Greystock had a similar idea, and as he was the stronger of the two, of course Lord Fawn went. He perhaps remembered that the Hansom cab was at the door,--costing sixpence every fifteen minutes,--and that he wished to show himself in the House of Lords before the peers rose. Miss Macnulty also left the room, and Frank was alone with the widow. "Lizzie," said he, "you must be very solitary here." "I am solitary." "And hardly happy." "Anything but happy, Frank. I have things that make me very unhappy;--one thing that I will tell you if you will let me." Frank had almost made up his mind to ask her on the spot to give him permission to console all her sorrows, when there came a clattering double-knock at the door. "They know I shall be at home to nobody else now," said Lady Eustace. But Frank Greystock had hardly regained his self-possession when Miss Macnulty hurried into the room, and, with a look almost of horror, declared that Lady Linlithgow was in the parlour. CHAPTER VI Lady Linlithgow's Mission "Lady Linlithgow!"--said Frank Greystock, holding up both his hands. "Yes, indeed!" said Miss Macnulty. "I did not speak to her, but I saw her. She has sent her--love to Lady Eustace, and begs that she will see her." Lady Eustace had been so surprised by the announcement that hitherto she had not spoken a word. The quarrel between her and her aunt had been of such a nature that it had seemed to be impossible that the old countess should come to Mount Street. Lizzie had certainly behaved very badly to her aunt;--about as badly as a young woman could behave to an old woman. She had accepted bread, and shelter, and the very clothes on her back from her aunt's bounty, and had rejected even the hand of her benefactress the first moment that she had bread, and shelter, and clothes of her own. And here was Lady Linlithgow down-stairs in the parlour, and sending up her love to her niece! "I won't see her!" said Lizzie. "You had better see her," said Frank. "I can't see her!" said Lizzie. "Good gracious, my dear--what has she come for?" "She says it's very important," said Miss Macnulty. "Of course you must see her," said Frank. "Let me get out of the house, and then tell the servant to show her up at once. Don't be weak now, Lizzie, and I'll come and find out all about it to-morrow." "Mind you do," said Lizzie. Then Frank took his departure, and Lizzie did as she was bidden. "You remain in here, Julia," she said,--"so as to be near if I want you. She shall come into the front room." Then, absolutely shaking with fear of the approaching evil, she took her seat in the largest drawing-room. There was still a little delay. Time was given to Frank Greystock to get away, and to do so without meeting Lady Linlithgow in the passage. The message was conveyed by Miss Macnulty to the servant, and the same servant opened the front door for Frank before he delivered it. Lady Linlithgow, too, though very strong, was old. She was slow, or perhaps it might more properly be said she was stately in her movements. She was one of those old women who are undoubtedly old women,--who in the remembrance of younger people seem always to have been old women,--but on whom old age appears to have no debilitating effects. If the hand of Lady Linlithgow ever trembled, it trembled from anger;--if her foot ever faltered, it faltered for effect. In her way Lady Linlithgow was a very powerful human being. She knew nothing of fear, nothing of charity, nothing of mercy, and nothing of the softness of love. She had no imagination. She was worldly, covetous, and not unfrequently cruel. But she meant to be true and honest, though she often failed in her meaning;--and she had an idea of her duty in life. She was not self-indulgent. She was as hard as an oak post,--but then she was also as trustworthy. No human being liked her;--but she had the good word of a great many human beings. At great cost to her own comfort she had endeavoured to do her duty to her niece, Lizzie Greystock, when Lizzie was homeless. Undoubtedly Lizzie's bed, while it had been spread under her aunt's roof, had not been one of roses; but such as it had been, she had endured to occupy it while it served her needs. She had constrained herself to bear her aunt;--but from the moment of her escape she had chosen to reject her aunt altogether. Now her aunt's heavy step was heard upon the stairs! Lizzie also was a brave woman after a certain fashion. She could dare to incur a great danger for an adequate object. But she was too young as yet to have become mistress of that persistent courage which was Lady Linlithgow's peculiar possession. When the countess entered the drawing-room Lizzie rose upon her legs, but did not come forward from her chair. The old woman was not tall;--but her face was long, and at the same time large, square at the chin and square at the forehead, and gave her almost an appearance of height. Her nose was very prominent, not beaked, but straight and strong, and broad at the bridge, and of a dark-red colour. Her eyes were sharp and grey. Her mouth was large, and over it there was almost beard enough for a young man's moustache. Her chin was firm, and large, and solid. Her hair was still brown, and was only just grizzled in parts. Nothing becomes an old woman like grey hair, but Lady Linlithgow's hair would never be grey. Her appearance on the whole was not pre-possessing, but it gave one an idea of honest, real strength. What one saw was not buckram, whalebone, paint, and false hair. It was all human,--hardly feminine, certainly not angelic, with perhaps a hint in the other direction,--but a human body, and not a thing of pads and patches. Lizzie, as she saw her aunt, made up her mind for the combat. Who is there that has lived to be a man or woman, and has not experienced a moment in which a combat has impended, and a call for such sudden courage has been necessary? Alas!--sometimes the combat comes, and the courage is not there. Lady Eustace was not at her ease as she saw her aunt enter the room. "Oh, come ye in peace, or come ye in war?" she would have said had she dared. Her aunt had sent up her love,--if the message had been delivered aright; but what of love could there be between the two? The countess dashed at once to the matter in hand, making no allusion to Lizzie's ungrateful conduct to herself. "Lizzie," she said, "I've been asked to come to you by Mr. Camperdown. I'll sit down, if you please." "Oh, certainly, Aunt Penelope. Mr. Camperdown!" "Yes;--Mr. Camperdown. You know who he is. He has been with me because I am your nearest relation. So I am, and therefore I have come. I don't like it, I can tell you." "As for that, Aunt Penelope, you've done it to please yourself," said Lizzie, in a tone of insolence with which Lady Linlithgow had been familiar in former days. "No, I haven't, miss. I haven't come for my own pleasure at all. I have come for the credit of the family, if any good can be done towards saving it. You've got your husband's diamonds locked up somewhere, and you must give them back." "My husband's diamonds were my diamonds," said Lizzie stoutly. "They are family diamonds, Eustace diamonds, heirlooms,--old property belonging to the Eustaces, just like their estates. Sir Florian didn't give 'em away, and couldn't, and wouldn't if he could. Such things ain't given away in that fashion. It's all nonsense, and you must give them up." "Who says so?" "I say so." "That's nothing, Aunt Penelope." "Nothing, is it? You'll see. Mr. Camperdown says so. All the world will say so. If you don't take care, you'll find yourself brought into a court of law, my dear, and a jury will say so. That's what it will come to. What good will they do you? You can't sell them;--and as a widow you can't wear 'em. If you marry again, you wouldn't disgrace your husband by going about showing off the Eustace diamonds! But you don't know anything about 'proper feelings.'" "I know every bit as much as you do, Aunt Penelope, and I don't want you to teach me." "Will you give up the jewels to Mr. Camperdown?" "No--I won't." "Or to the jewellers?" "No; I won't. I mean to--keep them--for--my child." Then there came forth a sob, and a tear, and Lizzie's handkerchief was held to her eyes. "Your child! Wouldn't they be kept properly for him, and for the family, if the jewellers had them? I don't believe you care about your child." "Aunt Penelope, you had better take care." "I shall say just what I think, Lizzie. You can't frighten me. The fact is, you are disgracing the family you have married into, and as you are my niece--" "I'm not disgracing anybody. You are disgracing everybody." "As you are my niece, I have undertaken to come to you and to tell you that if you don't give 'em up within a week from this time, they'll proceed against you for--stealing 'em!" Lady Linlithgow, as she uttered this terrible threat, bobbed her head at her niece in a manner calculated to add very much to the force of her words. The words, and tone, and gesture combined were, in truth, awful. "I didn't steal them. My husband gave them to me with his own hands." "You wouldn't answer Mr. Camperdown's letters, you know. That alone will condemn you. After that there isn't a word to be said about it;--not a word. Mr. Camperdown is the family lawyer, and when he writes to you letter after letter you take no more notice of him than a--dog!" The old woman was certainly very powerful. The way in which she pronounced that last word did make Lady Eustace ashamed of herself. "Why didn't you answer his letters, unless you knew you were in the wrong? Of course you knew you were in the wrong." "No; I didn't. A woman isn't obliged to answer everything that is written to her." "Very well! You just say that before the judge! for you'll have to go before a judge. I tell you, Lizzie Greystock, or Eustace, or whatever your name is, it's downright picking and stealing. I suppose you want to sell them." "I won't stand this, Aunt Penelope!" said Lizzie, rising from her seat. "You must stand it;--and you'll have to stand worse than that. You don't suppose Mr. Camperdown got me to come here for nothing. If you don't want to be made out to be a thief before all the world--" "I won't stand it!" shrieked Lizzie. "You have no business to come here and say such things to me. It's my house." "I shall say just what I please." "Miss Macnulty, come in." And Lizzie threw open the door, hardly knowing how the very weak ally whom she now invoked could help her, but driven by the stress of the combat to seek assistance somewhere. Miss Macnulty, who was seated near the door, and who had necessarily heard every word of the conversation, had no alternative but to appear. Of all human beings Lady Linlithgow was to her the most terrible, and yet, after a fashion, she loved the old woman. Miss Macnulty was humble, cowardly, and subservient; but she was not a fool, and she understood the difference between truth and falsehood. She had endured fearful things from Lady Linlithgow; but she knew that there might be more of sound protection in Lady Linlithgow's real wrath than in Lizzie's pretended affection. "So you are there, are you?" said the countess. "Yes;--I am here, Lady Linlithgow." "Listening, I suppose. Well;--so much the better. You know well enough, and you can tell her. You ain't a fool, though I suppose you'll be afraid to open your mouth." "Julia," said Lady Eustace, "will you have the kindness to see that my aunt is shown to her carriage. I cannot stand her violence, and I will go up-stairs." So saying she made her way very gracefully into the back drawing-room, whence she could escape to her bed-room. But her aunt fired a last shot at her. "Unless you do as you're bid, Lizzie, you'll find yourself in prison as sure as eggs!" Then, when her niece was beyond hearing, she turned to Miss Macnulty. "I suppose you've heard about these diamonds, Macnulty?" "I know she's got them, Lady Linlithgow." "She has no more right to them than you have. I suppose you're afraid to tell her so, lest she should turn you out;--but it's well she should know it. I've done my duty. Never mind about the servant. I'll find my way out of the house." Nevertheless the bell was rung, and the countess was shown to her carriage with proper consideration. The two ladies went to the opera, and it was not till after their return, and just as they were going to bed, that anything further was said about either the necklace or the visit. Miss Macnulty would not begin the subject, and Lizzie purposely postponed it. But not for a moment had it been off Lady Eustace's mind. She did not care much for music, though she professed to do so,--and thought that she did. But on this night, had she at other times been a slave to St. Cecilia, she would have been free from that thraldom. The old woman's threats had gone into her very heart's blood. Theft, and prison, and juries, and judges had been thrown at her head so violently that she was almost stunned. Could it really be the case that they would prosecute her for stealing? She was Lady Eustace, and who but Lady Eustace should have these diamonds or be allowed to wear them? Nobody could say that Sir Florian had not given them to her. It could not, surely, be brought against her as an actual crime that she had not answered Mr. Camperdown's letters? And yet she was not sure. Her ideas about law and judicial proceedings were very vague. Of what was wrong and what was right she had a distinct notion. She knew well enough that she was endeavouring to steal the Eustace diamonds; but she did not in the least know what power there might be in the law to prevent, or to punish her for the intended theft. She knew well that the thing was not really her own; but there were, as she thought, so many points in her favour, that she felt it to be a cruelty that any one should grudge her the plunder. Was not she the only Lady Eustace living? As to these threats from Mr. Camperdown and Lady Linlithgow, she felt certain they would be used against her whether they were true or false. She would break her heart should she abandon her prey and afterwards find that Mr. Camperdown would have been wholly powerless against her had she held on to it. But then who would tell her the truth? She was sharp enough to understand, or at any rate suspicious enough to believe, that Mr. Mopus would be actuated by no other desire in the matter than that of running up a bill against her. "My dear," she said to Miss Macnulty, as they went up-stairs after the opera, "come into my room a moment. You heard all that my aunt said?" "I could not help hearing. You told me to stay there, and the door was ajar." "I wanted you to hear. Of course what she said was the greatest nonsense in the world." "I don't know." "When she talked about my being taken to prison for not answering a lawyer's letter, that must be nonsense?" "I suppose that was." "And then she is such a ferocious old termagant,--such an old vulturess. Now isn't she a ferocious old termagant?" Lizzie paused for an answer, desirous that her companion should join her in her enmity against her aunt, but Miss Macnulty was unwilling to say anything against one who had been her protectress, and might, perhaps, be her protectress again. "You don't mean to say you don't hate her?" said Lizzie. "If you didn't hate her after all she has done to you, I should despise you. Don't you hate her?" "I think she's a very upsetting old woman," said Miss Macnulty. "Oh, you poor creature! Is that all you dare to say about her?" "I'm obliged to be a poor creature," said Miss Macnulty, with a red spot on each of her cheeks. Lady Eustace understood this, and relented. "But you needn't be afraid," she said, "to tell me what you think." "About the diamonds, you mean?" "Yes; about the diamonds." "You have enough without them. I'd give 'em up for peace and quiet." That was Miss Macnulty's advice. "No;--I haven't enough;--or nearly enough. I've had to buy ever so many things since my husband died. They've done all they could to be hard to me. They made me pay for the very furniture at Portray." This wasn't true; but it was true that Lizzie had endeavoured to palm off on the Eustace estate bills for new things which she had ordered for her own country-house. "I haven't near enough. I am in debt already. People talked as though I were the richest woman in the world; but when it comes to be spent, I ain't rich. Why should I give them up if they're my own?" "Not if they're your own." "If I give you a present and then die, people can't come and take it away afterwards because I didn't put it into my will. There'd be no making presents like that at all." This Lizzie said with an evident conviction in the strength of her argument. "But this necklace is so very valuable." "That can't make a difference. If a thing is a man's own he can give it away;--not a house, or a farm, or a wood, or anything like that; but a thing that he can carry about with him,--of course he can give it away." "But perhaps Sir Florian didn't mean to give it for always," suggested Miss Macnulty. "But perhaps he did. He told me that they were mine, and I shall keep them. So that's the end of it. You can go to bed now." And Miss Macnulty went to bed. Lizzie, as she sat thinking of it, owned to herself that no help was to be expected in that quarter. She was not angry with Miss Macnulty, who was, almost of necessity, a poor creature. But she was convinced more strongly than ever that some friend was necessary to her who should not be a poor creature. Lord Fawn, though a peer, was a poor creature. Frank Greystock she believed to be as strong as a house. CHAPTER VII Mr. Burke's Speeches Lucy Morris had been told by Lady Fawn that,--in point of fact that, being a governess, she ought to give over falling in love with Frank Greystock, and she had not liked it. Lady Fawn no doubt had used words less abrupt,--had probably used but few words, and had expressed her meaning chiefly by little winks, and shakings of her head, and small gestures of her hands, and had ended by a kiss,--in all of which she had intended to mingle mercy with justice, and had, in truth, been full of love. Nevertheless, Lucy had not liked it. No girl likes to be warned against falling in love, whether the warning be needed or not needed. In this case Lucy knew very well that the caution was too late. It might be all very well for Lady Fawn to decide that her governess should not receive visits from a lover in her house;--and then the governess might decide whether, in those circumstances, she would remain or go away; but Lady Fawn could have no right to tell her governess not to be in love. All this Lucy said to herself over and over again, and yet she knew that Lady Fawn had treated her well. The old woman had kissed her, and purred over her, and praised her, and had really loved her. As a matter of course, Lucy was not entitled to have a lover. Lucy knew that well enough. As she walked alone among the shrubs she made arguments in defence of Lady Fawn as against herself. And yet at every other minute she would blaze up into a grand wrath, and picture to herself a scene in which she would tell Lady Fawn boldly that as her lover had been banished from Fawn Court, she, Lucy, would remain there no longer. There were but two objections to this course. The first was that Frank Greystock was not her lover; and the second, that on leaving Fawn Court she would not know whither to betake herself. It was understood by everybody that she was never to leave Fawn Court till an unexceptionable home should be found for her, either with the Hittaways or elsewhere. Lady Fawn would no more allow her to go away, depending for her future on the mere chance of some promiscuous engagement, than she would have turned one of her own daughters out of the house in the same forlorn condition. Lady Fawn was a tower of strength to Lucy. But then a tower of strength may at any moment become a dungeon. Frank Greystock was not her lover. Ah,--there was the worst of it all! She had given her heart and had got nothing in return. She conned it all over in her own mind, striving to ascertain whether there was any real cause for shame to her in her own conduct. Had she been unmaidenly? Had she been too forward with her heart? Had it been extracted from her, as women's hearts are extracted, by efforts on the man's part; or had she simply chucked it away from her to the first comer? Then she remembered certain scenes at the deanery, words that had been spoken, looks that had been turned upon her, a pressure of the hand late at night, a little whisper, a ribbon that had been begged, a flower that had been given;--and once, once--; then there came a burning blush upon her cheek that there should have been so much, and yet so little that was of avail. She had no right to say to any one that the man was her lover. She had no right to assure herself that he was her lover. But she knew that some wrong was done her in that he was not her lover. Of the importance of her own self as a living thing with a heart to suffer and a soul to endure, she thought enough. She believed in herself, thinking of herself, that should it ever be her lot to be a man's wife, she would be to him a true, loving friend and companion, living in his joys, and fighting, if it were necessary, down to the stumps of her nails in his interests. But of what she had to give over and above her heart and intellect she never thought at all. Of personal beauty she had very little appreciation even in others. The form and face of Lady Eustace, which indeed were very lovely, were distasteful to her; whereas she delighted to look upon the broad, plain, colourless countenance of Lydia Fawn, who was endeared to her by frank good humour and an unselfish disposition. In regard to men she had never asked herself the question whether this man was handsome or that man ugly. Of Frank Greystock she knew that his face was full of quick intellect; and of Lord Fawn she knew that he bore no outward index of mind. One man she not only loved, but could not help loving; the other man, as regarded that sort of sympathy which marriage should recognise, must always have been worlds asunder from her. She knew that men demand that women shall possess beauty, and she certainly had never thought of herself as beautiful; but it did not occur to her that on that account she was doomed to fail. She was too strong-hearted for any such fear. She did not think much of these things, but felt herself to be so far endowed as to be fit to be the wife of such a man as Frank Greystock. She was a proud, stout, self-confident, but still modest little woman, too fond of truth to tell lies of herself even to herself. She was possessed of a great power of sympathy, genial, very social, greatly given to the mirth of conversation,--though in talking she would listen much and say but little. She was keenly alive to humour, and had at her command a great fund of laughter, which would illumine her whole face without producing a sound from her mouth. She knew herself to be too good to be a governess for life;--and yet how could it be otherwise with her? Lady Linlithgow's visit to her niece had been made on a Thursday, and on that same evening Frank Greystock had asked his question in the House of Commons,--or rather had made his speech about the Sawab of Mygawb. We all know the meaning of such speeches. Had not Frank belonged to the party that was out, and had not the resistance to the Sawab's claim come from the party that was in, Frank would not probably have cared much about the prince. We may be sure that he would not have troubled himself to read a line of that very dull and long pamphlet of which he had to make himself master before he could venture to stir in the matter, had not the road of Opposition been open to him in that direction. But what exertion will not a politician make with the view of getting the point of his lance within the joints of his enemies' harness? Frank made his speech, and made it very well. It was just the case for a lawyer, admitting that kind of advocacy which it is a lawyer's business to practise. The Indian minister of the day, Lord Fawn's chief, had determined, after much anxious consideration, that it was his duty to resist the claim; and then, for resisting it, he was attacked. Had he yielded to the claim, the attack would have been as venomous, and very probably would have come from the same quarter. No blame by such an assertion is cast upon the young Conservative aspirant for party honours. It is thus the war is waged. Frank Greystock took up the Sawab's case, and would have drawn mingled tears and indignation from his hearers, had not his hearers all known the conditions of the contest. On neither side did the hearers care much for the Sawab's claims, but they felt that Greystock was making good his own claims to some future reward from his party. He was very hard upon the minister,--and he was hard also upon Lord Fawn, stating that the cruelty of Government ascendancy had never been put forward as a doctrine in plainer terms than those which had been used in "another place" in reference to the wrongs of this poor ill-used native chieftain. This was very grievous to Lord Fawn, who had personally desired to favour the ill-used chieftain;--and harder again because he and Greystock were intimate with each other. He felt the thing keenly, and was full of his grievance when, in accordance with his custom, he came down to Fawn Court on the Saturday evening. The Fawn family, which consisted entirely of women, dined early. On Saturdays, when his lordship would come down, a dinner was prepared for him alone. On Sundays they all dined together at three o'clock. On Sunday evening Lord Fawn would return to town to prepare himself for his Monday's work. Perhaps, also, he disliked the sermon which Lady Fawn always read to the assembled household at nine o'clock on Sunday evening. On this Saturday he came out into the grounds after dinner, where the oldest unmarried daughter, the present Miss Fawn, was walking with Lucy Morris. It was almost a summer evening;--so much so, that some of the party had been sitting on the garden benches, and four of the girls were still playing croquet on the lawn, though there was hardly light enough to see the balls. Miss Fawn had already told Lucy that her brother was very angry with Mr. Greystock. Now, Lucy's sympathies were all with Frank and the Sawab. She had endeavoured, indeed, and had partially succeeded, in perverting the Under-Secretary. Nor did she now intend to change her opinions, although all the Fawn girls, and Lady Fawn, were against her. When a brother or a son is an Under-Secretary of State, sisters and mothers will constantly be on the side of the Government, so far as that Under-Secretary's office is concerned. "Upon my word, Frederic," said Augusta Fawn, "I do think Mr. Greystock was too bad." "There's nothing these fellows won't say or do," exclaimed Lord Fawn. "I can't understand it myself. When I've been in opposition, I never did that kind of thing." "I wonder whether it was because he is angry with mamma," said Miss Fawn. Everybody who knew the Fawns knew that Augusta Fawn was not clever, and that she would occasionally say the very thing that ought not to be said. "Oh, dear, no," said the Under-Secretary, who could not endure the idea that the weak women-kind of his family should have, in any way, an influence on the august doings of Parliament. "You know mamma did--" "Nothing of that kind at all," said his lordship, putting down his sister with great authority. "Mr. Greystock is simply not an honest politician. That is about the whole of it. He chose to attack me because there was an opportunity. There isn't a man in either House who cares for such things, personally, less than I do;"--had his lordship said "more than he did," he might, perhaps, have been correct;--"but I can't bear the feeling. The fact is, a lawyer never understands what is and what is not fair fighting." Lucy felt her face tingling with heat, and was preparing to say a word in defence of that special lawyer, when Lady Fawn's voice was heard from the drawing-room window. "Come in, girls. It's nine o'clock." In that house Lady Fawn reigned supreme, and no one ever doubted, for a moment, as to obedience. The clicking of the balls ceased, and those who were walking immediately turned their faces to the drawing-room window. But Lord Fawn, who was not one of the girls, took another turn by himself, thinking of the wrongs he had endured. "Frederic is so angry about Mr. Greystock," said Augusta, as soon as they were seated. "I do feel that it was provoking," said the second sister. "And considering that Mr. Greystock has so often been here, I don't think it was kind," said the third. Lydia did not speak, but could not refrain from glancing her eyes at Lucy's face. "I believe everything is considered fair in Parliament," said Lady Fawn. Then Lord Fawn, who had heard the last words, entered through the window. "I don't know about that, mother," said he. "Gentleman-like conduct is the same everywhere. There are things that may be said and there are things which may not. Mr. Greystock has altogether gone beyond the usual limits, and I shall take care that he knows my opinion." "You are not going to quarrel with the man?" asked the mother. "I am not going to fight him, if you mean that; but I shall let him know that I think that he has transgressed." This his lordship said with that haughty superiority which a man may generally display with safety among the women of his own family. Lucy had borne a great deal, knowing well that it was better that she should bear such injury in silence;--but there was a point beyond which she could not endure it. It was intolerable to her that Mr. Greystock's character as a gentleman should be impugned before all the ladies of the family, every one of whom did, in fact, know her liking for the man. And then it seemed to her that she could rush into the battle, giving a side blow at his lordship on behalf of his absent antagonist, but appearing to fight for the Sawab. There had been a time when the poor Sawab was in favour at Fawn Court. "I think Mr. Greystock was right to say all he could for the prince. If he took up the cause, he was bound to make the best of it." She spoke with energy and with a heightened colour; and Lady Fawn, hearing her, shook her head at her. "Did you read Mr. Greystock's speech, Miss Morris?" asked Lord Fawn. "Every word of it, in the _Times_." "And you understood his allusion to what I had been called upon to say in the House of Lords on behalf of the Government?" "I suppose I did. It did not seem to be difficult to understand." "I do think Mr. Greystock should have abstained from attacking Frederic," said Augusta. "It was not--not quite the thing that we are accustomed to," said Lord Fawn. "Of course I don't know about that," said Lucy. "I think the prince is being used very ill,--that he is being deprived of his own property,--that he is kept out of his rights, just because he is weak, and I am very glad that there is some one to speak up for him." "My dear Lucy," said Lady Fawn, "if you discuss politics with Lord Fawn, you'll get the worst of it." "I don't at all object to Miss Morris's views about the Sawab," said the Under-Secretary generously. "There is a great deal to be said on both sides. I know of old that Miss Morris is a great friend of the Sawab." "You used to be his friend too," said Lucy. "I felt for him,--and do feel for him. All that is very well. I ask no one to agree with me on the question itself. I only say that Mr. Greystock's mode of treating it was unbecoming." "I think it was the very best speech I ever read in my life," said Lucy, with headlong energy and heightened colour. "Then, Miss Morris, you and I have very different opinions about speeches," said Lord Fawn, with severity. "You have, probably, never read Burke's speeches." "And I don't want to read them," said Lucy. "That is another question," said Lord Fawn; and his tone and manner were very severe indeed. "We are talking about speeches in Parliament," said Lucy. Poor Lucy! She knew quite as well as did Lord Fawn that Burke had been a House of Commons orator; but in her impatience, and from absence of the habit of argument, she omitted to explain that she was talking about the speeches of the day. Lord Fawn held up his hands, and put his head a little on one side. "My dear Lucy," said Lady Fawn, "you are showing your ignorance. Where do you suppose that Mr. Burke's speeches were made?" "Of course I know they were made in Parliament," said Lucy, almost in tears. "If Miss Morris means that Burke's greatest efforts were not made in Parliament,--that his speech to the electors of Bristol, for instance, and his opening address on the trial of Warren Hastings, were, upon the whole, superior to--" "I didn't mean anything at all," said Lucy. "Lord Fawn is trying to help you, my dear," said Lady Fawn. "I don't want to be helped," said Lucy. "I only mean that I thought Mr. Greystock's speech as good as it could possibly be. There wasn't a word in it that didn't seem to me to be just what it ought to be. I do think that they are ill-treating that poor Indian prince, and I am very glad that somebody has had the courage to get up and say so." No doubt it would have been better that Lucy should have held her tongue. Had she simply been upholding against an opponent a political speaker whose speech she had read with pleasure, she might have held her own in the argument against the whole Fawn family. She was a favourite with them all, and even the Under-Secretary would not have been hard upon her. But there had been more than this for poor Lucy to do. Her heart was so truly concerned in the matter, that she could not refrain herself from resenting an attack on the man she loved. She had allowed herself to be carried into superlatives, and had almost been uncourteous to Lord Fawn. "My dear," said Lady Fawn, "we won't say anything more upon the subject." Lord Fawn took up a book. Lady Fawn busied herself in her knitting. Lydia assumed a look of unhappiness, as though something very sad had occurred. Augusta addressed a question to her brother in a tone which plainly indicated a feeling on her part that her brother had been ill-used and was entitled to special consideration. Lucy sat silent and still, and then left the room with a hurried step. Lydia at once rose to follow her, but was stopped by her mother. "You had better leave her alone just at present, my dear," said Lady Fawn. "I did not know that Miss Morris was so particularly interested in Mr. Greystock," said Lord Fawn. "She has known him since she was a child," said his mother. About an hour afterwards Lady Fawn went up-stairs and found Lucy sitting all alone in the still so-called school-room. She had no candle, and had made no pretence to do anything since she had left the room down-stairs. In the interval family prayers had been read, and Lucy's absence was unusual and contrary to rule. "Lucy, my dear, why are you sitting here?" said Lady Fawn. "Because I am unhappy." "What makes you unhappy, Lucy?" "I don't know. I would rather you didn't ask me. I suppose I behaved badly down-stairs." "My son would forgive you in a moment if you asked him." "No;--certainly not. I can beg your pardon, Lady Fawn, but not his. Of course I had no right to talk about speeches, and politics, and this prince in your drawing-room." "Lucy, you astonish me." "But it is so. Dear Lady Fawn, don't look like that. I know how good you are to me. I know you let me do things which other governesses mayn't do;--and say things; but still I am a governess, and I know I misbehaved--to you." Then Lucy burst into tears. Lady Fawn, in whose bosom there was no stony corner or morsel of hard iron, was softened at once. "My dear, you are more like another daughter to me than anything else." "Dear Lady Fawn!" "But it makes me unhappy when I see your mind engaged about Mr. Greystock. There is the truth, Lucy. You should not think of Mr. Greystock. Mr. Greystock is a man who has his way to make in the world, and could not marry you, even if, under other circumstances, he would wish to do so. You know how frank I am with you, giving you credit for honest, sound good sense. To me and to my girls, who know you as a lady, you are as dear a friend as though you were--were anything you may please to think. Lucy Morris is to us our own dear, dear little friend Lucy. But Mr. Greystock, who is a Member of Parliament, could not marry a governess." "But I love him so dearly," said Lucy, getting up from her chair, "that his slightest word is to me more than all the words of all the world beside! It is no use, Lady Fawn. I do love him, and I don't mean to try to give it up!" Lady Fawn stood silent for a moment, and then suggested that it would be better for them both to go to bed. During that minute she had been unable to decide what she had better say or do in the present emergency. CHAPTER VIII The Conquering Hero Comes The reader will perhaps remember that when Lizzie Eustace was told that her aunt was down-stairs Frank Greystock was with her, and that he promised to return on the following day to hear the result of the interview. Had Lady Linlithgow not come at that very moment Frank would probably have asked his rich cousin to be his wife. She had told him that she was solitary and unhappy; and after that what else could he have done but ask her to be his wife? The old countess, however, arrived, and interrupted him. He went away abruptly, promising to come on the morrow;--but on the morrow he never came. It was a Friday, and Lizzie remained at home for him the whole morning. When four o'clock was passed she knew that he would be at the House. But still she did not stir. And she contrived that Miss Macnulty should be absent the entire day. Miss Macnulty was even made to go to the play by herself in the evening. But her absence was of no service. Frank Greystock came not; and at eleven at night Lizzie swore to herself that should he ever come again, he should come in vain. Nevertheless, through the whole of Saturday she expected him with more or less of confidence, and on the Sunday morning she was still well-inclined towards him. It might be that he would come on that day. She could understand that a man with his hands so full of business, as were those of her cousin Frank, should find himself unable to keep an appointment. Nor would there be fair ground for permanent anger with such a one, even should he forget an appointment. But surely he would come on the Sunday! She had been quite sure that the offer was about to be made when that odious old harridan had come in and disturbed everything. Indeed, the offer had been all but made. She had felt the premonitory flutter, had asked herself the important question,--and had answered it. She had told herself that the thing would do. Frank was not the exact hero that her fancy had painted,--but he was sufficiently heroic. Everybody said that he would work his way up to the top of the tree, and become a rich man. At any rate she had resolved;--and then Lady Linlithgow had come in! Surely he would come on the Sunday. He did not come on the Sunday, but Lord Fawn did come. Immediately after morning church Lord Fawn declared his intention of returning at once from Fawn Court to town. He was very silent at breakfast, and his sisters surmised that he was still angry with poor Lucy. Lucy, too, was unlike herself,--was silent, sad, and oppressed. Lady Fawn was serious, and almost solemn;--so that there was little even of holy mirth at Fawn Court on that Sunday morning. The whole family, however, went to church, and immediately on their return Lord Fawn expressed his intention of returning to town. All the sisters felt that an injury had been done to them by Lucy. It was only on Sundays that their dinner-table was graced by the male member of the family, and now he was driven away. "I am sorry that you are going to desert us, Frederic," said Lady Fawn. Lord Fawn muttered something as to absolute necessity, and went. The afternoon was very dreary at Fawn Court. Nothing was said on the subject; but there was still the feeling that Lucy had offended. At four o'clock on that Sunday afternoon Lord Fawn was closeted with Lady Eustace. The "closeting" consisted simply in the fact that Miss Macnulty was not present. Lizzie fully appreciated the pleasure, and utility, and general convenience of having a companion, but she had no scruple whatever in obtaining absolute freedom for herself when she desired it. "My dear," she would say, "the best friends in the world shouldn't always be together; should they? Wouldn't you like to go to the Horticultural?" Then Miss Macnulty would go to the Horticultural,--or else up into her own bed-room. When Lizzie was beginning to wax wrathful again because Frank Greystock did not come, Lord Fawn made his appearance. "How kind this is," said Lizzie. "I thought you were always at Richmond on Sundays." "I have just come up from my mother's," said Lord Fawn, twiddling his hat. Then Lizzie, with a pretty eagerness, asked after Lady Fawn and the girls, and her dear little friend Lucy Morris. Lizzie could be very prettily eager when she pleased. She leaned forward her face as she asked her questions, and threw back her loose lustrous lock of hair, with her long lithe fingers covered with diamonds,--the diamonds, these, which Sir Florian had really given her, or which she had procured from Mr. Benjamin in the clever manner described in the opening chapter. "They are, all quite well, thank you," said Lord Fawn. "I believe Miss Morris is quite well, though she was a little out of sorts last night." "She is not ill, I hope," said Lizzie, bringing the lustrous lock forward again. "In her temper, I mean," said Lord Fawn. "Indeed! I hope Miss Lucy is not forgetting herself. That would be very sad, after the great kindness she has received." Lord Fawn said that it would be very sad, and then put his hat down upon the floor. It came upon Lizzie at that moment, as by a flash of lightning,--by an electric message delivered to her intellect by that movement of the hat,--that she might be sure of Lord Fawn if she chose to take him. On Friday she might have been sure of Frank,--only that Lady Linlithgow came in the way. But now she did not feel at all sure of Frank. Lord Fawn was at any rate a peer. She had heard that he was a poor peer,--but a peer, she thought, can't be altogether poor. And though he was a stupid owl,--she did not hesitate to acknowledge to herself that he was as stupid as an owl,--he had a position. He was one of the Government, and his wife would, no doubt, be able to go anywhere. It was becoming essential to her that she should marry. Even though her husband should give up the diamonds, she would not in such case incur the disgrace of surrendering them herself. She would have kept them till she had ceased to be a Eustace. Frank had certainly meant it on that Thursday afternoon;--but surely he would have been in Mount Street before this if he had not changed his mind. We all know that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. "I have been at Fawn Court once or twice," said Lizzie, with her sweetest grace, "and I always think it a model of real family happiness." "I hope you may be there very often," said Lord Fawn. "Ah, I have no right to intrude myself often on your mother, Lord Fawn." There could hardly be a better opening than this for him had he chosen to accept it. But it was not thus that he had arranged it,--for he had made his arrangements. "There would be no feeling of that kind, I am sure," he said. And then he was silent. How was he to deploy himself on the ground before him so as to make the strategy which he had prepared answer the occasion of the day? "Lady Eustace," he said, "I don't know what your views of life may be." "I have a child, you know, to bring up." "Ah, yes;--that gives a great interest, of course." "He will inherit a very large fortune, Lord Fawn;--too large, I fear, to be of service to a youth of one-and-twenty; and I must endeavour to fit him for the possession of it. That is,--and always must be, the chief object of my existence." Then she felt that she had said too much. He was just the man who would be fool enough to believe her. "Not but what it is hard to do it. A mother can of course devote herself to her child;--but when a portion of the devotion must be given to the preservation of material interests there is less of tenderness in it. Don't you think so?" "No doubt," said Lord Fawn;--"no doubt." But he had not followed her, and was still thinking of his own strategy. "It's a comfort, of course, to know that one's child is provided for." "Oh, yes;--but they tell me the poor little dear will have forty thousand a year when he's of age; and when I look at him in his little bed, and press him in my arms, and think of all that money, I almost wish that his father had been a poor plain gentleman." Then the handkerchief was put to her eyes, and Lord Fawn had a moment in which to collect himself. "Ah!--I myself am a poor man;--for my rank I mean." "A man with your position, Lord Fawn, and your talents and genius for business, can never be poor." "My father's property was all Irish, you know." "Was it indeed?" "And he was an Irish peer, till Lord Melbourne gave him an English peerage." "An Irish peer, was he?" Lizzie understood nothing of this, but presumed that an Irish peer was a peer who had not sufficient money to live upon. Lord Fawn, however, was endeavouring to describe his own history in as few words as possible. "He was then made Lord Fawn of Richmond, in the peerage of the United Kingdom. Fawn Court, you know, belonged to my mother's father before my mother's marriage. The property in Ireland is still mine, but there's no place on it." "Indeed!" "There was a house, but my father allowed it to tumble down. It's in Tipperary;--not at all a desirable country to live in." "Oh, dear, no! Don't they murder the people?" "It's about five thousand a year, and out of that my mother has half for her life." "What an excellent family arrangement," said Lizzie. There was so long a pause made between each statement that she was forced to make some reply. "You see, for a peer, the fortune is very small indeed." "But then you have a salary;--don't you?" "At present I have;--but no one can tell how long that may last." "I'm sure it's for everybody's good that it should go on for ever so many years," said Lizzie. "Thank you," said Lord Fawn. "I'm afraid, however, there are a great many people who don't think so. Your cousin Greystock would do anything on earth to turn us out." "Luckily, my cousin Frank has not much power," said Lizzie. And in saying it she threw into her tone, and into her countenance, a certain amount of contempt for Frank as a man and as a politician, which was pleasant to Lord Fawn. "Now," said he, "I have told you everything about myself which I was bound, as a man of honour, to tell before--I--I--I--. In short you know what I mean." "Oh, Lord Fawn!" "I have told you everything. I owe no money, but I could not afford to marry a wife without an income. I admire you more than any woman I ever saw. I love you with all my heart." He was now standing upright before her, with the fingers of his right hand touching his left breast, and there was something almost of dignity in his gesture and demeanour. "It may be that you are determined never to marry again. I can only say that if you will trust yourself to me,--yourself and your child,--I will do my duty truly by you both, and will make your happiness the chief object of my existence." When she had listened to him thus far, of course she must accept him; but he was by no means aware of that. She sat silent, with her hands folded on her breast, looking down upon the ground; but he did not as yet attempt to seat himself by her. "Lady Eustace," he continued, "may I venture to entertain a hope?" "May I not have an hour to think of it?" said Lizzie, just venturing to turn a glance of her eye upon his face. "Oh, certainly. I will call again whenever you may bid me." Now she was silent for two or three minutes, during which he still stood over her. But he had dropped his hand from his breast, and had stooped, and picked up his hat ready for his departure. Was he to come again on Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday? Let her tell him that and he would go. He doubtless reflected that Wednesday would suit him best, because there would be no House. But Lizzie was too magnanimous for this. "Lord Fawn," she said, rising, "you have paid me the greatest compliment that a man can pay a woman. Coming from you it is doubly precious; first, because of your character; and secondly--" "Why secondly?" "Secondly, because I can love you." This was said in her lowest whisper, and then she moved towards him gently, and almost laid her head upon his breast. Of course he put his arm round her waist,--but it was first necessary that he should once more disembarrass himself of his hat,--and then her head was upon his breast. "Dearest Lizzie!" he said. "Dearest Frederic!" she murmured. "I shall write to my mother to-night," he said. "Do, do;--dear Frederic." "And she will come to you at once, I am sure." "I will receive her and love her as a mother," said Lizzie, with all her energy. Then he kissed her again,--her forehead and her lips,--and took his leave, promising to be with her at any rate on Wednesday. "Lady Fawn!" she said to herself. The name did not sound so well as that of Lady Eustace. But it is much to be a wife; and more to be a peeress. CHAPTER IX Showing What the Miss Fawns Said, and What Mrs. Hittaway Thought In the way of duty Lord Fawn was a Hercules,--not, indeed, "climbing trees in the Hesperides," but achieving enterprises which, to other men, if not impossible, would have been so unpalatable as to have been put aside as impracticable. On the Monday morning, after he was accepted by Lady Eustace, he was with his mother at Fawn Court before he went down to the India Office. He had at least been very honest in the description he had given of his own circumstances to the lady whom he intended to marry. He had told her the exact truth; and though she, with all her cleverness, had not been able to realise the facts when related to her so suddenly, still enough had been said to make it quite clear that, when details of business should hereafter be discussed in a less hurried manner, he would be able to say that he had explained all his circumstances before he had made his offer. And he had been careful, too, as to her affairs. He had ascertained that her late husband had certainly settled upon her for life an estate worth four thousand a year. He knew, also, that eight thousand pounds had been left her, but of that he took no account. It might be probable that she had spent it. If any of it were left, it would be a godsend. Lord Fawn thought a great deal about money. Being a poor man, filling a place fit only for rich men, he had been driven to think of money, and had become self-denying and parsimonious,--perhaps we may say hungry and close-fisted. Such a condition of character is the natural consequence of such a position. There is, probably, no man who becomes naturally so hard in regard to money as he who is bound to live among rich men, who is not rich himself, and who is yet honest. The weight of the work of life in these circumstances is so crushing, requires such continued thought, and makes itself so continually felt, that the mind of the sufferer is never free from the contamination of sixpences. Of such a one it is not fair to judge as of other men with similar incomes. Lord Fawn had declared to his future bride that he had half five thousand a year to spend,--or the half, rather, of such actual income as might be got in from an estate presumed to give five thousand a year,--and it may be said that an unmarried gentleman ought not to be poor with such an income. But Lord Fawn unfortunately was a lord, unfortunately was a landlord, unfortunately was an Irish landlord. Let him be as careful as he might with his sixpences, his pounds would fly from him, or, as might, perhaps, be better said, could not be made to fly to him. He was very careful with his sixpences, and was always thinking, not exactly how he might make two ends meet, but how to reconcile the strictest personal economy with the proper bearing of an English nobleman. Such a man almost naturally looks to marriage as an assistance in the dreary fight. It soon becomes clear to him that he cannot marry without money, and he learns to think that heiresses have been invented exactly to suit his case. He is conscious of having been subjected to hardship by Fortune, and regards female wealth as his legitimate mode of escape from it. He has got himself, his position, and, perhaps, his title to dispose of, and they are surely worth so much per annum. As for giving anything away, that is out of the question. He has not been so placed as to be able to give. But, being an honest man, he will, if possible, make a fair bargain. Lord Fawn was certainly an honest man, and he had been endeavouring for the last six or seven years to make a fair bargain. But then it is so hard to decide what is fair. Who is to tell a Lord Fawn how much per annum he ought to regard himself as worth? He had, on one or two occasions, asked a high price, but no previous bargain had been made. No doubt he had come down a little in his demand in suggesting a matrimonial arrangement to a widow with a child, and with only four thousand a year. Whether or no that income was hers in perpetuity, or only for life, he had not positively known when he made his offer. The will made by Sir Florian Eustace did not refer to the property at all. In the natural course of things, the widow would only have a life-interest in the income. Why should Sir Florian make away, in perpetuity, with his family property? Nevertheless, there had been a rumour abroad that Sir Florian had been very generous; that the Scotch estate was to go to a second son in the event of there being a second son;--but that otherwise it was to be at the widow's own disposal. No doubt, had Lord Fawn been persistent, he might have found out the exact truth. He had, however, calculated that he could afford to accept even the life-income. If more should come of it, so much the better for him. He might, at any rate, so arrange the family matters, that his heir, should he have one, should not at his death be called upon to pay something more than half the proceeds of the family property to his mother,--as was now done by himself. Lord Fawn breakfasted at Fawn Court on the Monday, and his mother sat at the table with him, pouring out his tea. "Oh, Frederic," she said, "it is so important!" "Just so;--very important indeed. I should like you to call and see her either to-day or to-morrow." "That's of course." "And you had better get her down here." "I don't know that she'll come. Ought I to ask the little boy?" "Certainly," said Lord Fawn, as he put a spoonful of egg into his mouth; "certainly." "And Miss Macnulty?" "No; I don't see that at all. I'm not going to marry Miss Macnulty. The child, of course, must be one of us." "And what is the income, Frederic?" "Four thousand a year. Something more, nominally, but four thousand to spend." "You are sure about that?" "Quite sure." "And for ever?" "I believe so. Of that I am not sure." "It makes a great difference, Frederic." "A very great difference indeed. I think it is her own. But, at any rate, she is much younger than I am, and there need be no settlement out of my property. That is the great thing. Don't you think she's--nice?" "She is very lovely." "And clever?" "Certainly very clever. I hope she is not self-willed, Frederic." "If she is, we must try and balance it," said Lord Fawn, with a little smile. But, in truth, he had thought nothing about any such quality as that to which his mother now referred. The lady had an income. That was the first and most indispensable consideration. She was fairly well-born, was a lady, and was beautiful. In doing Lord Fawn justice, we must allow that, in all his attempted matrimonial speculations, some amount of feminine loveliness had been combined with feminine wealth. He had for two years been a suitor of Violet Effingham, who was the acknowledged beauty of the day,--of Violet Effingham who, at the present time, was the wife of Lord Chiltern; and he had offered himself thrice to Madame Max Goesler, who was reputed to be as rich as she was beautiful. In either case, the fortune would have been greater than that which he would now win, and the money would certainly have been for ever. But in these attempts he had failed; and Lord Fawn was not a man to think himself ill-used because he did not get the first good thing for which he asked. "I suppose I may tell the girls?" said Lady Fawn. "Yes;--when I am gone. I must be off now, only I could not bear not to come and see you." "It was so like you, Frederic." "And you'll go to-day?" "Yes; if you wish it,--certainly." "Go up in the carriage, you know, and take one of the girls with you. I would not take more than one. Augusta will be the best. You'll see Clara, I suppose." Clara was the married sister, Mrs. Hittaway. "If you wish it." "She had better call too,--say on Thursday. It's quite as well that it should be known. I sha'n't choose to have more delay than can be avoided. Well;--I believe that's all." "I hope she'll be a good wife to you, Frederic." "I don't see why she shouldn't. Good-bye, mother. Tell the girls I will see them next Saturday." He didn't see why this woman he was about to marry should not be a good wife to him! And yet he knew nothing about her, and had not taken the slightest trouble to make inquiry. That she was pretty he could see; that she was clever he could understand; that she lived in Mount Street was a fact; her parentage was known to him;--that she was the undoubted mistress of a large income was beyond dispute. But, for aught he knew, she might be afflicted by every vice to which a woman can be subject. In truth, she was afflicted by so many, that the addition of all the others could hardly have made her worse than she was. She had never sacrificed her beauty to a lover,--she had never sacrificed anything to anybody,--nor did she drink. It would be difficult, perhaps, to say anything else in her favour; and yet Lord Fawn was quite content to marry her, not having seen any reason why she should not make a good wife! Nor had Sir Florian seen any reason;--but she had broken Sir Florian's heart. When the girls heard the news, they were half frightened and half delighted. Lady Fawn and her daughters lived very much out of the world. They also were poor rich people,--if such a term may be used,--and did not go much into society. There was a butler kept at Fawn Court, and a boy in buttons, and two gardeners, and a man to look after the cows, and a carriage and horses, and a fat coachman. There was a cook and a scullery maid, and two lady's maids,--who had to make the dresses,--and two housemaids and a dairymaid. There was a large old brick house to be kept in order, and handsome grounds with old trees. There was, as we know, a governess, and there were seven unmarried daughters. With such encumbrances, and an income altogether not exceeding three thousand pounds per annum, Lady Fawn could not be rich. And yet who would say that an old lady and her daughters could be poor with three thousand pounds a year to spend? It may be taken almost as a rule by the unennobled ones of this country, that the sudden possession of a title would at once raise the price of every article consumed twenty per cent. Mutton that before cost ninepence would cost tenpence a pound, and the mouths to be fed would demand more meat. The chest of tea would run out quicker. The labourer's work, which for the farmer is ten hours a day, for the squire nine, is for the peer only eight. Miss Jones, when she becomes Lady de Jongh, does not pay less than threepence apiece for each "my lady" with which her ear is tickled. Even the baronet when he becomes a lord has to curtail his purchases, because of increased price, unless he be very wide awake to the affairs of the world. Old Lady Fawn, who would not on any account have owed a shilling which she could not pay, and who, in the midst of her economies, was not close-fisted, knew very well what she could do and what she could not. The old family carriage and the two lady's maids were there,--as necessaries of life; but London society was not within her reach. It was, therefore, the case that they had not heard very much about Lizzie Eustace. But they had heard something. "I hope she won't be too fond of going out," said Amelia, the second girl. "Or extravagant," said Georgina, the third. "There was some story of her being terribly in debt when she married Sir Florian Eustace," said Diana, the fourth. "Frederic will be sure to see to that," said Augusta, the eldest. "She is very beautiful," said Lydia, the fifth. "And clever," said Cecilia, the sixth. "Beauty and cleverness won't make a good wife," said Amelia, who was the wise one of the family. "Frederic will be sure to see that she doesn't go wrong," said Augusta, who was not wise. Then Lucy Morris entered the room with Nina, the cadette of the family. "Oh, Nina, what do you think?" said Lydia. "My dear!" said Lady Fawn, putting up her hand and stopping further indiscreet speech. "Oh, mamma, what is it?" asked the cadette. "Surely Lucy may be told," said Lydia. "Well, yes; Lucy may be told certainly. There can be no reason why Lucy should not know all that concerns our family;--and the more so as she has been for many years intimate with the lady. My dear, my son is going to be married to Lady Eustace." "Lord Fawn going to marry Lizzie!" said Lucy Morris, in a tone which certainly did not express unmingled satisfaction. "Unless you forbid the banns," said Diana. "Is there any reason why he should not?" said Lady Fawn. "Oh, no;--only it seems so odd. I didn't know that they knew each other;--not well, that is. And then--" "Then what, my dear?" "It seems odd;--that's all. It's all very nice, I dare say, and I'm sure I hope they will be happy." Lady Fawn, however, was displeased, and did not speak to Lucy again before she started with Augusta on the journey to London. The carriage first stopped at the door of the married daughter in Warwick Square. Now, Mrs. Hittaway, whose husband was chairman of the Board of Civil Appeals and who was very well known at all Boards and among official men generally, heard much more about things that were going on than did her mother. And, having been emancipated from maternal control for the last ten or twelve years, she could express herself before her mother with more confidence than would have become the other girls. "Mamma," she said, "you don't mean it!" "I do mean it, Clara. Why should I not mean it?" "She is the greatest vixen in all London." "Oh, Clara!" said Augusta. "And such a liar," said Mrs. Hittaway. There came a look of pain across Lady Fawn's face, for Lady Fawn believed in her eldest daughter. But yet she intended to fight her ground on a matter so important to her as was this. "There is no word in the English language," she said, "which conveys to me so little of defined meaning as that word vixen. If you can, tell me what you mean, Clara." "Stop it, mamma." "But why should I stop it,--even if I could?" "You don't know her, mamma." "She has visited at Fawn Court, more than once. She is a friend of Lucy's." "If she is a friend of Lucy Morris, mamma, Lucy Morris shall never come here." "But what has she done? I have never heard that she has behaved improperly. What does it all mean? She goes out everywhere. I don't think she has had any lovers. Frederic would be the last man in the world to throw himself away upon an ill-conditioned young woman." "Frederic can see just as far as some other men, and not a bit farther. Of course she has an income,--for her life." "I believe it is her own altogether, Clara." "She says so, I don't doubt. I believe she is the greatest liar about London. You find out about her jewels before she married poor Sir Florian, and how much he had to pay for her; or rather, I'll find out. If you want to know, mamma, you just ask her own aunt, Lady Linlithgow." "We all know, my dear, that Lady Linlithgow quarrelled with her." "It's my belief that she is over head and ears in debt again. But I'll learn. And when I have found out, I shall not scruple to tell Frederic. Orlando will find out all about it." Orlando was the Christian name of Mrs. Hittaway's husband. "Mr. Camperdown, I have no doubt, knows all the ins and outs of her story. The long and the short of it is this, mamma, that I've heard quite enough about Lady Eustace to feel certain that Frederic would live to repent it." "But what can we do?" said Lady Fawn. "Break it off," said Mrs. Hittaway. Her daughter's violence of speech had a most depressing effect upon poor Lady Fawn. As has been said, she did believe in Mrs. Hittaway. She knew that Mrs. Hittaway was conversant with the things of the world, and heard tidings daily which never found their way down to Fawn Court. And yet her son went about quite as much as did her daughter. If Lady Eustace was such a reprobate as was now represented, why had not Lord Fawn heard the truth? And then she had already given in her own adhesion, and had promised to call. "Do you mean that you won't go to her?" said Lady Fawn. "As Lady Eustace,--certainly not. If Frederic does marry her, of course I must know her. That's a different thing. One has to make the best one can of a bad bargain. I don't doubt they'd be separated before two years were over." "Oh, dear, how dreadful!" exclaimed Augusta. Lady Fawn, after much consideration, was of opinion that she must carry out her intention of calling upon her son's intended bride in spite of all the evil things that had been said. Lord Fawn had undertaken to send a message to Mount Street, informing the lady of the honour intended for her. And in truth Lady Fawn was somewhat curious now to see the household of the woman who might perhaps do her the irreparable injury of ruining the happiness of her only son. Perhaps she might learn something by looking at the woman in her own drawing-room. At any rate she would go. But Mrs. Hittaway's words had the effect of inducing her to leave Augusta where she was. If there were contamination, why should Augusta be contaminated? Poor Augusta! She had looked forward to the delight of embracing her future sister-in-law;--and would not have enjoyed it the less, perhaps, because she had been told that the lady was false, profligate, and a vixen. As, however, her position was that of a girl, she was bound to be obedient,--though over thirty years old,--and she obeyed. Lizzie was of course at home, and Miss Macnulty was of course visiting the Horticultural Gardens or otherwise engaged. On such an occasion Lizzie would certainly be alone. She had taken great pains with her dress, studying not so much her own appearance as the character of her visitor. She was very anxious, at any rate for the present, to win golden opinions from Lady Fawn. She was dressed richly, but very simply. Everything about her room betokened wealth; but she had put away the French novels, and had placed a Bible on a little table, not quite hidden, behind her own seat. The long lustrous lock was tucked up, but the diamonds were still upon her fingers. She fully intended to make a conquest of her future mother-in-law and sister-in-law;--for the note which had come up to her from the India Office had told her that Augusta would accompany Lady Fawn. "Augusta is my favourite sister," said the enamoured lover, "and I hope that you two will always be friends." Lizzie, when she had read this, had declared to herself that of all the female oafs she had ever seen, Augusta Fawn was the greatest oaf. When she found that Lady Fawn was alone, she did not betray herself, or ask for the beloved friend of the future. "Dear, dear Lady Fawn!" she said, throwing herself into the arms and nestling herself against the bosom of the old lady, "this makes my happiness perfect." Then she retreated a little, still holding the hand she had grasped between her own, and looking up into the face of her future mother-in-law. "When he asked me to be his wife, the first thing I thought of was whether you would come to me at once." Her voice as she thus spoke was perfect. Her manner was almost perfect. Perhaps there was a little too much of gesture, too much gliding motion, too violent an appeal with the eyes, too close a pressure of the hand. No suspicion, however, of all this would have touched Lady Fawn had she come to Mount Street without calling in Warwick Square on the way. But those horrible words of her daughter were ringing in her ears, and she did not know how to conduct herself. "Of course I came as soon as he told me," she said. "And you will be a mother to me?" demanded Lizzie. Poor Lady Fawn! There was enough of maternity about her to have enabled her to undertake the duty for a dozen sons' wives,--if the wives were women with whom she could feel sympathy. And she could feel sympathy very easily; and was a woman not at all prone to inquire too curiously as to the merits of a son's wife. But what was she to do after the caution she had received from Mrs. Hittaway? How was she to promise maternal tenderness to a vixen and a liar? By nature she was not a deceitful woman. "My dear," she said, "I hope you will make him a good wife." It was not very encouraging, but Lizzie made the best of it. It was her desire to cheat Lady Fawn into a good opinion, and she was not disappointed when no good opinion was expressed at once. It is seldom that a bad person expects to be accounted good. It is the general desire of such a one to conquer the existing evil impression; but it is generally presumed that the evil impression is there. "Oh, Lady Fawn!" she said, "I will so strive to make him happy. What is it that he likes? What would he wish me to do and to be? You know his noble nature, and I must look to you for guidance." Lady Fawn was embarrassed. She had now seated herself on the sofa, and Lizzie was close to her, almost enveloped within her mantle. "My dear," said Lady Fawn, "if you will endeavour to do your duty by him, I am sure he will do his by you." "I know it. I am sure of it. And I will; I will. You will let me love you, and call you mother?" A peculiar perfume came up from Lizzie's hair which Lady Fawn did not like. Her own girls, perhaps, were not given to the use of much perfumery. She shifted her seat a little, and Lizzie was compelled to sit upright, and without support. Hitherto Lady Fawn had said very little, and Lizzie's part was one difficult to play. She had heard of that sermon read every Sunday evening at Fawn Court, and she believed that Lady Fawn was peculiarly religious. "There," she said, stretching out her hand backwards and clasping the book which lay upon the small table,--"there; that shall be my guide. That will teach me how to do my duty by my noble husband." Lady Fawn in some surprise took the book from Lizzie's hand, and found that it was the Bible. "You certainly can't do better, my dear, than read your Bible," said Lady Fawn,--but there was more of censure than of eulogy in the tone of her voice. She put the Bible down very quietly, and asked Lady Eustace when it would suit her to come down to Fawn Court. Lady Fawn had promised her son to give the invitation, and could not now, she thought, avoid giving it. "Oh, I should like it so much!" said Lizzie. "Whenever it will suit you, I will be there at a minute's notice." It was then arranged that she should be at Fawn Court on that day week, and stay for a fortnight. "Of all things that which I most desire now," said Lizzie, "is to know you and the dear girls,--and to be loved by you all." Lady Eustace, as soon as she was alone in the room, stood in the middle of it, scowling,--for she could scowl. "I'll not go near them," she said to herself,--"nasty, stupid, dull, puritanical drones. If he don't like it, he may lump it. After all it's no such great catch." Then she sat down to reflect whether it was or was not a catch. As soon as ever Lord Fawn had left her after the engagement was made, she had begun to tell herself that he was a poor creature, and that she had done wrong. "Only five thousand a year!" she said to herself;--for she had not perfectly understood that little explanation which he had given respecting his income. "It's nothing for a lord." And now again she murmured to herself, "It's my money he's after. He'll find out that I know how to keep what I've got in my own hands." Now that Lady Fawn had been cold to her, she thought still less of the proposed marriage. But there was this inducement for her to go on with it. If they, the Fawn women, thought that they could break it off, she would let them know that they had no such power. "Well, mamma, you've seen her?" said Mrs. Hittaway. "Yes, my dear; I've seen her. I had seen her two or three times before, you know." "And you are still in love with her?" "I never said that I was in love with her, Clara." "And what has been fixed?" "She is to come down to Fawn Court next week, and stay a fortnight with us. Then we shall find out what she is." "That will be best, mamma," said Augusta. "Mind, mamma; you understand me. I shall tell Frederic plainly just what I think. Of course he will be offended, and if the marriage goes on, the offence will remain,--till he finds out the truth." "I hope he'll find out no such truth," said Lady Fawn. She was, however, quite unable to say a word in behalf of her future daughter-in-law. She said nothing as to that little scene with the Bible, but she never forgot it. CHAPTER X Lizzie and Her Lover During the remainder of that Monday and all the Tuesday, Lizzie's mind was, upon the whole, averse to matrimony. She had told Miss Macnulty of her prospects, with some amount of exultation; and the poor dependant, though she knew that she must be turned out into the street, had congratulated her patroness. "The Vulturess will take you in again, when she knows you've nowhere else to go," Lizzie had said,--displaying, indeed, some accurate discernment of her aunt's character. But after Lady Fawn's visit she spoke of the marriage in a different tone. "Of course, my dear, I shall have to look very close after the settlement." "I suppose the lawyers will do that," said Miss Macnulty. "Yes;--lawyers! That's all very well. I know what lawyers are. I'm not going to trust any lawyer to give away my property. Of course we shall live at Portray, because his place is in Ireland;--and nothing shall take me to Ireland. I told him that from the very first. But I don't mean to give up my own income. I don't suppose he'll venture to suggest such a thing." And then again she grumbled. "It's all very well being in the Cabinet--!" "Is Lord Fawn in the Cabinet?" asked Miss Macnulty, who in such matters was not altogether ignorant. "Of course he is," said Lizzie, with an angry gesture. It may seem unjust to accuse her of being stupidly unacquainted with circumstances, and a liar at the same time; but she was both. She said that Lord Fawn was in the Cabinet because she had heard some one speak of him as not being a Cabinet Minister, and in so speaking appear to slight his political position. Lizzie did not know how much her companion knew, and Miss Macnulty did not comprehend the depth of the ignorance of her patroness. Thus the lies which Lizzie told were amazing to Miss Macnulty. To say that Lord Fawn was in the Cabinet, when all the world knew that he was an Under-Secretary! What good could a woman get from an assertion so plainly, so manifestly false? But Lizzie knew nothing of Under-Secretaries. Lord Fawn was a lord, and even commoners were in the Cabinet. "Of course he is," said Lizzie; "but I sha'n't have my drawing-room made a Cabinet. They sha'n't come here." And then again on the Tuesday evening she displayed her independence. "As for those women down at Richmond, I don't mean to be overrun by them, I can tell you. I said I would go there, and of course I shall keep my word." "I think you had better go," said Miss Macnulty. "Of course, I shall go. I don't want anybody to tell me where I'm to go, my dear, and where I'm not. But it'll be about the first and the last visit. And as for bringing those dowdy girls out in London, it's the last thing I shall think of doing. Indeed, I doubt whether they can afford to dress themselves." As she went up to bed on the Tuesday evening, Miss Macnulty doubted whether the match would go on. She never believed her friend's statements; but if spoken words might be supposed to mean anything, Lady Eustace's words on that Tuesday betokened a strong dislike to everything appertaining to the Fawn family. She had even ridiculed Lord Fawn himself, declaring that he understood nothing about anything beyond his office. And, in truth, Lizzie almost had made up her mind to break it off. All that she would gain did not seem to weigh down with sufficient preponderance all that she would lose. Such were her feelings on the Tuesday night. But on the Wednesday morning she received a note which threw her back violently upon the Fawn interest. The note was as follows: "Messrs. Camperdown and Son present their compliments to Lady Eustace. They have received instructions to proceed by law for the recovery of the Eustace diamonds, now in Lady Eustace's hands, and will feel obliged to Lady Eustace if she will communicate to them the name and address of her attorney. 62, New Square, May 30, 186--." The effect of this note was to drive Lizzie back upon the Fawn interest. She was frightened about the diamonds, and was, nevertheless, almost determined not to surrender them. At any rate, in such a strait she would want assistance, either in keeping them or in giving them up. The lawyer's letter afflicted her with a sense of weakness, and there was strength in the Fawn connexion. As Lord Fawn was so poor, perhaps he would adhere to the jewels. She knew that she could not fight Mr. Camperdown with no other assistance than what Messrs. Mowbray and Mopus might give her, and therefore her heart softened towards her betrothed. "I suppose Frederic will be here to-day," she said to Miss Macnulty, as they sat at breakfast together about noon. Miss Macnulty nodded. "You can have a cab, you know, if you like to go anywhere." Miss Macnulty said she thought she would go to the National Gallery. "And you can walk back, you know," said Lizzie. "I can walk there and back too," said Miss Macnulty,--in regard to whom it may be said that the last ounce would sometimes almost break the horse's back. "Frederic" came and was received very graciously. Lizzie had placed Mr. Camperdown's note on the little table behind her, beneath the Bible, so that she might put her hand upon it at once, if she could make an opportunity of showing it to her future husband. "Frederic" sat himself beside her, and the intercourse for awhile was such as might be looked for between two lovers of whom one was a widow, and the other an Under-Secretary of State from the India Office. They were loving, but discreetly amatory, talking chiefly of things material, each flattering the other, and each hinting now and again at certain little circumstances of which a more accurate knowledge seemed to be desirable. The one was conversant with things in general, but was slow; the other was quick as a lizard in turning hither and thither, but knew almost nothing. When she told Lord Fawn that the Ayrshire estate was "her own, to do what she liked with," she did not know that he would certainly find out the truth from other sources before he married her. Indeed, she was not quite sure herself whether the statement was true or false, though she would not have made it so frequently had her idea of the truth been a fixed idea. It had all been explained to her;--but there had been something about a second son, and there was no second son. Perhaps she might have a second son yet,--a future little Lord Fawn, and he might inherit it. In regard to honesty, the man was superior to the woman, because his purpose was declared, and he told no lies;--but the one was as mercenary as the other. It was not love that had brought Lord Fawn to Mount Street. "What is the name of your place in Ireland?" she asked. "There is no house, you know." "But there was one, Frederic?" "The town-land where the house used to be, is called Killeagent. The old demesne is called Killaud." "What pretty names! and--and--does it go a great many miles?" Lord Fawn explained that it did run a good many miles up into the mountains. "How beautifully romantic!" said Lizzie. "But the people live on the mountain and pay rent?" Lord Fawn asked no such inept questions respecting the Ayrshire property, but he did inquire who was Lizzie's solicitor. "Of course there will be things to be settled," he said, "and my lawyer had better see yours. Mr. Camperdown is a--" "Mr. Camperdown!" almost shrieked Lizzie. Lord Fawn then explained, with some amazement, that Mr. Camperdown was his lawyer. As far as his belief went, there was not a more respectable gentleman in the profession. Then he inquired whether Lizzie had any objection to Mr. Camperdown. "Mr. Camperdown was Sir Florian's lawyer," said Lizzie. "That will make it all the easier, I should think," said Lord Fawn. "I don't know how that may be," said Lizzie, trying to bring her mind to work upon the subject steadily. "Mr. Camperdown has been very uncourteous to me;--I must say that; and, as I think, unfair. He wishes to rob me now of a thing that is quite my own." "What sort of a thing?" asked Lord Fawn slowly. "A very valuable thing. I'll tell you all about it, Frederic. Of course I'll tell you everything now. I never could keep back anything from one that I loved. It's not my nature. There; you might as well read that note." Then she put her hand back and brought Mr. Camperdown's letter from under the Bible. Lord Fawn read it very attentively, and as he read it there came upon him a great doubt. What sort of woman was this to whom he had engaged himself because she was possessed of an income? That Mr. Camperdown should be in the wrong in such a matter was an idea which never occurred to Lord Fawn. There is no form of belief stronger than that which the ordinary English gentleman has in the discretion and honesty of his own family lawyer. What his lawyer tells him to do, he does. What his lawyer tells him to sign, he signs. He buys and sells in obedience to the same direction, and feels perfectly comfortable in the possession of a guide who is responsible and all but divine. "What diamonds are they?" asked Lord Fawn in a very low voice. "They are my own,--altogether my own. Sir Florian gave them to me. When he put them into my hands, he said that they were to be my own for ever and ever. 'There,' said he,--'those are yours to do what you choose with them.' After that they oughtn't to ask me to give them back,--ought they? If you had been married before, and your wife had given you a keepsake,--to keep for ever and ever, would you give it up to a lawyer? You would not like it;--would you, Frederic?" She had put her hand on his, and was looking up into his face as she asked the question. Again, perhaps, the acting was a little overdone; but there were the tears in her eyes, and the tone of her voice was perfect. "Mr. Camperdown calls them Eustace diamonds,--family diamonds," said Lord Fawn. "What do they consist of? What are they worth?" "I'll show them to you," said Lizzie, jumping up and hurrying out of the room. Lord Fawn, when he was alone, rubbed his hands over his eyes and thought about it all. It would be a very harsh measure, on the part of the Eustace family and of Mr. Camperdown, to demand from her the surrender of any trinket which her late husband might have given her in the manner she had described. But it was, to his thinking, most improbable that the Eustace people or the lawyer should be harsh to a widow bearing the Eustace name. The Eustaces were by disposition lavish, and old Mr. Camperdown was not one who would be strict in claiming little things for rich clients. And yet here was his letter, threatening the widow of the late baronet with legal proceedings for the recovery of jewels which had been given by Sir Florian himself to his wife as a keepsake! Perhaps Sir Florian had made some mistake, and had caused to be set in a ring or brooch for his bride some jewel which he had thought to be his own, but which had, in truth, been an heirloom. If so, the jewel should, of course, be surrendered,--or replaced by one of equal value. He was making out some such solution, when Lizzie returned with the morocco case in her hand. "It was the manner in which he gave it to me," said Lizzie, as she opened the clasp, "which makes its value to me." Lord Fawn knew nothing about jewels, but even he knew that if the circle of stones which he saw, with a Maltese cross appended to it, was constituted of real diamonds, the thing must be of great value. And it occurred to him at once that such a necklace is not given by a husband even to a bride in the manner described by Lizzie. A ring, or brooch, or perhaps a bracelet, a lover or a loving lord may bring in his pocket. But such an ornament as this on which Lord Fawn was now looking, is given in another sort of way. He felt sure that it was so, even though he was entirely ignorant of the value of the stones. "Do you know what it is worth?" he asked. Lizzie hesitated a moment, and then remembered that "Frederic," in his present position in regard to herself, might be glad to assist her in maintaining the possession of a substantial property. "I think they say its value is about--ten thousand pounds," she replied. "Ten--thousand--pounds!" Lord Fawn riveted his eyes upon them. "That's what I am told--by a jeweller." "By what jeweller?" "A man had to come and see them,--about some repairs,--or something of that kind. Poor Sir Florian wished it. And he said so." "What was the man's name?" "I forget his name," said Lizzie, who was not quite sure whether her acquaintance with Mr. Benjamin would be considered respectable. "Ten thousand pounds! You don't keep them in the house;--do you?" "I have an iron case up-stairs for them;--ever so heavy." "And did Sir Florian give you the iron case?" Lizzie hesitated for a moment. "Yes," said she. "That is,--no. But he ordered it to be made; and then it came,--after he was--dead." "He knew their value, then?" "Oh, dear, yes. Though he never named any sum. He told me, however, that they were very--very valuable." Lord Fawn did not immediately recognise the falseness of every word that the woman said to him, because he was slow and could not think and hear at the same time. But he was at once involved in a painful maze of doubt and almost of dismay. An action for the recovery of jewels brought against the lady whom he was engaged to marry, on behalf of the family of her late husband, would not suit him at all. To have his hands quite clean, to be above all evil report, to be respectable, as it were, all round, was Lord Fawn's special ambition. He was a poor man, and a greedy man, but he would have abandoned his official salary at a moment's notice, rather than there should have fallen on him a breath of public opinion hinting that it ought to be abandoned. He was especially timid, and lived in a perpetual fear lest the newspapers should say something hard of him. In that matter of the Sawab he had been very wretched, because Frank Greystock had accused him of being an administrator of tyranny. He would have liked his wife to have ten thousand pounds' worth of diamonds very well; but he would rather go without a wife for ever,--and without a wife's fortune,--than marry a woman subject to an action for claiming diamonds not her own. "I think," said he, at last, "that if you were to put them into Mr. Camperdown's hands--" "Into Mr. Camperdown's hands!" "And then let the matter be settled by arbitration--" "Arbitration? That means going to law?" "No, dearest,--that means not going to law. The diamonds would be entrusted to Mr. Camperdown. And then some one would be appointed to decide whose property they were." "They're my property," said Lizzie. "But he says they belong to the family." "He'll say anything," said Lizzie. "My dearest girl, there can't be a more respectable man than Mr. Camperdown. You must do something of the kind, you know." "I sha'n't do anything of the kind," said Lizzie. "Sir Florian Eustace gave them to me, and I shall keep them." She did not look at her lover as she spoke; but he looked at her, and did not like the change which he saw on her countenance. And he did not like the circumstances in which he found himself placed. "Why should Mr. Camperdown interfere?" continued Lizzie. "If they don't belong to me, they belong to my son;--and who has so good a right to keep them for him as I have? But they belong to me." "They should not be kept in a private house like this at all, if they are worth all that money." "If I were to let them go, Mr. Camperdown would get them. There's nothing he wouldn't do to get them. Oh, Frederic, I hope you'll stand to me, and not see me injured. Of course I only want them for my darling child." Frederic's face had become very long, and he was much disturbed in his mind. He could only suggest that he himself would go and see Mr. Camperdown, and ascertain what ought to be done. To the last, he adhered to his assurance that Mr. Camperdown could do no evil;--till Lizzie, in her wrath, asked him whether he believed Mr. Camperdown's word before hers. "I think he would understand a matter of business better than you," said the prudent lover. "He wants to rob me," said Lizzie, "and I shall look to you to prevent it." When Lord Fawn took his leave,--which he did not do till he had counselled her again and again to leave the matter in Mr. Camperdown's hands,--the two were not in good accord together. It was his fixed purpose, as he declared to her, to see Mr. Camperdown; and it was her fixed purpose,--so, at least, she declared to him,--to keep the diamonds, in spite of Mr. Camperdown. "But, my dear, if it's decided against you--" said Lord Fawn gravely. "It can't be decided against me, if you stand by me as you ought to do." "I can do nothing," said Lord Fawn, in a tremor. Then Lizzie looked at him,--and her look, which was very eloquent, called him a poltroon as plain as a look could speak. Then they parted, and the signs of affection between them were not satisfactory. The door was hardly closed behind him before Lizzie began to declare to herself that he shouldn't escape her. It was not yet twenty-four hours since she had been telling herself that she did not like the engagement and would break it off; and now she was stamping her little feet, and clenching her little hands, and swearing to herself by all her gods, that this wretched, timid lordling should not get out of her net. She did, in truth, despise him because he would not clutch the jewels. She looked upon him as mean and paltry because he was willing to submit to Mr. Camperdown. But still she was prompted to demand all that could be demanded from her engagement,--because she thought that she perceived a something in him which might produce in him a desire to be relieved from it. No! he should not be relieved. He should marry her. And she would keep the key of that iron box with the diamonds, and he should find what sort of a noise she would make if he attempted to take it from her. She closed the morocco case, ascended with it to her bed-room, locked it up in the iron safe, deposited the little patent key in its usual place round her neck, and then seated herself at her desk, and wrote letters to her various friends, making known to them her engagement. Hitherto she had told no one but Miss Macnulty,--and, in her doubts, had gone so far as to desire Miss Macnulty not to mention it. Now she was resolved to blazon forth her engagement before all the world. The first "friend" to whom she wrote was Lady Linlithgow. The reader shall see two or three of her letters, and that to the countess shall be the first. MY DEAR AUNT, When you came to see me the other day, I cannot say that you were very kind to me, and I don't suppose you care very much what becomes of me. But I think it right to let you know that I am going to be married. I am engaged to Lord Fawn, who, as you know, is a peer, and a member of Her Majesty's Government, and a nobleman of great influence. I do not suppose that even you can say anything against such an alliance. I am, your affectionate niece, ELI. EUSTACE. Then she wrote to Mrs. Eustace, the wife of the Bishop of Bobsborough. Mrs. Eustace had been very kind to her in the first days of her widowhood, and had fully recognised her as the widow of the head of her husband's family. Lizzie had liked none of the Bobsborough people. They were, according to her ideas, slow, respectable, and dull. But they had not found much open fault with her, and she was aware that it was for her interest to remain on good terms with them. Her letter, therefore, to Mrs. Eustace was somewhat less acrid than that written to her aunt Linlithgow. MY DEAR MRS. EUSTACE, I hope you will be glad to hear from me, and will not be sorry to hear my news. I am going to be married again. Of course I am not about to take a step which is in every way so very important without thinking about it a great deal. But I am sure it will be better for my darling little Florian in every way; and as for myself, I have felt for the last two years how unfitted I have been to manage everything myself. I have therefore accepted an offer made to me by Lord Fawn, who is, as you know, a peer of Parliament, and a most distinguished member of Her Majesty's Government; and he is, too, a nobleman of very great influence in every respect, and has a property in Ireland, extending over ever so many miles, and running up into the mountains. His mansion there is called Killmage, but I am not sure that I remember the name quite rightly. I hope I may see you there some day, and the dear bishop. I look forward with delight to doing something to make those dear Irish happier. The idea of rambling up into our own mountains charms me, for nothing suits my disposition so well as that kind of solitude. Of course Lord Fawn is not so rich a man as Sir Florian, but I have never looked to riches for my happiness. Not but what Lord Fawn has a good income from his Irish estates; and then, of course, he is paid for doing Her Majesty's Government;--so there is no fear that he will have to live upon my jointure, which, of course, would not be right. Pray tell the dear bishop and dear Margaretta all this, with my love. You will be happy, I know, to hear that my little Flo is quite well. He is already so fond of his new papa! [Lizzie's turn for lying was exemplified in this last statement, for, as it happened, Lord Fawn had never yet seen the child.] Believe me to be always your most affectionate niece, ELI. EUSTACE. There were two other letters,--one to her uncle, the dean, and the other to her cousin Frank. There was great doubt in her mind as to the expediency of writing to Frank Greystock; but at last she decided that she would do it. The letter to the dean need not be given in full, as it was very similar to that written to the bishop's wife. The same mention was made of her intended husband's peerage, and the same allusion to Her Majesty's Government,--a phrase which she had heard from Lord Fawn himself. She spoke of the Irish property, but in terms less glowing than she had used in writing to the lady, and ended by asking for her uncle's congratulation--and blessing. Her letter to Frank was as follows, and, doubtless, as she wrote it, there was present to her mind a remembrance of the fact that he himself might have offered to her, and have had her if he would. MY DEAR COUSIN, As I would rather that you should hear my news from myself than from any one else, I write to tell you that I am going to be married to Lord Fawn. Of course I know that there are certain matters as to which you and Lord Fawn do not agree,--in politics, I mean; but still I do not doubt but you will think that he is quite able to take care of your poor little cousin. It was only settled a day or two since, but it has been coming on ever so long. You understand all about that;--don't you? Of course you must come to my wedding, and be very good to me,--a kind of brother, you know; for we have always been friends;--haven't we? And if the dean doesn't come up to town, you must give me away. And you must come and see me ever so often; for I have a sort of feeling that I have no one else belonging to me that I can call really my own, except you. And you must be great friends with Lord Fawn, and must give up saying that he doesn't do his work properly. Of course he does everything better than anybody else could possibly do it,--except Cousin Frank. I am going down next week to Richmond. Lady Fawn has insisted on my staying there for a fortnight. Oh, dear, what shall I do all the time? You must positively come down and see me,--and see somebody else too! Only, you naughty coz! you mustn't break a poor girl's heart. Your affectionate cousin, ELI. EUSTACE. Somebody, in speaking on Lady Eustace's behalf, and making the best of her virtues, had declared that she did not have lovers. Hitherto that had been true of her;--but her mind had not the less dwelt on the delight of a lover. She still thought of a possible Corsair who would be willing to give up all but his vices for her love, and for whose sake she would be willing to share even them. It was but a dream, but nevertheless it pervaded her fancy constantly. Lord Fawn,--peer of Parliament, and member of Her Majesty's Government, as he was,--could not have been such a lover to her. Might it not be possible that there should exist something of romance between her and her cousin Frank? She was the last woman in the world to run away with a man, or to endanger her position by a serious indiscretion; but there might, perhaps, be a something between her and her cousin,--a liaison quite correct in its facts, a secret understanding, if nothing more,--a mutual sympathy, which should be chiefly shown in the abuse of all their friends,--and in this she could indulge her passion for romance and poetry. CHAPTER XI Lord Fawn at His Office The news was soon all about London,--as Lizzie had intended. She had made a sudden resolve that Lord Fawn should not escape her, and she had gone to work after the fashion we have seen. Frank Greystock had told John Eustace, and John Eustace had told Mr. Camperdown before Lord Fawn himself, in the slow prosecution of his purpose, had consulted the lawyer about the necklace. "God bless my soul;--Lord Fawn!" the old lawyer had said when the news was communicated to him. "Well,--yes;--he wants money. I don't envy him; that's all. We shall get the diamonds now, John. Lord Fawn isn't the man to let his wife keep what doesn't belong to her." Then, after a day or two, Lord Fawn had himself gone to Mr. Camperdown's chambers. "I believe I am to congratulate you, my lord," said the lawyer. "I'm told you are going to marry--; well, I mustn't really say another of my clients, but the widow of one of them. Lady Eustace is a very beautiful woman, and she has a very pretty income too. She has the whole of the Scotch property for her life." "It's only for her life, I suppose?" said Lord Fawn. "Oh, no, no;--of course not. There's been some mistake on her part;--at least, so I've been told. Women never understand. It's all as clear as daylight. Had there been a second son, the second son would have had it. As it is, it goes with the rest of the property--just as it ought to do, you know. Four thousand a year isn't so bad, you know, considering that she isn't more than a girl yet, and that she hadn't sixpence of her own. When the admiral died, there wasn't sixpence, Lord Fawn." "So I have heard." "Not sixpence. It's all Eustace money. She had six or eight thousand pounds, or something like that, besides. She's as lovely a young widow as I ever saw,--and very clever." "Yes;--she is clever." "By-the-bye, Lord Fawn, as you have done me the honour of calling,--there's a stupid mistake about some family diamonds." "It is in respect to them that I've come," said Lord Fawn. Then Mr. Camperdown, in his easy, off-hand way, imputing no blame to the lady in the hearing of her future husband, and declaring his opinion that she was doubtless unaware of its value, explained the matter of the necklace. Lord Fawn listened, but said very little. He especially did not say that Lady Eustace had had the stones valued. "They're real, I suppose?" he asked. Mr. Camperdown assured him that no diamonds more real had ever come from Golconda, or passed through Mr. Garnett's hands. "They are as well known as any family diamonds in England," said Mr. Camperdown. "She has got into bad hands,"--continued Mr. Camperdown. "Mowbray and Mopus;--horrible people; sharks, that make one blush for one's profession; and I was really afraid there would have been trouble. But, of course, it'll be all right now;--and if she'll only come to me, tell her I'll do everything I can to make things straight and comfortable for her. If she likes to have another lawyer, of course, that's all right. Only make her understand who Mowbray and Mopus are. It's quite out of the question, Lord Fawn, that your wife should have anything to do with Mowbray and Mopus." Every word that Mr. Camperdown said was gospel to Lord Fawn. And yet, as the reader will understand, Mr. Camperdown had by no means expressed his real opinion in this interview. He had spoken of the widow in friendly terms,--declaring that she was simply mistaken in her ideas as to the duration of her interest in the Scotch property, and mistaken again about the diamonds;--whereas in truth he regarded her as a dishonest, lying, evil-minded harpy. Had Lord Fawn consulted him simply as a client, and not have come to him an engaged lover, he would have expressed his opinion quite frankly; but it is not the business of a lawyer to tell his client evil things of the lady whom that client is engaged to marry. In regard to the property he spoke the truth, and he spoke what he believed to be the truth when he said that the whole thing would no doubt now be easily arranged. When Lord Fawn took his leave, Mr. Camperdown again declared to himself that as regarded money the match was very well for his lordship; but that, as regarded the woman, Lizzie was dear at the price. "Perhaps he doesn't mind it," said Mr. Camperdown to himself, "but I wouldn't marry such a woman myself, though she owned all Scotland." There had been much in the interview to make Lord Fawn unhappy. In the first place, that golden hope as to the perpetuity of the property was at an end. He had never believed that it was so; but a man may hope without believing. And he was quite sure that Lizzie was bound to give up the diamonds,--and would ultimately be made to give them up. Of any property in them, as possibly accruing to himself, he had not thought much;--but he could not abstain from thinking of the woman's grasp upon them. Mr. Camperdown's plain statement, which was gospel to him, was directly at variance with Lizzie's story. Sir Florian certainly would not have given such diamonds in such a way. Sir Florian would not have ordered a separate iron safe for them, with a view that they might be secure in his wife's bed-room. And then she had had them valued, and manifestly was always thinking of her treasure. It was very well for a poor, careful peer to be always thinking of his money, but Lord Fawn was well aware that a young woman such as Lady Eustace should have her thoughts elsewhere. As he sat signing letters at the India Board, relieving himself when he was left alone between each batch by standing up with his back to the fire-place, his mind was full of all this. He could not unravel truth quickly, but he could grasp it when it came to him. She was certainly greedy, false, and dishonest. And,--worse than all this,--she had dared to tell him to his face that he was a poor creature because he would not support her in her greed, and falsehoods, and dishonesty! Nevertheless, he was engaged to marry her! Then he thought of one Violet Effingham whom he had loved, and then came over him some suspicion of a fear that he himself was hard and selfish. And yet what was such a one as he to do? It was of course necessary for the maintenance of the very constitution of his country that there should be future Lord Fawns. There could be no future Lord Fawns unless he married;--and how could he marry without money? "A peasant can marry whom he pleases," said Lord Fawn, pressing his hand to his brow, and dropping one flap of his coat, as he thought of his own high and perilous destiny, standing with his back to the fire-place, while a huge pile of letters lay there before him waiting to be signed. It was a Saturday evening, and as there was no House there was nothing to hurry him away from the office. He was the occupier for the time of a large, well-furnished official room, looking out into St. James's Park, and as he glanced round it he told himself that his own happiness must be there, and not in the domesticity of a quiet home. The House of Lords, out of which nobody could turn him, and official life,--as long as he could hold to it,--must be all in all to him. He had engaged himself to this woman, and he must--marry her. He did not think that he could now see any way of avoiding that event. Her income would supply the needs of her home, and then there might probably be a continuation of Lord Fawns. The world might have done better for him,--had he been able to find favour in Violet Effingham's sight. He was a man capable of love,--and very capable of constancy to a woman true to him. Then he wiped away a tear as he sat down to sign the huge batch of letters. As he read some special letter in which instructions were conveyed as to the insufficiency of the Sawab's claims, he thought of Frank Greystock's attack upon him, and of Frank Greystock's cousin. There had been a time in which he had feared that the two cousins would become man and wife. At this moment he uttered a malediction against the member for Bobsborough, which might perhaps have been spared had the member been now willing to take the lady off his hands. Then the door was opened, and the messenger told him that Mrs. Hittaway was in the waiting-room. Mrs. Hittaway was, of course, at once made welcome to the Under-Secretary's own apartment. Mrs. Hittaway was a strong-minded woman,--the strongest-minded probably of the Fawn family,--but she had now come upon a task which taxed all her strength to the utmost. She had told her mother that she would tell "Frederic" what she thought about his proposed bride, and she had now come to carry out her threat. She had asked her brother to come and dine with her, but he had declined. His engagements hardly admitted of his dining with his relatives. She had called upon him at the rooms he occupied in Victoria Street,--but of course she had not found him. She could not very well go to his club;--so now she had hunted him down at his office. From the very commencement of the interview Mrs. Hittaway was strong-minded. She began the subject of the marriage, and did so without a word of congratulation. "Dear Frederic," she said, "you know that we have all got to look up to you." "Well, Clara,--what does that mean?" "It means this,--that you must bear with me, if I am more anxious as to your future career than another sister might be." "Now I know you are going to say something unpleasant." "Yes, I am, Frederic. I have heard so many bad things about Lady Eustace!" The Under-Secretary sat silent for awhile in his great arm-chair. "What sort of evil things do you mean, Clara?" he asked at last. "Evil things are said of a great many people,--as you know. I am sure you would not wish to repeat slanders." Mrs. Hittaway was not to be silenced after this fashion. "Not slanders, certainly, Frederic. But when I hear that you intend to raise this lady to the rank and position of your wife, then of course the truth or falsehood of these reports becomes a matter of great moment to us all. Don't you think you had better see Mr. Camperdown?" "I have seen him." "And what does he say?" "What should he say? Lady Eustace has, I believe, made some mistake about the condition of her property, and people who have heard it have been good-natured enough to say that the error has been wilful. That is what I call slander, Clara." "And have you heard about her jewels?" Mrs. Hittaway was alluding here to the report which had reached her as to Lizzie's debt to Harter and Benjamin when she married Sir Florian; but Lord Fawn of course thought of the diamond necklace. "Yes;" said he, "I have heard all about them. Who told you?" "I have known it ever so long. Sir Florian never got over it." Lord Fawn was again in the dark, but he did not choose to commit himself by asking further questions. "And then her treatment of Lady Linlithgow, who was her only friend before she married, was something quite unnatural. Ask the dean's people what they think of her. I believe even they would tell you." "Frank Greystock desired to marry her himself." "Yes,--for her money, perhaps;--because he has not got a farthing in the world. Dear Frederic, I only wish to put you on your guard. Of course this is very unpleasant, and I shouldn't do it if I didn't think it my duty. I believe she is artful and very false. She certainly deceived Sir Florian Eustace about her debts;--and he never held up his head after he found out what she was. If she has told you falsehoods, of course you can break it off. Dear Frederic, I hope you won't be angry with me." "Is that all?" he asked. "Yes;--that is all." "I'll bear it in mind," he said. "Of course it isn't very pleasant." "No;--I know it is not pleasant," said Mrs. Hittaway, rising, and taking her departure with an offer of affectionate sisterly greeting, which was not accepted with cordiality. It was very unpleasant. That very morning Lord Fawn had received letters from the Dean and the Bishop of Bobsborough congratulating him on his intended marriage,--both those worthy dignitaries of the Church having thought it expedient to verify Lizzie's statements. Lord Fawn was, therefore, well aware that Lady Eustace had published the engagement. It was known to everybody, and could not be broken off without public scandal. CHAPTER XII "I Only Thought of It" There was great perturbation down at Fawn Court. On the day fixed, Monday, June 5, Lizzie arrived. Nothing further had been said by Lady Fawn to urge the invitation; but, in accordance with the arrangement already made, Lady Eustace, with her child, her nurse, and her own maid, was at Fawn Court by four o'clock. A very long letter had been received from Mrs. Hittaway that morning,--the writing of which must have seriously interfered with the tranquillity of her Sunday afternoon. Lord Fawn did not make his appearance at Richmond on the Saturday evening,--nor was he seen on the Sunday. That Sunday was, we may presume, chiefly devoted to reflection. He certainly did not call upon his future wife. His omission to do so no doubt increased Lizzie's urgency in the matter of her visit to Richmond. Frank Greystock had written to congratulate her. "Dear Frank," she had said in reply, "a woman situated as I am has so many things to think of. Lord Fawn's position will be of service to my child. Mind you come and see me at Fawn Court. I count so much on your friendship and assistance." Of course she was expected at Richmond,--although throughout the morning Lady Fawn had entertained almost a hope that she wouldn't come. "He was only lukewarm in defending her," Mrs. Hittaway had said in her letter, "and I still think that there may be an escape." Not even a note had come from Lord Fawn himself,--nor from Lady Eustace. Possibly something violent might have been done, and Lady Eustace would not appear. But Lady Eustace did appear,--and, after a fashion, was made welcome at Fawn Court. The Fawn ladies were not good hypocrites. Lady Fawn had said almost nothing to her daughters of her visit to Mount Street, but Augusta had heard the discussion in Mrs. Hittaway's drawing-room as to the character of the future bride. The coming visit had been spoken of almost with awe, and there was a general conviction in the dovecote that an evil thing had fallen upon them. Consequently, their affection to the new-comer, though spoken in words, was not made evident by signs and manners. Lizzie herself took care that the position in which she was received should be sufficiently declared. "It seems so odd that I am to come among you as a sister," she said. The girls were forced to assent to the claim, but they assented coldly. "He has told me to attach myself especially to you," she whispered to Augusta. The unfortunate chosen one, who had but little strength of her own, accepted the position, and then, as the only means of escaping the embraces of her newly-found sister, pleaded the violence of a headache. "My mother!" said Lizzie to Lady Fawn. "Yes, my dear," said Lady Fawn. "One of the girls had perhaps better go up and show you your room." "I am very much afraid about it," said Lady Fawn to her daughter Amelia. Amelia replied only by shaking her head. On the Tuesday morning there came a note from Lord Fawn to his lady-love. Of course the letter was not shown, but Lizzie received it at the breakfast table, and read it with many little smiles and signs of satisfaction. And then she gave out various little statements as having been made in that letter. He says this, and he says that, and he is coming here, and going there, and he will do one thing, and he won't do the other. We have often seen young ladies crowing over their lovers' letters, and it was pleasant to see Lizzie crowing over hers. And yet there was but very little in the letter. Lord Fawn told her that what with the House and what with the Office, he could not get down to Richmond before Saturday; but that on Saturday he would come. Then he signed himself "yours affectionately, Fawn." Lizzie did her crowing very prettily. The outward show of it was there to perfection,--so that the Fawn girls really believed that their brother had written an affectionate lover's letter. Inwardly, Lizzie swore to herself, as she read the cold words with indignation, that the man should not escape her. The days went by very tediously. On the Wednesday and the Friday Lady Eustace made an excuse of going up to town, and insisted on taking the unfortunate Augusta with her. There was no real reason for these journeys to London,--unless that glance which on each occasion was given to the contents of the iron case was a real reason. The diamonds were safe, and Miss Macnulty was enjoying herself. On the Friday Lizzie proposed to Augusta that they should jointly make a raid upon the member of Her Majesty's Government at his office; but Augusta positively refused to take such a step. "I know he would be angry," pleaded Augusta. "Psha! who cares for his anger?" said Lizzie. But the visit was not made. On the Saturday,--the Saturday which was to bring Lord Fawn down to dinner,--another most unexpected visitor made his appearance. At about three o'clock Frank Greystock was at Fawn Court. Now it was certainly understood that Mr. Greystock had been told not to come to Fawn Court as long as Lucy Morris was there. "Dear Mr. Greystock, I'm sure you will take what I say as I mean it," Lady Fawn had whispered to him. "You know how attached we all are to our dear little Lucy. Perhaps you know--." There had been more of it; but the meaning of it all was undoubtedly this,--that Frank was not to pay visits to Lucy Morris at Fawn Court. Now he had come to see his cousin Lizzie Eustace. On this occasion Lady Fawn, with Amelia and two of the other girls, were out in the carriage. The unfortunate Augusta had been left at home with her bosom friend;--while Cecilia and Nina were supposed to be talking French with Lucy Morris. They were all out in the grounds, sitting upon the benches, and rambling among the shrubberies, when of a sudden Frank Greystock was in the midst of them. Lizzie's expression of joy at seeing her cousin was almost as great as though he had been in fact a brother. She ran up to him and grasped his hand, and hung on his arm, and looked up into his face, and then burst into tears. But the tears were not violent tears. There were just three sobs, and two bright eyes full of water, and a lace handkerchief,--and then a smile. "Oh, Frank," she said, "it does make one think so of old times!" Augusta had by this time been almost persuaded to believe in her,--though the belief by no means made the poor young woman happy. Frank thought that his cousin looked very well, and said something as to Lord Fawn being "the happiest fellow going." "I hope I shall make him happy," said Lizzie, clasping her hands together. Lucy meanwhile was standing in the circle with the others. It never occurred to her that it was her duty to run away from the man she loved. She had shaken hands with him, and felt something of affection in his pressure. She did believe that his visit was made entirely to his cousin, and had no idea at the moment of disobeying Lady Fawn. During the last few days she had been thrown very much with her old friend Lizzie, and had been treated by the future peeress with many signs of almost sisterly affection. "Dear Lucy," Lizzie had said, "you can understand me. These people,--oh, they are so good, but they can't understand me." Lucy had expressed a hope that Lord Fawn understood her. "Oh, Lord Fawn,--well; yes; perhaps;--I don't know. It so often happens that one's husband is the last person to understand one." "If I thought so, I wouldn't marry him," said Lucy. "Frank Greystock will understand you," said Lizzie. It was indeed true that Lucy did understand something of her wealthy friend's character, and was almost ashamed of the friendship. With Lizzie Greystock she had never sympathised, and Lizzie Eustace had always been distasteful to her. She already felt that the less she should see of Lizzie Fawn the better she should like it. Before an hour was over, Frank Greystock was walking round the shrubberies with Lucy,--and was walking with Lucy alone. It was undoubtedly the fact that Lady Eustace had contrived that it should be so. The unfitness of the thing recommended it to her. Frank could hardly marry a wife without a shilling. Lucy would certainly not think at all of shillings. Frank,--as Lizzie knew,--had been almost at her feet within the last fortnight, and might, in some possible emergency, be there again. In the midst of such circumstances nothing could be better than that Frank and Lucy should be thrown together. Lizzie regarded all this as romance. Poor Lady Fawn, had she known it all, would have called it diabolical wickedness and inhuman cruelty. "Well, Lucy;--what do you think of it?" Frank Greystock said to her. "Think of what, Mr. Greystock?" "You know what I mean;--this marriage?" "How should I be able to think? I have never seen them together. I suppose Lord Fawn isn't very rich. She is rich. And then she is very beautiful. Don't you think her very beautiful?" "Sometimes exquisitely lovely." "Everybody says so;--and I am sure it is the fact. Do you know;--but perhaps you'll think I am envious." "If I thought you envious of Lizzie, I should have to think you very foolish at the same time." "I don't know what that means;"--she did know well enough what it meant;--"but sometimes to me she is almost frightful to look at." "In what way?" "Oh, I can't tell you. She looks like a beautiful animal that you are afraid to caress for fear it should bite you;--an animal that would be beautiful if its eyes were not so restless, and its teeth so sharp and so white." "How very odd." "Why odd, Mr. Greystock?" "Because I feel exactly in the same way about her. I am not in the least afraid that she'll bite me; and as for caressing the animal,--that kind of caressing which you mean,--it seems to me to be just what she's made for. But, I do feel sometimes, that she is like a cat." "Something not quite so tame as a cat," said Lucy. "Nevertheless she is very lovely,--and very clever. Sometimes I think her the most beautiful woman I ever saw in the world." "Do you, indeed?" "She will be immensely run after as Lady Fawn. When she pleases she can make her own house quite charming. I never knew a woman who could say pretty things to so many people at once." "You are making her out to be a paragon of perfection, Mr. Greystock." "And when you add to all the rest that she has four thousand a year, you must admit that Lord Fawn is a lucky man." "I have said nothing against it." "Four thousand a year is a very great consideration, Lucy." Lucy for a while said nothing. She was making up her mind that she would say nothing;--that she would make no reply indicative of any feeling on her part. But she was not sufficiently strong to keep her resolution. "I wonder, Mr. Greystock," she said, "that you did not attempt to win the great prize yourself. Cousins do marry." He had thought of attempting it, and at this moment he would not lie to her. "The cousinship had nothing to do with it," he said. "Perhaps you did think of it." "I did, Lucy. Yes, I did. Thank God, I only thought of it." She could not refrain herself from looking up into his face and clasping her hands together. A woman never so dearly loves a man as when he confesses that he has been on the brink of a great crime,--but has refrained, and has not committed it. "I did think of it. I am not telling you that she would have taken me. I have no reason whatever for thinking so." "I am sure she would," said Lucy, who did not in the least know what words she was uttering. "It would have been simply for her money,--her money and her beauty. It would not have been because I love her." "Never--never ask a girl to marry you, unless you love her, Mr. Greystock." "Then there is only one that I can ever ask," said he. There was nothing of course that she could say to this. If he did not choose to go further, she was not bound to understand him. But would he go further? She felt at the moment that an open declaration of his love to herself would make her happy for ever, even though it should be accompanied by an assurance that he could not marry her. If they only knew each other,--that it was so between them,--that, she thought, would be enough for her. And as for him--if a woman could bear such a position, surely he might bear it. "Do you know who that one is?" he asked. "No," she said,--shaking her head. "Lucy, is that true?" "What does it matter?" "Lucy;--look at me, Lucy," and he put his hand upon her arm. "No,--no,--no!" she said. "I love you so well, Lucy, that I never can love another. I have thought of many women, but could never even think of one, as a woman to love, except you. I have sometimes fancied I could marry for money and position,--to help myself on in the world by means of a wife,--but when my mind has run away with me, to revel amidst ideas of feminine sweetness, you have always--always been the heroine of the tale, as the mistress of the happy castle in the air." "Have I?" she asked. "Always,--always. As regards this,"--and he struck himself on the breast,--"no man was ever more constant. Though I don't think much of myself as a man, I know a woman when I see her." But he did not ask her to be his wife;--nor did he wait at Fawn Court till Lady Fawn had come back with the carriage. CHAPTER XIII Showing What Frank Greystock Did Frank Greystock escaped from the dovecote before Lady Fawn had returned. He had not made his visit to Richmond with any purpose of seeing Lucy Morris, or of saying to her when he did see her anything special,--of saying anything that should, or anything that should not, have been said. He had gone there, in truth, simply because his cousin had asked him, and because it was almost a duty on his part to see his cousin on the momentous occasion of this new engagement. But he had declared to himself that old Lady Fawn was a fool, and that to see Lucy again would be very pleasant. "See her;--of course I'll see her," he had said. "Why should I be prevented from seeing her?" Now he had seen her, and as he returned by the train to London, he acknowledged to himself that it was no longer in his power to promote his fortune by marriage. He had at last said that to Lucy which made it impossible for him to offer his hand to any other woman. He had not, in truth, asked her to be his wife; but he had told her that he loved her, and could never love any other woman. He had asked for no answer to this assurance, and then he had left her. In the course of that afternoon he did question himself as to his conduct to this girl, and subjected himself to some of the rigours of a cross-examination. He was not a man who could think of a girl as the one human being whom he loved above all others, and yet look forward with equanimity to the idea of doing her an injury. He could understand that a man unable to marry should be reticent as to his feelings,--supposing him to have been weak enough to have succumbed to a passion which could only mar his own prospects. He was frank enough in owning to himself that he had been thus weak. The weakness had come upon himself early in life,--and was there, an established fact. The girl was to him unlike any other girl;--or any man. There was to him a sweetness in her companionship which he could not analyse. She was not beautiful. She had none of the charms of fashion. He had never seen her well-dressed,--according to the ideas of dress which he found to be prevailing in the world. She was a little thing, who, as a man's wife, could attract no attention by figure, form, or outward manner,--one who had quietly submitted herself to the position of a governess, and who did not seem to think that in doing so she obtained less than her due. But yet he knew her to be better than all the rest. For him, at any rate, she was better than all the rest. Her little hand was cool and sweet to him. Sometimes when he was heated and hard at work, he would fancy how it would be with him if she were by him, and would lay it on his brow. There was a sparkle in her eye that had to him more of sympathy in it than could be conveyed by all the other eyes in the world. There was an expression in her mouth when she smiled, which was more eloquent to him than any sound. There were a reality and a truth about her which came home to him, and made themselves known to him as firm rocks which could not be shaken. He had never declared to himself that deceit or hypocrisy in a woman was especially abominable. As a rule he looked for it in women, and would say that some amount of affectation was necessary to a woman's character. He knew that his cousin Lizzie was a little liar,--that she was, as Lucy had said, a pretty animal that would turn and bite;--and yet he liked his cousin Lizzie. He did not want women to be perfect,--so he would say. But Lucy Morris, in his eyes, was perfect; and when he told her that she was ever the queen who reigned in those castles in the air which he built,--as others build them, he told her no more than the truth. He had fallen into these feelings and could not now avoid them, or be quit of them;--but he could have been silent respecting them. He knew that in former days, down at Bobsborough, he had not been altogether silent. When he had first seen her at Fawn Court he had not been altogether silent. But he had been warned away from Fawn Court, and in that very warning there was conveyed, as it were, an absolution from the effect of words hitherto spoken. Though he had called Lady Fawn an old fool, he had known that it was so,--had, after a fashion, perceived her wisdom,--and had regarded himself as a man free to decide, without disgrace, that he might abandon ideas of ecstatic love and look out for a rich wife. Presuming himself to be reticent for the future in reference to his darling Lucy, he might do as he pleased with himself. Thus there had come a moment in which he had determined that he would ask his rich cousin to marry him. In that little project he had been interrupted, and the reader knows what had come of it. Lord Fawn's success had not in the least annoyed him. He had only half resolved in regard to his cousin. She was very beautiful no doubt, and there was her income;--but he also knew that those teeth would bite and that those claws would scratch. But Lord Fawn's success had given a turn to his thoughts, and had made him think, for a moment, that if a man loved, he should be true to his love. The reader also knows what had come of that,--how at last he had not been reticent. He had not asked Lucy to be his wife; but he had said that which made it impossible that he should marry any other woman without dishonour. As he thought of what he had done himself, he tried to remember whether Lucy had said a word expressive of affection for himself. She had in truth spoken very few words, and he could remember almost every one of them. "Have I?"--she had asked, when he told her that she had ever been the princess reigning in his castles. And there had been a joy in the question which she had not attempted to conceal. She had hesitated not at all. She had not told him that she loved him. But there had been something sweeter than such protestation in the question she had asked him. "Is it indeed true," she had said, "that I have been placed there where all my joy and all my glory lies?" It was not in her to tell a lie to him, even by a tone. She had intended to say nothing of her love, but he knew that it had all been told. "Have I?"--he repeated the words to himself a dozen times, and as he did so, he could hear her voice. Certainly there never was a voice that brought home to the hearer so strong a sense of its own truth! Why should he not at once make up his mind to marry her? He could do it. There was no doubt of that. It was possible for him to alter the whole manner of his life, to give up his clubs,--to give up even Parliament, if the need to do so was there,--and to live as a married man on the earnings of his profession. There was no need why he should regard himself as a poor man. Two things, no doubt, were against his regarding himself as a rich man. Ever since he had commenced life in London he had been more or less in debt; and then, unfortunately, he had acquired a seat in Parliament at a period of his career in which the dangers of such a position were greater than the advantages. Nevertheless he could earn an income on which he and his wife, were he to marry, could live in all comfort; and as to his debts, if he would set his shoulder to the work they might be paid off in a twelvemonth. There was nothing in the prospect which would frighten Lucy, though there might be a question whether he possessed the courage needed for so violent a change. He had chambers in the Temple; he lived in rooms which he hired from month to month in one of the big hotels at the West End; and he dined at his club, or at the House, when he was not dining with a friend. It was an expensive and a luxurious mode of life,--and one from the effects of which a man is prone to drift very quickly into selfishness. He was by no means given to drinking,--but he was already learning to like good wine. Small economies in reference to cab-hire, gloves, umbrellas, and railway fares were unknown to him. Sixpences and shillings were things with which, in his mind, it was grievous to have to burden the thoughts. The Greystocks had all lived after that fashion. Even the dean himself was not free from the charge of extravagance. All this Frank knew, and he did not hesitate to tell himself, that he must make a great change if he meant to marry Lucy Morris. And he was wise enough to know that the change would become more difficult every day that it was postponed. Hitherto the question had been an open question with him. Could it now be an open question any longer? As a man of honour, was he not bound to share his lot with Lucy Morris? That evening,--that Saturday evening,--it so happened that he met John Eustace at a club to which they both belonged, and they dined together. They had long known each other, and had been thrown into closer intimacy by the marriage between Sir Florian and Lizzie. John Eustace had never been fond of Lizzie, and now, in truth, liked her less than ever; but he did like Lizzie's cousin, and felt that possibly Frank might be of use to him in the growing difficulty of managing the heir's property and looking after the heir's interests. "You've let the widow slip through your fingers," he said to Frank, as they sat together at the table. "I told you Lord Fawn was to be the lucky man," said Frank. "I know you did. I hadn't seen it. I can only say I wish it had been the other way." "Why so? Fawn isn't a bad fellow." "No;--not exactly a bad fellow. He isn't, you know, what I call a good fellow. In the first place, he is marrying her altogether for her money." "Which is just what you advised me to do." "I thought you really liked her. And then Fawn will be always afraid of her,--and won't be in the least afraid of us. We shall have to fight him, and he won't fight her. He's a cantankerous fellow,--is Fawn,--when he's not afraid of his adversary." "But why should there be any fighting?" Eustace paused a minute, and rubbed his face and considered the matter before he answered. "She is troublesome, you know," he said. "What; Lizzie?" "Yes;--and I begin to be afraid she'll give us as much as we know how to do. I was with Camperdown to-day. I'm blessed if she hasn't begun to cut down a whole side of a forest at Portray. She has no more right to touch the timber, except for repairs about the place, than you have." "And if she lives for fifty years," asked Greystock, "is none to be cut?" "Yes;--by consent. Of course the regular cutting for the year is done, year by year. That's as regular as the rents, and the produce is sold by the acre. But she is marking the old oaks. What the deuce can she want money for?" "Fawn will put all that right." "He'll have to do it," said Eustace. "Since she has been down with the old Lady Fawn, she has written a note to Camperdown,--after leaving all his letters unanswered for the last twelvemonth,--to tell him that Lord Fawn is to have nothing to do with her property, and that certain people, called Mowbray and Mopus, are her lawyers. Camperdown is in an awful way about it." "Lord Fawn will put it all right," said Frank. "Camperdown is afraid that he won't. They've met twice since the engagement was made, and Camperdown says that, at the last meeting, Fawn gave himself airs, or was, at any rate, unpleasant. There were words about those diamonds." "You don't mean to say that Lord Fawn wants to keep your brother's family jewels?" "Camperdown didn't say that exactly;--but Fawn made no offer of giving them up. I wasn't there, and only heard what Camperdown told me. Camperdown thinks he's afraid of her." "I shouldn't wonder at that in the least," said Frank. "I know there'll be trouble," continued Eustace, "and Fawn won't be able to help us through it. She's a strong-willed, cunning, obstinate, clever little creature. Camperdown swears he'll be too many for her, but I almost doubt it." "And therefore you wish I were going to marry her?" "Yes, I do. You might manage her. The money comes from the Eustace property, and I'd sooner it should go to you than a half-hearted, numb-fingered, cold-blooded Whig, like Fawn." "I don't like cunning women," said Frank. "As bargains go, it wouldn't be a bad one," said Eustace. "She's very young, has a noble jointure, and is as handsome as she can stand. It's too good a thing for Fawn;--too good for any Whig." When Eustace left him, Greystock lit his cigar and walked with it in his mouth from Pall Mall to the Temple. He often worked there at night when he was not bound to be in the House, or when the House was not sitting,--and he was now intent on mastering the mysteries of some much-complicated legal case which had been confided to him, in order that he might present it to a jury enveloped in increased mystery. But, as he went, he thought rather of matrimony than of law;--and he thought especially of matrimony as it was about to affect Lord Fawn. Could a man be justified in marrying for money, or have rational ground for expecting that he might make himself happy by doing so? He kept muttering to himself as he went, the Quaker's advice to the old farmer, "Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is!" But he muttered it as condemning the advice rather than accepting it. He could look out and see two altogether different kinds of life before him, both of which had their allurements. There was the Belgravia-cum-Pimlico life, the scene of which might extend itself to South Kensington, enveloping the parks and coming round over Park Lane, and through Grosvenor Square and Berkeley Square back to Piccadilly. Within this he might live with lords and countesses and rich folk generally, going out to the very best dinner-parties, avoiding stupid people, having everything the world could give, except a wife and family and home of his own. All this he could achieve by the work which would certainly fall in his way, and by means of that position in the world which he had already attained by his wits. And the wife, with the family and house of his own, might be forthcoming, should it ever come in his way to form an attachment with a wealthy woman. He knew how dangerous were the charms of such a life as this to a man growing old among the flesh-pots, without any one to depend upon him. He had seen what becomes of the man who is always dining out at sixty. But he might avoid that. "Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is." And then there was that other outlook, the scene of which was laid somewhere north of Oxford Street, and the glory of which consisted in Lucy's smile, and Lucy's hand, and Lucy's kiss, as he returned home weary from his work. There are many men, and some women, who pass their lives without knowing what it is to be or to have been in love. They not improbably marry,--the men do, at least,--and make good average husbands. Their wives are useful to them, and they learn to feel that a woman, being a wife, is entitled to all the respect, protection, and honour which a man can give, or procure for her. Such men, no doubt, often live honest lives, are good Christians, and depart hence with hopes as justifiable as though they had loved as well as Romeo. But yet, as men, they have lacked a something, the want of which has made them small and poor and dry. It has never been felt by such a one that there would be triumph in giving away everything belonging to him for one little whispered, yielding word, in which there should be acknowledgment that he had succeeded in making himself master of a human heart. And there are other men,--very many men,--who have felt this love, and have resisted it, feeling it to be unfit that Love should be Lord of all. Frank Greystock had told himself, a score of times, that it would be unbecoming in him to allow a passion to obtain such mastery of him as to interfere with his ambition. Could it be right that he who, as a young man, had already done so much, who might possibly have before him so high and great a career, should miss that, because he could not resist a feeling which a little chit of a girl had created in his bosom,--a girl without money, without position, without even beauty; a girl as to whom, were he to marry her, the world would say, "Oh, heaven!--there has Frank Greystock gone and married a little governess out of old Lady Fawn's nursery!" And yet he loved her with all his heart, and to-day he had told her of his love. What should he do next? The complicated legal case received neither much ravelling nor unravelling from his brains that night; but before he left his chambers he wrote the following letter:-- Midnight, Saturday, All among my books and papers, 2, Bolt Court, Middle Temple. DEAR, DEAR LUCY, I told you to-day that you had ever been the Queen who reigned in those palaces which I have built in Spain. You did not make me much of an answer; but such as it was,--only just one muttered doubtful-sounding word,--it has made me hope that I may be justified in asking you to share with me a home which will not be palatial. If I am wrong--? But no;--I will not think I am wrong, or that I can be wrong. No sound coming from you is really doubtful. You are truth itself, and the muttered word would have been other than it was, if you had not--! may I say,--had you not already learned to love me? You will feel, perhaps, that I ought to have said all this to you then, and that a letter in such a matter is but a poor substitute for a spoken assurance of affection. You shall have the whole truth. Though I have long loved you, I did not go down to Fawn Court with the purpose of declaring to you my love. What I said to you was God's truth; but it was spoken without thought at the moment. I have thought of it much since;--and now I write to ask you to be my wife. I have lived for the last year or two with this hope before me; and now-- Dear, dear Lucy, I will not write in too great confidence; but I will tell you that all my happiness is in your hands. If your answer is what I hope it may be, tell Lady Fawn at once. I shall immediately write to Bobsborough, as I hate secrets in such matters. And if it is to be so,--then I shall claim the privilege of going to Fawn Court as soon and as often as I please. Yours ever and always,--if you will have me,-- F. G. He sat for an hour at his desk, with his letter lying on the table, before he left his chambers,--looking at it. If he should decide on posting it, then would that life in Belgravia-cum-Pimlico,--of which in truth he was very fond,--be almost closed for him. The lords and countesses, and rich county members, and leading politicians, who were delighted to welcome him, would not care for his wife; nor could he very well take his wife among them. To live with them as a married man, he must live as they lived;--and must have his own house in their precincts. Later in life, he might possibly work up to this;--but for the present he must retire into dim domestic security and the neighbourhood of Regent's Park. He sat looking at the letter, telling himself that he was now, at this moment, deciding his own fate in life. And he again muttered the Quaker's advice, "Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is!" It may be said, however, that no man ever writes such a letter, and then omits to send it. He walked out of the Temple with it in his hand, and dropped it into a pillar letter-box just outside the gate. As the envelope slipped through his fingers, he felt that he had now bound himself to his fate. CHAPTER XIV "Doan't Thou Marry for Munny" As that Saturday afternoon wore itself away, there was much excitement at Fawn Court. When Lady Fawn returned with the carriage, she heard that Frank Greystock had been at Fawn Court; and she heard also, from Augusta, that he had been rambling about the grounds alone with Lucy Morris. At any exhibition of old ladies, held before a competent jury, Lady Fawn would have taken a prize on the score of good humour. No mother of daughters was ever less addicted to scold and to be fretful. But just now she was a little unhappy. Lizzie's visit had not been a success, and she looked forward to her son's marriage with almost unmixed dismay. Mrs. Hittaway had written daily, and in all Mrs. Hittaway's letters some addition was made to the evil things already known. In her last letter Mrs. Hittaway had expressed her opinion that even yet "Frederic" would escape. All this Lady Fawn had, of course, not told to her daughters generally. To the eldest, Augusta, it was thought expedient to say nothing, because Augusta had been selected as the companion of the, alas! too probable future Lady Fawn. But to Amelia something did leak out, and it became apparent that the household was uneasy. Now,--as an evil added to this,--Frank Greystock had been there in Lady Fawn's absence, walking about the grounds alone with Lucy Morris. Lady Fawn could hardly restrain herself. "How could Lucy be so very wrong?" she said, in the hearing both of Augusta and Amelia. Lizzie Eustace did not hear this; but knowing very well that a governess should not receive a lover in the absence of the lady of the house, she made her little speech about it. "Dear Lady Fawn," she said, "my cousin Frank came to see me while you were out." "So I hear," said Lady Fawn. "Frank and I are more like brother and sister than anything else. I had so much to say to him;--so much to ask him to do! I have no one else, you know, and I had especially told him to come here." "Of course he was welcome to come." "Only I was afraid you might think that there was some little lover's trick,--on dear Lucy's part, you know." "I never suspect anything of that kind," said Lady Fawn, bridling up. "Lucy Morris is above any sort of trick. We don't have any tricks here, Lady Eustace." Lady Fawn herself might say that Lucy was "wrong," but no one else in that house should even suggest evil of Lucy. Lizzie retreated smiling. To have "put Lady Fawn's back up," as she called it, was to her an achievement and a pleasure. But the great excitement of the evening consisted in the expected coming of Lord Fawn. Of what nature would be the meeting between Lord Fawn and his promised bride? Was there anything of truth in the opinion expressed by Mrs. Hittaway that her brother was beginning to become tired of his bargain? That Lady Fawn was tired of it herself,--that she disliked Lizzie, and was afraid of her, and averse to the idea of regarding her as a daughter-in-law,--she did not now attempt to hide from herself. But there was the engagement, known to all the world, and how could its fulfilment now be avoided? The poor dear old woman began to repeat to herself the first half of the Quaker's advice, "Doan't thou marry for munny." Lord Fawn was to come down only in time for a late dinner. An ardent lover, one would have thought, might have left his work somewhat earlier on a Saturday, so as to have enjoyed with his sweetheart something of the sweetness of the Saturday summer afternoon;--but it was seven before he reached Fawn Court, and the ladies were at that time in their rooms dressing. Lizzie had affected to understand all his reasons for being so late, and had expressed herself as perfectly satisfied. "He has more to do than any of the others," she had said to Augusta. "Indeed, the whole of our vast Indian empire may be said to hang upon him, just at present;"--which was not complimentary to Lord Fawn's chief, the Right Honourable Legge Wilson, who at the present time represented the interests of India in the Cabinet. "He is terribly overworked, and it is a shame;--but what can one do?" "I think he likes work," Augusta had replied. "But I don't like it,--not so much of it; and so I shall make him understand, my dear. But I don't complain. As long as he tells me everything, I will never really complain." Perhaps it might some day be as she desired; perhaps as a husband he would be thoroughly confidential and communicative; perhaps when they two were one flesh he would tell her everything about India;--but as yet he certainly had not told her much. "How had they better meet?" Amelia asked her mother. "Oh;--I don't know;--anyhow; just as they like. We can't arrange anything for her. If she had chosen to dress herself early, she might have seen him as he came in; but it was impossible to tell her so." No arrangement was therefore made, and as all the other ladies were in the drawing-room before Lizzie came down, she had to give him his welcome in the midst of the family circle. She did it very well. Perhaps she had thought of it, and made her arrangements. When he came forward to greet her, she put her cheek up, just a little, so that he might see that he was expected to kiss it;--but so little, that should he omit to do so, there might be no visible awkwardness. It must be acknowledged on Lizzie's behalf, that she could always avoid awkwardness. He did touch her cheek with his lips, blushing as he did so. She had her ungloved hand in his, and, still holding him, returned into the circle. She said not a word; and what he said was of no moment;--but they had met as lovers, and any of the family who had allowed themselves to imagine that even yet the match might be broken, now unconsciously abandoned that hope. "Was he always such a truant, Lady Fawn?"--Lizzie asked, when it seemed to her that no one else would speak a word. "I don't know that there is much difference," said Lady Fawn. "Here is dinner. Frederic, will you give--Lady Eustace your arm?" Poor Lady Fawn! It often came to pass that she was awkward. There were no less than ten females sitting round the board, at the bottom of which Lord Fawn took his place. Lady Fawn had especially asked Lucy to come in to dinner, and with Lucy had come the two younger girls. At Lord Fawn's right hand sat Lizzie, and Augusta at his left. Lady Fawn had Amelia on one side and Lucy on the other. "So Mr. Greystock was here to-day," Lady Fawn whispered into Lucy's ear. "Yes; he was here." "Oh, Lucy!" "I did not bid him come, Lady Fawn." "I am sure of that, my dear;--but--but--" Then there was no more to be said on that subject on that occasion. During the whole of the dinner the conversation was kept up at the other end of the table by Lizzie talking to Augusta across her lover. This was done in such a manner as to seem to include Lord Fawn in every topic discussed. Parliament, India, the Sawab, Ireland, the special privileges of the House of Lords, the ease of a bachelor life, and the delight of having at his elbow just such a rural retreat as Fawn Court,--these were the fruitful themes of Lizzie's eloquence. Augusta did her part at any rate with patience; and as for Lizzie herself, she worked with that superhuman energy which women can so often display in making conversation under unfavourable circumstances. The circumstances were unfavourable, for Lord Fawn himself would hardly open his mouth; but Lizzie persevered, and the hour of dinner passed over without any show of ill-humour, or of sullen silence. When the hour was over, Lord Fawn left the room with the ladies, and was soon closeted with his mother, while the girls strolled out upon the lawn. Would Lizzie play croquet? No; Lizzie would not play croquet. She thought it probable that she might catch her lover and force him to walk with her through the shrubberies; but Lord Fawn was not seen upon the lawn that evening, and Lizzie was forced to content herself with Augusta as a companion. In the course of the evening, however, her lover did say a word to her in private. "Give me ten minutes to-morrow between breakfast and church, Lizzie." Lizzie promised that she would do so, smiling sweetly. Then there was a little music, and then Lord Fawn retired to his studies. "What is he going to say to me?" Lizzie asked Augusta the next morning. There existed in her bosom a sort of craving after confidential friendship,--but with it there existed something that was altogether incompatible with confidence. She thoroughly despised Augusta Fawn, and yet would have been willing,--in want of a better friend,--to press Augusta to her bosom, and swear that there should ever be between them the tenderest friendship. She desired to be the possessor of the outward shows of all those things of which the inward facts are valued by the good and steadfast ones of the earth. She knew what were the aspirations,--what the ambition, of an honest woman; and she knew, too, how rich were the probable rewards of such honesty. True love, true friendship, true benevolence, true tenderness, were beautiful to her,--qualities on which she could descant almost with eloquence; and therefore she was always shamming love and friendship and benevolence and tenderness. She could tell you, with words most appropriate to the subject, how horrible were all shams, and in saying so would be not altogether insincere;--yet she knew that she herself was ever shamming, and she satisfied herself with shams. "What is he going to say to me?" she asked Augusta, with her hands clasped, when she went up to put her bonnet on after breakfast. "To fix the day, I suppose," said Augusta. "If I thought so, I would endeavour to please him. But it isn't that. I know his manner so well! I am sure it is not that. Perhaps it is something about my boy. He will not wish to separate a mother from her child." "Oh dear, no," said Augusta. "I am sure Frederic will not want to do that." "In anything else I will obey him," said Lizzie, again clasping her hands. "But I must not keep him waiting,--must I? I fear my future lord is somewhat impatient." Now, if among Lord Fawn's merits one merit was more conspicuous than another, it was that of patience. When Lizzie descended he was waiting for her in the hall without a thought that he was being kept too long. "Now, Frederic! I should have been with you two whole minutes since, if I had not had just a word to say to Augusta. I do so love Augusta." "She is a very good girl," said Lord Fawn. "So true and genuine,--and so full of spirit. I will come on the other side because of my parasol and the sun. There, that will do. We have an hour nearly before going to church;--haven't we? I suppose you will go to church." "I intend it," said Lord Fawn. "It is so nice to go to church," said Lizzie. Since her widowhood had commenced, she had compromised matters with the world. One Sunday she would go to church, and the next she would have a headache and a French novel and stay in bed. But she was prepared for stricter conduct during at least the first months of her newly-married life. "My dear Lizzie," began Lord Fawn, "since I last saw you I have been twice with Mr. Camperdown." "You are not going to talk about Mr. Camperdown to-day?" "Well;--yes. I could not do so last night, and I shall be back in London either to-night or before you are up to-morrow morning." "I hate the very name of Mr. Camperdown," said Lizzie. "I am sorry for that, because I am sure you could not find an honester lawyer to manage your affairs for you. He does everything for me, and so he did for Sir Florian Eustace." "That is just the reason why I employ some one else," she answered. "Very well. I am not going to say a word about that. I may regret it, but I am, just at present, the last person in the world to urge you upon that subject. What I want to say is this. You must restore those diamonds." "To whom shall I restore them?" "To Mr. Garnett, the silversmith, if you please,--or to Mr. Camperdown;--or, if you like it better, to your brother-in-law, Mr. John Eustace." "And why am I to give up my own property?" Lord Fawn paused for some seconds before he replied. "To satisfy my honour," he then said. As she made him no immediate answer, he continued,--"It would not suit my views that my wife should be seen wearing the jewels of the Eustace family." "I don't want to wear them," said Lizzie. "Then why should you desire to keep them?" "Because they are my own. Because I do not choose to be put upon. Because I will not allow such a cunning old snake as Mr. Camperdown to rob me of my property. They are my own, and you should defend my right to them." "Do you mean to say that you will not oblige me by doing what I ask you?" "I will not be robbed of what is my own," said Lizzie. "Then I must declare--" and now Lord Fawn spoke very slowly--"then I must declare that under these circumstances, let the consequences be what they may, I must retreat from the enviable position which your favour has given me." The words were cold and solemn, and were ill-spoken; but they were deliberate, and had been indeed actually learned by heart. "What do you mean?" said Lizzie, flashing round upon him. "I mean what I say,--exactly. But perhaps it may be well that I should explain my motives more clearly." "I don't know anything about motives, and I don't care anything about motives. Do you mean to tell me that you have come here to threaten me with deserting me?" "You had better hear me." "I don't choose to hear a word more after what you have said,--unless it be in the way of an apology, or retracting your most injurious accusation." "I have said nothing to retract," said Lord Fawn solemnly. "Then I will not hear another word from you. I have friends, and you shall see them." Lord Fawn, who had thought a great deal upon the subject, and had well understood that this interview would be for him one of great difficulty, was very anxious to induce her to listen to a few further words of explanation. "Dear Lizzie--" he began. "I will not be addressed, sir, in that way by a man who is treating me as you are doing," she said. "But I want you to understand me." "Understand you! You understand nothing yourself that a man ought to understand. I wonder that you have the courage to be so insolent. If you knew what you were doing, you would not have the spirit to do it." Her words did not quite come home to him, and much of her scorn was lost upon him. He was now chiefly anxious to explain to her that though he must abide by the threat he had made, he was quite willing to go on with his engagement if she would oblige him in the matter of the diamonds. "It was necessary that I should explain to you that I could not allow that necklace to be brought into my house." "No one thought of taking it to your house." "What were you to do with it, then?" "Keep it in my own," said Lizzie stoutly. They were still walking together, and were now altogether out of sight of the house. Lizzie in her excitement had forgotten church, had forgotten the Fawn women,--had forgotten everything except the battle which it was necessary that she should fight for herself. She did not mean to allow the marriage to be broken off,--but she meant to retain the necklace. The manner in which Lord Fawn had demanded its restitution,--in which there had been none of that mock tenderness by which she might have permitted herself to be persuaded,--had made her, at any rate for the moment, as firm as steel on this point. It was inconceivable to her that he should think himself at liberty to go back from his promise, because she would not render up property which was in her possession, and which no one could prove not to be legally her own! She walked on full of fierce courage,--despising him, but determined that she would marry him. "I am afraid we do not understand each other," he said at last. "Certainly I do not understand you, sir." "Will you allow my mother to speak to you on the subject?" "No. If I told your mother to give up her diamonds, what would she say?" "But they are not yours, Lady Eustace, unless you will submit that question to an arbitrator." "I will submit nothing to anybody. You have no right to speak on such a subject till after we are married." "I must have it settled first, Lady Eustace." "Then, Lord Fawn, you won't have it settled first. Or rather it is settled already. I shall keep my own necklace, and Mr. Camperdown may do anything he pleases. As for you,--if you ill-treat me, I shall know where to go to." They had now come out from the shrubbery upon the lawn, and there was the carriage at the door, ready to take the elders of the family to church. Of course in such a condition of affairs it would be understood that Lizzie was one of the elders. "I shall not go to church now," she said, as she advanced across the lawn towards the hall door. "You will be pleased, Lord Fawn, to let your mother know that I am detained. I do not suppose that you will dare to tell her why." Then she sailed round at the back of the carriage and entered the hall, in which several of the girls were standing. Among them was Augusta, waiting to take her seat among the elders;--but Lizzie passed on through them all, without a word, and marched up to her bed-room. "Oh, Frederic, what is the matter?" asked Augusta, as soon as her brother entered the house. "Never mind. Nothing is the matter. You had better go to church. Where is my mother?" At this moment Lady Fawn appeared at the bottom of the stairs, having passed Lizzie as she was coming down. Not a syllable had then been spoken, but Lady Fawn at once knew that much was wrong. Her son went up to her and whispered a word in her ear. "Oh, certainly," she said, desisting from the operation of pulling on her gloves. "Augusta, neither your brother nor I will go to church." "Nor--Lady Eustace?" "It seems not," said Lady Fawn. "Lady Eustace will not go to church," said Lord Fawn. "And where is Lucy?" asked Lydia. "She will not go to church either," said Lady Fawn. "I have just been with her." "Nobody is going to church," said Nina. "All the same, I shall go by myself." "Augusta, my dear, you and the girls had better go. You can take the carriage of course." But Augusta and the girls chose to walk, and the carriage was sent round into the yard. "There's a rumpus already between my lord and the young missus," said the coachman to the groom;--for the coachman had seen the way in which Lady Eustace had returned to the house. And there certainly was a rumpus. During the whole morning Lord Fawn was closeted with his mother, and then he went away to London without saying a word to any one of the family. But he left this note for Lady Eustace:-- DEAREST LIZZIE, Think well of what I have said to you. It is not that I desire to break off our engagement; but that I cannot allow my wife to keep the diamonds which belong of right to her late husband's family. You may be sure that I should not be thus urgent had I not taken steps to ascertain that I am right in my judgment. In the meantime you had better consult my mother. Yours affectionately, FAWN. CHAPTER XV "I'll Give You a Hundred Guinea Brooch" There had been another "affair" in the house that morning, though of a nature very different to the "rumpus" which had occurred between Lord Fawn and Lady Eustace. Lady Fawn had been closeted with Lucy, and had expressed her opinion of the impropriety of Frank Greystock's visit. "I suppose he came to see his cousin," said Lady Fawn, anxious to begin with some apology for such conduct. "I cannot tell," said Lucy. "Perhaps he did. I think he said so. I think he cared more to see me." Then Lady Fawn was obliged to express her opinion, and she did so, uttering many words of wisdom. Frank Greystock, had he intended to sacrifice his prospects by a disinterested marriage, would have spoken out before now. He was old enough to have made up his mind on such a subject, and he had not spoken out. He did not mean marriage. That was quite evident to Lady Fawn;--and her dear Lucy was revelling in hopes which would make her miserable. If Lucy could only have known of the letter, which was already her own property though lying in the pillar letter-box in Fleet Street, and which had not already been sent down and delivered simply because it was Sunday morning! But she was very brave. "He does love me," she said. "He told me so." "Oh, Lucy;--that is worse and worse. A man to tell you that he loves you, and yet not ask you to be his wife!" "I am contented," said Lucy. That assertion, however, could hardly have been true. "Contented! And did you tell him that you returned his love?" "He knew it without my telling him," said Lucy. It was so hard upon her that she should be so interrogated while that letter was lying in the iron box! "Dear Lucy, this must not be," said Lady Fawn. "You are preparing for yourself inexpressible misery." "I have done nothing wrong, Lady Fawn." "No, my dear;--no. I do not say you have been wrong. But I think he is wrong,--so wrong! I call it wicked. I do indeed. For your own sake you should endeavour to forget him." "I will never forget him!" said Lucy. "To think of him is everything to me. He told me I was his Queen, and he shall be my King. I will be loyal to him always." To poor Lady Fawn this was very dreadful. The girl persisted in declaring her love for the man, and yet did not even pretend to think that the man meant to marry her! And this, too, was Lucy Morris,--of whom Lady Fawn was accustomed to say to her intimate friends that she had altogether ceased to look upon her as a governess. "Just one of ourselves, Mrs. Winslow,--and almost as dear as one of my own girls!" Thus, in the warmth of her heart, she had described Lucy to a neighbour within the last week. Many more words of wisdom she spoke, and then she left poor Lucy in no mood for church. Would she have been in a better mood for the morning service had she known of the letter in the iron post? Then Lady Fawn had put on her bonnet and gone down into the hall, and the "rumpus" had come. After that, everybody in the house knew that all things were astray. When the girls came home from church, their brother was gone. Half an hour before dinner Lady Fawn sent the note up to Lizzie, with a message to say that they would dine at three,--it being Sunday. Lizzie sent down word that as she was unwell, she would ask to have just a cup of tea and "something" sent to her own room. If Lady Fawn would allow her, she would remain up-stairs with her child. She always made use of her child when troubles came. The afternoon was very sad and dreary. Lady Fawn had an interview with Lady Eustace, but Lizzie altogether refused to listen to any advice on the subject of the necklace. "It is an affair," she said haughtily, "in which I must judge for myself,--or with the advice of my own particular friends. Had Lord Fawn waited until we were married; then indeed--!" "But that would have been too late," said Lady Fawn severely. "He is, at any rate, premature now in laying his commands upon me," said Lizzie. Lady Fawn, who was perhaps more anxious that the marriage should be broken off than that the jewels should be restored, then withdrew; and as she left the room Lizzie clasped her boy to her bosom. "He, at any rate, is left to me," she said. Lucy and the Fawn girls went to evening church, and afterwards Lizzie came down among them when they were at tea. Before she went to bed Lizzie declared her intention of returning to her own house in Mount Street on the following day. To this Lady Fawn of course made no objection. On the next morning there came an event which robbed Lizzie's departure of some of the importance which might otherwise have been attached to it. The post-office, with that accuracy in the performance of its duties for which it is conspicuous among all offices, caused Lucy's letter to be delivered to her while the members of the family were sitting round the breakfast table. Lizzie, indeed, was not there. She had expressed her intention of breakfasting in her own room, and had requested that a conveyance might be ready to take her to the 11.30 train. Augusta had been with her, asking whether anything could be done for her. "I care for nothing now, except my child," Lizzie had replied. As the nurse and the lady's maid were both in the room, Augusta, of course, could say nothing further. That occurred after prayers, and while the tea was being made. When Augusta reached the breakfast-room, Lucy was cutting up the loaf of bread, and at the same moment the old butler was placing a letter immediately under her eyes. She saw the handwriting and recognised it, but yet she finished cutting the bread. "Lucy, do give me that hunchy bit," said Nina. "Hunchy is not in the dictionary," said Cecilia. "I want it in my plate, and not in the dictionary," said Nina. Lucy did as she was asked, but her hand trembled as she gave the hunch, and Lady Fawn saw that her face was crimson. She took the letter and broke the envelope, and as she drew out the sheet of paper, she looked up at Lady Fawn. The fate of her whole life was in her hands, and there she was standing with all their eyes fixed upon her. She did not even know how to sit down, but, still standing, she read the first words, and at the last, "Dear, dear Lucy,"--"Yours ever and always, if you will have me, F. G." She did not want to read any more of it then. She sat down slowly, put the precious paper back into its envelope, looked round upon them all, and knew that she was crimson to the roots of her hair, blushing like a guilty thing. "Lucy, my dear," said Lady Fawn,--and Lucy at once turned her face full upon her old friend,--"you have got a letter that agitates you." "Yes,--I have," she said. "Go into the book-room. You can come back to breakfast when you have read it, you know." Thereupon Lucy rose from her seat, and retired with her treasure into the book-room. But even when she was there she could not at once read her letter. When the door was closed and she knew that she was alone she looked at it, and then clasped it tight between her hands. She was almost afraid to read it lest the letter itself should contradict the promise which the last words of it had seemed to convey to her. She went up to the window and stood there gazing out upon the gravel road, with her hand containing the letter pressed upon her heart. Lady Fawn had told her that she was preparing for herself inexpressible misery;--and now there had come to her joy so absolutely inexpressible! "A man to tell you that he loves you, and yet not ask you to be his wife!" She repeated to herself Lady Fawn's words,--and then those other words, "Yours ever and always, if you will have me!" Have him, indeed! She threw from her, at once, as vain and wicked and false, all idea of coying her love. She would leap at his neck if he were there, and tell him that for years he had been almost her god. And of course he knew it. "If I will have him! Traitor!" she said to herself, smiling through her tears. Then she reflected that after all it would be well that she should read the letter. There might be conditions;--though what conditions could he propose with which she would not comply? However, she seated herself in a corner of the room and did read the letter. As she read it, she hardly understood it all;--but she understood what she wanted to understand. He asked her to share with him his home. He had spoken to her that day without forethought;--but mustn't such speech be the truest and the sweetest of all speeches? "And now I write to you to ask you to be my wife." Oh, how wrong some people can be in their judgments! How wrong Lady Fawn had been in hers about Frank Greystock! "For the last year or two I have lived with this hope before me." "And so have I," said Lucy. "And so have I;--with that and no other." "Too great confidence! Traitor," she said again, smiling and weeping, "yes, traitor; when of course you knew it." "Is his happiness in my hands? Oh,--then he shall be happy." "Of course I will tell Lady Fawn at once;--instantly. Dear Lady Fawn! But yet she has been so wrong. I suppose she will let him come here. But what does it matter, now that I know it?" "Yours ever and always,--if you will have me.--F. G." "Traitor, traitor, traitor!" Then she got up and walked about the room, not knowing what she did, holding the letter now between her hands, and then pressing it to her lips. She was still walking about the room when there came a low tap at the door, and Lady Fawn entered. "There is nothing the matter, Lucy?" Lucy stood stock still, with her treasure still clasped, smiling, almost laughing, while the tears ran down her cheeks. "Won't you eat your breakfast, my dear?" said Lady Fawn. "Oh, Lady Fawn--oh, Lady Fawn!" said Lucy, rushing into her friend's arms. "What is it, Lucy? I think our little wise one has lost her wits." "Oh, Lady Fawn, he has asked me!" "Is it Mr. Greystock?" "Yes;--Mr. Greystock. He has asked me. He has asked me to be his wife. I thought he loved me. I hoped he did, at least. Oh dear, I did so hope it! And he does!" "Has he proposed to you?" "Yes, Lady Fawn. I told you what he said to me. And then he went and wrote this. Is he not noble and good,--and so kind? You shall read it,--but you'll give it me back, Lady Fawn?" "Certainly I'll give it you back. You don't think I'd rob you of your lover's letter?" "Perhaps you might think it right." "If it is really an offer of marriage--," said Lady Fawn very seriously. "It couldn't be more of an offer if he had sat writing it for ever," said Lucy as she gave up her letter with confidence. Lady Fawn read it with leisurely attention, and smiled as she put the paper back into the envelope. "All the men in the world couldn't say it more plainly," said Lucy, nodding her head forward. "I don't think they could," said Lady Fawn. "I never read anything plainer in my life. I wish you joy with all my heart, Lucy. There is not a word to be said against him." "Against him!" said Lucy, who thought that this was very insufficient praise. "What I mean is, that when I objected to his coming here I was only afraid that he couldn't afford,--or would think, you know, that in his position he couldn't afford to marry a wife without a fortune." "He may come now, Lady Fawn?" "Well,--yes; I think so. I shall be glad just to say a word to him. Of course you are in my hands, and I do love you so dearly, Lucy! I could not bear that anything but good should happen to you." "This is good," said Lucy. "It won't be good, and Mr. Greystock won't think you good, if you don't come and eat your breakfast." So Lucy was led back into the parlour, and sipped her tea and crunched her toast, while Lydia came and stood over her. "Of course it is from him?" whispered Lydia. Lucy again nodded her head while she was crunching her toast. The fact that Mr. Greystock had proposed in form to Lucy Morris was soon known to all the family, and the news certainly did take away something from the importance which would otherwise have been attached to Lizzie's departure. There was not the same awe of the ceremony, the same dread of some scene, which, but for Frank Greystock's letter, would have existed. Of course, Lord Fawn's future matrimonial prospects were to them all an affair of more moment than those of Lucy; but Lord Fawn himself had gone, and had already quarrelled with the lady before he went. There was at present nothing more to be done by them in regard to Lizzie, than just to get rid of her. But Lucy's good fortune, so unexpected, and by her so frankly owned as the very best fortune in the world that could have befallen her, gave an excitement to them all. There could be no lessons that morning for Nina, and the usual studies of the family were altogether interrupted. Lady Fawn purred, and congratulated, and gave good advice, and declared that any other home for Lucy before her marriage would now be quite out of the question. "Of course it wouldn't do for you to go even to Clara," said Lady Fawn,--who seemed to think that there still might be some delay before Frank Greystock would be ready for his wife. "You know, my dear, that he isn't rich;--not for a member of Parliament. I suppose he makes a good income, but I have always heard that he was a little backward when he began. Of course, you know, nobody need be in a hurry." Then Lucy began to think that if Frank should wish to postpone his marriage,--say for three or four years,--she might even yet become a burthen on her friend. "But don't you be frightened," continued Lady Fawn; "you shall never want a home as long as I have one to give you. We shall soon find out what are Mr. Greystock's ideas; and unless he is very unreasonable we'll make things fit." Then there came a message to Lucy from Lady Eustace. "If you please, miss, Lady Eustace will be glad to see you for a minute up in her room before she starts." So Lucy was torn away from the thoughts of her own happiness, and taken up-stairs to Lady Eustace. "You have heard that I am going?" said Lizzie. "Yes;--I heard you were to go this morning." "And you have heard why? I'm sure you will not deceive me, Lucy. Where am I to look for truth, if not to an old, old friend like you?" "Why should I deceive you, Lizzie?" "Why, indeed? only that all people do. The world is so false, so material, so worldly! One gives out one's heart and gets in return nothing but dust and ashes,--nothing but ashes and dust. Oh, I have been so disappointed in Lady Fawn!" "You know she is my dearest friend," said Lucy. "Psha! I know that you have worked for her like a slave, and that she gives you but a bare pittance." "She has been more like a mother to me than anything else," said Lucy angrily. "Because you have been tame. It does not suit me to be tame. It is not my plan to be tame. Have you heard the cause of the disagreement between Lord Fawn and me?" "Well,--no." "Tell the truth, Lucy." "How dare you tell me to tell the truth? Of course I tell the truth. I believe it is something about some property which he wants you to give back to somebody; but I don't know any more." "Yes, my dear husband, Sir Florian, who understood me,--whom I idolized,--who seemed to have been made for me,--gave me a present. Lord Fawn is pleased to say that he does not approve of my keeping any gift from my late lord. Considering that he intends to live upon the wealth which Sir Florian was generous enough to bestow upon me, this does seem to be strange! Of course, I resented such interference. Would not you have resented it?" "I don't know," said Lucy, who thought that she could bring herself to comply with any request made to her by Frank Greystock. "Any woman who had a spark of spirit would resent it, and I have resented it. I have told Lord Fawn that I will, on no account, part with the rich presents which my adored Florian showered upon me in his generosity. It is not for their richness that I keep them, but because they are, for his sake, so inexpressibly dear to me. If Lord Fawn chooses to be jealous of a necklace, he must be jealous." Lucy, who had, in truth, heard but a small fragment of the story,--just so much of it as Lydia had learned from the discreet Amelia, who herself had but a very hazy idea of the facts,--did not quite know how much of the tale, as it was now told to her, might be true and how much false. After a certain fashion she and Lizzie Eustace called themselves friends. But she did not believe her friend to be honest, and was aware that in some matters her friend would condescend--to fib. Lizzie's poetry, and romance, and high feelings, had never had the ring of true soundness in Lucy's ears. But her imagination was not strong enough to soar to the altitude of the lies which Lizzie was now telling. She did believe that the property which Lizzie was called upon to restore was held to be objectionable by Lord Fawn simply because it had reached Lizzie from the hands of her late husband. "What do you think of such conduct as that?" asked Lady Eustace. "Won't it do if you lock them up instead of wearing them?" asked Lucy. "I have never dreamed of wearing them." "I don't understand about such things," said Lucy, determined not to impute any blame to one of the Fawn family. "It is tyranny, sheer tyranny," continued the other, "and he will find that I am not the woman to yield to it. No. For love I could give up everything;--but nothing from fear. He has told me in so many words that he does not intend to go on with his engagement!" "Has he indeed?" "But I intend that he shall. If he thinks that I am going to be thrown over because he takes ideas of that kind into his head, he's mistaken. He shall know that I'm not to be made a plaything of like that. I'll tell you what you can do for me, Lucy." "What can I do for you?" "There is no one in the world I trust more thoroughly than I do you," said Lizzie,--"and hardly any one that I love so well. Think how long we have known each other! And you may be sure of this;--I always have been, and always will be, your friend with my cousin Frank." "I don't want anything of that kind," said Lucy,--"and never did." "Nobody has so much influence with Frank as I. Just do you write to me to-morrow, and the next day,--and the day after,--a mere line, you know, to tell me how the land lies here." "There would be nothing to tell." "Yes, there will; ever so much. They will be talking about me every hour. If you'll be true to me, Lucy, in this business, I'll make you the handsomest present you ever saw in your life. I'll give you a hundred-guinea brooch;--I will, indeed. You shall have the money, and buy it yourself." "A what!" said Lucy. "A hundred guineas to do what you please with!" "You mean thing!" said Lucy. "I didn't think there was a woman so mean as that in the world. I'm not surprised now at Lord Fawn. Pick up what I hear, and send it you in letters,--and then be paid money for it!" "Why not? It's all to do good." "How can you have thought to ask me to do such a thing? How can you bring yourself to think so badly of people? I'd sooner cut my hand off; and as for you, Lizzie--I think you are mean and wicked to conceive such a thing. And now good-bye." So saying, she left the room, giving her dear friend no time for further argument. Lady Eustace got away that morning, not in time, indeed, for the 11.30 train, but at such an hour as to make it unnecessary that she should appear at the early dinner. The saying of farewell was very cold and ceremonious. Of course, there was no word as to any future visit,--no word as to any future events whatever. They all shook hands with her, and special injunctions were given to the coachman to drive her safely to the station. At this ceremony Lucy was not present. Lydia had asked her to come down and say good-bye; but Lucy refused. "I saw her in her own room," said Lucy. "And was it all very affectionate?" Lydia asked. "Well--no; it was not affectionate at all." This was all that Lucy said, and thus Lady Eustace completed her visit to Fawn Court. The letters were taken away for the post at eight o'clock in the evening, and before that time it was necessary that Lucy should write to her lover. "Lady Fawn," she said in a whisper, "may I tell him to come here?" "Certainly, my dear. You had better tell him to call on me. Of course he'll see you, too, when he comes." "I think he'd want to see me," said Lucy, "and I'm sure I should want to see him!" Then she wrote her answer to Frank's letter. She allowed herself an hour for the happy task; but though the letter, when written, was short, the hour hardly sufficed for the writing of it. "DEAR MR. GREYSTOCK;"--there was matter for her of great consideration before she could get even so far as this; but, after biting her pen for ten minutes, during which she pictured to herself how pleasant it would be to call him Frank when he should have told her to do so, and had found, upon repeated whispered trials, that of all names it was the pleasantest to pronounce, she decided upon refraining from writing it now-- Lady Fawn has seen your letter to me,--the dearest letter that ever was written,--and she says that you may call upon _her_. But you mustn't go away without seeing _me too_. Then there was great difficulty as to the words to be used by her for the actual rendering herself up to him as his future wife. At last the somewhat too Spartan simplicity of her nature prevailed, and the words were written, very plain and very short. I love you better than all the world, and I will be your wife. It shall be the happiness of my life to try to deserve you. I am, with all my heart, Most affectionately your own LUCY. When it was written it did not content her. But the hour was over, and the letters must go. "I suppose it'll do," she said to herself. "He'll know what it means." And so the letter was sent. CHAPTER XVI Certainly an Heirloom The burden of his position was so heavy on Lord Fawn's mind that, on the Monday morning after leaving Fawn Court, he was hardly as true to the affairs of India as he himself would have wished. He was resolved to do what was right,--if only he could find out what would be the right thing in his present difficulty. Not to break his word, not to be unjust, not to deviate by a hair's breadth from that line of conduct which would be described as "honourable" in the circle to which he belonged; not to give his political enemies an opportunity for calumny,--this was all in all to him. The young widow was very lovely and very rich, and it would have suited him well to marry her. It would still suit him well to do so, if she would make herself amenable to reason and the laws. He had assured himself that he was very much in love with her, and had already, in his imagination, received the distinguished heads of his party at Portray Castle. But he would give all this up,--love, income, beauty, and castle,--without a doubt, rather than find himself in the mess of having married a wife who had stolen a necklace, and who would not make restitution. He might marry her, and insist on giving it up afterwards; but he foresaw terrible difficulties in the way of such an arrangement. Lady Eustace was self-willed, and had already told him that she did not intend to keep the jewels in his house,--but in her own! What should he do, so that no human being,--not the most bigoted Tory that ever expressed scorn for a Whig lord,--should be able to say that he had done wrong? He was engaged to the lady, and could not simply change his mind and give no reason. He believed in Mr. Camperdown; but he could hardly plead that belief, should he hereafter be accused of heartless misconduct. For aught he knew, Lady Eustace might bring an action against him for breach of promise, and obtain a verdict and damages, and annihilate him as an Under-Secretary. How should he keep his hands quite clean? Frank Greystock was, as far as he knew, Lizzie's nearest relative in London. The dean was her uncle, but then the dean was down at Bobsborough. It might be necessary for him to go down to Bobsborough;--but in the meantime he would see Frank Greystock. Greystock was as bitter a Tory as any in England. Greystock was the very man who had attacked him, Lord Fawn, in the House of Commons respecting the Sawab,--making the attack quite personal,--and that without a shadow of a cause! Within the short straight grooves of Lord Fawn's intellect the remembrance of this supposed wrong was always running up and down, renewing its own soreness. He regarded Greystock as an enemy who would lose no opportunity of injuring him. In his weakness and littleness he was quite unable to judge of other men by himself. He would not go a hair's breadth astray, if he knew it; but because Greystock had, in debate, called him timid and tyrannical, he believed that Greystock would stop short of nothing that might injure him. And yet he must appeal to Greystock. He did appeal, and in answer to his appeal Frank came to him at the India House. But Frank, before he saw Lord Fawn, had, as was fitting, been with his cousin. Nothing was decided at this interview. Lord Fawn became more than ever convinced that the member for Bobsborough was his determined enemy, and Frank was more convinced than ever that Lord Fawn was an empty, stiff-necked, self-sufficient prig. Greystock, of course, took his cousin's part. He was there to do so; and he himself really did not know whether Lizzie was or was not entitled to the diamonds. The lie which she had first fabricated for the benefit of Mr. Benjamin when she had the jewels valued, and which she had since told with different degrees of precision to various people,--to Lady Linlithgow, to Mr. Camperdown, to Lucy, and to Lord Fawn,--she now repeated with increased precision to her cousin. Sir Florian, in putting the trinket into her hands, had explained to her that it was very valuable, and that she was to regard it as her own peculiar property. "If it was an heirloom he couldn't do it," Frank had said, with all the confidence of a practising barrister. "He made it over as an heirloom to me," said Lizzie, with plaintive tenderness. "That's nonsense, dear Lizzie." Then she smiled sweetly on him, and patted the back of his hand with hers. She was very gentle with him, and bore his assumed superiority with pretty meekness. "He could not make it over as an heirloom to you. If it was his to give, he could give it you." "It was his,--certainly." "That is just what I cannot tell as yet, and what must be found out. If the diamonds formed part of an heirloom,--and there is evidence that it is so,--you must give them up. Sir Florian could only give away what was his own to give." "But Lord Fawn had no right to dictate." "Certainly not," said Frank; and then he made a promise, which he knew to be rash, that he would stand by his pretty cousin in this affair. "I don't see why you should assume that Lady Eustace is keeping property that doesn't belong to her," he said to Lord Fawn. "I go by what Camperdown tells me," said Lord Fawn. "Mr. Camperdown is a very excellent attorney, and a most respectable man," said Greystock. "I have nothing on earth to say against Mr. Camperdown. But Mr. Camperdown isn't the law and the prophets, nor yet can we allow him to be judge and jury in such a case as this." "Surely, Mr. Greystock, you wouldn't wish it to go before a jury." "You don't understand me, Lord Fawn. If any claim be really made for these jewels by Mr. John Eustace on the part of the heir, or on behalf of the estate, a statement had better be submitted to counsel. The family deeds must be inspected, and no doubt counsel would agree in telling my cousin, Lady Eustace, what she should, or what she should not do. In the meantime, I understand that you are engaged to marry her?" "I was engaged to her, certainly," said Lord Fawn. "You can hardly mean to assert, my lord, that you intend to be untrue to your promise, and to throw over your own engagement because my cousin has expressed her wish to retain property which she believes to be her own!" This was said in a tone which made Lord Fawn surer than ever that Greystock was his enemy to the knife. Personally, he was not a coward; and he knew enough of the world to be quite sure that Greystock would not attempt any personal encounter. But morally, Lord Fawn was a coward, and he did fear that the man before him would work him some bitter injury. "You cannot mean that," continued Frank, "and you will probably allow me to assure my cousin that she misunderstood you in the matter." "I'd sooner see Mr. Camperdown again before I say anything." "I cannot understand, Lord Fawn, that a gentleman should require an attorney to tell him what to do in such a case as this." They were standing now, and Lord Fawn's countenance was heavy, troubled, and full of doubt. He said nothing, and was probably altogether unaware how eloquent was his face. "My cousin, Lady Eustace," continued Frank, "must not be kept in this suspense. I agree on her behalf that her title to these trinkets must be made the subject of inquiry by persons adequate to form a judgment. Of course, I, as her relative, shall take no part in that inquiry. But, as her relative, I must demand from you an admission that your engagement with her cannot in any way be allowed to depend on the fate of those jewels. She has chosen to accept you as her future husband, and I am bound to see that she is treated with good faith, honour, and fair observance." Frank made his demand very well, while Lord Fawn was looking like a whipped dog. "Of course," said his lordship, "all I want is, that the right thing should be done." "The right thing will be done. My cousin wishes to keep nothing that is not her own. I may tell her, then, that she will receive from you an assurance that you have had no intention of departing from your word?" After this, Lord Fawn made some attempt at a stipulation that this assurance to Lizzie was to be founded on the counter-assurance given to him that the matter of the diamonds should be decided by proper legal authority; but Frank would not submit to this, and at last the Under-Secretary yielded. The engagement was to remain in force. Counsel were to be employed. The two lovers were not to see each other just at present. And when the matter had been decided by the lawyers, Lord Fawn was to express his regret for having suspected his lady-love! That was the verbal agreement, according to Frank Greystock's view of it. Lord Fawn, no doubt, would have declared that he had never consented to the latter stipulation. About a week after this there was a meeting at Mr. Camperdown's chambers. Greystock, as his cousin's friend, attended to hear what Mr. Camperdown had to say in the presence of Lord Fawn and John Eustace. He, Frank, had, in the meantime, been down to Richmond, had taken Lucy to his arms as his future bride, and had been closeted with Lady Fawn. As a man who was doing his duty by Lucy Morris, he was welcomed and made much of by her ladyship; but it had been impossible to leave Lizzie's name altogether unmentioned, and Frank had spoken as the champion of his cousin. Of course there had arisen something of ill-feeling between the two. Lady Fawn had taught herself to hate Lizzie, and was desirous that the match should be over, diamonds or no diamonds. She could not quite say this to her visitor, but she showed her feeling very plainly. Frank was courteous, cold, and resolute in presuming, or pretending to presume, that as a matter of course the marriage would take place. Lady Fawn intended to be civil, but she could not restrain her feeling; and though she did not dare to say that her son would have nothing more to do with Lizzie Eustace, she showed very plainly that she intended to work with that object. Of course, the two did not part as cordial friends, and of course poor Lucy perceived that it was so. Before the meeting took place, Mr. Camperdown had been at work, looking over old deeds. It is undoubtedly the case that things often become complicated which, from the greatness of their importance, should have been kept clear as running water. The diamonds in question had been bought, with other jewels, by Sir Florian's grandfather, on the occasion of his marriage with the daughter of a certain duke,--on which occasion old family jewels, which were said to have been heirlooms, were sold or given in exchange as part value for those then purchased. This grandfather, who had also been Sir Florian in his time, had expressly stated in his will that these jewels were to be regarded as an heirloom in the family, and had as such left them to his eldest son, and to that son's eldest son, should such a child be born. His eldest son had possessed them, but not that son's son. There was such an Eustace born, but he had died before his father. The younger son of that old Sir Florian had then succeeded, as Sir Thomas, and he was the father of that Florian who had married Lizzie Eustace. That last Sir Florian had therefore been the fourth in succession from the old Sir Florian by whom the will had been made, and who had directed that these jewels should be regarded as heirlooms in the family. The two intermediate baronets had made no allusion to the diamonds in any deeds executed by them. Indeed, Sir Florian's father had died without a will. There were other jewels, larger but much less valuable than the diamonds, still in the hands of the Messrs. Garnett, as to which no question was raised. The late Sir Florian had, by his will, left all the property in his house at Portray to his widow, but all property elsewhere to his heir. This was what Mr. Camperdown had at last learned, but he had been forced to admit to himself, while learning this, that there was confusion. He was confident enough, however, that there was no difficulty in the matter. The Messrs. Garnett were able to say that the necklace had been in their keeping, with various other jewels still in their possession, from the time of the death of the late Lady Eustace, up to the marriage of the late Sir Florian, her son. They stated the date on which the jewels were given up to be the 24th of September, which was the day after Sir Florian's return from Scotland with his bride. Lizzie's first statement had coincided with this entry in the Messrs. Garnett's books; but latterly she had asserted that the necklace had been given to her in Scotland. When Mr. Camperdown examined the entry himself in the jewellers' book, he found the figures to be so blotted that they might represent either the 4th or 24th September. Now, the 4th September had been the day preceding Sir Florian's marriage. John Eustace only knew that he had seen the necklace worn in Scotland by his mother. The bishop only knew that he had often seen them on the neck of his sister-in-law when, as was very often the case, she appeared in full-blown society. Mr. Camperdown believed that he had traced two stories to Lizzie,--one, repeated more than once, that the diamonds had been given to her in London, and a second, made to himself, that they had been given to her at Portray. He himself believed that they had never been in Scotland since the death of the former Lady Eustace; but he was quite confident that he could trust altogether to the disposition made of them by the old Sir Florian. There could be no doubt as to these being the diamonds there described, although the setting had been altered. Old Mr. Garnett stated that he would swear to them if he saw the necklace. "You cannot suppose that Lady Eustace wishes to keep anything that is not her own," said Frank Greystock. "Of course not," said John Eustace. "Nobody imagines it," said Mr. Camperdown. Lord Fawn, who felt that he ought not to be there, and who did not know whether he might with a better grace take Lizzie's part or a part against her, said nothing. "But," continued Mr. Camperdown, "there is luckily no doubt as to the facts. The diamonds in question formed a part of a set of most valuable ornaments settled in the family by Sir Florian Eustace in 1799. The deed was drawn up by my grandfather, and is now here. I do not know how we are to have further proof. Will you look at the deed, Mr. Greystock, and at the will?" Frank suggested that, as it might probably be expedient to take advice on the subject professionally, he had rather not look at the deed. Anything which he might say, on looking at the document now, could have no weight. "But why should any advice be necessary," said Mr. Camperdown, "when the matter is so clear?" "My dear sir," said Frank, "my cousin, Lady Eustace, is strong in her confidence that her late husband intended to give them to her as her own, and that he would not have done this without the power of doing so." Now, Mr. Camperdown was quite sure that Lizzie was lying in this, and could therefore make no adequate answer. "Your experience must probably have told you," continued Frank, "that there is considerable difficulty in dealing with the matter of heirlooms." "I never heard of any such difficulty," said Mr. Camperdown. "People generally understand it all so clearly," said Lord Fawn. "The late Sir Florian does not appear to have understood it very clearly," said Frank. "Let her put them into the hands of any indifferent person or firm till the matter is decided," said Mr. Camperdown. "They will be much safer so than in her keeping." "I think they are quite safe," said Frank. And this was all that took place at that meeting. As Mr. Camperdown said to John Eustace, it was manifest enough that she meant "to hang on to them." "I only hope Lord Fawn will not be fool enough to marry her," said Mr. Camperdown. Lord Fawn himself was of the same way of thinking;--but then how was he to clear his character of the charge which would be brought against him; and how was he to stand his ground before Frank Greystock? CHAPTER XVII The Diamonds Are Seen in Public Let it not be supposed that Lady Eustace, during these summer weeks, was living the life of a recluse. The London season was in its full splendour, and she was by no means a recluse. During the first year of her widowhood she had been every inch a widow,--as far as crape would go, and a quiet life either at Bobsborough or Portray Castle. During this year her child was born,--and she was in every way thrown upon her good behaviour, living with bishops' wives and deans' daughters. Two years of retreat from the world is generally thought to be the proper thing for a widow. Lizzie had not quite accomplished her two years before she re-opened the campaign in Mount Street with very small remnants of weeds, and with her crape brought down to a minimum;--but she was young and rich, and the world is aware that a woman of twenty-two can hardly afford to sacrifice two whole years. In the matter of her widowhood Lizzie did not encounter very much reproach. She was not shunned, or so ill spoken of as to have a widely-spread bad name among the streets and squares in which her carriage-wheels rolled. People called her a flirt, held up their hands in surprise at Sir Florian's foolish generosity,--for the accounts of Lizzie's wealth were greatly exaggerated,--and said that of course she would marry again. The general belief which often seizes upon the world in regard to some special falsehood is very surprising. Everybody on a sudden adopts an idea that some particular man is over head and ears in debt, so that he can hardly leave his house for fear of the bailiffs;--or that some ill-fated woman is cruelly ill-used by her husband;--or that some eldest son has ruined his father; whereas the man doesn't owe a shilling, the woman never hears a harsh word from her lord, and the eldest son in question has never succeeded in obtaining a shilling beyond his allowance. One of the lies about London this season was founded on the extent of Lady Eustace's jointure. Indeed, the lie went on to state that the jointure was more than a jointure. It was believed that the property in Ayrshire was her own, to do what she pleased with it. That the property in Ayrshire was taken at double its value was a matter of course. It had been declared, at the time of his marriage, that Sir Florian had been especially generous to his penniless wife, and the generosity was magnified in the ordinary way. No doubt Lizzie's own diligence had done much to propagate the story as to her positive ownership of Portray. Mr. Camperdown had been very busy denying this. John Eustace had denied it whenever occasion offered. The bishop in his quiet way had denied it. Lady Linlithgow had denied it. But the lie had been set on foot and had thriven, and there was hardly a man about town who didn't know that Lady Eustace had eight or nine thousand a year, altogether at her own disposal, down in Scotland. Of course a woman so endowed, so rich, so beautiful, so clever, so young, would marry again, and would marry well. No doubt, added to this there was a feeling that "Lizzie," as she was not uncommonly called by people who had hardly ever seen her, had something amiss with it all. "I don't know where it is she's lame," said that very clever man, Captain Boodle, who had lately reappeared among his military friends at his club, "but she don't go flat all round." "She has the devil of a temper, no doubt," said Lieutenant Griggs. "No mouth, I should say," said Boodle. It was thus that Lizzie was talked about at the clubs; but she was asked to dinners and balls, and gave little dinners herself, and to a certain extent was the fashion. Everybody had declared that of course she would marry again, and now it was known everywhere that she was engaged to Lord Fawn. "Poor dear Lord Fawn!" said Lady Glencora Palliser to her dear friend Madame Max Goesler; "do you remember how violently he was in love with Violet Effingham two years ago?" "Two years is a long time, Lady Glencora; and Violet Effingham has chosen another husband." "But isn't this a fall for him? Violet was the sweetest girl out, and at one time I really thought she meant to take him." "I thought she meant to take another man whom she did not take," said Madame Goesler, who had her own recollections, who was a widow herself, and who, at the period to which Lady Glencora was referring, had thought that perhaps she might cease to be a widow. Not that she had ever suggested to herself that Lord Fawn might be her second husband. "Poor Lord Fawn!" continued Lady Glencora. "I suppose he is terribly in want of money." "But surely Lady Eustace is very pretty." "Yes;--she is very pretty; nay more, she is quite lovely to look at. And she is clever,--very. And she is rich,--very. But--" "Well, Lady Glencora. What does your 'but' mean?" "Who ever explains a 'but'? You're a great deal too clever, Madame Goesler, to want any explanation. And I couldn't explain it. I can only say I'm sorry for poor Lord Fawn,--who is a gentleman, but will never set the Thames on fire." "No, indeed. All the same, I like Lord Fawn extremely," said Madame Goesler, "and I think he's just the man to marry Lady Eustace. He's always at his office or at the House." "A man may be a great deal at his office, and a great deal more at the House than Lord Fawn," said Lady Glencora laughing, "and yet think about his wife, my dear." For of all men known, no man spent more hours at the House or in his office than did Lady Glencora's husband, Mr. Palliser, who at this time, and had now for more than two years, filled the high place of Chancellor of the Exchequer. This conversation took place in Madame Goesler's little drawing-room in Park Lane; but, three days after this, the same two ladies met again at the house then occupied by Lady Chiltern in Portman Square,--Lady Chiltern, with whom, as Violet Effingham, poor Lord Fawn had been much in love. "I think it is the nicest match in the world for him," Lady Chiltern had said to Madame Goesler. "But have you heard of the diamonds?" asked Lady Glencora. "What diamonds?" "Whose diamonds?" Neither of the others had heard of the diamonds, and Lady Glencora was able to tell her story. Lady Eustace had found all the family jewels belonging to the Eustace family in the strong plate room at Portray Castle, and had taken possession of them as property found in her own house. John Eustace and the bishop had combined in demanding them on behalf of the heir, and a lawsuit had then commenced! The diamonds were the most costly belonging to any Commoner in England, and had been valued at twenty-four thousand pounds! Lord Fawn had retreated from his engagement the moment he heard that any doubt was thrown on Lady Eustace's right to their possession! Lady Eustace had declared her intention of bringing an action against Lord Fawn,--and had also secreted the diamonds! The reader will be aware that this statement was by no means an accurate history of the difficulty as far as it had as yet progressed. It was, indeed, absolutely false in every detail; but it sufficed to show that the matter was becoming public. "You don't mean to say that Lord Fawn is off?" asked Madame Goesler. "I do," said Lady Glencora. "Poor Lord Fawn!" exclaimed Lady Chiltern. "It really seems as though he never would be settled." "I don't think he has courage enough for such conduct as that," said Madame Goesler. "And besides, Lady Eustace's income is quite certain," said Lady Chiltern, "and poor dear Lord Fawn does want money so badly." "But it is very disagreeable," said Lady Glencora, "to believe that your wife has got the finest diamonds in England, and then to find that she has only--stolen them. I think Lord Fawn is right. If a man does marry for money he should have the money. I wonder she ever took him. There is no doubt about her beauty, and she might have done better." "I won't hear Lord Fawn be-littled," said Lady Chiltern. "Done better!" said Madame Goesler. "How could she have done better? He is a peer, and her son would be a peer. I don't think she could have done better." Lady Glencora in her time had wished to marry a man who had sought her for her money. Lady Chiltern in her time had refused to be Lady Fawn. Madame Goesler in her time had declined to marry an English peer. There was, therefore, something more of interest in the conversation to each of them than was quite expressed in the words spoken. "Is she to be at your party on Friday, Lady Glencora?" asked Madame Goesler. "She has said she would come,--and so has Lord Fawn; for that matter, Lord Fawn dines with us. She'll find that out, and then she'll stay away." "Not she," said Lady Chiltern. "She'll come for the sake of the bravado. She's not the woman to show the white feather." "If he's ill-using her she's quite right," said Madame Goesler. "And wear the very diamonds in dispute," said Lady Chiltern. It was thus that the matter was discussed among ladies in the town. "Is Fawn's marriage going on?" This question was asked of Mr. Legge Wilson by Barrington Erle. Mr. Legge Wilson was the Secretary of State for India, and Barrington Erle was in the Government. "Upon my word I don't know," said Mr. Wilson. "The work goes on at the office;--that's all I know about Fawn. He hasn't told me of his marriage, and therefore I haven't spoken to him about it." "He hasn't made it official?" "The papers haven't come before me yet," said Mr. Wilson. "When they do they'll be very awkward papers, as far as I hear," said Barrington Erle. "There is no doubt they were engaged, and I believe there is no doubt that he has declared off, and refused to give any reason." "I suppose the money is not all there," suggested Mr. Wilson. "There's a queer story going about as to some diamonds. No one knows whom they belong to, and they say that Fawn has accused her of stealing them. He wants to get hold of them, and she won't give them up. I believe the lawyers are to have a shy at it. I'm sorry for Fawn. It'll do him a deal of mischief." "You'll find he won't come out much amiss," said Mr. Legge Wilson. "He's as cautious a man as there is in London. If there is anything wrong--" "There is a great deal wrong," said Barrington Erle. "You'll find it will be on her side." "And you'll find also that she'll contrive that all the blame shall lie upon him. She's clever enough for anything! Who's to be the new bishop?" "I have not heard Gresham say as yet; Jones, I should think," said Mr. Wilson. "And who is Jones?" "A clergyman, I suppose,--of the safe sort. I don't know that anything else is necessary." From which it will be seen that Mr. Wilson had his own opinion about church matters, and also that people very high up in the world were concerning themselves about poor Lizzie's affairs. Lady Eustace did go to Lady Glencora's evening party, in spite of Mr. Camperdown and all her difficulties. Lady Chiltern had been quite right in saying that Lizzie was not the woman to show the white feather. She went, knowing that she would meet Lord Fawn, and she did wear the diamonds. It was the first time that they had been round her neck since the occasion in respect to which Sir Florian had placed them in her hands, and it had not been without much screwing up of her courage that she had resolved to appear on this occasion with the much-talked-of ornament upon her person. It was now something over a fortnight since she had parted with Lord Fawn at Fawn Court; and, although they were still presumed to be engaged to marry each other, and were both living in London, she had not seen him since. A sort of message had reached her, through Frank Greystock, to the effect that Lord Fawn thought it as well that they should not meet till the matter was settled. Stipulations had been made by Frank on her behalf, and this had been inserted among them. She had received the message with scorn,--with a mixture of scorn and gratitude,--of scorn in regard to the man who had promised to marry her, and of affectionate gratitude to the cousin who had made the arrangement. "Of course I shall not wish to see him while he chooses to entertain such an idea," she had said, "but I shall not keep out of his way. You would not wish me to keep out of his way, Frank?" When she received a card for Lady Glencora's party, very soon after this, she was careful to answer it in such a manner as to impress Lady Glencora with a remembrance of her assent. Lord Fawn would probably be there,--unless he remained away in order to avoid her. Then she had ten days in which to make up her mind as to wearing the diamonds. Her courage was good; but then her ignorance was so great! She did not know whether Mr. Camperdown might not contrive to have them taken by violence from her neck, even on Lady Glencora's stairs. Her best security,--so she thought,--would be in the fact that Mr. Camperdown would not know of her purpose. She told no one,--not even Miss Macnulty; but she appeared before that lady, arrayed in all her glory, just as she was about to descend to her carriage. "You've got the necklace on!" said Miss Macnulty. "Why should I not wear my own necklace?" she asked, with assumed anger. Lady Glencora's rooms were already very full when Lizzie entered them, but she was without a gentleman, and room was made for her to pass quickly up the stairs. The diamonds had been recognised by many before she had reached the drawing-room;--not that these very diamonds were known, or that there was a special memory for that necklace;--but the subject had been so generally discussed, that the blaze of the stones immediately brought it to the minds of men and women. "There she is, with poor Eustace's twenty thousand pounds round her neck," said Laurence Fitzgibbon to his friend Barrington Erle. "And there is Lord Fawn going to look after them," replied the other. Lord Fawn thought it right, at any rate, to look after his bride. Lady Glencora had whispered into his ear before they went down to dinner that Lady Eustace would be there in the evening, so that he might have the option of escaping or remaining. Could he have escaped without any one knowing that he had escaped, he would not have gone up-stairs after dinner; but he knew that he was observed; he knew that people were talking about him; and he did not like it to be said that he had run away. He went up, thinking much of it all, and as soon as he saw Lady Eustace he made his way to her and accosted her. Many eyes were upon them, but no ear probably heard how infinitely unimportant were the words which they spoke to each other. Her manner was excellent. She smiled and gave him her hand,--just her hand without the slightest pressure,--and spoke a half-whispered word, looking into his face, but betraying nothing by her look. Then he asked her whether she would dance. Yes;--she would stand up for a quadrille; and they did stand up for a quadrille. As she danced with no one else, it was clear that she treated Lord Fawn as her lover. As soon as the dance was done she took his arm and moved for a few minutes about the room with him. She was very conscious of the diamonds, but she did not show the feeling in her face. He also was conscious of them, and he did show it. He did not recognise the necklace, but he knew well that this was the very bone of contention. They were very beautiful, and seemed to him to outshine all other jewellery in the room. And Lady Eustace was a woman of whom it might almost be said that she ought to wear diamonds. She was made to sparkle, to be bright with outside garniture,--to shine and glitter, and be rich in apparel. The only doubt might be whether paste diamonds might not better suit her character. But these were not paste, and she did shine and glitter and was very rich. It must not be brought as an accusation against Lady Glencora's guests that they pressed round to look at the necklace. Lady Glencora's guests knew better than to do that. But there was some slight ferment,--slight, but still felt both by Lord Fawn and by Lady Eustace. Eyes were turned upon the diamonds, and there were whispers here and there. Lizzie bore it very well; but Lord Fawn was uncomfortable. "I like her for wearing them," said Lady Glencora to Lady Chiltern. "Yes;--if she means to keep them. I don't pretend, however, to know anything about it. You see the match isn't off." "I suppose not. What do you think I did? He dined here, you know, and, before going down-stairs, I told him that she was coming. I thought it only fair." "And what did he say?" "I took care that he shouldn't have to say anything; but, to tell the truth, I didn't expect him to come up." "There can't be any quarrel at all," said Lady Chiltern. "I'm not sure of that," said Lady Glencora. "They are not so very loving." Lady Eustace made the most of her opportunity. Soon after the quadrille was over she asked Lord Fawn to get her carriage for her. Of course he got it, and of course he put her into it, passing up and down-stairs twice in his efforts on her behalf. And of course all the world saw what he was doing. Up to the last moment not a word had been spoken between them that might not have passed between the most ordinary acquaintance, but, as she took her seat, she put her face forward and did say a word. "You had better come to me soon," she said. "I will," said Lord Fawn. "Yes; you had better come soon. All this is wearing me,--perhaps more than you think." "I will come soon," said Lord Fawn, and then he returned among Lady Glencora's guests, very uncomfortable. Lizzie got home in safety and locked up her diamonds in the iron box. CHAPTER XVIII "And I Have Nothing to Give" It was now the end of June, and Frank Greystock had been as yet but once at Fawn Court since he had written to Lucy Morris asking her to be his wife. That was three weeks since, and as the barrier against him at Fawn Court had been removed by Lady Fawn herself, the Fawn girls thought that as a lover he was very slack; but Lucy was not in the least annoyed. Lucy knew that it was all right; for Frank, as he took his last walk round the shrubbery with her during that visit, had given her to understand that there was a little difference between him and Lady Fawn in regard to Lizzie Eustace. "I am her only relative in London," Frank had said. "Lady Linlithgow," suggested Lucy. "They have quarrelled, and the old woman is as bitter as gall. There is no one else to stand up for her, and I must see that she isn't ill-used. Women do hate each other so virulently, and Lady Fawn hates her future daughter-in-law." Lucy did not in the least grudge her lover's assistance to his cousin. There was nothing of jealousy in her feeling. She thought that Lizzie was unworthy of Frank's goodness, but on such an occasion as this she would not say so. She told him nothing of the bribe that had been offered her, nor on that subject had she said a word to any of the Fawns. She understood, too, that as Frank had declared his purpose of supporting Lizzie, it might be as well that he should see just at present as little of Lady Fawn as possible. Not a word, however, had Lady Fawn said to Lucy disparaging her lover for his conduct. It was quite understood now at Fawn Court, by all the girls, and no doubt by the whole establishment, that Lizzie Eustace was to be regarded as an enemy. It was believed by them all that Lord Fawn had broken off the match--or, at least, that he was resolved to break it; but various stratagems were to be used, and terrible engines of war were to be brought up, if necessary, to prevent an alliance which was now thought to be disreputable. Mrs. Hittaway had been hard at work, and had found out something very like truth in regard to the whole transaction with Mr. Benjamin. Perhaps Mrs. Hittaway had found out more than was quite true as to poor Lizzie's former sins; but what she did find out she used with all her skill, communicating her facts to her mother, to Mr. Camperdown, and to her brother. Her brother had almost quarrelled with her, but still she continued to communicate her facts. At this period Frank Greystock was certainly somewhat unreasonable in regard to his cousin. At one time, as the reader will remember, he had thought of asking her to be his wife;--because she was rich; but even then he had not thought well of her, had hardly believed her to be honest, and had rejoiced when he found that circumstances rather than his own judgment had rescued him from that evil. He had professed to be delighted when Lord Fawn was accepted,--as being happy to think that his somewhat dangerous cousin was provided with so safe a husband; and, when he had first heard of the necklace, he had expressed an opinion that of course it would be given up. In all this then he had shown no strong loyalty to his cousin, no very dear friendship, nothing to make those who knew him feel that he would buckle on armour in her cause. But of late,--and that, too, since his engagement with Lucy,--he had stood up very stoutly as her friend, and the armour was being buckled on. He had not scrupled to say that he meant to see her through this business with Lord Fawn, and had somewhat astonished Mr. Camperdown by raising a doubt on the question of the necklace. "He can't but know that she has no more right to it than I have," Mr. Camperdown had said to his son with indignation. Mr. Camperdown was becoming unhappy about the necklace, not quite knowing how to proceed in the matter. In the meantime Frank had obeyed his better instincts, and had asked Lucy Morris to be his wife. He had gone to Fawn Court in compliance with a promise to Lizzie Eustace, that he would call upon her there. He had walked with Lucy because he was at Fawn Court. And he had written to Lucy because of the words he had spoken during the walk. In all this the matter had arranged itself as such matters do, and there was nothing, in truth, to be regretted. He really did love the girl with all his heart. It may, perhaps, be said that he had never in truth loved any other woman. In the best humours of his mind he would tell himself,--had from old times told himself often,--that unless he married Lucy Morris he could never marry at all. When his mother, knowing that poor Lucy was penniless, had, as mothers will do, begged him to beware, he had spoken up for his love honestly, declaring to her that in his eyes there was no woman living equal to Lucy Morris. The reader has seen him with the words almost on his tongue with which to offer his hand to his cousin, Lizzie Eustace, knowing as he did so that his heart had been given to Lucy,--knowing also that Lucy's heart had been given to him! But he had not done it, and the better humour had prevailed. Within the figure and frame and clothes and cuticle, within the bones and flesh of many of us, there is but one person,--a man or woman, with a preponderance either of good or evil, whose conduct in any emergency may be predicted with some assurance of accuracy by any one knowing the man or woman. Such persons are simple, single, and, perhaps, generally, safe. They walk along lines in accordance with certain fixed instincts or principles, and are to-day as they were yesterday, and will be to-morrow as they are to-day. Lady Eustace was such a person, and so was Lucy Morris. Opposite in their characters as the two poles, they were, each of them, a simple entity; and any doubt or error in judging of the future conduct of either of them would come from insufficient knowledge of the woman. But there are human beings who, though of necessity single in body, are dual in character;--in whose breasts not only is evil always fighting against good,--but to whom evil is sometimes horribly, hideously evil, but is sometimes also not hideous at all. Of such men it may be said that Satan obtains an intermittent grasp, from which, when it is released, the rebound carries them high amidst virtuous resolutions and a thorough love of things good and noble. Such men,--or women,--may hardly, perhaps, debase themselves with the more vulgar vices. They will not be rogues, or thieves, or drunkards,--or, perhaps, liars; but ambition, luxury, self-indulgence, pride, and covetousness will get a hold of them, and in various moods will be to them virtues in lieu of vices. Such a man was Frank Greystock, who could walk along the banks of the quiet, trout-giving Bob, at Bobsborough, whipping the river with his rod, telling himself that the world lost for love would be a bad thing well lost for a fine purpose; and who could also stand, with his hands in his trousers pockets, looking down upon the pavement, in the purlieus of the courts at Westminster, and swear to himself that he would win the game, let the cost to his heart be what it might. What must a man be who would allow some undefined feeling,--some inward ache which he calls a passion and cannot analyse, some desire which has come of instinct and not of judgment,--to interfere with all the projects of his intellect, with all the work which he has laid out for his accomplishment? Circumstances had thrown him into a path of life for which, indeed, his means were insufficient, but which he regarded as, of all paths, the noblest and the manliest. If he could be true to himself,--with such truth as at these moments would seem to him to be the truest truth,--there was nothing in rank, nothing in ambition, which might not be within his reach. He might live with the highest, the best-educated, and the most beautiful; he might assist in directing national councils by his intelligence; and might make a name for himself which should be remembered in his country, and of which men would read the records in the histories written in after ages. But to do this, he must walk warily. He, an embarrassed man, a man already in debt, a man with no realised property coming to him in reversion, was called upon to live, and to live as though at his ease, among those who had been born to wealth. And, indeed, he had so cleverly learned the ways of the wealthy, that he hardly knew any longer how to live at his ease among the poor. But had he walked warily when he went down to Richmond, and afterwards, sitting alone in the obscurity of his chamber, wrote the letter which had made Lucy Morris so happy? It must be acknowledged that he did, in truth, love the girl,--that he was capable of a strong feeling. She was not beautiful,--hardly even pretty, small, in appearance almost insignificant, quite penniless, a governess! He had often asked himself what it was that had so vanquished him. She always wore a pale grey frock,--with, perhaps, a grey ribbon,--never running into any bright form of clothing. She was educated, very well-educated; but she owned no great accomplishment. She had not sung his heart away, or ravished him with the harp. Even of her words she was sparing, seeming to care more to listen than to speak; a humble little thing to look at,--one of whom you might say that she regarded herself as well-placed if left in the background. Yet he had found her out, and knew her. He had recognised the treasure, and had greatly desired to possess it. He had confessed to himself that, could splendour and ambition be laid aside, that little thing would be all the world to him. As he sat in court, or in the House, patient from practice as he half-listened to the ponderous speeches of advocates or politicians, he would think of the sparkle in her eye, of the dimple in her chin, of the lines of the mouth which could plead so eloquently, though with few words. To sit on some high seat among his countrymen, and also to marry Lucy Morris,--that would be a high ambition. He had chosen his way now, and she was engaged to be his wife. As he thought of it after he had done it, it was not all happiness, all contentment, with him. He did feel that he had crippled himself,--impeded himself in running the race, as it were, with a log round his leg. He had offered to marry her, and he must do so at once, or almost at once, because she could now find no other home but his. He knew, as well as did Lady Fawn, that she could not go into another family as governess; and he knew also that she ought not to remain in Lady Fawn's house an hour longer than she would be wanted there. He must alter his plan of living at once, give up the luxury of his rooms at the Grosvenor, take a small house somewhere, probably near the Swiss Cottage, come up and down to his chambers by the underground railway, and, in all probability, abandon Parliament altogether. He was not sure whether, in good faith, he should not at once give notice of his intended acceptance of the Chiltern Hundreds to the electors of Bobsborough. Thus meditating, under the influence of that intermittent evil grasp, almost angry with himself for the open truth which he had spoken,--or rather written, and perhaps thinking more of Lizzie and her beauty than he should have done, in the course of three weeks he had paid but one visit to Fawn Court. Then, of a sudden, finding himself one afternoon relieved from work, he resolved to go there. The days were still almost at their longest, and he did not scruple to present himself before Lady Fawn between eight and nine in the evening. They were all at tea, and he was welcomed kindly. Lucy, when he was announced, at once got up and met him almost at the doorway, sparkling with just a tear of joy in her eye, with a look in her face, and a loving manner, which for the moment made him sure that the little house near the Swiss Cottage would, after all, be the only Elysium upon earth. If she spoke a word he hardly heard it, but her hand was in his, so cool and soft, almost trembling in its grasp, with no attempt to withdraw itself, frank, loving, and honest. There was a perfect satisfaction in her greeting which at once told him that she had no discontented thoughts,--had had no such thought,--because he had been so long without coming. To see him was a great joy. But every hour of her life was a joy to her, knowing, as she did know, that he loved her. Lady Fawn was gracious, the girls were hospitable, and he found himself made very welcome amidst all the women at the tea-table. Not a word was said about Lizzie Eustace. Lady Fawn talked about Parliament, and professed to pity a poor lover who was so bound to his country that he could not see his mistress above once a fortnight. "But there'll be a good time coming next month," she said;--for it was now July. "Though the girls can't make their claims felt, the grouse can." "It isn't the House altogether that rules me with a rod of iron, Lady Fawn," said Frank, "but the necessity of earning daily bread by the sweat of my brow. A man who has to sit in court all day must take the night,--or, indeed, any time that he can get,--to read up his cases." "But the grouse put a stop to all work," said Lady Fawn. "My gardener told me just now that he wanted a day or two in August. I don't doubt but that he is going to the moors. Are you going to the moors, Mr. Greystock?" As it happened, Frank Greystock did not quite know whether he was going to the moors or not. The Ayrshire grouse-shooting is not the best in Scotland;--but there is grouse-shooting in Ayrshire; and the shooting on the Portray mountains is not the worst shooting in the county. The castle at Portray overhangs the sea, but there is a wild district attached to it stretching far back inland, in regard to which Lizzie Eustace was very proud of talking of "her shooting." Early in the spring of the present year she had asked her cousin Frank to accept the shooting for the coming season,--and he had accepted it. "I shall probably be abroad," she said, "but there is the old castle." She had offered it as though he had been her brother, and he had said that he would go down for a couple of weeks,--not to the castle, but to a little lodge some miles up from the sea, of which she told him when he declined the castle. When this invitation was given there was no engagement between her and Lord Fawn. Since that date, within the last day or two, she had reminded him of it. "Won't his lordship be there?" he had said laughingly. "Certainly not," she had answered with serious earnestness. Then she had explained that her plan of going abroad had been set aside by circumstances. She did mean to go down to Portray. "I couldn't have you at the castle," she said, smiling; "but even an Othello couldn't object to a first cousin at a little cottage ever so many miles off." It wasn't for him to suggest what objections might rise to the brain of a modern Othello; but after some hesitation he said that he would be there. He had promised the trip to a friend, and would like to keep his promise. But, nevertheless, he almost thought that he ought to avoid Portray. He intended to support his cousin as far as he might do so honestly; but he was not quite minded to stand by her through good report and evil report. He did not desire to be specially known as her champion, and yet he felt that that position would be almost forced upon him. He foresaw danger,--and consequently he was doubting about his journey to Scotland. "I hardly know whether I am or not," said Frank,--and he almost felt that he was blushing. "I hope you are," said Lucy. "When a man has to work all day and nearly all night he should go where he may get fresh air." "There's very good air without going to Scotland for it," said Lady Fawn, who kept up an excellent house at Richmond, but who, with all her daughters, could not afford autumn trips. The Fawns lived at Fawn Court all the year round, and consequently Lady Fawn thought that air was to be found in England sufficiently good for all purposes of vitality and recreation. "It's not quite the same thing," said Lucy;--"at least, not for a man." After that she was allowed to escape into the grounds with her lover, and was made happy with half-an-hour of unalloyed bliss. To be alone with the girl to whom he is not engaged is a man's delight;--to be alone with the man to whom she is engaged is the woman's. When the thing is settled there is always present to the man something of a feeling of clipped wings; whereas the woman is conscious of a new power of expanding her pinions. The certainty of the thing is to him repressive. He has done his work, and gained his victory,--and by conquering has become a slave. To her the certainty of the thing is the removal of a restraint which has hitherto always been on her. She can tell him everything, and be told everything,--whereas her previous confidences, made with those of her own sex, have been tame, and by comparison valueless. He has no new confidence to make,--unless when he comes to tell her he likes his meat well done, and wants his breakfast to be punctual. Lucy now not only promised herself, but did actually realise a great joy. He seemed to her all that her heart desired. He was a man whose manner was naturally caressing and demonstrative, and she was to him, of all women, the sweetest, the dearest, the most perfect,--and all his own. "But, Frank,"--she had already been taught to call him Frank when they were alone together,--"what will come of all this about Lizzie Eustace?" "They will be married,--of course." "Do you think so? I am sure Lady Fawn doesn't think so." "What Lady Fawn thinks on such a matter cannot be helped. When a man asks a woman to marry him, and she accepts, the natural consequence is that they will be married. Don't you think so?" "I hope so,--sometimes," said Lucy, with her two hands joined upon his arm, and hanging to it with all her little weight. "You really do hope it?" he said. "Oh, I do; you know I do. Hope it! I should die if I didn't hope it." "Then why shouldn't she?" He asked his question with a quick, sharp voice, and then turned upon her for an answer. "I don't know," she said, very softly, and still clinging to him. "I sometimes think there is a difference in people." "There is a difference; but, still, we hardly judge of people sufficiently by our own feelings. As she accepted him, you may be sure that she wishes to marry him. She has more to give than he has." "And I have nothing to give," she said. "If I thought so, I'd go back even now," he answered. "It is because you have so much to give,--so much more than most others,--that I have thought of you, dreamed of you as my wife, almost ever since I first knew you." "I have nothing left to give," she said. "What I ever had is all given. People call it the heart. I think it is heart, and brain, and mind, and body,--and almost soul. But, Frank, though Lizzie Eustace is your cousin, I don't want to be likened to her. She is very clever, and beautiful,--and has a way with her that I know is charming;--but--" "But what, Lucy?" "I don't think she cares so much as some people. I dare say she likes Lord Fawn very well, but I do not believe she loves him as I love you." "They're engaged," said Frank, "and the best thing they can do is to marry each other. I can tell you this, at any rate,"--and his manner again became serious,--"if Lord Fawn behaves ill to her, I, as her cousin, shall take her part." "You don't mean that you'll--fight him!" "No, my darling. Men don't fight each other now-a-days;--not often, at least, and Fawn and I are not of the fighting sort. I can make him understand what I mean and what others will mean without fighting him. He is making a paltry excuse." "But why should he want to excuse himself--without reason?" "Because he is afraid. People have got hold of him and told him lies, and he thinks there will be a scrape about this necklace, and he hates a scrape. He'll marry her at last, without a doubt, and Lady Fawn is only making trouble for herself by trying to prevent it. You can't do anything." "Oh no;--I can't do anything. When she was here it became at last quite disagreeable. She hardly spoke to them, and I'm sure that even the servants understood that there was a quarrel." She did not say a word of Lizzie's offer of the brooch to herself, nor of the stories which by degrees were reaching her ears as to the old debts, and the diamonds, and the young bride's conduct to Lady Linlithgow as soon as she married her grand husband, Sir Florian. She did think badly of Lizzie, and could not but regret that her own noble, generous Frank should have to expend his time and labour on a friend unworthy of his friendship; but there was no shade of jealousy in her feeling, and she uttered no word against Lizzie more bitter than that in which she declared that there was a difference between people. And then there was something said as to their own prospects in life. Lucy at once and with vehemence declared that she did not look for or expect an immediate marriage. She did not scruple to tell him that she knew well how difficult was the task before him, and that it might be essential for his interest that he should remain as he was for a year or two. He was astonished to find how completely she understood his position, and how thoroughly she sympathised with his interests. "There is only one thing I couldn't do for you," she said. "And what is the one thing?" "I couldn't give you up. I almost thought that I ought to refuse you because I can do nothing,--nothing to help you. But there will always come a limit to self-denial. I couldn't do that! Could I?" The reader will know how this question was answered, and will not want to be told of the long, close, clinging, praiseworthy kiss with which the young barrister assured her that would have been on her part an act of self-denial which would to him have been absolutely ruinous. It was agreed, however, between them, that Lady Fawn should be told that they did not propose to marry till some time in the following year, and that she should be formally asked to allow Lucy to have a home at Fawn Court in the interval. CHAPTER XIX "As My Brother" Lord Fawn had promised, as he put Lizzie into her carriage, that he would come to her soon,--but he did not come soon. A fortnight passed and he did not show himself. Nothing further had been done in the matter of the diamonds, except that Mr. Camperdown had written to Frank Greystock, explaining how impossible it was that the question of their possession should be referred to arbitration. According to him they belonged to the heir, as did the estate; and no one would have the power of accepting an arbitration respecting them,--an arbitration which might separate them from the estate of which an infant was the owner for his life,--any more than such arbitration could be accepted as to the property of the estate itself. "Possession is nine points of the law," said Frank to himself, as he put the letter aside,--thinking at the same time that possession in the hands of Lizzie Eustace included certainly every one of those nine points. Lizzie wore her diamonds again and then again. There may be a question whether the possession of the necklace and the publicity of their history,--which, however, like many other histories, was most inaccurately told,--did not add something to her reputation as a lady of fashion. In the meantime, Lord Fawn did not come to see her. So she wrote to him. "My dear Frederic, had you not better come to me? Yours affectionately,--L. I go to the North at the end of this month." But Frank Greystock did visit her,--more than once. On the day after the above letter was written he came to her. It was on Sunday afternoon, when July was more than half over, and he found her alone. Miss Macnulty had gone to church, and Lizzie was lying listlessly on a sofa with a volume of poetry in her hand. She had in truth been reading the book, and in her way enjoying it. It told her the story of certain knights of old, who had gone forth in quest of a sign from heaven, which sign, if verily seen by them, might be taken to signify that they themselves were esteemed holy, and fit for heavenly joy. One would have thought that no theme could have been less palatable to such a one as Lizzie Eustace; but the melody of the lines had pleased her ear, and she was always able to arouse for herself a false enthusiasm on things which were utterly outside herself in life. She thought she too could have travelled in search of that holy sign, and have borne all things, and abandoned all things, and have persevered,--and of a certainty have been rewarded. But as for giving up a string of diamonds, in common honesty,--that was beyond her. "I wonder whether men ever were like that?" she said, as she allowed her cousin to take the book from her hands. "Let us hope not." "Oh, Frank!" "They were, no doubt, as fanatic and foolish as you please. If you will read to the end--" "I have read it all,--every word of it," said Lizzie, enthusiastically. "Then you know that Arthur did not go on the search, because he had a job of work to do, by the doing of which the people around him might perhaps be somewhat benefited." "I like Launcelot better than Arthur," said Lizzie. "So did the Queen," replied Frank. "Your useful, practical man, who attends vestries, and sits at Boards, and measures out his gifts to others by the ounce, never has any heart. Has he, Frank?" "I don't know what heart means. I sometimes fancy that it is a talent for getting into debt, and running away with other men's wives." "You say that on purpose to make me quarrel with you. You don't run away with other men's wives, and you have heart." "But I get into debt, unfortunately; and as for other men's wives, I am not sure that I may not do even that some day. Has Lord Fawn been here?" She shook her head. "Or written?" Again she shook her head. As she did so the long curl waved and was very near to him, for he was sitting close to the sofa, and she had raised herself so that she might look into his face and speak to him almost in a whisper. "Something should be settled, Lizzie, before you leave town." "I wrote to him, yesterday,--one line, and desired him to come. I expected him here to-day, but you have come instead. Shall I say that I am disappointed?" "No doubt you are so." "Oh, Frank, how vain you men are! You want me to swear to you that I would sooner have you with me than him. You are not content with--thinking it, unless I tell you that it is so. You know that it is so. Though he is to be my husband,--I suppose he will be my husband,--his spirit is not congenial to mine, as is yours." "Had you not loved him you would not have accepted him." "What was I to do, Frank? What am I to do? Think how desolate I am, how unfriended, how much in want of some one whom I can call a protector! I cannot have you always with me. You care more for the little finger of that prim piece of propriety down at the old dowager's than you do for me and all my sorrows." This was true, but Frank did not say that it was true. "Lord Fawn is at any rate respectable. At least, I thought he was so when I accepted his offer." "He is respectable enough." "Just that;--isn't it?--and nothing more. You do not blame me for saying that I would be his wife? If you do, I will unsay it, let it cost me what it may. He is treating me so badly that I need not go far for an excuse." Then she looked into his face with all the eagerness of her gaze, clearly implying that she expected a serious answer. "Why do you not answer me, Frank?" "What am I to say? He is a timid, cautious man. They have frightened him about this trumpery necklace, and he is behaving badly. But he will make a good husband. He is not a spendthrift. He has rank. All his people are respectable. As Lady Fawn, any house in England will be open to you. He is not rich, but together you will be rich." "What is all that without love?" "I do not doubt his love. And when you are his own he will love you dearly." "Ah, yes;--as he would a horse or a picture. Is there anything of the rapture of love in that? Is that your idea of love? Is it so you love your Miss Demure?" "Don't call names, Lizzie." "I shall say what I please of her. You and I are to be friends, and I may not speak? No;--I will have no such friendship! She is demure. If you like it, what harm is there in my saying it? I am not demure. I know that. I do not, at least, pretend to be other than I am. When she becomes your wife, I wonder whether you will like her ways?" He had not yet told her that she was to be his wife, nor did he so tell her now. He thought for a moment that he had better tell her, but he did not do so. It would, he said to himself, add an embarrassment to his present position. And as the marriage was to be postponed for a year, it might be better, perhaps, for Lucy that it should not be declared openly. It was thus he argued with himself, but yet, no doubt, he knew well that he did not declare the truth because it would take away something of its sweetness from this friendship with his cousin Lizzie. "If ever I do marry," he said, "I hope I shall like my wife's ways." "Of course you will not tell me anything. I do not expect confidence from you. I do not think a man is ever able to work himself up to the mark of true confidence with his friend. Men together, when they like each other, talk of politics, or perhaps of money; but I doubt whether they ever really tell their thoughts and longings to each other." "Are women more communicative?" "Yes;--certainly. What is there that I would not tell you if you cared to hear it? Every thought I have is open to you if you choose to read it. I have that feeling regarding you that I would keep nothing back from you. Oh, Frank, if you understood me, you could save me,--I was going to say--from all unhappiness." She did it so well that he would have been more than man had he not believed some of it. She was sitting almost upright now, though her feet were still on the sofa, and was leaning over towards him, as though imploring him for his aid, and her eyes were full of tears, and her lips were apart as though still eager with the energy of expression, and her hands were clasped together. She was very lovely, very attractive, almost invincible. For such a one as Frank Greystock opposition to her in her present mood was impossible. There are men by whom a woman, if she have wit, beauty, and no conscience, cannot be withstood. Arms may be used against them, and a sort of battle waged, against which they can raise no shield,--from which they can retire into no fortress,--in which they can parry no blow. A man so weak and so attacked may sometimes run; but even the poor chance of running is often cut off from him. How unlike she was to Lucy! He believed her,--in part; and yet that was the idea that occurred to him. When Lucy was much in earnest, in her eye, too, a tear would sparkle, the smallest drop, a bright liquid diamond that never fell; and all her face would be bright and eloquent with feeling;--but how unlike were the two! He knew that the difference was that between truth and falsehood;--and yet he partly believed the falsehood! "If I knew how to save you from an hour's uneasiness, I would do it," he said. "No;--no;--no;" she murmured. "Would I not? You do not know me then." He had nothing further to say, and it suited her to remain silent for the moment, while she dried her eyes, and recovered her composure, and prepared herself to carry on the battle with a smile. She would carry on the battle, using every wile she knew, straining every nerve to be victorious, encountering any and all dangers, and yet she had no definite aim before her. She herself did not know what she would be at. At this period of her career she did not want to marry her cousin,--having resolved that she would be Lady Fawn. Nor did she intend that her cousin should be her lover,--in the ordinary sense of love. She was far too wary in the pursuit of the world's goods to sacrifice herself to any such wish as that. She did want him to help her about the diamonds,--but such help as that she might have, as she knew well, on much easier terms. There was probably an anxiety in her bosom to cause him to be untrue to Lucy Morris; but the guiding motive of her conduct was the desire to make things seem to be other than they were. To be always acting a part rather than living her own life was to her everything. "After all we must come to facts," he said, after a while. "I suppose it will be better that you should marry Lord Fawn." "If you wish it." "Nay;--I cannot have that said. In this matter you must rule yourself by your own judgment. If you are averse to it--" She shook her head. "Then you will own that it had better be so." Again she shook her head. "Lizzie, for your sake and my own, I must declare, that if you have no opinion in this matter, neither will I have any. You shall never have to say that I pressed you into this marriage or debarred you from marrying. I could not bear such an accusation." "But you might tell me what I ought to do." "No;--certainly not." "Think how young I am, and,--by comparison,--how old you are. You are eight years older than I am. Remember;--after all that I have gone through, I am but twenty-two. At my age other girls have their friends to tell them. I have no one,--unless you will tell me." "You have accepted him?" "Yes." "I suppose he is not altogether indifferent to you?" She paused, and again shook her head. "Indeed, I do not know. If you mean, do I love him, as I could love some man whose heart was quite congenial to my own, certainly I do not." She continued to shake her head very sadly. "I esteemed him,--when he asked me." "Say at once that, having made up your mind, you will go through with it." "You think that I ought?" "You think so,--yourself." "So be it, Frank. I will. But, Frank, I will not give up my property. You do not wish me to do that. It would be weak, now;--would it not? I am sure that it is my own." "His faith to you should not depend on that." "No, of course not; that is just what I mean. He can have no right to interfere. When he asked me to be his wife, he said nothing about that. But if he does not come to me, what shall I do?" "I suppose I had better see him," said Frank slowly. "Will you? That will be so good of you. I feel that I can leave it all so safely in your hands. I shall go out of town, you know, on the thirtieth. I feel that I shall be better away, and I am sick of all the noise, and glitter, and worldliness of London. You will come on the twelfth?" "Not quite so soon as that," he said, after a pause. "But you will come?" "Yes;--about the twentieth." "And, of course, I shall see you?" "Oh, yes." "So that I may have some one to guide me that I can trust. I have no brother, Frank; do you ever think of that?" She put out her hand to him, and he clasped it, and held it tight in his own; and then, after a while, he pulled her towards him. In a moment she was on the ground, kneeling at his feet, and his arm was round her shoulder, and his hand was on her back, and he was embracing her. Her face was turned up to him, and he pressed his lips upon her forehead. "As my brother," she said, stretching back her head and looking up into his face. "Yes;--as your brother." They were sitting, or rather acting their little play together, in the back drawing-room, and the ordinary entrance to the two rooms was from the landing-place into the larger apartment;--of which fact Lizzie was probably aware, when she permitted herself to fall into a position as to which a moment or two might be wanted for recovery. When, therefore, the servant in livery opened the door, which he did, as Frank thought somewhat suddenly, she was able to be standing on her legs before she was caught. The quickness with which she sprung from her position, and the facility with which she composed not her face only, but the loose lock of her hair and all her person, for the reception of the coming visitor, was quite marvellous. About her there was none of the look of having been found out, which is so very disagreeable to the wearer of it; whereas Frank, when Lord Fawn was announced, was aware that his manner was awkward, and his general appearance flurried. Lizzie was no more flurried than if she had stepped that moment from out of the hands of her tirewoman. She greeted Lord Fawn very prettily, holding him by the hand long enough to show that she had more claim to do so than could any other woman, and then she just murmured her cousin's name. The two men shook hands--and looked at each other as men do who know that they are not friends, and think that they may live to be enemies. Lord Fawn, who rarely forgot anything, had certainly not forgotten the Sawab; and Frank was aware that he might soon be called on to address his lordship in anything but friendly terms. They said, however, a few words about Parliament and the weather, and the desirability of escaping from London. "Frank," said Lady Eustace, "is coming down in August to shoot my three annual grouse at Portray. He would keep one for you, my lord, if he thought you would come for it." "I'll promise Lord Fawn a fair third, at any rate," said Frank. "I cannot visit Portray this August, I'm afraid," said his lordship, "much as I might wish to do so. One of us must remain at the India Office--" "Oh, that weary India Office!" exclaimed Lizzie. "I almost think you official men are worse off than we barristers," said Frank. "Well, Lizzie, good-bye. I dare say I shall see you again before you start." "Of course you will," said Lizzie. And then the two lovers were left together. They had met once, at Lady Glencora's ball, since the quarrel at Fawn Court, and there, as though by mutual forbearance, had not alluded to their troubles. Now he had come, especially to speak of the matter that concerned them both so deeply. As long as Frank Greystock was in the room, his work was comparatively easy, but he had known beforehand that he would not find it at all easy should he be left alone with her. Lizzie began. "My lord," she said, "considering all that has passed between us, you have been a truant." "Yes;--I admit it--but--" "With me, my lord, a fault admitted is a fault forgiven." Then she took her old seat on the sofa, and he placed himself on the chair which Frank Greystock had occupied. He had not intended to own a fault, and certainly not to accept forgiveness; but she had been too quick for him; and now he could not find words by which to express himself. "In truth," she continued, "I would always rather remember one kindness than a dozen omissions on the part of a friend." "Lady Eustace, I have not willingly omitted anything." "So be it. I will not give you the slightest excuse for saying that you have heard a reproach from me. You have come at last, and you are welcome. Is that enough for you?" He had much to say to her about the diamonds, and, when he was entering the room, he had not a word to say to her about anything else. Since that, another subject had sprung up before him. Whether he was, or was not, to regard himself as being at this moment engaged to marry Lady Eustace, was a matter to him of much doubt;--but of this he was sure, that if she were engaged to him as his wife, she ought not to be entertaining her cousin Frank Greystock down at Portray Castle, unless she had some old lady, not only respectable in life, but high in rank also, to see that everything was right. It was almost an insult to him that such a visit should have been arranged without his sanction or cognizance. Of course, if he were bound by no engagement,--and he had been persuaded by his mother and sister to wish that he were not bound,--then the matter would be no affair of his. If, however, the diamonds were abandoned, then the engagement was to be continued;--and in that case it was out of the question that his elected bride should entertain another young man,--even though she was a widow and the young man was her cousin. Of course, he should have spoken of the diamonds first; but the other matter had obtruded itself upon him, and he was puzzled. "Is Mr. Greystock to accompany you into Scotland?" he asked. "Oh dear no. I go on the thirtieth of this month. I hardly know when he means to be there." "He follows you to Portray? "Yes;--he follows me, of course. 'The king himself has followed her, When she has gone before.'" Lord Fawn did not remember the quotation, and was more puzzled than ever. "Frank will follow me, just as the other shooting men will follow me." "He goes direct to Portray Castle?" "Neither directly nor indirectly. Just at present, Lord Fawn, I am in no mood to entertain guests,--not even one that I love so well as my cousin Frank. The Portray mountains are somewhat extensive, and at the back of them there is a little shooting-lodge." "Oh, indeed," said Lord Fawn, feeling that he had better dash at once at the diamonds. "If you, my lord, could manage to join us for a day, my cousin and his friend would, I am sure, come over to the castle, so that you should not suffer from being left alone with me and Miss Macnulty." "At present it is impossible," said Lord Fawn;--and then he paused. "Lady Eustace, the position in which you and I stand to each other is one not altogether free from trouble." "You cannot say that it is of my making," she said, with a smile. "You once asked--what men think a favour from me; and I granted it,--perhaps too easily." "I know how greatly I am indebted to your goodness, Lady Eustace--" And then again he paused. "Lord Fawn!" "I trust you will believe that nothing can be further from me than that you should be harassed by any conduct of mine." "I am harassed, my lord." "And so am I. I have learned that you are in possession of certain jewels which I cannot allow to be held by my wife." "I am not your wife, Lord Fawn." As she said this, she rose from her reclining posture and sat erect. "That is true. You are not. But you said you would be." "Go on, sir." "It was the pride of my life to think that I had attained to so much happiness. Then came this matter of the diamonds." "What business have you with my diamonds,--more than any other man?" "Simply that I am told that they are not yours." "Who tells you so?" "Various people. Mr. Camperdown." "If you, my lord, intend to take an attorney's word against mine, and that on a matter as to which no one but myself can know the truth, then you are not fit to be my husband. The diamonds are my own, and should you and I become man and wife, they must remain so by special settlement. While I choose to keep them they will be mine,--to do with them as I please. It will be my pleasure, when my boy marries, to hang them round his bride's neck." She carried herself well, and spoke her words with dignity. "What I have got to say is this," began Lord Fawn;--"I must consider our engagement as at an end unless you will give them up to Mr. Camperdown." "I will not give them up to Mr. Camperdown." "Then,--then,--then,--" "And I make bold to tell you, Lord Fawn, that you are not behaving to me like a man of honour. I shall now leave the matter in the hands of my cousin, Mr. Greystock." Then she sailed out of the room, and Lord Fawn was driven to escape from the house as he might. He stood about the room for five minutes with his hat in his hand, and then walked down and let himself out of the front door. CHAPTER XX The Diamonds Become Troublesome The thirtieth of July came round, and Lizzie was prepared for her journey down to Scotland. She was to be accompanied by Miss Macnulty and her own maid and her own servants, and to travel, of course, like a grand lady. She had not seen Lord Fawn since the meeting recorded in the last chapter, but had seen her cousin Frank nearly every other day. He, after much consideration, had written a long letter to Lord Fawn, in which he had given that nobleman to understand that some explanation was required as to conduct which Frank described as being to him "at present unintelligible." He then went, at considerable length, into the matter of the diamonds, with the object of proving that Lord Fawn could have no possible right to interfere in the matter. And though he had from the first wished that Lizzie would give up the trinket, he made various points in her favour. Not only had they been given to his cousin by her late husband,--but even had they not been so given, they would have been hers by will. Sir Florian had left her everything that was within the walls of Portray Castle, and the diamonds had been at Portray at the time of Sir Florian's death. Such was Frank's statement,--untrue indeed, but believed by him to be true. This was one of Lizzie's lies, forged as soon as she understood that some subsidiary claim might be made upon them on the ground that they formed a portion of property left by will away from her;--some claim subsidiary to the grand claim, that the necklace was a family heirloom. Lord Fawn was not in the least shaken in his conviction that Lizzie had behaved, and was behaving, badly, and that, therefore, he had better get rid of her; but he knew that he must be very wary in the reasons he would give for jilting her. He wrote, therefore, a very short note to Greystock, promising that any explanation needed should be given as soon as circumstances should admit of his forming a decision. In the meantime, the 30th of July came, and Lady Eustace was ready for her journey. There is, or there was, a train leaving London for Carlisle at 11 a.m., by which Lizzie proposed to travel, so that she might sleep in that city and go on through Dumfries to Portray the next morning. This was her scheme; but there was another part of her scheme as to which she had felt much doubt. Should she leave the diamonds, or should she take them with her? The iron box in which they were kept was small, and so far portable that a strong man might carry it without much trouble. Indeed, Lizzie could move it from one part of the room to the other, and she had often done so. But it was so heavy that it could not be taken with her without attracting attention. The servant would know what it was, and the porter would know, and Miss Macnulty would know. That her own maid should know was a matter of course; but even to her own maid the journey of the jewels would be remarkable because of the weight of the box, whereas if they went with her other jewels in her dressing-case, there would be nothing remarkable. She might even have taken them in her pocket,--had she dared. But she did not dare. Though she was intelligent and courageous, she was wonderfully ignorant as to what might and what might not be done for the recovery of the necklace by Mr. Camperdown. She did not dare to take them without the iron box, and at last she decided that the box should go. At a little after ten, her own carriage,--the job-carriage, which was now about to perform its last journey in her service,--was at the door, and a cab was there for the servants. The luggage was brought down, and with the larger boxes was brought the iron case with the necklace. The servant, certainly making more of the weight than he need have done, deposited it as a foot-stool for Lizzie, who then seated herself, and was followed by Miss Macnulty. She would have it placed in the same way beneath her feet in the railway carriage, and again brought into her room at the Carlisle hotel. What though the porter did know! There was nothing illegal in travelling about with a heavy iron box full of diamonds, and the risk would be less this way, she thought, than were she to leave them behind her in London. The house in Mount Street, which she had taken for the season, was to be given up; and whom could she trust in London? Her very bankers, she feared, would have betrayed her, and given up her treasure to Mr. Camperdown. As for Messrs. Harter and Benjamin, she felt sure that they would be bribed by Mr. Camperdown. She once thought of asking her cousin to take the charge of them, but she could not bring herself to let them out of her own hands. Ten thousand pounds! If she could only sell them and get the money, from what a world of trouble would she be relieved. And the sale, for another reason, would have been convenient; for Lady Eustace was already a little in debt. But she could not sell them, and therefore when she got into the carriage there was the box under her feet. At that very moment who should appear on the pavement, standing between the carriage and the house-door, but Mr. Camperdown! And with Mr. Camperdown there was another man,--a very suspicious-looking man,--whom Lizzie at once took to be a detective officer of police. "Lady Eustace!" said Mr. Camperdown, taking off his hat. Lizzie bowed across Miss Macnulty, and endeavoured to restrain the tell-tale blood from flying to her cheeks. "I believe," said Mr. Camperdown, "that you are now starting for Scotland." "We are, Mr. Camperdown;--and we are very late." "Could you allow me two minutes' conversation with you in the house?" "Oh dear, no. We are late, I tell you. What a time you have chosen for coming, Mr. Camperdown!" "It is an awkward hour, Lady Eustace. I only heard this morning that you were going so soon, and it is imperative that I should see you." "Had you not better write, Mr. Camperdown?" "You will never answer my letters, madam." "I--I--I really cannot see you now. William, the coachman must drive on. We cannot allow ourselves to lose the train. I am really very sorry, Mr. Camperdown, but we must not lose the train." "Lady Eustace," said Mr. Camperdown, putting his hand on the carriage-door, and so demeaning himself that the coachman did not dare to drive on, "I must ask you a question." He spoke in a low voice, but he was speaking across Miss Macnulty. That lady, therefore, heard him, and so did William, the servant, who was standing close to the door. "I must insist on knowing where are the Eustace diamonds." Lizzie felt the box beneath her feet, and, without showing that she did so, somewhat widened her drapery. "I can tell you nothing now. William, make the coachman drive on." "If you will not answer me, I must tell you that I shall be driven in the execution of my duty to obtain a search-warrant, in order that they may be placed in proper custody. They are not your property, and must be taken out of your hands." Lizzie looked at the suspicious man with a frightened gaze. The suspicious man was, in fact, a very respectable clerk in Mr. Camperdown's employment, but Lizzie for a moment felt that the search was about to begin at once. She had hardly understood the threat, and thought that the attorney was already armed with the powers of which he spoke. She glanced for a moment at Miss Macnulty, and then at the servant. Would they betray her? If they chose to use force to her, the box certainly might be taken from her. "I know I shall lose the train," she said. "I know I shall. I must insist that you let my servant drive on." There was now a little crowd of a dozen persons on the pavement, and there was nothing to cover her diamonds but the skirt of her travelling-dress. "Are they in this house, Lady Eustace?" "Why doesn't he go on?" shouted Lizzie. "You have no right, sir, to stop me. I won't be stopped." "Or have you got them with you?" "I shall answer no questions. You have no right to treat me in this way." "Then I shall be forced, on behalf of the family, to obtain a search-warrant, both here and in Ayrshire, and proceedings will be taken also against your ladyship personally." So saying, Mr. Camperdown withdrew, and at last the carriage was driven on. As it happened, there was time enough for catching the train,--and to spare. The whole affair in Mount Street had taken less than ten minutes. But the effect upon Lizzie was very severe. For a while she could not speak, and at last she burst out into hysteric tears,--not a sham fit,--but a true convulsive agony of sobbing. All the world of Mount Street, including her own servants, had heard the accusation against her. During the whole morning she had been wishing that she had never seen the diamonds; but now it was almost impossible that she should part with them. And yet they were like a load upon her chest, a load as heavy as though she were compelled to sit with the iron box on her lap day and night. In her sobbing she felt the thing under her feet, and knew that she could not get rid of it. She hated the box, and yet she must cling to it now. She was thoroughly ashamed of the box, and yet she must seem to take a pride in it. She was horribly afraid of the box, and yet she must keep it in her own very bed-room. And what should she say about the box now to Miss Macnulty, who sat by her side, stiff and scornful, offering her smelling-bottles, but not offering her sympathy? "My dear," she said at last, "that horrid man has quite upset me." "I don't wonder that you should be upset," said Miss Macnulty. "And so unjust, too,--so false,--so--so--so--. They are my own as much as that umbrella is yours, Miss Macnulty." "I don't know," said Miss Macnulty. "But I tell you," said Lizzie. "What I mean is, that it is such a pity there should be a doubt." "There is no doubt," said Lizzie;--"how dare you say there is a doubt? My cousin, Mr. Greystock, says that there is not the slightest doubt. He is a barrister, and must know better than an attorney like that Mr. Camperdown." By this time they were at the Euston Square station, and then there was more trouble with the box. The footman struggled with it into the waiting-room, and the porter struggled with it from the waiting-room to the carriage. Lizzie could not but look at the porter as he carried it, and she felt sure that the man had been told of its contents and was struggling with the express view of adding to her annoyance. The same thing happened at Carlisle, where the box was carried up into Lizzie's bedroom by the footman, and where she was convinced that her treasure had become the subject of conversation for the whole house. In the morning people looked at her as she walked down the long platform with the box still struggling before her. She almost wished that she had undertaken its carriage herself, as she thought that even she could have managed with less outward show of effort. Her own servants seemed to be in league against her, and Miss Macnulty had never before been so generally unpleasant. Poor Miss Macnulty, who had a conscientious idea of doing her duty, and who always attempted to give an adequate return for the bread she ate, could not so far overcome the effect of Mr. Camperdown's visit as to speak on any subject without being stiff and hard. And she suffered, too, from the box,--to such a degree that she turned over in her mind the thought of leaving Lizzie, if any other possible home might be found for her. Who would willingly live with a woman who always travelled about with a diamond necklace worth ten thousand pounds, locked up in an iron safe,--and that necklace not her own property. But at last Lady Eustace, and Miss Macnulty, and the servants,--and the iron box,--reached Portray Castle in safety. CHAPTER XXI "Ianthe's Soul" Lady Eustace had been rather cross on the journey down to Scotland, and had almost driven the unfortunate Macnulty to think that Lady Linlithgow or the workhouse would be better than this young tyrant; but on her arrival at her own house she was for awhile all smiles and kindness. During the journey she had been angry without thought, but was almost entitled to be excused for her anger. Could Miss Macnulty have realised the amount of oppression inflicted on her patroness by the box of diamonds she would have forgiven anything. Hitherto there had been some secrecy, or at any rate some privacy attached to the matter; but now that odious lawyer had discussed the matter aloud, in the very streets, in the presence of the servants, and Lady Eustace had felt that it was discussed also by every porter on the railway from London down to Troon, the station in Scotland at which her own carriage met her to take her to her own castle. The night at Carlisle had been terrible to her, and the diamonds had never been for a moment off her mind. Perhaps the worst of it all was that her own man-servant and maid-servant had heard the claim which had been so violently made by Mr. Camperdown. There are people, in that respect very fortunately circumstanced, whose servants, as a matter of course, know all their affairs, have an interest in their concerns, sympathise with their demands, feel their wants, and are absolutely at one with them. But in such cases the servants are really known, and are almost as completely a part of the family as the sons and daughters. There may be disruptions and quarrels; causes may arise for ending the existing condition of things; but while this condition lasts, the servants in such households are, for the most part, only too well inclined to fight the battles of their employers. Mr. Binns, the butler, would almost foam at the mouth if it were suggested to him that the plate at Silvercup Hall was not the undoubted property of the old squire; and Mrs. Pouncebox could not be made to believe, by any amount of human evidence, that the jewels which her lady has worn for the last fifteen years are not her ladyship's very own. Binns would fight for the plate, and so would Pouncebox for the jewels, almost till they were cut to pieces. The preservation of these treasures on behalf of those who paid them their wages and fed them, who occasionally scolded them, but always succoured them, would be their point of honour. No torture would get the key of the cellar from Binns; no threats extract from Pouncebox a secret of the toilet. But poor Lizzie Eustace had no Binns and no Pouncebox. They are plants that grow slowly. There was still too much of the mushroom about Lady Eustace to permit of her possessing such treasures. Her footman was six feet high, was not bad looking, and was called Thomas. She knew no more about him, and was far too wise to expect sympathy from him, or other aid than the work for which she paid him. Her own maid was somewhat nearer to her; but not much nearer. The girl's name was Patience Crabstick, and she could do hair well. Lizzie knew but little more of her than that. Lizzie considered herself still to be engaged to be married to Lord Fawn,--but there was no sympathy to be had in that quarter. Frank Greystock might be induced to sympathise with her;--but hardly after the fashion which Lizzie desired. And then sympathy in that direction would be so dangerous should she decide upon going on with the Fawn marriage. For the present she had quarrelled with Lord Fawn;--but the very bitterness of that quarrel, and the decision with which her betrothed had declared his intention of breaking off the match, made her the more resolute that she would marry him. During her journey to Portray she had again determined that he should be her husband; and, if so, advanced sympathy,--sympathy that would be pleasantly tender with her cousin Frank, would be dangerous. She would be quite willing to accept even Miss Macnulty's sympathy, if that humble lady would give it to her of the kind she wanted. She declared to herself that she could pour herself out on Miss Macnulty's bosom, and mingle her tears even with Miss Macnulty's, if only Miss Macnulty would believe in her. If Miss Macnulty would be enthusiastic about the jewels, enthusiastic as to the wickedness of Lord Fawn, enthusiastic in praising Lizzie herself, Lizzie,--so she told herself,--would have showered all the sweets of female friendship even on Miss Macnulty's head. But Miss Macnulty was as hard as a deal board. She did as she was bidden, thereby earning her bread. But there was no tenderness in her;--no delicacy;--no feeling;--no comprehension. It was thus that Lady Eustace judged her humble companion; and in one respect she judged her rightly. Miss Macnulty did not believe in Lady Eustace, and was not sufficiently gifted to act up to a belief which she did not entertain. Poor Lizzie! The world, in judging of people who are false and bad and selfish and prosperous to outward appearances, is apt to be hard upon them, and to forget the punishments which generally accompany such faults. Lizzie Eustace was very false and bad and selfish,--and, we may say, very prosperous also; but in the midst of all she was thoroughly uncomfortable. She was never at ease. There was no green spot in her life with which she could be contented. And though, after a fashion, she knew herself to be false and bad, she was thoroughly convinced that she was ill-used by everybody about her. She was being very badly treated by Lord Fawn;--but she flattered herself that she would be able to make Lord Fawn know more of her character before she had done with him. Portray Castle was really a castle,--not simply a country mansion so called, but a stone edifice with battlements and a round tower at one corner, and a gate which looked as if it might have had a portcullis, and narrow windows in a portion of it, and a cannon mounted upon a low roof, and an excavation called the moat,--but which was now a fantastic and somewhat picturesque garden,--running round two sides of it. In very truth, though a portion of the castle was undoubtedly old, and had been built when strength was needed for defence and probably for the custody of booty,--the battlements, and the round tower, and the awe-inspiring gateway had all been added by one of the late Sir Florians. But the castle looked like a castle, and was interesting. As a house it was not particularly eligible, the castle form of domestic architecture being exigeant in its nature, and demanding that space, which in less ambitious houses can be applied to comfort, shall be surrendered to magnificence. There was a great hall, and a fine dining-room with plate-glass windows looking out upon the sea; but the other sitting-rooms were insignificant, and the bedrooms were here and there, and were for the most part small and dark. That, however, which Lizzie had appropriated to her own use was a grand chamber, looking also out upon the open sea. The castle stood upon a bluff of land, with a fine prospect of the Firth of Clyde, and with a distant view of the Isle of Arran. When the air was clear, as it often is clear there, the Arran hills could be seen from Lizzie's window, and she was proud of talking of the prospect. In other respects, perhaps, the castle was somewhat desolate. There were a few stunted trees around it, but timber had not prospered there. There was a grand kitchen garden,--or rather a kitchen garden which had been intended to be grand;--but since Lizzie's reign had been commenced, the grandeur had been neglected. Grand kitchen gardens are expensive, and Lizzie had at once been firm in reducing the under-gardeners from five men to one and a boy. The head-gardener had of course left her at once; but that had not broken her heart, and she had hired a modest man at a guinea a week instead of a scientific artist, who was by no means modest, with a hundred and twenty pounds a year and coals, house, milk, and all other horticultural luxuries. Though Lizzie was prosperous and had a fine income, she was already aware that she could not keep up a town and country establishment and be a rich woman on four thousand a year. There was a flower garden and small shrubbery within the so-called moat; but, otherwise, the grounds of Portray Castle were not alluring. The place was sombre, exposed, and, in winter, very cold; and, except that the expanse of sea beneath the hill on which stood the castle was fine and open, it had no great claim to praise on the score of scenery. Behind the castle, and away from the sea, the low mountains belonging to the estate stretched for some eight or ten miles; and towards the further end of them, where stood a shooting-lodge, called always The Cottage, the landscape became rough and grand. It was in this cottage that Frank Greystock was to be sheltered with his friend, when he came down to shoot what Lady Eustace had called her three annual grouse. She ought to have been happy and comfortable. There will, of course, be some to say that a young widow should not be happy and comfortable,--that she should be weeping her lost lord, and subject to the desolation of bereavement. But as the world goes now, young widows are not miserable; and there is, perhaps, a growing tendency in society to claim from them year by year still less of any misery that may be avoidable. Suttee propensities of all sorts, from burning alive down to bombazine and hideous forms of clothing, are becoming less and less popular among the nations, and women are beginning to learn that, let what misfortunes will come upon them, it is well for them to be as happy as their nature will allow them to be. A woman may thoroughly respect her husband, and mourn him truly, honestly, with her whole heart, and yet enjoy thoroughly the good things which he has left behind for her use. It was not, at any rate, sorrow for the lost Sir Florian that made Lady Eustace uncomfortable. She had her child. She had her income. She had her youth and beauty. She had Portray Castle. She had a new lover,--and, if she chose to be quit of him, not liking him well enough for the purpose, she might undoubtedly have another whom she would like better. She had hitherto been thoroughly successful in her life. And yet she was unhappy. What was it that she wanted? She had been a very clever child,--a clever, crafty child; and now she was becoming a clever woman. Her craft remained with her; but so keen was her outlook upon the world, that she was beginning to perceive that craft, let it be never so crafty, will in the long run miss its own object. She actually envied the simplicity of Lucy Morris, for whom she delighted to find evil names, calling her demure, a prig, a sly puss, and so on. But she could see,--or half see,--that Lucy with her simplicity was stronger than was she with her craft. She had nearly captivated Frank Greystock with her wiles, but without any wiles Lucy had captivated him altogether. And a man captivated by wiles was only captivated for a time, whereas a man won by simplicity would be won for ever,--if he himself were worth the winning. And this, too, she felt,--that let her success be what it might, she could not be happy unless she could win a man's heart. She had won Sir Florian's, but that had been but for an hour,--for a month or two. And then Sir Florian had never really won hers. Could not she be simple? Could not she act simplicity so well that the thing acted should be as powerful as the thing itself;--perhaps even more powerful? Poor Lizzie Eustace! In thinking over all this, she saw a great deal. It was wonderful that she should see so much and tell herself so many home truths. But there was one truth she could not see, and therefore could not tell it to herself. She had not a heart to give. It had become petrified during those lessons of early craft in which she had taught herself how to get the better of Messrs. Harter and Benjamin, of Sir Florian Eustace, of Lady Linlithgow, and of Mr. Camperdown. Her ladyship had now come down to her country house, leaving London and all its charms before the end of the season, actuated by various motives. In the first place, the house in Mount Street was taken furnished, by the month, and the servants were hired after the same fashion, and the horses jobbed. Lady Eustace was already sufficiently intimate with her accounts to know that she would save two hundred pounds by not remaining another month or three weeks in London, and sufficiently observant of her own affairs to have perceived that such saving was needed. And then it appeared to her that her battle with Lord Fawn could be better fought from a distance than at close quarters. London, too, was becoming absolutely distasteful to her. There were many things there that tended to make her unhappy, and so few that she could enjoy! She was afraid of Mr. Camperdown, and ever on the rack lest some dreadful thing should come upon her in respect of the necklace,--some horrible paper served upon her from a magistrate, ordering her appearance at Newgate, or perhaps before the Lord Chancellor, or a visit from policemen, who would be empowered to search for and carry off the iron box. And then there was so little in her London life to gratify her! It is pleasant to win in a fight;--but to be always fighting is not pleasant. Except in those moments, few and far between, in which she was alone with her cousin Frank,--and perhaps in those other moments in which she wore her diamonds,--she had but little in London that she enjoyed. She still thought that a time would come when it would be otherwise. Under these influences she had actually made herself believe that she was sighing for the country, and for solitude; for the wide expanse of her own bright waves,--as she had called them,--and for the rocks of dear Portray. She had told Miss Macnulty and Augusta Fawn that she thirsted for the breezes of Ayrshire, so that she might return to her books and her thoughts. Amidst the whirl of London it was impossible either to read or to think. And she believed it too,--herself. She so believed it, that on the first morning of her arrival she took a little volume in her pocket, containing Shelley's "Queen Mab," and essayed to go down upon the rocks. She had actually breakfasted at nine, and was out on the sloping grounds below the castle before ten, having made some boast to Miss Macnulty about the morning air. She scrambled down,--not very far down, but a little way beneath the garden gate, to a spot on which a knob of rock cropped out from the scanty herbage of the incipient cliff. Fifty yards lower the real rocks began; and, though the real rocks were not very rocky, not precipitous or even bold, and were partially covered with salt-fed mosses down almost to the sea, nevertheless they justified her in talking about her rock-bound shore. The shore was hers,--for her life, and it was rock-bound. This knob she had espied from her windows;--and, indeed, had been thinking of it for the last week, as a place appropriate to solitude and Shelley. She had stood on it before, and had stretched her arms with enthusiasm towards the just-visible mountains of Arran. On that occasion the weather, perhaps, had been cool; but now a blazing sun was overhead, and when she had been seated half a minute, and "Queen Mab" had been withdrawn from her pocket, she found that it would not do. It would not do, even with the canopy she could make for herself with her parasol. So she stood up and looked about herself for shade;--for shade in some spot in which she could still look out upon "her dear wide ocean, with its glittering smile." For it was thus that she would talk about the mouth of the Clyde. Shelter near her there was none. The scrubby trees lay nearly half a mile to the right,--and up the hill, too. She had once clambered down to the actual shore, and might do so again. But she doubted that there would be shelter even there; and the clambering up on that former occasion had been a nuisance, and would be a worse nuisance now. Thinking of all this, and feeling the sun keenly, she gradually retraced her steps to the garden within the moat, and seated herself, Shelley in hand, within the summer-house. The bench was narrow, hard, and broken; and there were some snails which discomposed her;--but, nevertheless, she would make the best of it. Her darling "Queen Mab" must be read without the coarse, inappropriate, every-day surroundings of a drawing-room; and it was now manifest to her that, unless she could get up much earlier in the morning, or come out to her reading after sunset, the knob of rock would not avail her. She began her reading, resolved that she would enjoy her poetry in spite of the narrow seat. She had often talked of "Queen Mab," and perhaps she thought she had read it. This, however, was in truth her first attempt at that work. "How wonderful is Death! Death and his brother, Sleep!" Then she half-closed the volume, and thought that she enjoyed the idea. Death,--and his brother Sleep! She did not know why they should be more wonderful than Action, or Life, or Thought;--but the words were of a nature which would enable her to remember them, and they would be good for quoting. "Sudden arose Ianthe's soul; it stood all-beautiful in naked purity." The name of Ianthe suited her exactly. And the antithesis conveyed to her mind by naked purity struck her strongly, and she determined to learn the passage by heart. Eight or nine lines were printed separately, like a stanza, and the labour would not be great, and the task, when done, would be complete. "Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, Each stain of earthliness Had passed away, it reassumed Its native dignity, and stood Immortal amid ruin." Which was instinct with beauty,--the stain or the soul, she did not stop to inquire, and may be excused for not understanding. "Ah,"--she exclaimed to herself, "how true it is; how one feels it; how it comes home to one!--'Sudden arose Ianthe's soul!'" And then she walked about the garden, repeating the words to herself, and almost forgetting the heat. "'Each stain of earthliness had passed away.' Ha;--yes. They will pass away, and become instinct with beauty and grace." A dim idea came upon her that when this happy time should arrive, no one would claim her necklace from her, and that the man at the stables would not be so disagreeably punctual in sending in his bill. "'All-beautiful in naked purity!'" What a tawdry world was this, in which clothes and food and houses are necessary! How perfectly that boy-poet had understood it all! "'Immortal amid ruin!'" She liked the idea of the ruin almost as well as that of the immortality, and the stains quite as well as the purity. As immortality must come, and as stains were instinct with grace, why be afraid of ruin? But then, if people go wrong,--at least women,--they are not asked out any where! "'Sudden arose Ianthe's soul; it stood all-beautiful--'" And so the piece was learned, and Lizzie felt that she had devoted her hour to poetry in a quite rapturous manner. At any rate she had a bit to quote; and though in truth she did not understand the exact bearing of the image, she had so studied her gestures, and so modulated her voice, that she knew that she could be effective. She did not then care to carry her reading further, but returned with the volume into the house. Though the passage about Ianthe's soul comes very early in the work, she was now quite familiar with the poem, and when, in after days, she spoke of it as a thing of beauty that she had made her own by long study, she actually did not know that she was lying. As she grew older, however, she quickly became wiser, and was aware that in learning one passage of a poem it is expedient to select one in the middle, or at the end. The world is so cruelly observant now-a-days, that even men and women who have not themselves read their "Queen Mab" will know from what part of the poem a morsel is extracted, and will not give you credit for a page beyond that from which your passage comes. After lunch Lizzie invited Miss Macnulty to sit at the open window of the drawing-room and look out upon the "glittering waves." In giving Miss Macnulty her due, we must acknowledge that, though she owned no actual cleverness herself, had no cultivated tastes, read but little, and that little of a colourless kind, and thought nothing of her hours but that she might get rid of them and live,--yet she had a certain power of insight, and could see a thing. Lizzie Eustace was utterly powerless to impose upon her. Such as Lizzie was, Miss Macnulty was willing to put up with her and accept her bread. The people whom she had known had been either worthless,--as had been her own father, or cruel,--like Lady Linlithgow, or false,--as was Lady Eustace. Miss Macnulty knew that worthlessness, cruelty, and falseness had to be endured by such as she. And she could bear them without caring much about them;--not condemning them, even within her own heart, very heavily. But she was strangely deficient in this,--that she could not call these qualities by other names, even to the owners of them. She was unable to pretend to believe Lizzie's rhapsodies. It was hardly conscience or a grand spirit of truth that actuated her, as much as a want of the courage needed for lying. She had not had the face to call old Lady Linlithgow kind, and therefore old Lady Linlithgow had turned her out of the house. When Lady Eustace called on her for sympathy, she had not courage enough to dare to attempt the bit of acting which would be necessary for sympathetic expression. She was like a dog or a child, and was unable not to be true. Lizzie was longing for a little mock sympathy,--was longing to show off her Shelley, and was very kind to Miss Macnulty when she got the poor lady into the recess of the window. "This is nice;--is it not?" she said, as she spread her hand out through the open space towards the "wide expanse of glittering waves." "Very nice,--only it glares so," said Miss Macnulty. "Ah, I love the full warmth of the real summer. With me it always seems that the sun is needed to bring to true ripeness the fruit of the heart." Nevertheless she had been much troubled both by the heat and by the midges when she tried to sit on the stone. "I always think of those few glorious days which I passed with my darling Florian at Naples;--days too glorious because they were so few." Now Miss Macnulty knew some of the history of those days and of their glory,--and knew also how the widow had borne her loss. "I suppose the bay of Naples is fine," she said. "It is not only the bay. There are scenes there which ravish you, only it is necessary that there should be some one with you that can understand you. 'Soul of Ianthe!'" she said, meaning to apostrophise that of the deceased Sir Florian. "You have read 'Queen Mab'?" "I don't know that I ever did. If I have, I have forgotten it." "Ah,--you should read it. I know nothing in the English language that brings home to one so often one's own best feelings and aspirations. 'It stands all-beautiful in naked purity,'" she continued, still alluding to poor Sir Florian's soul. "'Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, Each stain of earthliness had passed away.' I can see him now in all his manly beauty, as we used to sit together by the hour, looking over the waters. Oh, Julia, the thing itself has gone,--the earthly reality; but the memory of it will live for ever!" "He was a very handsome man, certainly," said Miss Macnulty, finding herself forced to say something. "I see him now," she went on, still gazing out upon the shining water. "'It reassumed its native dignity, and stood Primeval amid ruin.' Is not that a glorious idea, gloriously worded?" She had forgotten one word and used a wrong epithet; but it sounded just as well. Primeval seemed to her to be a very poetical word. "To tell the truth," said Miss Macnulty, "I never understand poetry when it is quoted unless I happen to know the passage beforehand. I think I'll go away from this, for the light is too much for my poor old eyes." Certainly Miss Macnulty had fallen into a profession for which she was not suited. CHAPTER XXII Lady Eustace Procures a Pony for the Use of Her Cousin Lady Eustace could make nothing of Miss Macnulty in the way of sympathy, and could not bear her disappointment with patience. It was hardly to be expected that she should do so. She paid a great deal for Miss Macnulty. In a moment of rash generosity, and at a time when she hardly knew what money meant, she had promised Miss Macnulty seventy pounds for the first year, and seventy for the second, should the arrangement last longer than a twelvemonth. The second year had been now commenced, and Lady Eustace was beginning to think that seventy pounds was a great deal of money when so very little was given in return. Lady Linlithgow had paid her dependant no fixed salary. And then there was the lady's "keep," and first-class travelling when they went up and down to Scotland, and cab-fares in London when it was desirable that Miss Macnulty should absent herself. Lizzie, reckoning all up, and thinking that for so much her friend ought to be ready to discuss Ianthe's soul, or any other kindred subject, at a moment's warning, would become angry, and would tell herself that she was being swindled out of her money. She knew how necessary it was that she should have some companion at the present emergency of her life, and therefore could not at once send Miss Macnulty away; but she would sometimes become very cross, and would tell poor Macnulty that she was--a fool. Upon the whole, however, to be called a fool was less objectionable to Miss Macnulty than were demands for sympathy which she did not know how to give. Those first ten days of August went very slowly with Lady Eustace. "Queen Mab" got itself poked away, and was heard of no more. But there were other books. A huge box full of novels had come down, and Miss Macnulty was a great devourer of novels. If Lady Eustace would talk to her about the sorrows of the poorest heroine that ever saw her lover murdered before her eyes, and then come to life again with ten thousand pounds a year,--for a period of three weeks, or till another heroine, who had herself been murdered, obliterated the former horrors from her plastic mind,--Miss Macnulty could discuss the catastrophe with the keenest interest. And Lizzie, finding herself to be, as she told herself, unstrung, fell also into novel-reading. She had intended during this vacant time to master the "Faery Queen;" but the "Faery Queen" fared even worse than "Queen Mab;"--and the studies of Portray Castle were confined to novels. For poor Macnulty, if she could only be left alone, this was well enough. To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods. But it was not so with Lady Eustace. She asked much more than that, and was now thoroughly discontented with her own idleness. She was sure that she could have read Spenser from sunrise to sundown, with no other break than an hour or two given to Shelley,--if only there had been some one to sympathise with her in her readings. But there was no one, and she was very cross. Then there came a letter to her from her cousin,--which for that morning brought some life back to the castle. "I have seen Lord Fawn," said the letter, "and I have also seen Mr. Camperdown. As it would be very hard to explain what took place at these interviews by letter, and as I shall be at Portray Castle on the 20th,--I will not make the attempt. We shall go down by the night train, and I will get over to you as soon as I have dressed and had my breakfast. I suppose I can find some kind of a pony for the journey. The 'we' consists of myself and my friend, Mr. Herriot,--a man whom I think you will like, if you will condescend to see him, though he is a barrister like myself. You need express no immediate condescension in his favour, as I shall of course come over alone on Wednesday morning. Yours always affectionately, F. G." The letter she received on the Sunday morning, and as the Wednesday named for Frank's coming was the next Wednesday, and was close at hand, she was in rather a better humour than she had displayed since the poets had failed her. "What a blessing it will be," she said, "to have somebody to speak to!" This was not complimentary, but Miss Macnulty did not want compliments. "Yes, indeed," she said. "Of course you will be glad to see your cousin." "I shall be glad to see anything in the shape of a man. I declare that I have felt almost inclined to ask the minister from Craigie to elope with me." "He has got seven children," said Miss Macnulty. "Yes, poor man, and a wife, and not more than enough to live upon. I daresay he would have come. By-the-bye, I wonder whether there's a pony about the place." "A pony!" Miss Macnulty of course supposed that it was needed for the purpose of the suggested elopement. "Yes;--I suppose you know what a pony is? Of course there ought to be a shooting pony at the cottage for these men. My poor head has so many things to work upon that I had forgotten it; and you're never any good at thinking of things." "I didn't know that gentlemen wanted ponies for shooting." "I wonder what you do know? Of course there must be a pony." "I suppose you'll want two?" "No, I sha'n't. You don't suppose that men always go riding about. But I want one. What had I better do?" Miss Macnulty suggested that Gowran should be consulted. Now, Gowran was the steward and bailiff and manager and factotum about the place, who bought a cow or sold one if occasion required, and saw that nobody stole anything, and who knew the boundaries of the farms, and all about the tenants, and looked after the pipes when frost came, and was an honest, domineering, hard-working, intelligent Scotchman, who had been brought up to love the Eustaces, and who hated his present mistress with all his heart. He did not leave her service, having an idea in his mind that it was now the great duty of his life to save Portray from her ravages. Lizzie fully returned the compliment of the hatred, and was determined to rid herself of Andy Gowran's services as soon as possible. He had been called Andy by the late Sir Florian, and, though every one else about the place called him Mr. Gowran, Lady Eustace thought it became her, as the man's mistress, to treat him as he had been treated by the late master. So she called him Andy. But she was resolved to get rid of him,--as soon as she should dare. There were things which it was essential that somebody about the place should know, and no one knew them but Mr. Gowran. Every servant in the castle might rob her, were it not for the protection afforded by Mr. Gowran. In that affair of the garden it was Mr. Gowran who had enabled her to conquer the horticultural Leviathan who had oppressed her, and who, in point of wages, had been a much bigger man than Mr. Gowran himself. She trusted Mr. Gowran, and hated him,--whereas Mr. Gowran hated her, and did not trust her. "I believe you think that nothing can be done at Portray except by that man," said Lady Eustace. "He'll know how much you ought to pay for the pony." "Yes,--and get some brute not fit for my cousin to ride, on purpose, perhaps, to break his neck." "Then I should ask Mr. Macallum, the postmaster of Troon, for I have seen three or four very quiet-looking ponies standing in the carts at his door." "Macnulty, if there ever was an idiot you are one!" said Lady Eustace, throwing up her hands. "To think that I should get a pony for my cousin Frank out of one of the mail carts." "I daresay I am an idiot," said Miss Macnulty, resuming her novel. Lady Eustace was, of course, obliged to have recourse to Gowran, to whom she applied on the Monday morning. Not even Lizzie Eustace, on behalf of her cousin Frank, would have dared to disturb Mr. Gowran with considerations respecting a pony on the Sabbath. On the Monday morning she found Mr. Gowran superintending four boys and three old women, who were making a bit of her ladyship's hay on the ground above the castle. The ground about the castle was poor and exposed, and her ladyship's hay was apt to be late. "Andy," she said, "I shall want to get a pony for the gentlemen who are coming to the Cottage. It must be there by Tuesday evening." "A pownie, my leddie?" "Yes;--a pony. I suppose a pony may be purchased in Ayrshire,--though of all places in the world it seems to have the fewest of the comforts of life." "Them as find it like that, my leddie, needn't bide there." "Never mind. You will have the kindness to have a pony purchased and put into the stables of the Cottage on Tuesday afternoon. There are stables, no doubt." "Oh, ay,--there's shelter, nae doot, for mair pownies than they'll ride. When the Cottage was biggit, my leddie, there was nae cause for sparing nowt." Andy Gowran was continually throwing her comparative poverty in poor Lizzie's teeth, and there was nothing he could do which displeased her more. "And I needn't spare my cousin the use of a pony," she said grandiloquently, but feeling as she did so that she was exposing herself before the man. "You'll have the goodness to procure one for him on Tuesday." "But there ain't aits nor yet fother, nor nowt for bedding down. And wha's to tent the pownie? There's mair in keeping a pownie than your leddyship thinks. It'll be a matter of auchteen and saxpence a week,--will a pownie." Mr. Gowran, as he expressed his prudential scruples, put a very strong emphasis indeed on the sixpence. "Very well. Let it be so." "And there'll be the beastie to buy, my leddie. He'll be a lump of money, my leddie. Pownies ain't to be had for nowt in Ayrshire, as was ance, my leddie." "Of course I must pay for him." "He'll be a matter of ten pound, my leddie." "Very well." "Or may be twal; just as likely." And Mr. Gowran shook his head at his mistress in a most uncomfortable way. It was not surprising that she should hate him. "You must give the proper price,--of course." "There ain't no proper prices for pownies,--as there is for jew'ls and sich like." If this was intended for sarcasm upon Lady Eustace in regard to her diamonds, Mr. Gowran ought to have been dismissed on the spot. In such a case no English jury would have given him his current wages. "And he'll be to sell again, my leddie?" "We shall see about that afterwards." "Ye'll never let him eat his head off there a' the winter! He'll be to sell. And the gentles'll ride him, may be, ance across the hillside, out and back. As to the grouse, they can't cotch them with the pownie, for there ain't none to cotch." There had been two keepers on the mountains,--men who were paid five or six shillings a week to look after the game in addition to their other callings, and one of these had been sent away, actually in obedience to Gowran's advice;--so that this blow was cruel and unmanly. He made it, too, as severe as he could by another shake of his head. "Do you mean to tell me that my cousin cannot be supplied with an animal to ride upon?" "My leddie, I've said nowt o' the kind. There ain't no useful animal as I kens the name and nature of as he can't have in Ayrshire,--for paying for it, my leddie;--horse, pownie, or ass, just whichever you please, my leddie. But there'll be a seddle--" "A what?" There can be no doubt that Gowran purposely slurred the word so that his mistress should not understand him. "Seddles don't come for nowt, my leddie, though it be Ayrshire." "I don't understand what it is that you say, Andy." "A seddle, my leddie,"--said he, shouting the word at her at the top of his voice,--"and a briddle. I suppose as your leddyship's cousin don't ride bare-back up in Lunnon?" "Of course there must be the necessary horse-furniture," said Lady Eustace, retiring to the castle. Andy Gowran had certainly ill-used her, and she swore that she would have revenge. Nor when she was informed on the Tuesday that an adequate pony had been hired for eighteen pence a day, saddle, bridle, groom, and all included, was her heart at all softened towards Mr. Gowran. CHAPTER XXIII Frank Greystock's First Visit to Portray Had Frank Greystock known all that his cousin endured for his comfort, would he have been grateful? Women, when they are fond of men, do think much of men's comfort in small matters, and men are apt to take the good things provided almost as a matter of course. When Frank Greystock and Herriot reached the cottage about nine o'clock in the morning, having left London over night by the limited mail train, the pony at once presented itself to them. It was a little shaggy, black beast, with a boy almost as shaggy as itself, but they were both good of their kind. "Oh, you're the laddie with the pownie, are you?" said Frank, in answer to an announcement made to him by the boy. He did at once perceive that Lizzie had taken notice of the word in his note, in which he had suggested that some means of getting over to Portray would be needed, and he learned from the fact that she was thinking of him and anxious to see him. His friend was a man a couple of years younger than himself, who had hitherto achieved no success at the Bar, but who was nevertheless a clever, diligent, well-instructed man. He was what the world calls penniless, having an income from his father just sufficient to keep him like a gentleman. He was not much known as a sportsman, his opportunities for shooting not having been great; but he dearly loved the hills and fresh air, and the few grouse which were,--or were not,--on Lady Eustace's mountains would go as far with him as they would with any man. Before he had consented to come with Frank, he had especially inquired whether there was a game-keeper, and it was not till he had been assured that there was no officer attached to the estate worthy of such a name, that he had consented to come upon his present expedition. "I don't clearly know what a gillie is," he said, in answer to one of Frank's explanations. "If a gillie means a lad without any breeches on, I don't mind; but I couldn't stand a severe man got up in well-made velveteens, who would see through my ignorance in a moment, and make known by comment the fact that he had done so." Greystock had promised that there should be no severity, and Herriot had come. Greystock brought with him two guns, two fishing-rods, a man-servant, and a huge hamper from Fortnum and Mason's. Arthur Herriot, whom the attorneys had not yet loved, brought some very thick boots, a pair of knickerbockers, together with Stone and Toddy's "Digest of the Common Law." The best of the legal profession consists in this;--that when you get fairly at work you may give over working. An aspirant must learn everything; but a man may make his fortune at it, and know almost nothing. He may examine a witness with judgment, see through a case with precision, address a jury with eloquence,--and yet be altogether ignorant of law. But he must be believed to be a very pundit before he will get a chance of exercising his judgment, his precision, or his eloquence. The men whose names are always in the newspapers never look at their Stone and Toddy,--care for it not at all,--have their Stone and Toddy got up for them by their juniors when cases require that reference shall be made to precedents. But till that blessed time has come, a barrister who means success should carry his Stone and Toddy with him everywhere. Greystock never thought of the law now, unless he had some special case in hand; but Herriot could not afford to go out on his holiday without two volumes of Stone and Toddy's Digest in his portmanteau. "You won't mind being left alone for the first morning?" said Frank, as soon as they had finished the contents of one of the pots from Fortnum and Mason. "Not in the least. Stone and Toddy will carry me through." "I'd go on the mountain if I were you, and get into a habit of steady loading." "Perhaps I will take a turn,--just to find out how I feel in the knickerbockers. At what time shall I dine if you don't come back?" "I shall certainly be here to dinner," said Frank, "unless the pony fails me or I get lost on the mountain." Then he started, and Herriot at once went to work on Stone and Toddy, with a pipe in his mouth. He had travelled all night, and it is hardly necessary to say that in five minutes he was fast asleep. So also had Frank travelled all night, but the pony and the fresh air kept him awake. The boy had offered to go with him, but that he had altogether refused;--and, therefore, to his other cares was added that of finding his way. The sweep of the valleys, however, is long and not abrupt, and he could hardly miss his road if he would only make one judicious turn through a gap in a certain wall which lay half way between the cottage and the castle. He was thinking of the work in hand, and he found the gap without difficulty. When through that he ascended the hill for two miles, and then the sea was before him, and Portray Castle, lying, as it seemed to him at that distance, close upon the sea-shore. "Upon my word, Lizzie has not done badly for herself," he said almost aloud, as he looked down upon the fair sight beneath him, and round upon the mountains, and remembered that, for her life at least, it was all hers, and after her death would belong to her son. What more does any human being desire of such a property than that? He rode down to the great doorway,--the mountain track which fell on to the road about half a mile from the castle having been plain enough, and there he gave up the pony into the hands of no less a man than Mr. Gowran himself. Gowran had watched the pony coming down the mountain-side, and had desired to see of what like was "her leddyship's" cousin. In telling the whole truth of Mr. Gowran, it must be acknowledged that he thought that his late master had made a very great mistake in the matter of his marriage. He could not imagine bad things enough of Lady Eustace, and almost believed that she was not now, and hadn't been before her marriage, any better than she should be. The name of Admiral Greystock, as having been the father of his mistress, had indeed reached his ears; but Andy Gowran was a suspicious man, and felt no confidence even in an admiral,--in regard to whom he heard nothing of his having, or having had, a wife. "It's my fer-rm opeenion she's jist naebody--and waur," he had said more than once to his own wife, nodding his head with great emphasis at the last word. He was very anxious, therefore, to see "her leddyship's" cousin. Mr. Gowran thought that he knew a gentleman when he saw one. He thought, also, that he knew a lady, and that he didn't see one when he was engaged with his mistress. Cousin, indeed! "For the matter o' that, ony man that comes the way may be ca'ed a coosin." So Mr. Gowran was on the grand sweep before the garden gate, and took the pony from Frank's hand. "Is Lady Eustace at home?" Frank asked. Mr. Gowran perceived that Frank was a gentleman, and was disappointed. And Frank didn't come as a man comes who calls himself by a false name, and pretends to be an honest cousin when in fact he is something,--oh, ever so wicked! Mr. Gowran, who was a stern moralist, was certainly disappointed at Frank's appearance. Lizzie was in a little sitting-room, reached by a long passage with steps in the middle, at some corner of the castle which seemed a long way from the great door. It was a cheerful little room, with chintz curtains, and a few shelves laden with brightly-bound books, which had been prepared for Lizzie immediately on her marriage. It looked out upon the sea, and she had almost taught herself to think that here she had sat with her adored Florian, gazing in mutual ecstasy upon the "wide expanse of glittering waves." She was lying back in a low arm-chair as her cousin entered, and she did not rise to receive him. Of course she was alone, Miss Macnulty having received a suggestion that it would be well that she should do a little gardening in the moat. "Well, Frank?" she said, with her sweetest smile, as she gave him her hand. She felt and understood the extreme intimacy which would be implied by her not rising to receive him. As she could not rush into his arms there was no device by which she could more clearly show to him how close she regarded his friendship. "So I am at Portray Castle at last," he said, still holding her hand. "Yes,--at the dullest, dreariest, deadliest spot in all Christendom, I think,--if Ayrshire be Christendom. But never mind about that now. Perhaps, as you are at the other side of the mountain at the Cottage, we shall find it less dull here at the castle." "I thought you were to be so happy here." "Sit down and we'll talk it all over by degrees. What will you have,--breakfast or lunch?" "Neither, thank you." "Of course you'll stay to dinner?" "No, indeed. I've a man there at the Cottage with me who would cut his throat in his solitude." "Let him cut his throat;--but never mind now. As for being happy, women are never happy without men. I needn't tell any lies to you, you know. What makes me sure that this fuss about making men and women all the same must be wrong, is just the fact that men can get along without women, and women can't without men. My life has been a burthen to me. But never mind. Tell me about my lord;--my lord and master." "Lord Fawn?" "Who else? What other lord and master? My bosom's own; my heart's best hope; my spot of terra firma; my cool running brook of fresh water; my rock; my love; my lord; my all! Is he always thinking of his absent Lizzie? Does he still toil at Downing Street? Oh, dear; do you remember, Frank, when he told us that 'one of us must remain in town?'" "I have seen him." "So you wrote me word." "And I have seen a very obstinate, pig-headed, but nevertheless honest and truth-speaking gentleman." "Frank, I don't care twopence for his honesty and truth. If he ill-treats me--" Then she paused; looking into his face she had seen at once by the manner in which he had taken her badinage, without a smile, that it was necessary that she should be serious as to her matrimonial prospects. "I suppose I had better let you tell your story," she said, "and I will sit still and listen." "He means to ill-treat you." "And you will let him?" "You had better listen, as you promised, Lizzie. He declares that the marriage must be off at once unless you will send those diamonds to Mr. Camperdown or to the jewellers." "And by what law or rule does he justify himself in a decision so monstrous? Is he prepared to prove that the property is not my own?" "If you ask me my opinion as a lawyer, I doubt whether any such proof can be shown. But as a man and a friend I do advise you to give them up." "Never!" "You must, of course, judge for yourself;--but that is my advice. You had better, however, hear my whole story." "Certainly," said Lizzie. Her whole manner was now changed. She had extricated herself from the crouching position in which her feet, her curl, her arms, her whole body had been so arranged as to combine the charm of her beauty with the charm of proffered intimacy. Her dress was such as a woman would wear to receive her brother, and yet it had been studied. She had no gems about her but what she might well wear in her ordinary life, and yet the very rings on her fingers had not been put on without reference to her cousin Frank. Her position had been one of lounging ease, such as a woman might adopt when all alone, giving herself all the luxuries of solitude;--but she had adopted it in special reference to cousin Frank. Now she was in earnest, with business before her; and though it may be said of her that she could never forget her appearance in presence of a man whom she desired to please, her curl, and rings, and attitude were for the moment in the background. She had seated herself on a common chair, with her hands upon the table, and was looking into Frank's face with eager, eloquent, and combative eyes. She would take his law, because she believed in it; but, as far as she could see as yet, she would not take his advice unless it were backed by his law. "Mr. Camperdown," continued Greystock, "has consented to prepare a case for opinion, though he will not agree that the Eustace estate shall be bound by that opinion." "Then what's the good of it?" "We shall at least know, all of us, what is the opinion of some lawyer qualified to understand the circumstances of the case." "Why isn't your opinion as good as that of any lawyer?" "I couldn't give an opinion;--not otherwise than as a private friend to you, which is worth nothing, unless for your private guidance. Mr. Camperdown--" "I don't care one straw for Mr. Camperdown." "Just let me finish." "Oh, certainly;--and you mustn't be angry with me, Frank. The matter is so much to me; isn't it?" "I won't be angry. Do I look as if I were angry? Mr. Camperdown is right." "I daresay he may be--what you call right. But I don't care about Mr. Camperdown a bit." "He has no power, nor has John Eustace any power, to decide that the property which may belong to a third person shall be jeopardised by any arbitration. The third person could not be made to lose his legal right by any such arbitration, and his claim, if made, would still have to be tried." "Who is the third person, Frank?" "Your own child at present." "And will not he have it any way?" "Camperdown and John Eustace say that it belongs to him at present. It is a point that, no doubt, should be settled." "To whom do you say that it belongs?" "That is a question I am not prepared to answer." "To whom do you think that it belongs?" "I have refused to look at a single paper on the subject, and my opinion is worth nothing. From what I have heard in conversation with Mr. Camperdown and John Eustace, I cannot find that they make their case good." "Nor can I," said Lizzie. "A case is to be prepared for Mr. Dove." "Who is Mr. Dove?" "Mr. Dove is a barrister, and no doubt a very clever fellow. If his opinion be such as Mr. Camperdown expects, he will at once proceed against you at law for the immediate recovery of the necklace." "I shall be ready for him," said Lizzie, and as she spoke all her little feminine softnesses were for the moment laid aside. "If Mr. Dove's opinion be in your favour--" "Well," said Lizzie,--"what then?" "In that case Mr. Camperdown, acting on behalf of John Eustace and young Florian--" "How dreadful it is to hear of my bitterest enemy acting on behalf of my own child!" said Lizzie, holding up her hands piteously. "Well?" "In that case Mr. Camperdown will serve you with some notice that the jewels are not yours,--to part with them as you may please." "But they will be mine." "He says not;--but in such case he will content himself with taking steps which may prevent you from selling them." "Who says that I want to sell them?" demanded Lizzie indignantly. "Or from giving them away,--say to a second husband." "How little they know me!" "Now I have told you all about Mr. Camperdown." "Yes." "And the next thing is to tell you about Lord Fawn." "That is everything. I care nothing for Mr. Camperdown; nor yet for Mr. Dove,--if that is his absurd name. Lord Fawn is of more moment to me,--though, indeed, he has given me but little cause to say so." "In the first place, I must explain to you that Lord Fawn is very unhappy." "He may thank himself for it." "He is pulled this way and that, and is half distraught; but he has stated with as much positive assurance as such a man can assume, that the match must be regarded as broken off unless you will at once restore the necklace." "He does?" "He has commissioned me to give you that message;--and it is my duty, Lizzie, as your friend, to tell you my conviction that he repents his engagement." She now rose from her chair and began to walk about the room. "He shall not go back from it. He shall learn that I am not a creature at his own disposal in that way. He shall find that I have some strength,--if you have none." "What would you have had me do?" "Taken him by the throat," said Lizzie. "Taking by the throat in these days seldom forwards any object,--unless the taken one be known to the police. I think Lord Fawn is behaving very badly, and I have told him so. No doubt he is under the influence of others,--mother and sisters,--who are not friendly to you." "False-faced idiots!" said Lizzie. "He himself is somewhat afraid of me,--is much afraid of you;--is afraid of what people will say of him; and,--to give him his due,--is afraid also of doing what is wrong. He is timid, weak, conscientious, and wretched. If you have set your heart upon marrying him--" "My heart!" said Lizzie scornfully. "Or your mind,--you can have him by simply sending the diamonds to the jewellers. Whatever may be his wishes, in that case he will redeem his word." "Not for him or all that belongs to him! It wouldn't be much. He's just a pauper with a name." "Then your loss will be so much the less." "But what right has he to treat me so? Did you ever before hear of such a thing? Why is he to be allowed to go back,--without punishment,--more than another?" "What punishment would you wish?" "That he should be beaten within an inch of his life;--and if the inch were not there, I should not complain." "And I am to do it,--to my absolute ruin, and to your great injury?" "I think I could almost do it myself." And Lizzie raised her hand as though there were some weapon in it. "But, Frank, there must be something. You wouldn't have me sit down and bear it. All the world has been told of the engagement. There must be some punishment." "You would not wish to have an action brought,--for breach of promise?" "I would wish to do whatever would hurt him most,--without hurting myself," said Lizzie. "You won't give up the necklace?" said Frank. "Certainly not," said Lizzie. "Give it up for his sake,--a man that I have always despised?" "Then you had better let him go." "I will not let him go. What,--to be pointed at as the woman that Lord Fawn had jilted? Never! My necklace should be nothing more to him than this ring." And she drew from her finger a little circlet of gold with a stone, for which she had owed Messrs. Harter and Benjamin five-and-thirty pounds till Sir Florian had settled that account for her. "What cause can he give for such treatment?" "He acknowledges that there is no cause which he can state openly." "And I am to bear it? And it is you that tell me so? Oh, Frank!" "Let us understand each other, Lizzie. I will not fight him,--that is, with pistols; nor will I attempt to thrash him. It would be useless to argue whether public opinion is right or wrong; but public opinion is now so much opposed to that kind of thing, that it is out of the question. I should injure your position and destroy my own. If you mean to quarrel with me on that score, you had better say so." Perhaps at that moment he almost wished that she would quarrel with him, but she was otherwise disposed. "Oh, Frank," she said, "do not desert me." "I will not desert you." "You feel that I am ill-used, Frank?" "I do. I think that his conduct is inexcusable." "And there is to be no punishment?" she asked, with that strong indignation at injustice which the unjust always feel when they are injured. "If you carry yourself well,--quietly and with dignity,--the world will punish him." "I don't believe a bit of it. I am not a Patient Grizel who can content myself with heaping benefits on those who injure me, and then thinking that they are coals of fire. Lucy Morris is one of that sort." Frank ought to have resented the attack, but he did not. "I have no such tame virtues. I'll tell him to his face what he is. I'll lead him such a life that he shall be sick of the very name of necklace." "You cannot ask him to marry you." "I will. What, not ask a man to keep his promise when you are engaged to him? I am not going to be such a girl as that." "Do you love him, then?" "Love him! I hate him. I always despised him, and now I hate him." "And yet you would marry him?" "Not for worlds, Frank. No. Because you advised me, I thought that I would do so. Yes, you did, Frank. But for you I would never have dreamed of taking him. You know, Frank, how it was,--when you told me of him and wouldn't come to me yourself." Now again she was sitting close to him and had her hand upon his arm. "No, Frank; even to please you I could not marry him now. But I'll tell you what I'll do. He shall ask me again. In spite of those idiots at Richmond he shall kneel at my feet,--necklace or no necklace; and then,--then I'll tell him what I think of him. Marry him! I would not touch him with a pair of tongs." As she said this, she was holding her cousin fast by the hand. CHAPTER XXIV Showing What Frank Greystock Thought About Marriage It had not been much after noon when Frank Greystock reached Portray Castle, and it was very nearly five when he left it. Of course he had lunched with the two ladies, and as the conversation before lunch had been long and interesting, they did not sit down till near three. Then Lizzie had taken him out to show him the grounds and garden, and they had clambered together down to the sea-beach. "Leave me here," she had said, when he insisted on going because of his friend at the Cottage. When he suggested that she would want help to climb back up the rocks to the castle, she shook her head, as though her heart was too full to admit of a consideration so trifling. "My thoughts flow more freely here with the surge of the water in my ears, than they will with that old woman droning to me. I come here often, and know every rock and every stone." That was not exactly true, as she had never been down but once before. "You mean to come again?" He told her that of course he should come again. "I will name neither day nor hour. I have nothing to take me away. If I am not at the castle I shall be at this spot. Good-bye, Frank." He took her in his arms and kissed her,--of course as a brother; and then he clambered up, got on his pony, and rode away. "I dinna ken just what to mak' o' him," said Gowran to his wife. "May be he is her coosin; but coosins are nae that sib that a weedow is to be hailed aboot jist ane as though she were ony quean at a fair." From which it may be inferred that Mr. Gowran had watched the pair as they were descending together towards the shore. Frank had so much to think of, riding back to the Cottage, that when he came to the gap, instead of turning round along the wall down the valley, he took the track right on across the mountain and lost his way. He had meant to be back at the Cottage by three or four, and yet had made his visit to the castle so long, that without any losing of his way he could not have been there before seven. As it was, when that hour arrived, he was up on the top of a hill, and could again see Portray Castle clustering down close upon the sea, and the thin belt of trees, and the shining water beyond;--but of the road to the Cottage he knew nothing. For a moment he thought of returning to Portray, till he had taught himself to perceive that the distance was much greater than it had been from the spot at which he had first seen the castle in the morning;--and then he turned his pony round and descended on the other side. His mind was very full of Lizzie Eustace, and full also of Lucy Morris. If it were to be asserted here that a young man may be perfectly true to a first young woman while he is falling in love with a second, the readers of this story would probably be offended. But undoubtedly many men believe themselves to be quite true while undergoing this process, and many young women expect nothing else from their lovers. If only he will come right at last, they are contented. And if he don't come right at all,--it is the way of the world, and the game has to be played over again. Lucy Morris, no doubt, had lived a life too retired for the learning of such useful forbearance, but Frank Greystock was quite a proficient. He still considered himself to be true to Lucy Morris, with a truth seldom found in this degenerate age,--with a truth to which he intended to sacrifice some of the brightest hopes of his life,--with a truth which, after much thought, he had generously preferred to his ambition. Perhaps there was found some shade of regret to tinge the merit which he assumed on this head, in respect of the bright things which it would be necessary that he should abandon; but, if so, the feeling only assisted him in defending his present conduct from any aspersions his conscience might bring against it. He intended to marry Lucy Morris,--without a shilling, without position, a girl who had earned her bread as a governess, simply because he loved her. It was a wonder to himself that he, a lawyer, a man of the world, a member of Parliament, one who had been steeped up to his shoulders in the ways of the world, should still be so pure as to be capable of such a sacrifice. But it was so; and the sacrifice would undoubtedly be made,--some day. It would be absurd in one conscious of such high merit to be afraid of the ordinary social incidents of life. It is the debauched broken drunkard who should become a teetotaller, and not the healthy hard-working father of a family who never drinks a drop of wine till dinner-time. He need not be afraid of a glass of champagne when, on a chance occasion, he goes to a picnic. Frank Greystock was now going to his picnic; and, though he meant to be true to Lucy Morris, he had enjoyed his glass of champagne with Lizzie Eustace under the rocks. He was thinking a good deal of his champagne when he lost his way. What a wonderful woman was his cousin Lizzie;--and so unlike any other girl he had ever seen! How full she was of energy, how courageous, and, then, how beautiful! No doubt her special treatment of him was sheer flattery. He told himself that it was so. But, after all, flattery is agreeable. That she did like him better than anybody else was probable. He could have no feeling of the injustice he might do to the heart of a woman who at the very moment that she was expressing her partiality for him, was also expressing her anger that another man would not consent to marry her. And then women who have had one husband already are not like young girls in respect to their hearts. So at least thought Frank Greystock. Then he remembered the time at which he had intended to ask Lizzie to be his wife,--the very day on which he would have done so had he been able to get away from that early division at the House,--and he asked himself whether he felt any regret on that score. It would have been very nice to come down to Portray Castle as to his own mansion after the work of the courts and of the session. Had Lizzie become his wife, her fortune would have helped him to the very highest steps beneath the throne. At present he was almost nobody;--because he was so poor, and in debt. It was so, undoubtedly; but what did all that matter in comparison with the love of Lucy Morris? A man is bound to be true. And he would be true. Only, as a matter of course, Lucy must wait. When he had first kissed his cousin up in London, she suggested that the kiss was given as by a brother, and asserted that it was accepted as by a sister. He had not demurred, having been allowed the kiss. Nothing of the kind had been said under the rocks to-day;--but then that fraternal arrangement, when once made and accepted, remains, no doubt, in force for a long time. He did like his cousin Lizzie. He liked to feel that he could be her friend, with the power of domineering over her. She, also, was fond of her own way, and loved to domineer herself; but the moment that he suggested to her that there might be a quarrel, she was reduced to a prayer that he would not desert her. Such a friendship has charms for a young man, especially if the lady be pretty. As to Lizzie's prettiness, no man or woman could entertain a doubt. And she had a way of making the most of herself, which it was very hard to resist. Some young women, when they clamber over rocks, are awkward, heavy, unattractive, and troublesome. But Lizzie had at one moment touched him as a fairy might have done; had sprung at another from stone to stone, requiring no help; and then, on a sudden, had become so powerless that he had been forced almost to carry her in his arms. That, probably, must have been the moment which induced Mr. Gowran to liken her to a quean at a fair. But, undoubtedly, there might be trouble. Frank was sufficiently experienced in the ways of the world to know that trouble would sometimes come from young ladies who treat young men like their brothers, when those young men are engaged to other young ladies. The other young ladies are apt to disapprove of brothers who are not brothers by absolute right of birth. He knew also that all the circumstances of his cousin's position would make it expedient that she should marry a second husband. As he could not be that second husband,--that matter was settled, whether for good or bad,--was he not creating trouble, both for her and for himself? Then there arose in his mind a feeling, very strange, but by no means uncommon, that prudence on his part would be mean, because by such prudence he would be securing safety for himself as well as for her. What he was doing was not only imprudent,--but wrong also. He knew that it was so. But Lizzie Eustace was a pretty young woman; and, when a pretty young woman is in the case, a man is bound to think neither of what is prudent, nor of what is right. Such was--perhaps his instinct rather than his theory. For her sake, if not for his own, he should have abstained. She was his cousin, and was so placed in the world as specially to require some strong hand to help her. He knew her to be, in truth, heartless, false, and greedy; but she had so lived that even yet her future life might be successful. He had called himself her friend as well as cousin, and was bound to protect her from evil, if protection were possible. But he was adding to all her difficulties, because she pretended to be in love with him. He knew that it was pretence; and yet, because she was pretty, and because he was a man, he could not save her from herself. "It doesn't do to be wiser than other men," he said to himself as he looked round about on the bare hill-side. In the meantime he had altogether lost his way. It was between nine and ten when he reached the Cottage. "Of course you have dined?" said Herriot. "Not a bit of it. I left before five, being sure that I could get here in an hour and a half. I have been riding up and down these dreary hills for nearly five hours. You have dined?" "There was a neck of mutton and a chicken. She said the neck of mutton would keep hot best, so I took the chicken. I hope you like lukewarm neck of mutton?" "I'm hungry enough to eat anything;--not but what I had a first-rate luncheon. What have you done all day?" "Stone and Toddy," said Herriot. "Stick to that. If anything can pull you through, Stone and Toddy will. I lived upon them for two years." "Stone and Toddy,--with a little tobacco, have been all my comfort. I began, however, by sleeping for a few hours. Then I went upon the mountains." "Did you take a gun?" "I took it out of the case, but it didn't come right, and so I left it. A man came to me and said he was the keeper." "He'd have put the gun right for you." "I was too bashful for that. I persuaded him that I wanted to go out alone and see what birds there were, and at last I induced him to stay here with the old woman. He's to be at the Cottage at nine to-morrow. I hope that is all right." In the evening, as they smoked and drank whiskey and water,--probably supposing that to be correct in Ayrshire,--they were led on by the combined warmth of the spirit, the tobacco, and their friendship, to talk about women. Frank, some month or six weeks since, in a moment of soft confidence, had told his friend of his engagement with Lucy Morris. Of Lizzie Eustace he had spoken only as of a cousin whose interests were dear to him. Her engagement with Lord Fawn was known to all London, and was, therefore, known to Arthur Herriot. Some distant rumour, however, had reached him that the course of true-love was not running quite smooth, and therefore on that subject he would not speak, at any rate till Greystock should first mention it. "How odd it is to find two women living all alone in a great house like that," Frank had said. "Because so few women have the means to live in large houses, unless they live with fathers or husbands." "The truth is," said Frank, "that women don't do well alone. There is always a savour of misfortune,--or, at least, of melancholy,--about a household which has no man to look after it. With us, generally, old maids don't keep houses, and widows marry again. No doubt it was an unconscious appreciation of this feeling which brought about the burning of Indian widows. There is an unfitness in women for solitude. A female Prometheus, even without a vulture, would indicate cruelty worse even than Jove's. A woman should marry,--once, twice, and thrice if necessary." "Women can't marry without men to marry them." Frank Greystock filled his pipe as he went on with his lecture. "That idea as to the greater number of women is all nonsense. Of course we are speaking of our own kind of men and women, and the disproportion of the numbers in so small a division of the population amounts to nothing. We have no statistics to tell us whether there be any such disproportion in classes where men do not die early from overwork." "More females are born than males." "That's more than I know. As one of the legislators of the country I am prepared to state that statistics are always false. What we have to do is to induce men to marry. We can't do it by statute." "No, thank God." "Nor yet by fashion." "Fashion seems to be going the other way," said Herriot. "It can be only done by education and conscience. Take men of forty all round,--men of our own class,--you believe that the married men are happier than the unmarried? I want an answer, you know, just for the sake of the argument." "I think the married men are the happier. But you speak as the fox who had lost his tail;--or, at any rate, as a fox in the act of losing it." "Never mind my tail. If morality in life and enlarged affections are conducive to happiness it must be so." "Short commons and unpaid bills are conducive to misery. That's what I should say if I wanted to oppose you." "I never came across a man willing to speak the truth who did not admit that, in the long run, married men are the happier. As regards women, there isn't even ground for an argument. And yet men don't marry." "They can't." "You mean there isn't food enough in the world." "The man fears that he won't get enough of what there is for his wife and family." "The labourer with twelve shillings a week has no such fear. And if he did marry, the food would come. It isn't that. The man is unconscientious and ignorant as to the sources of true happiness, and won't submit himself to cold mutton and three clean shirts a week,--not because he dislikes mutton and dirty linen himself,--but because the world says they are vulgar. That's the feeling that keeps you from marrying, Herriot." "As for me," said Herriot, "I regard myself as so placed that I do not dare to think of a young woman of my own rank except as a creature that must be foreign to me. I cannot make such a one my friend as I would a man, because I should be in love with her at once. And I do not dare to be in love because I would not see a wife and children starve. I regard my position as one of enforced monasticism, and myself as a monk under the cruellest compulsion. I often wish that I had been brought up as a journeyman hatter." "Why a hatter?" "I'm told it's an active sort of life. You're fast asleep, and I was just now, when you were preaching. We'd better go to bed. Nine o'clock for breakfast, I suppose?" CHAPTER XXV Mr. Dove's Opinion Mr. Thomas Dove, familiarly known among club-men, attorneys' clerks, and, perhaps, even among judges when very far from their seats of judgment, as Turtle Dove, was a counsel learned in the law. He was a counsel so learned in the law, that there was no question within the limits of an attorney's capability of putting to him, that he could not answer with the aid of his books. And when he had once given an opinion, all Westminster could not move him from it,--nor could Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn and the Temple added to Westminster. When Mr. Dove had once been positive, no man on earth was more positive. It behoved him, therefore, to be right when he was positive; and though whether wrong or right he was equally stubborn, it must be acknowledged that he was seldom proved to be wrong. Consequently the attorneys believed in him, and he prospered. He was a thin man, over fifty years of age, very full of scorn and wrath, impatient of a fool, and thinking most men to be fools; afraid of nothing on earth,--and, so his enemies said, of nothing elsewhere; eaten up by conceit; fond of law, but fonder, perhaps, of dominion; soft as milk to those who acknowledged his power, but a tyrant to all who contested it; conscientious, thoughtful, sarcastic, bright-witted, and laborious. He was a man who never spared himself. If he had a case in hand, though the interest to himself in it was almost nothing, he would rob himself of rest for a week should a point arise which required such labour. It was the theory of Mr. Dove's life that he would never be beaten. Perhaps it was some fear in this respect that had kept him from Parliament and confined him to the courts and the company of attorneys. He was, in truth, a married man with a family; but they who knew him as the terror of opponents and as the divulger of legal opinions, heard nothing of his wife and children. He kept all such matters quite to himself, and was not given to much social intercourse with those among whom his work lay. Out at Streatham, where he lived, Mrs. Dove probably had her circle of acquaintance;--but Mr. Dove's domestic life and his forensic life were kept quite separate. At the present moment Mr. Dove is interesting to us solely as being the learned counsel in whom Mr. Camperdown trusted,--to whom Mr. Camperdown was willing to trust for an opinion in so grave a matter as that of the Eustace diamonds. A case was made out and submitted to Mr. Dove immediately after that scene on the pavement in Mount Street, at which Mr. Camperdown had endeavoured to induce Lizzie to give up the necklace; and the following is the opinion which Mr. Dove gave:-- There is much error about heirlooms. Many think that any chattel may be made an heirloom by any owner of it. This is not the case. The law, however, does recognise heirlooms;--as to which the Exors. or Admors. are excluded in favour of the Successor; and when there are such heirlooms they go to the heir by special custom. Any devise of an heirloom is necessarily void, for the will takes place after death, and the heirloom is already vested in the heir by custom. We have it from Littleton, that law prefers custom to devise. Brooke says, that the best thing of every sort may be an heirloom,--such as the best bed, the best table, the best pot or pan. Coke says, that heirlooms are so by custom, and not by law. Spelman says, in defining an heirloom, that it may be "Omne utensil robustius;" which would exclude a necklace. In the "Termes de Ley," it is defined as "Ascun parcel des ustensiles." We are told in "Coke upon Littleton," that Crown jewels are heirlooms, which decision,--as far as it goes,--denies the right to other jewels. Certain chattels may undoubtedly be held and claimed as being in the nature of heirlooms,--as swords, pennons of honour, garter and collar of S. S. See case of the Earl of Northumberland; and that of the Pusey horn,--Pusey v. Pusey. The journals of the House of Lords, delivered officially to peers, may be so claimed. See Upton v. Lord Ferrers. A devisor may clearly devise or limit the possession of chattels, making them inalienable by devisees in succession. But in such cases they will become the absolute possession of the first person seized in tail,--even though an infant, and in case of death without will, would go to the Exors. Such arrangement, therefore, can only hold good for lives in existence and for 21 years afterwards. Chattels so secured would not be heirlooms. See Carr v. Lord Errol, 14 Vesey, and Rowland v. Morgan. Lord Eldon remarks, that such chattels held in families are "rather favourites of the court." This was in the Ormonde case. Executors, therefore, even when setting aside any claim as for heirlooms, ought not to apply such property in payment of debts unless obliged. The law allows of claims for paraphernalia for widows, and, having adjusted such claims, seems to show that the claim may be limited. If a man deliver cloth to his wife, and die, she shall have it, though she had not fashioned it into the garment intended. Pearls and jewels, even though only worn on state occasions, may go to the widow as paraphernalia,--but with a limit. In the case of Lady Douglas, she being the daughter of an Irish Earl and widow of the King's Sergeant (temp. Car. I.), it was held that £370 was not too much, and she was allowed a diamond and a pearl chain to that value. In 1674, Lord Keeper Finch declared that he would never allow paraphernalia, except to the widow of a nobleman. But in 1721 Lord Macclesfield gave Mistress Tipping paraphernalia to the value of £200,--whether so persuaded by law and precedent, or otherwise, may be uncertain. Lord Talbot allowed a gold watch as paraphernalia. Lord Hardwicke went much further, and decided that Mrs. Northey was entitled to wear jewels to the value of £3000,--saying that value made no difference; but seems to have limited the nature of her possession in the jewels by declaring her to be entitled to wear them only when full-dressed. It is, I think, clear that the Eustace estate cannot claim the jewels as an heirloom. They are last mentioned, and, as far as I know, only mentioned as an heirloom in the will of the great-grandfather of the present baronet,--if these be the diamonds then named by him. As such, he could not have devised them to the present claimant, as he died in 1820, and the present claimant is not yet two years old. Whether the widow could claim them as paraphernalia is more doubtful. I do not know that Lord Hardwicke's ruling would decide the case; but, if so, she would, I think, be debarred from selling, as he limits the use of jewels of lesser value than these to the wearing of them when full-dressed. The use being limited, possession with power of alienation cannot be intended. The lady's claim to them as a gift from her husband amounts to nothing. If they are not hers by will,--and it seems that they are not so,--she can only hold them as paraphernalia belonging to her station. I presume it to be capable of proof that the diamonds were not in Scotland when Sir Florian made his will or when he died. The former fact might be used as tending to show his intention when the will was made. I understand that he did leave to his widow by will all the chattels in Portray Castle. J. D. 15 August, 18--. When Mr. Camperdown had thrice read this opinion, he sat in his chair an unhappy old man. It was undoubtedly the case that he had been a lawyer for upwards of forty years, and had always believed that any gentleman could make any article of value an heirloom in his family. The title-deeds of vast estates had been confided to his keeping, and he had had much to do with property of every kind; and now he was told that, in reference to property of a certain description,--property which, by its nature, could only belong to such as they who were his clients,--he had been long without any knowledge whatsoever. He had called this necklace an heirloom to John Eustace above a score of times; and now he was told by Mr. Dove not only that the necklace was not an heirloom, but that it couldn't have been an heirloom. He was a man who trusted much in a barrister,--as was natural with an attorney; but he was now almost inclined to doubt Mr. Dove. And he was hardly more at ease in regard to the other clauses of the opinion. Not only could not the estate claim the necklace as an heirloom, but that greedy siren, that heartless snake, that harpy of a widow,--for it was thus that Mr. Camperdown in his solitude spoke to himself of poor Lizzie, perhaps throwing in a harder word or two,--that female swindler could claim it as--paraphernalia! There was a crumb of comfort for him in the thought that he could force her to claim that privilege from a decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, and that her greed would be exposed should she do so. And she could be prevented from selling the diamonds. Mr. Dove seemed to make that quite clear. But then there came that other question, as to the inheritance of the property under the husband's will. That Sir Florian had not intended that she should inherit the necklace, Mr. Camperdown was quite certain. On that point he suffered no doubt. But would he be able to prove that the diamonds had never been in Scotland since Sir Florian's marriage? He had traced their history from that date with all the diligence he could use, and he thought that he knew it. But it might be doubtful whether he could prove it. Lady Eustace had first stated,--had so stated before she had learned the importance of any other statement,--that Sir Florian had given her the diamonds in London, as they passed through London from Scotland to Italy, and that she had carried them thence to Naples, where Sir Florian had died. If this were so, they could not have been at Portray Castle till she took them there as a widow, and they would undoubtedly be regarded as a portion of that property which Sir Florian habitually kept in London. That this was so Mr. Camperdown entertained no doubt. But now the widow alleged that Sir Florian had given the necklace to her in Scotland, whither they had gone immediately after their marriage, and that she herself had brought them up to London. They had been married on the 5th of September; and by the jewellers' books it was hard to tell whether the trinket had been given up to Sir Florian on the 4th or 24th of September. On the 24th Sir Florian and his young bride had undoubtedly been in London. Mr. Camperdown anathematised the carelessness of everybody connected with Messrs. Garnett's establishment. "Those sort of people have no more idea of accuracy than--than--" than he had had of heirlooms, his conscience whispered to him, filling up the blank. Nevertheless he thought he could prove that the necklace was first put into Lizzie's hands in London. The middle-aged and very discreet man at Messrs. Garnett's, who had given up the jewel-case to Sir Florian, was sure that he had known Sir Florian to be a married man when he did so. The lady's maid who had been in Scotland with Lady Eustace, and who was now living in Turin, having married a courier, had given evidence before an Italian man of law, stating that she had never seen the necklace till she came to London. There were, moreover, the probabilities of the case. Was it likely that Sir Florian should take such a thing down in his pocket to Scotland? And there was the statement as first made by Lady Eustace herself to her cousin Frank, repeated by him to John Eustace, and not to be denied by any one. It was all very well for her now to say that she had forgotten; but would any one believe that on such a subject she could forget? But still the whole thing was very uncomfortable. Mr. Dove's opinion, if seen by Lady Eustace and her friends, would rather fortify them than frighten them. Were she once to get hold of that word paraphernalia, it would be as a tower of strength to her. Mr. Camperdown specially felt this,--that whereas he had hitherto believed that no respectable attorney would take up such a case as that of Lady Eustace, he could not now but confess to himself that any lawyer seeing Mr. Dove's opinion would be justified in taking it up. And yet he was as certain as ever that the woman was robbing the estate which it was his duty to guard, and that should he cease to be active in the matter, the necklace would be broken up and the property sold and scattered before a year was out, and then the woman would have got the better of him! "She shall find that we have not done with her yet," he said to himself, as he wrote a line to John Eustace. But John Eustace was out of town, as a matter of course;--and on the next day Mr. Camperdown himself went down and joined his wife and family at a little cottage which he had at Dawlish. The necklace, however, interfered much with his holiday. CHAPTER XXVI Mr. Gowran Is Very Funny Frank Greystock certainly went over to Portray too often,--so often that the pony was proved to be quite necessary. Miss Macnulty held her tongue and was gloomy,--believing that Lady Eustace was still engaged to Lord Fawn, and feeling that in that case there should not be so many visits to the rocks. Mr. Gowran was very attentive, and could tell on any day, to five minutes, how long the two cousins were sitting together on the sea-shore. Arthur Herriot, who cared nothing for Lady Eustace, but who knew that his friend had promised to marry Lucy Morris, was inclined to be serious on the subject; but,--as is always the case with men,--was not willing to speak about it. Once, and once only, the two men dined together at the castle,--for the doing of which it was necessary that a gig should be hired all the way from Prestwick. Herriot had not been anxious to go over, alleging various excuses,--the absence of dress clothes, the calls of Stone and Toddy, his bashfulness, and the absurdity of paying fifteen shillings for a gig. But he went at last, constrained by his friend, and a very dull evening he passed. Lizzie was quite unlike her usual self,--was silent, grave, and solemnly courteous; Miss Macnulty had not a word to say for herself; and even Frank was dull. Arthur Herriot had not tried to exert himself, and the dinner had been a failure. "You don't think much of my cousin, I daresay," said Frank, as they were driving back. "She is a very pretty woman." "And I should say that she does not think much of you." "Probably not." "Why on earth wouldn't you speak to her? I went on making speeches to Miss Macnulty on purpose to give you a chance. Lizzie generally talks about as well as any young woman I know; but you had not a word to say to her, nor she to you." "Because you devoted yourself to Miss Mac--whatever her name is." "That's nonsense," said Frank; "Lizzie and I are more like brother and sister than anything else. She has no one else belonging to her, and she has to come to me for advice, and all that sort of thing. I wanted you to like her." "I never like people, and people never like me. There is an old saying that you should know a man seven years before you poke his fire. I want to know persons seven years before I can ask them how they do. To take me out to dine in this way was of all things the most hopeless." "But you do dine out,--in London." "That's different. There's a certain routine of conversation going, and one falls into it. At such affairs as that this evening one has to be intimate, or it is a bore. I don't mean to say anything against Lady Eustace. Her beauty is undeniable, and I don't doubt her cleverness." "She is sometimes too clever," said Frank. "I hope she is not becoming too clever for you. You've got to remember that you're due elsewhere;--eh, old fellow?" This was the first word that Herriot had said on the subject, and to that word Frank Greystock made no answer. But it had its effect, as also did the gloomy looks of Miss Macnulty, and the not unobserved presence of Mr. Andy Gowran on various occasions. Between them they shot more grouse,--so the keeper swore,--than had ever been shot on these mountains before. Herriot absolutely killed one or two himself, to his own great delight, and Frank, who was fairly skilful, would get four or five in a day. There were excursions to be made, and the air of the hills was in itself a treat to both of them. Though Greystock was so often away at the castle, Herriot did not find the time hang heavily on his hands, and was sorry when his fortnight was over. "I think I shall stay a couple of days longer," Frank said, when Herriot spoke of their return. "The truth is I must see Lizzie again. She is bothered by business, and I have to see her about a letter that came this morning. You needn't pull such a long face. There's nothing of the kind you're thinking of." "I thought so much of what you once said to me about another girl that I hope she at any rate may never be in trouble." "I hope she never may,--on my account," said Frank. "And what troubles she may have,--as life will be troublesome, I trust that I may share and lessen." On that evening Herriot went, and on the next morning Frank Greystock again rode over to Portray Castle; but when he was alone after Herriot's departure, he wrote a letter to Lucy Morris. He had expressed a hope that he might never be a cause of trouble to Lucy Morris, and he knew that his silence would trouble her. There could be no human being less inclined to be suspicious than Lucy Morris. Of that Frank was sure. But there had been an express stipulation with Lady Fawn that she should be allowed to receive letters from him, and she would naturally be vexed when he did not write to her. So he wrote. Portray Cottage, 3 Sept., 18--. DEAREST LUCY, We have been here for a fortnight, shooting grouse, wandering about the mountains, and going to sleep on the hill-sides. You will say that there never was a time so fit for the writing of letters, but that will be because you have not learned yet that the idler people are, the more inclined they are to be idle. We hear of Lord Chancellors writing letters to their mothers every day of their lives; but men who have nothing on earth to do cannot bring themselves to face a sheet of paper. I would promise that when I am Lord Chancellor I would write to you every day, were it not that when that time comes I shall hope to be always with you. And, in truth, I have had to pay constant visits to my cousin, who lives in a big castle on the sea-side, ten miles from here, over the mountains, and who is in a peck of troubles;--in spite of her prosperity one of the unhappiest women, I should say, that you could meet anywhere. You know so much of her affairs that, without breach of trust, I may say so much. I wish she had a father or a brother to manage her matters for her; but she has none, and I cannot desert her. Your Lord Fawn is behaving badly to her; and so, as far as I can see, are the people who manage the Eustace property. Lizzie, as you know, is not the most tractable of women, and altogether I have more to do in the matter than I like. Riding ten miles backwards and forwards so often over the same route on a little pony is not good fun, but I am almost glad the distance is not less. Otherwise I might have been always there. I know you don't quite like Lizzie, but she is to be pitied. I go up to London on Friday, but shall only be there for one or two days,--that is, for one night. I go almost entirely on her business, and must, I fear, be here again, or at the castle, before I can settle myself either for work or happiness. On Sunday night I go down to Bobsborough,--where, indeed, I ought to have been earlier. I fear I cannot go to Richmond on the Saturday, and on the Sunday Lady Fawn would hardly make me welcome. I shall be at Bobsborough for about three weeks, and there, if you have commands to give, I will obey them. I may, however, tell you the truth at once,--though it is a truth you must keep very much to yourself. In the position in which I now stand as to Lord Fawn,--being absolutely forced to quarrel with him on Lizzie's behalf,--Lady Fawn could hardly receive me with comfort to herself. She is the best of women; and, as she is your dear friend, nothing is further from me than any idea of quarrelling with her; but of course she takes her son's part, and I hardly know how all allusion to the subject could be avoided. This, however, dearest, need ruffle no feather between you and me, who love each other better than we love either the Fawns or the Lizzies. Let me find a line at my chambers to say that it is so, and always shall be so. God bless my own darling, Ever and always your own, F. G. On the following day he rode over to the castle. He had received a letter from John Eustace, who had found himself forced to run up to London to meet Mr. Camperdown. The lawyer had thought to postpone further consideration of the whole matter till he and everybody else would be naturally in London,--till November that might be, or, perhaps, even till after Christmas. But his mind was ill at ease; and he knew that so much might be done with the diamonds in four months! They might even now be in the hands of some Benjamin or of some Harter, and it might soon be beyond the power either of lawyers or of policemen to trace them. He therefore went up from Dawlish and persuaded John Eustace to come from Yorkshire. It was a great nuisance, and Eustace freely anathematised the necklace. "If only some one would steal it, so that we might hear no more of the thing!" he said. But, as Mr. Camperdown had frequently remarked, the value was too great for trifling, and Eustace went up to London. Mr. Camperdown put into his hands the Turtle Dove's opinion, explaining that it was by no means expedient that it should be shown to the other party. Eustace thought that the opinion should be common to them all. "We pay for it," said Mr. Camperdown, "and they can get their opinion from any other barrister if they please." But what was to be done? Eustace declared that as to the present whereabouts of the necklace, he did not in the least doubt that he could get the truth from Frank Greystock. He therefore wrote to Greystock, and with that letter in his pocket, Frank rode over to the castle for the last time. He, too, was heartily sick of the necklace;--but unfortunately he was not equally sick of her who held it in possession. And he was, too, better alive to the importance of the value of the trinket than John Eustace, though not so keenly as was Mr. Camperdown. Lady Eustace was out somewhere among the cliffs, the servant said. He regretted this as he followed her, but he was obliged to follow her. Half way down to the sea-shore, much below the knob on which she had attempted to sit with her Shelley, but yet not below the need of assistance, he found her seated in a little ravine. "I knew you would come," she said. Of course she had known that he would come. She did not rise, or even give him her hand, but there was a spot close beside her on which it was to be presumed that he would seat himself. She had a volume of Byron in her hand,--the Corsair, Lara, and the Giaour,--a kind of poetry which was in truth more intelligible to her than Queen Mab. "You go to-morrow?" "Yes;--I go to-morrow." "And Lubin has gone?" Arthur Herriot was Lubin. "Lubin has gone. Though why Lubin, I cannot guess. The normal Lubin to me is a stupid fellow always in love. Herriot is not stupid and is never in love." "Nevertheless, he is Lubin if I choose to call him so. Why did he twiddle his thumbs instead of talking? Have you heard anything of Lord Fawn?" "I have had a letter from your brother-in-law." "And what is John the Just pleased to say?" "John the Just, which is a better name for the man than the other, has been called up to London, much against his will, by Mr. Camperdown." "Who is Samuel the Unjust." Mr. Camperdown's name was Samuel. "And now wants to know where this terrible necklace is at this present moment." He paused a moment, but Lizzie did not answer him. "I suppose you have no objection to telling me where it is." "None in the least:--or to giving it you to keep for me, only that I would not so far trouble you. But I have an objection to telling them. They are my enemies. Let them find out." "You are wrong, Lizzie. You do not want, or at any rate should not want, to have any secret in the matter." "They are here,--in the castle; in the very place in which Sir Florian kept them when he gave them to me. Where should my own jewels be but in my own house? What does that Mr. Dove say, who was to be asked about them? No doubt they can pay a barrister to say anything." "Lizzie, you think too hardly of people." "And do not people think too hardly of me? Does not all this amount to an accusation against me that I am a thief? Am I not persecuted among them? Did not this impudent attorney stop me in the public street and accuse me of theft before my very servants? Have they not so far succeeded in misrepresenting me, that the very man who is engaged to be my husband betrays me? And now you are turning against me? Can you wonder that I am hard?" "I am not turning against you." "Yes; you are. You take their part, and not mine, in everything. I tell you what, Frank;--I would go out in that boat that you see yonder, and drop the bauble into the sea, did I not know that they'd drag it up again with their devilish ingenuity. If the stones would burn, I would burn them. But the worst of it all is, that you are becoming my enemy!" Then she burst into violent and almost hysteric tears. "It will be better that you should give them into the keeping of some one whom you can both trust, till the law has decided to whom they belong." "I will never give them up. What does Mr. Dove say?" "I have not seen what Mr. Dove says. It is clear that the necklace is not an heirloom." "Then how dare Mr. Camperdown say so often that it was?" "He said what he thought," pleaded Frank. "And he is a lawyer!" "I am a lawyer, and I did not know what is or what is not an heirloom. But Mr. Dove is clearly of opinion that such a property could not have been given away simply by word of mouth." John Eustace in his letter had made no allusion to that complicated question of paraphernalia. "But it was," said Lizzie. "Who can know but myself, when no one else was present?" "The jewels are here now?" "Not in my pocket. I do not carry them about with me. They are in the castle." "And will they go back with you to London?" "Was ever lady so interrogated? I do not know yet that I shall go back to London. Why am I asked such questions? As to you, Frank, I would tell you everything,--my whole heart, if only you cared to know it. But why is John Eustace to make inquiry as to personal ornaments which are my own property? If I go to London, I will take them there, and wear them at every house I enter. I will do so in defiance of Mr. Camperdown and Lord Fawn. I think, Frank, that no woman was ever so ill-treated as I am." He himself thought that she was ill-treated. She had so pleaded her case, and had been so lovely in her tears and her indignation, that he began to feel something like true sympathy for her cause. What right had he, or had Mr. Camperdown, or any one, to say that the jewels did not belong to her? And if her claim to them was just, why should she be persuaded to give up the possession of them? He knew well that were she to surrender them with the idea that they should be restored to her if her claim were found to be just, she would not get them back very soon. If once the jewels were safe, locked up in Mr. Garnett's strong box, Mr. Camperdown would not care how long it might be before a jury or a judge should have decided on the case. The burthen of proof would then be thrown upon Lady Eustace. In order that she might recover her own property she would have to thrust herself forward as a witness, and appear before the world a claimant, greedy for rich ornaments. Why should he advise her to give them up? "I am only thinking," said he, "what may be the best for your own peace." "Peace!"--she exclaimed. "How am I to have peace? Remember the condition in which I find myself! Remember the manner in which that man is treating me, when all the world has been told of my engagement to him! When I think of it my heart is so bitter that I am inclined to throw, not the diamonds, but myself from off the rocks. All that remains to me is the triumph of getting the better of my enemies. Mr. Camperdown shall never have the diamonds. Even if they could prove that they did not belong to me, they should find them--gone." "I don't think they can prove it." "I'll flaunt them in the eyes of all of them till they do; and then--they shall be gone. And I'll have such revenge on Lord Fawn before I have done with him, that he shall know that it may be worse to have to fight a woman than a man. Oh, Frank, I do not think that I am hard by nature, but these things make a woman hard." As she spoke she took his hand in hers, and looked up into his eyes through her tears. "I know that you do not care for me, and you know how much I care for you." "Not care for you, Lizzie?" "No;--that little thing at Richmond is everything to you. She is tame and quiet,--a cat that will sleep on the rug before the fire, and you think that she will never scratch. Do not suppose that I mean to abuse her. She was my dear friend before you had ever seen her. And men, I know, have tastes which we women do not understand. You want what you call--repose." "We seldom know what we want, I fancy. We take what the gods send us." Frank's words were perhaps more true than wise. At the present moment the gods had clearly sent Lizzie Eustace to him, and unless he could call up some increased strength of his own, quite independent of the gods,--or of what we may perhaps call chance,--he would have to put up with the article sent. Lizzie had declared that she would not touch Lord Fawn with a pair of tongs, and in saying so had resolved that she could not and would not now marry his lordship even were his lordship in her power. It had been decided by her as quickly as thoughts flash, but it was decided. She would torture the unfortunate lord, but not torture him by becoming his wife. And, so much being fixed as the stars in heaven, might it be possible that she should even yet induce her cousin to take the place that had been intended for Lord Fawn? After all that had passed between them she need hardly hesitate to tell him of her love. And with the same flashing thoughts she declared to herself that she did love him, and that therefore this arrangement would be so much better than that other one which she had proposed to herself. The reader, perhaps, by this time, has not a high opinion of Lady Eustace, and may believe that among other drawbacks on her character there is especially this,--that she was heartless. But that was by no means her own opinion of herself. She would have described herself,--and would have meant to do so with truth,--as being all heart. She probably thought that an over-amount of heart was the malady under which she specially suffered. Her heart was overflowing now towards the man who was sitting by her side. And then it would be so pleasant to punish that little chit who had spurned her gift and had dared to call her mean! This man, too, was needy, and she was wealthy. Surely, were she to offer herself to him, the generosity of the thing would make it noble. She was still dissolved in tears and was still hysteric. "Oh, Frank!" she said, and threw herself upon his breast. Frank Greystock felt his position to be one of intense difficulty, but whether his difficulty was increased or diminished by the appearance of Mr. Andy Gowran's head over a rock at the entrance of the little cave in which they were sitting, it might be difficult to determine. But there was the head. And it was not a head that just popped itself up and then retreated, as a head would do that was discovered doing that which made it ashamed of itself. The head, with its eyes wide open, held its own, and seemed to say,--"Ay,--I've caught you, have I?" And the head did speak, though not exactly in those words. "Coosins!" said the head; and then the head was wagged. In the meantime Lizzie Eustace, whose back was turned to the head, raised her own, and looked up into Greystock's eyes for love. She perceived at once that something was amiss, and, starting to her feet, turned quickly round. "How dare you intrude here?" she said to the head. "Coosins!" replied the head, wagging itself. It was clearly necessary that Greystock should take some steps, if only with the object of proving to the impudent factotum that he was not altogether overcome by the awkwardness of his position. That he was a good deal annoyed, and that he felt not altogether quite equal to the occasion, must be acknowledged. "What is it that the man wants?" he said, glaring at the head. "Coosins!" said the head, wagging itself again. "If you don't take yourself off, I shall have to thrash you," said Frank. "Coosins!" said Andy Gowran, stepping from behind the rock and showing his full figure. Andy was a man on the wrong side of fifty, and therefore, on the score of age, hardly fit for thrashing. And he was compact, short, broad, and as hard as flint;--a man bad to thrash, look at it from what side you would. "Coosins!" he said yet again. "Ye're mair couthie than coosinly, I'm thinking." "Andy Gowran, I dismiss you from my service for your impertinence," said Lady Eustace. "It's ae ane to Andy Gowran for that, my leddie. There's timber and a warld o' things aboot the place as wants proteection on behalf o' the heir. If your leddieship is minded to be quit o' my sarvices, I'll find a maister in Mr. Camperdoon, as'll nae alloo me to be thrown out o' employ. Coosins!" "Walk off from this!" said Frank Greystock, coming forward and putting his hand upon the man's breast. Mr. Gowran repeated the objectionable word yet once again, and then retired. Frank Greystock immediately felt how very bad for him was his position. For the lady, if only she could succeed in her object, the annoyance of the interruption would not matter much after its first absurdity had been endured. When she had become the wife of Frank Greystock there would be nothing remarkable in the fact that she had been found sitting with him in a cavern by the sea-shore. But for Frank the difficulty of extricating himself from his dilemma was great, not in regard to Mr. Gowran, but in reference to his cousin Lizzie. He might, it was true, tell her that he was engaged to Lucy Morris;--but then why had he not told her so before? He had not told her so;--nor did he tell her on this occasion. When he attempted to lead her away up the cliff, she insisted on being left where she was. "I can find my way alone," she said, endeavouring to smile through her tears. "The man has annoyed me by his impudence,--that is all. Go,--if you are going." Of course he was going; but he could not go without a word of tenderness. "Dear, dear Lizzie," he said, embracing her. "Frank, you'll be true to me?" "I will be true to you." "Then go now," she said. And he went his way up the cliff, and got his pony, and rode back to the cottage, very uneasy in his mind. CHAPTER XXVII Lucy Morris Misbehaves Lucy Morris got her letter and was contented. She wanted some demonstration of love from her lover, but very little sufficed for her comfort. With her it was almost impossible that a man should be loved and suspected at the same time. She could not have loved the man, or at any rate confessed her love, without thinking well of him; and she could not think good and evil at the same time. She had longed for some word from him since she last saw him; and now she had got a word. She had known that he was close to his fair cousin,--the cousin whom she despised, and whom, with womanly instinct, she had almost regarded as a rival. But to her the man had spoken out; and though he was far away from her, living close to the fair cousin, she would not allow a thought of trouble on that score to annoy her. He was her own, and let Lizzie Eustace do her worst, he would remain her own. But she had longed to be told that he was thinking of her, and at last the letter had come. She answered it that same night with the sweetest, prettiest little letter, very short, full of love and full of confidence. Lady Fawn, she said, was the dearest of women;--but what was Lady Fawn to her, or all the Fawns, compared with her lover? If he could come to Richmond without disturbance to himself, let him come; but if he felt that, in the present unhappy condition of affairs between him and Lord Fawn, it was better that he should stay away, she had not a word to say in the way of urging him. To see him would be a great delight. But had she not the greater delight of knowing that he loved her? That was quite enough to make her happy. Then there was a little prayer that God might bless him, and an assurance that she was in all things his own, own Lucy. When she was writing her letter she was in all respects a happy girl. But on the very next day there came a cloud upon her happiness,--not in the least, however, affecting her full confidence in her lover. It was a Saturday, and Lord Fawn came down to Richmond. Lord Fawn had seen Mr. Greystock in London on that day, and the interview had been by no means pleasant to him. The Under-Secretary of State for India was as dark as a November day when he reached his mother's house, and there fell upon every one the unintermittent cold drizzling shower of his displeasure from the moment in which he entered the house. There was never much reticence among the ladies at Richmond in Lucy's presence, and since the completion of Lizzie's unfortunate visit to Fawn Court, they had not hesitated to express open opinions adverse to the prospects of the proposed bride. Lucy herself could say but little in defence of her old friend, who had lost all claim upon that friendship since the offer of the bribe had been made,--so that it was understood among them all that Lizzie was to be regarded as a black sheep;--but hitherto Lord Fawn himself had concealed his feelings before Lucy. Now unfortunately he spoke out, and in speaking was especially bitter against Frank. "Mr. Greystock has been most insolent," he said as they were all sitting together in the library after dinner. Lady Fawn made a sign to him and shook her head. Lucy felt the hot blood fly into both her cheeks, but at the moment she did not speak. Lydia Fawn put out her hand beneath the table and took hold of Lucy's. "We must all remember that he is her cousin," said Augusta. "His relationship to Lady Eustace cannot justify ungentlemanlike impertinence to me," said Lord Fawn. "He has dared to use words to me which would make it necessary that I should call him out, only--" "Frederic, you shall do nothing of the kind!" said Lady Fawn, jumping up from her chair. "Oh, Frederic, pray, pray don't!" said Augusta, springing on to her brother's shoulder. "I am sure Frederic does not mean that," said Amelia. "Only that nobody does call any body out now," added the pacific lord. "But nothing on earth shall ever induce me to speak again to a man who is so little like a gentleman." Lydia now held Lucy's hand still tighter, as though to prevent her rising. "He has never forgiven me," continued Lord Fawn, "because he was so ridiculously wrong about the Sawab." "I am sure that had nothing to do with it," said Lucy. "Miss Morris, I shall venture to hold my own opinion," said Lord Fawn. "And I shall hold mine," said Lucy bravely. "The Sawab of Mygawb had nothing to do with what Mr. Greystock may have said or done about his cousin. I am quite sure of it." "Lucy, you are forgetting yourself," said Lady Fawn. "Lucy, dear, you shouldn't contradict my brother," said Augusta. "Take my advice, Lucy, and let it pass by," said Amelia. "How can I hear such things said and not notice them?" demanded Lucy. "Why does Lord Fawn say them when I am by?" Lord Fawn had now condescended to be full of wrath against his mother's governess. "I suppose I may express my own opinion, Miss Morris, in my mother's house." "And I shall express mine," said Lucy. "Mr. Greystock is a gentleman. If you say that he is not a gentleman, it is not true." Upon hearing these terrible words spoken, Lord Fawn rose from his seat and slowly left the room. Augusta followed him with both her arms stretched out. Lady Fawn covered her face with her hands, and even Amelia was dismayed. "Oh, Lucy! why could you not hold your tongue?" said Lydia. "I won't hold my tongue!" said Lucy, bursting out into tears. "He is a gentleman." Then there was great commotion at Fawn Court. After a few moments Lady Fawn followed her son without having said a word to Lucy, and Amelia went with her. Poor Lucy was left with the younger girls, and was no doubt very unhappy. But she was still indignant, and would yield nothing. When Georgina, the fourth daughter, pointed out to her that, in accordance with all rules of good breeding, she should have abstained from asserting that her brother had spoken an untruth, she blazed up again. "It was untrue," she said. "But, Lucy, people never accuse each other of untruth. No lady should use such a word to a gentleman." "He should not have said so. He knows that Mr. Greystock is more to me than all the world." "If I had a lover," said Nina, "and anybody were to say a word against him, I know I'd fly at them. I don't know why Frederic is to have it all his own way." "Nina, you're a fool," said Diana. "I do think it was very hard for Lucy to bear," said Lydia. "And I won't bear it!" exclaimed Lucy. "To think that Mr. Greystock should be so mean as to bear malice about a thing like that wild Indian because he takes his own cousin's part! Of course I'd better go away. You all think that Mr. Greystock is an enemy now; but he never can be an enemy to me." "We think that Lady Eustace is an enemy," said Cecilia, "and a very nasty enemy, too." "I did not say a word about Lady Eustace," said Lucy. "But Mr. Greystock is a gentleman." About an hour after this Lady Fawn sent for Lucy, and the two were closeted together for a long time. Lord Fawn was very angry, and had hitherto altogether declined to overlook the insult offered. "I am bound to tell you," declared Lady Fawn, with much emphasis, "that nothing can justify you in having accused Lord Fawn of telling an untruth. Of course, I was sorry that Mr. Greystock's name should have been mentioned in your presence; but as it was mentioned, you should have borne what was said with patience." "I couldn't be patient, Lady Fawn." "That is what wicked people say when they commit murder, and then they are hung for it." "I'll go away, Lady Fawn--" "That is ungrateful, my dear. You know that I don't wish you to go away. But if you behave badly, of course I must tell you of it." "I'd sooner go away. Everybody here thinks ill of Mr. Greystock. But I don't think ill of Mr. Greystock, and I never shall. Why did Lord Fawn say such very hard things about him?" It was suggested to her that she should be down-stairs early the next morning, and apologise to Lord Fawn for her rudeness; but she would not, on that night, undertake to do any such thing. Let Lady Fawn say what she might, Lucy thought that the injury had been done to her, and not to his lordship. And so they parted hardly friends. Lady Fawn gave her no kiss as she went, and Lucy, with obstinate pride, altogether refused to own her fault. She would only say that she had better go, and when Lady Fawn over and over again pointed out to her that the last thing that such a one as Lord Fawn could bear was to be accused of an untruth, she would continue to say that in that case he should be careful to say nothing that was untrue. All this was very dreadful, and created great confusion and unhappiness at Fawn Court. Lydia came into her room that night, and the two girls talked the matter over for hours. In the morning Lucy was up early, and found Lord Fawn walking in the grounds. She had been told that he would probably be found walking in the grounds, if she were willing to tender to him any apology. Her mind had been very full of the subject,--not only in reference to her lover, but as it regarded her own conduct. One of the elder Fawn girls had assured her that under no circumstances could a lady be justified in telling a gentleman that he had spoken an untruth, and she was not quite sure but that the law so laid down was right. And then she could not but remember that the gentleman in question was Lord Fawn, and that she was Lady Fawn's governess. But Mr. Greystock was her affianced lover, and her first duty was to him. And then, granting that she herself had been wrong in accusing Lord Fawn of untruth, she could not refrain from asking herself whether he had not been much more wrong in saying in her hearing that Mr. Greystock was not a gentleman? And his offence had preceded her offence, and had caused it! She hardly knew whether she did or did not owe an apology to Lord Fawn, but she was quite sure that Lord Fawn owed an apology to her. She walked straight up to Lord Fawn, and met him beneath the trees. He was still black and solemn, and was evidently brooding over his grievance; but he bowed to her, and stood still as she approached him. "My lord," said she, "I am very sorry for what happened last night." "And so was I,--very sorry, Miss Morris." "I think you know that I am engaged to marry Mr. Greystock?" "I cannot allow that that has anything to do with it." "When you think that he must be dearer to me than all the world, you will acknowledge that I couldn't hear hard things said of him without speaking." His face became blacker than ever, but he made no reply. He wanted an abject begging of unconditional pardon from the little girl who loved his enemy. If that were done, he would vouchsafe his forgiveness; but he was too small by nature to grant it on other terms. "Of course," continued Lucy, "I am bound to treat you with special respect in Lady Fawn's house." She looked almost beseechingly into his face as she paused for a moment. "But you treated me with especial disrespect," said Lord Fawn. "And how did you treat me, Lord Fawn?" "Miss Morris, I must be allowed, in discussing matters with my mother, to express my own opinions in such language as I may think fit to use. Mr. Greystock's conduct to me was--was--was altogether most ungentlemanlike." "Mr. Greystock is a gentleman." "His conduct was most offensive, and most--most ungentlemanlike. Mr. Greystock disgraced himself." "It isn't true!" said Lucy. Lord Fawn gave one start, and then walked off to the house as quick as his legs could carry him. CHAPTER XXVIII Mr. Dove in His Chambers The scene between Lord Fawn and Greystock had taken place in Mr. Camperdown's chambers, and John Eustace had also been present. The lawyer had suffered considerable annoyance, before the arrival of the two first-named gentlemen, from reiterated assertions made by Eustace that he would take no further trouble whatsoever about the jewels. Mr. Camperdown had in vain pointed out to him that a plain duty lay upon him as executor and guardian to protect the property on behalf of his nephew; but Eustace had asserted that, though he himself was comparatively a poor man, he would sooner replace the necklace out of his own property, than be subject to the nuisance of such a continued quarrel. "My dear John; ten thousand pounds!" Mr. Camperdown had said. "It is a fortune for a younger son." "The boy is only two years old, and will have time enough to make fortunes for his own younger sons, if he does not squander everything. If he does, the ten thousand pounds will make no difference." "But the justice of the thing, John!" "Justice may be purchased too dearly." "Such a harpy as she is, too!" pleaded the lawyer. Then Lord Fawn had come in, and Greystock had followed immediately afterwards. "I may as well say at once," said Greystock, "that Lady Eustace is determined to maintain her right to the property; and that she will not give up the diamonds till some adequate court of law shall have decided that she is mistaken in her views. Stop one moment, Mr. Camperdown. I feel myself bound to go further than that, and express my own opinion that she is right." "I can hardly understand such an opinion as coming from you," said Mr. Camperdown. "You have changed your mind, at any rate," said John Eustace. "Not so, Eustace. Mr. Camperdown, you'll be good enough to understand that my opinion expressed here is that of a friend, and not that of a lawyer. And you must understand, Eustace," continued Greystock, "that I am speaking now of my cousin's right to the property. Though the value be great, I have advised her to give up the custody of it for a while, till the matter shall be clearly decided. That has still been my advice to her, and I have in no respect changed my mind. But she feels that she is being cruelly used, and with a woman's spirit will not, in such circumstances, yield anything. Mr. Camperdown actually stopped her carriage in the street." "She would not answer a line that anybody wrote to her," said the lawyer. "And I may say plainly,--for all here know the circumstances,--that Lady Eustace feels the strongest possible indignation at the manner in which she is being treated by Lord Fawn." "I have only asked her to give up the diamonds till the question should be settled," said Lord Fawn. "And you backed your request, my lord, by a threat! My cousin is naturally most indignant; and, my lord, you must allow me to tell you that I fully share the feeling." "There is no use in making a quarrel about it," said Eustace. "The quarrel is already made," replied Greystock. "I am here to tell Lord Fawn in your presence, and in the presence of Mr. Camperdown, that he is behaving to a lady with ill-usage, which he would not dare to exercise did he not know that her position saves him from legal punishment, as do the present usages of society from other consequences." "I have behaved to her with every possible consideration," said Lord Fawn. "That is a simple assertion," said the other. "I have made one assertion, and you have made another. The world will have to judge between us. What right have you to take upon yourself to decide whether this thing or that belongs to Lady Eustace or to any one else?" "When the thing was talked about I was obliged to have an opinion," said Lord Fawn, who was still thinking of words in which to reply to the insult offered him by Greystock without injury to his dignity as an Under-Secretary of State. "Your conduct, sir, has been altogether inexcusable." Then Frank turned to the attorney. "I have been given to understand that you are desirous of knowing where this diamond necklace is at present. It is at Lady Eustace's house in Scotland;--at Portray Castle." Then he shook hands with John Eustace, bowed to Mr. Camperdown, and succeeded in leaving the room before Lord Fawn had so far collected his senses as to be able to frame his anger into definite words. "I will never willingly speak to that man again," said Lord Fawn. But as it was not probable that Greystock would greatly desire any further conversation with Lord Fawn, this threat did not carry with it any powerful feeling of severity. Mr. Camperdown groaned over the matter with thorough vexation of spirit. It seemed to him as though the harpy, as he called her, would really make good her case against him,--at any rate, would make it seem to be good for so long a time that all the triumph of success would be hers. He knew that she was already in debt, and gave her credit for a propensity to fast living which almost did her an injustice. Of course, the jewels would be sold for half their value, and the harpy would triumph. Of what use to him or to the estate would be a decision of the courts in his favour when the diamonds should have been broken up and scattered to the winds of heaven? Ten thousand pounds! It was, to Mr. Camperdown's mind, a thing quite terrible that, in a country which boasts of its laws and of the execution of its laws, such an impostor as was this widow should be able to lay her dirty, grasping fingers on so great an amount of property, and that there should be no means of punishing her. That Lizzie Eustace had stolen the diamonds, as a pickpocket steals a watch, was a fact as to which Mr. Camperdown had in his mind no shadow of a doubt. And, as the reader knows, he was right. She had stolen them. Mr. Camperdown knew that she had stolen them, and was a wretched man. From the first moment of the late Sir Florian's infatuation about this woman, she had worked woe for Mr. Camperdown. Mr. Camperdown had striven hard,--to the great and almost permanent offence of Sir Florian,--to save Portray from its present condition of degradation; but he had striven in vain. Portray belonged to the harpy for her life; and moreover, he himself had been forced to be instrumental in paying over to the harpy a large sum of Eustace money almost immediately on her becoming a widow. Then had come the affair of the diamonds;--an affair of ten thousand pounds!--as Mr. Camperdown would exclaim to himself, throwing his eyes up to the ceiling. And now it seemed that she was to get the better of him even in that, although there could not be a shadow of doubt as to her falsehood and fraudulent dishonesty! His luck in the matter was so bad! John Eustace had no backbone, no spirit, no proper feeling as to his own family. Lord Fawn was as weak as water, and almost disgraced the cause by the accident of his adherence to it. Greystock, who would have been a tower of strength, had turned against him, and was now prepared to maintain that the harpy was right. Mr. Camperdown knew that the harpy was wrong,--that she was a harpy, and he would not abandon the cause; but the difficulties in his way were great, and the annoyance to which he was subjected was excessive. His wife and daughters were still at Dawlish, and he was up in town in September, simply because the harpy had the present possession of these diamonds. Mr. Camperdown was a man turned sixty, handsome, grey-haired, healthy, somewhat florid, and carrying in his face and person external signs of prosperity and that kind of self-assertion which prosperity always produces. But they who knew him best were aware that he did not bear trouble well. In any trouble, such as was this about the necklace, there would come over his face a look of weakness which betrayed the want of real inner strength. How many faces one sees which, in ordinary circumstances, are comfortable, self-asserting, sufficient, and even bold; the lines of which, under difficulties, collapse and become mean, spiritless, and insignificant. There are faces which, in their usual form, seem to bluster with prosperity, but which the loss of a dozen points at whist will reduce to that currish aspect which reminds one of a dog-whip. Mr. Camperdown's countenance, when Lord Fawn and Mr. Eustace left him, had fallen away into this meanness of appearance. He no longer carried himself as a man owning a dog-whip, but rather as the hound that feared it. A better attorney, for the purposes to which his life was devoted, did not exist in London than Mr. Camperdown. To say that he was honest, is nothing. To describe him simply as zealous, would be to fall very short of his merits. The interests of his clients were his own interests, and the legal rights of the properties of which he had the legal charge, were as dear to him as his own blood. But it could not be said of him that he was a learned lawyer. Perhaps in that branch of a solicitor's profession in which he had been called upon to work, experience goes further than learning. It may be doubted, indeed, whether it is not so in every branch of every profession. But it might, perhaps, have been better for Mr. Camperdown had he devoted more hours of his youth to reading books on conveyancing. He was now too old for such studies, and could trust only to the reading of other people. The reading, however, of other people was always at his command, and his clients were rich men who did not mind paying for an opinion. To have an opinion from Mr. Dove, or some other learned gentleman, was the every-day practice of his life; and when he obtained, as he often did, little coigns of legal vantage and subtle definitions as to property which were comfortable to him, he would rejoice to think that he could always have a Dove at his hand to tell him exactly how far he was justified in going in defence of his clients' interests. But now there had come to him no comfort from his corner of legal knowledge. Mr. Dove had taken extraordinary pains in the matter, and had simply succeeded in throwing over his employer. "A necklace can't be an heirloom!" said Mr. Camperdown to himself, telling off on his fingers half-a-dozen instances in which he had either known or had heard that the head of a family had so arranged the future possession of the family jewels. Then he again read Mr. Dove's opinion, and actually took a law-book off his shelves with the view of testing the correctness of the barrister in reference to some special assertion. A pot or a pan might be an heirloom, but not a necklace! Mr. Camperdown could hardly bring himself to believe that this was law. And then as to paraphernalia! Up to this moment, though he had been called upon to arrange great dealings in reference to widows, he had never as yet heard of a claim made by a widow for paraphernalia. But then the widows with whom he had been called upon to deal, had been ladies quite content to accept the good things settled upon them by the liberal prudence of their friends and husbands,--not greedy, blood-sucking harpies such as this Lady Eustace. It was quite terrible to Mr. Camperdown that one of his clients should have fallen into such a pit. Mors omnibus est communis. But to have left such a widow behind one! "John," he said, opening his door. John was his son and partner, and John came to him, having been summoned by a clerk from another room. "Just shut the door. I've had such a scene here;--Lord Fawn and Mr. Greystock almost coming to blows about that horrid woman." "The Upper House would have got the worst of it, as it usually does," said the younger attorney. "And there is John Eustace cares no more what becomes of the property than if he had nothing to do with it;--absolutely talks of replacing the diamonds out of his own pocket; a man whose personal interest in the estate is by no means equal to her own." "He wouldn't do it, you know," said Camperdown Junior, who did not know the family. "It's just what he would do," said the father, who did. "There's nothing they wouldn't give away when once the idea takes them. Think of that woman having the whole Portray estate, perhaps for the next sixty years,--nearly the fee-simple of the property,--just because she made eyes to Sir Florian!" "That's done and gone, father." "And here's Dove tells us that a necklace can't be an heirloom, unless it belongs to the Crown." "Whatever he says, you'd better take his word for it." "I'm not so sure of that. It can't be. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go over and see him. We can file a bill in Chancery, I don't doubt, and prove that the property belongs to the family and must go by the will. But she'll sell them before we can get the custody of them." "Perhaps she has done that already." "Greystock says they are at Portray, and I believe they are. She was wearing them in London only in July,--a day or two before I saw her as she was leaving town. If anybody like a jeweller had been down at the castle, I should have heard of it. She hasn't sold 'em yet, but she will." "She could do that just the same if they were an heirloom." "No, John. I think not. We could have acted much more quickly, and have frightened her." "If I were you, father, I'd drop the matter altogether, and let John Eustace replace them if he pleases. We all know that he would never be called on to do anything of the kind. It isn't our sort of business." "Not ten thousand pounds!" said Camperdown Senior, to whom the magnitude of the larceny almost ennobled the otherwise mean duty of catching the thief. Then Mr. Camperdown rose, and slowly walked across the New Square, Lincoln's Inn, under the low archway, by the entrance to the old court in which Lord Eldon used to sit, to the Old Square, in which the Turtle Dove had built his legal nest on a first floor, close to the old gateway. Mr. Dove was a gentleman who spent a very great portion of his life in this somewhat gloomy abode of learning. It was not now term time, and most of his brethren were absent from London, recruiting their strength among the Alps, or drinking in vigours for fresh campaigns with the salt sea breezes of Kent and Sussex, or perhaps shooting deer in Scotland, or catching fish in Connemara. But Mr. Dove was a man of iron, who wanted no such recreation. To be absent from his law-books and the black, littered, ink-stained old table on which he was wont to write his opinions, was, to him, to be wretched. The only exercise necessary to him was that of putting on his wig and going into one of the courts that were close to his chambers;--but even that was almost distasteful to him. He preferred sitting in his old arm-chair, turning over his old books in search of old cases, and producing opinions which he would be prepared to back against all the world of Lincoln's Inn. He and Mr. Camperdown had known each other intimately for many years, and though the rank of the two men in their profession differed much, they were able to discuss questions of law without any appreciation of that difference among themselves. The one man knew much, and the other little; the one was not only learned, but possessed also of great gifts, while the other was simply an ordinary clear-headed man of business; but they had sympathies in common which made them friends; they were both honest and unwilling to sell their services to dishonest customers; and they equally entertained a deep-rooted contempt for that portion of mankind who thought that property could be managed and protected without the intervention of lawyers. The outside world to them was a world of pretty, laughing, ignorant children; and lawyers were the parents, guardians, pastors, and masters by whom the children should be protected from the evils incident to their childishness. "Yes, sir; he's here," said the Turtle Dove's clerk. "He is talking of going away, but he won't go. He's told me I can have a week, but I don't know that I like to leave him. Mrs. Dove and the children are down at Ramsgate, and he's here all night. He hadn't been out for so long that when he wanted to go as far as the Temple yesterday, we couldn't find his hat." Then the clerk opened the door, and ushered Mr. Camperdown into the room. Mr. Dove was the younger man by five or six years, and his hair was still black. Mr. Camperdown's was nearer white than grey; but, nevertheless, Mr. Camperdown looked as though he were the younger man. Mr. Dove was a long, thin man, with a stoop in his shoulders, with deep-set, hollow eyes, and lanthorn cheeks, and sallow complexion, with long, thin hands, who seemed to acknowledge by every movement of his body and every tone of his voice that old age was creeping on him,--whereas the attorney's step was still elastic, and his speech brisk. Mr. Camperdown wore a blue frock-coat, and a coloured cravat, and a light waistcoat. With Mr. Dove every visible article of his raiment was black, except his shirt, and he had that peculiar blackness which a man achieves when he wears a dress-coat over a high black waistcoat in the morning. "You didn't make much, I fear, of what I sent you about heirlooms," said Mr. Dove, divining the purport of Mr. Camperdown's visit. "A great deal more than I wanted, I can assure you, Mr. Dove." "There is a common error about heirlooms." "Very common, indeed, I should say. God bless my soul! when one knows how often the word occurs in family deeds, it does startle one to be told that there isn't any such thing." "I don't think I said quite so much as that. Indeed, I was careful to point out that the law does acknowledge heirlooms." "But not diamonds," said the attorney. "I doubt whether I went quite so far as that." "Only the Crown diamonds." "I don't think I ever debarred all other diamonds. A diamond in a star of honour might form a part of an heirloom; but I do not think that a diamond itself could be an heirloom." "If in a star of honour, why not in a necklace?" argued Mr. Camperdown almost triumphantly. "Because a star of honour, unless tampered with by fraud, would naturally be maintained in its original form. The setting of a necklace will probably be altered from generation to generation. The one, like a picture or a precious piece of furniture,--" "Or a pot or a pan," said Mr. Camperdown, with sarcasm. "Pots and pans may be precious, too," replied Mr. Dove. "Such things can be traced, and can be held as heirlooms without imposing too great difficulties on their guardians. The Law is generally very wise and prudent, Mr. Camperdown;--much more so often than are they who attempt to improve it." "I quite agree with you there, Mr. Dove." "Would the Law do a service, do you think, if it lent its authority to the special preservation in special hands of trinkets only to be used for vanity and ornament? Is that a kind of property over which an owner should have a power of disposition more lasting, more autocratic, than is given him even in regard to land? The land, at any rate, can be traced. It is a thing fixed and known. A string of pearls is not only alterable, but constantly altered, and cannot easily be traced." "Property of such enormous value should, at any rate, be protected," said Mr. Camperdown indignantly. "All property is protected, Mr. Camperdown;--although, as we know too well, such protection can never be perfect. But the system of heirlooms, if there can be said to be such a system, was not devised for what you and I mean when we talk of protection of property." "I should have said that that was just what it was devised for." "I think not. It was devised with the more picturesque idea of maintaining chivalric associations. Heirlooms have become so, not that the future owners of them may be assured of so much wealth, whatever the value of the thing so settled may be,--but that the son or grandson or descendant may enjoy the satisfaction which is derived from saying, my father or my grandfather or my ancestor sat in that chair, or looked as he now looks in that picture, or was graced by wearing on his breast that very ornament which you now see lying beneath the glass. Crown jewels are heirlooms in the same way, as representing not the possession of the sovereign, but the time-honoured dignity of the Crown. The Law, which, in general, concerns itself with our property or lives and our liberties, has in this matter bowed gracefully to the spirit of chivalry and has lent its aid to romance;--but it certainly did not do so to enable the discordant heirs of a rich man to settle a simple dirty question of money, which, with ordinary prudence, the rich man should himself have settled before he died." The Turtle Dove had spoken with emphasis and had spoken well, and Mr. Camperdown had not ventured to interrupt him while he was speaking. He was sitting far back on his chair, but with his neck bent and with his head forward, rubbing his long thin hands slowly over each other, and with his deep bright eyes firmly fixed on his companion's face. Mr. Camperdown had not unfrequently heard him speak in the same fashion before, and was accustomed to his manner of unravelling the mysteries and searching into the causes of Law with a spirit which almost lent poetry to the subject. When Mr. Dove would do so, Mr. Camperdown would not quite understand the words spoken, but he would listen to them with an undoubting reverence. And he did understand them in part, and was conscious of an infusion of a certain amount of poetic spirit into his own bosom. He would think of these speeches afterwards, and would entertain high but somewhat cloudy ideas of the beauty and the majesty of Law. Mr. Dove's speeches did Mr. Camperdown good, and helped to preserve him from that worst of all diseases,--a low idea of humanity. "You think, then, we had better not claim them as heirlooms?" he asked. "I think you had better not." "And you think that she could claim them--as paraphernalia?" "That question has hardly been put to me,--though I allowed myself to wander into it. But for my intimacy with you, I should hardly have ventured to stray so far." "I need hardly say how much obliged we are. But we will submit one or two other cases to you." "I am inclined to think the court would not allow them to her as paraphernalia, seeing that their value is excessive as compared with her income and degree; but if it did, it would do so in a fashion that would guard them from alienation." "She would sell them--under the rose." "Then she would be guilty of stealing them,--which she would hardly attempt, even if not restrained by honesty, knowing, as she would know, that the greatness of the value would almost assuredly lead to detection. The same feeling would prevent buyers from purchasing." "She says, you know, that they were given to her, absolutely." "I should like to know the circumstances." "Yes;--of course." "But I should be disposed to think that in equity no allegation by the receiver of such a gift, unsubstantiated either by evidence or by deed, would be allowed to stand. The gentleman left behind him a will, and regular settlements. I should think that the possession of these diamonds,--not, I presume, touched on in the settlements--" "Oh dear no;--not a word about them." "I should think, then, that, subject to any claim for paraphernalia, the possession of the diamonds would be ruled by the will." Mr. Camperdown was rushing into the further difficulty of the chattels in Scotland and those in England, when the Turtle Dove stopped him, declaring that he could not venture to discuss matters as to which he knew none of the facts. "Of course not;--of course not," said Mr. Camperdown. "We'll have cases prepared. I'd apologise for coming at all, only that I get so much from a few words." "I'm always delighted to see you, Mr. Camperdown," said the Turtle Dove, bowing. CHAPTER XXIX "I Had Better Go Away" When Lord Fawn gave a sudden jump and stalked away towards the house on that Sunday morning before breakfast, Lucy Morris was a very unhappy girl. She had a second time accused Lord Fawn of speaking an untruth. She did not quite understand the usages of the world in the matter; but she did know that the one offence which a gentleman is supposed never to commit is that of speaking an untruth. The offence may be one committed oftener than any other by gentlemen,--as also by all other people; but, nevertheless, it is regarded by the usages of society as being the one thing which a gentleman never does. Of all this Lucy understood something. The word "lie" she knew to be utterly abominable. That Lizzie Eustace was a little liar had been acknowledged between herself and the Fawn girls very often,--but to have told Lady Eustace that any word spoken by her was a lie, would have been a worse crime than the lie itself. To have brought such an accusation, in that term, against Lord Fawn, would have been to degrade herself for ever. Was there any difference between a lie and an untruth? That one must be, and that the other need not be, intentional, she did feel; but she felt also that the less offensive word had come to mean a lie,--the world having been driven so to use it because the world did not dare to talk about lies; and this word, bearing such a meaning in common parlance, she had twice applied to Lord Fawn. And yet, as she was well aware, Lord Fawn had told no lie. He had himself believed every word that he had spoken against Frank Greystock. That he had been guilty of unmanly cruelty in so speaking of her lover in her presence, Lucy still thought, but she should not therefore have accused him of falsehood. "It was untrue all the same," she said to herself, as she stood still on the gravel walk, watching the rapid disappearance of Lord Fawn, and endeavouring to think what she had better now do with herself. Of course Lord Fawn, like a great child, would at once go and tell his mother what that wicked governess had said to him. In the hall she met her friend Lydia. "Oh, Lucy, what is the matter with Frederic?" she asked. "Lord Fawn is very angry indeed." "With you?" "Yes;--with me. He is so angry that I am sure he would not sit down to breakfast with me. So I won't come down. Will you tell your mamma? If she likes to send to me, of course I'll go to her at once." "What have you done, Lucy?" "I've told him again that what he said wasn't true." "But why?" "Because--Oh, how can I say why? Why does any person do everything that she ought not to do? It's the fall of Adam, I suppose." "You shouldn't make a joke of it, Lucy." "You can have no conception how unhappy I am about it. Of course Lady Fawn will tell me to go away. I went out on purpose to beg his pardon for what I said last night, and I just said the very same thing again." "But why did you say it?" "And I should say it again and again and again, if he were to go on telling me that Mr. Greystock isn't a gentleman. I don't think he ought to have done it. Of course, I have been very wrong; I know that. But I think he has been wrong too. But I must own it, and he needn't. I'll go up now and stay in my own room till your mamma sends for me." "And I'll get Jane to bring you some breakfast." "I don't care a bit about breakfast," said Lucy. Lord Fawn did tell his mother, and Lady Fawn was perplexed in the extreme. She was divided in her judgment and feelings between the privilege due to Lucy as a girl possessed of an authorised lover,--a privilege which no doubt existed, but which was not extensive,--and the very much greater privilege which attached to Lord Fawn as a man, as a peer, as an Under-Secretary of State,--but which attached to him especially as the head and only man belonging to the Fawn family. Such a one, when, moved by filial duty, he condescends to come once a week to his mother's house, is entitled to say whatever he pleases, and should on no account be contradicted by any one. Lucy no doubt had a lover,--an authorised lover; but perhaps that fact could not be taken as more than a balancing weight against the inferiority of her position as a governess. Lady Fawn was of course obliged to take her son's part, and would scold Lucy. Lucy must be scolded very seriously. But it would be a thing so desirable if Lucy could be induced to accept her scolding and have done with it, and not to make matters worse by talking of going away! "You don't mean that she came out into the shrubbery, having made up her mind to be rude to you?" said Lady Fawn to her son. "No;--I do not think that. But her temper is so ungovernable, and she has, if I may say so, been so spoilt among you here,--I mean by the girls, of course,--that she does not know how to restrain herself." "She is as good as gold, you know, Frederic." He shrugged his shoulders, and declared that he had not a word more to say about it. He could, of course, remain in London till it should suit Mr. Greystock to take his bride. "You'll break my heart if you say that!" exclaimed the unhappy mother. "Of course, she shall leave the house if you wish it." "I wish nothing," said Lord Fawn. "But I peculiarly object to be told that I am a--liar." Then he stalked away along the corridor and went down to breakfast, as black as a thunder-cloud. Lady Fawn and Lucy sat opposite to each other in church, but they did not speak till the afternoon. Lady Fawn went to church in the carriage and Lucy walked, and as Lucy retired to her room immediately on her return to the house, there had not been an opportunity even for a word. After lunch Amelia came up to her, and sat down for a long discussion. "Now, Lucy, something must be done, you know," said Amelia. "I suppose so." "Of course, mamma must see you. She can't allow things to go on in this way. Mamma is very unhappy, and didn't eat a morsel of breakfast." By this latter assertion Amelia simply intended to imply that her mother had refused to be helped a second time to fried bacon, as was customary. "Of course, I shall go to her the moment she sends for me. Oh,--I am so unhappy!" "I don't wonder at that, Lucy. So is my brother unhappy. These things make people unhappy. It is what the world calls--temper, you know, Lucy." "Why did he tell me that Mr. Greystock isn't a gentleman? Mr. Greystock is a gentleman. I meant to say nothing more than that." "But you did say more, Lucy." "When he said that Mr. Greystock wasn't a gentleman, I told him it wasn't true. Why did he say it? He knows all about it. Everybody knows. Would you think it wise to come and abuse him to me, when you know what he is to me? I can't bear it, and I won't. I'll go away to-morrow, if your mamma wishes it." But that going away was just what Lady Fawn did not wish. "I think you know, Lucy, you should express your deep sorrow at what has passed." "To your brother?" "Yes." "Then he would abuse Mr. Greystock again, and it would all be as bad as ever. I'll beg Lord Fawn's pardon if he'll promise beforehand not to say a word about Mr. Greystock." "You can't expect him to make a bargain like that, Lucy." "I suppose not. I daresay I'm very wicked, and I must be left wicked. I'm too wicked to stay here. That's the long and the short of it." "I'm afraid you're proud, Lucy." "I suppose I am. If it wasn't for all that I owe to everybody here, and that I love you all so much, I should be proud of being proud;--because of Mr. Greystock. Only it kills me to make Lady Fawn unhappy." Amelia left the culprit, feeling that no good had been done, and Lady Fawn did not see the delinquent till late in the afternoon. Lord Fawn had, in the meantime, wandered out along the river all alone to brood over the condition of his affairs. It had been an evil day for him in which he had first seen Lady Eustace. From the first moment of his engagement to her he had been an unhappy man. Her treatment of him, the stories which reached his ears from Mrs. Hittaway and others, Mr. Camperdown's threats of law in regard to the diamonds, and Frank Greystock's insults, altogether made him aware that he could not possibly marry Lady Eustace. But yet he had no proper and becoming way of escaping from the bonds of his engagement. He was a man with a conscience, and was made miserable by the idea of behaving badly to a woman. Perhaps it might have been difficult to analyse his misery, and to decide how much arose from the feeling that he was behaving badly, and how much from the conviction that the world would accuse him of doing so; but, between the two, he was wretched enough. The punishment of the offence had been commenced by Greystock's unavenged insults;--and it now seemed to him that this girl's conduct was a continuation of it. The world was already beginning to treat him with that want of respect which he so greatly dreaded. He knew that he was too weak to stand up against a widely-spread expression of opinion that he had behaved badly. There are men who can walk about the streets with composed countenances, take their seats in Parliament if they happen to have seats, work in their offices, or their chambers, or their counting-houses with diligence, and go about the world serenely, even though everybody be saying evil of them behind their backs. Such men can live down temporary calumny, and almost take a delight in the isolation which it will produce. Lord Fawn knew well that he was not such a man. He would have described his own weakness as caused, perhaps, by a too thin-skinned sensitiveness. Those who knew him were inclined to say that he lacked strength of character, and, perhaps, courage. He had certainly engaged himself to marry this widow, and he was most desirous to do what was right. He had said that he would not marry her unless she would give up the necklace, and he was most desirous to be true to his word. He had been twice insulted, and he was anxious to support these injuries with dignity. Poor Lucy's little offence against him rankled in his mind with the other great offences. That this humble friend of his mother's should have been so insolent was a terrible thing to him. He was not sure even whether his own sisters did not treat him with scantier reverence than of yore. And yet he was so anxious to do right, and do his duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him! As to much he was in doubt; but of two things he was quite sure,--that Frank Greystock was a scoundrel, and that Lucy Morris was the most impertinent young woman in England. "What would you wish to have done, Frederic?" his mother said to him on his return. "In what respect, mother?" "About Lucy Morris? I have not seen her yet. I have thought it better that she should be left to herself for a while before I did so. I suppose she must come down to dinner. She always does." "I do not wish to interfere with the young lady's meals." "No;--but about meeting her? If there is to be no talking it will be so very unpleasant. It will be unpleasant to us all, but I am thinking chiefly of you." "I do not wish anybody to be disturbed for my comfort." A young woman coming down to dinner as though in disgrace, and not being spoken to by any one, would, in truth, have had rather a soothing effect upon Lord Fawn, who would have felt that the general silence and dulness had been produced as a sacrifice in his honour. "I can, of course, insist that she should apologise; but if she refuses, what shall I do then?" "Let there be no more apologies, if you please, mother." "What shall I do then, Frederic?" "Miss Morris's idea of an apology is a repetition of her offence with increased rudeness. It is not for me to say what you should do. If it be true that she is engaged to that man--" "It is true, certainly." "No doubt that will make her quite independent of you, and I can understand that her presence here in such circumstances must be very uncomfortable to you all. No doubt she feels her power." "Indeed, Frederic, you do not know her." "I can hardly say that I desire to know her better. You cannot suppose that I can be anxious for further intimacy with a young lady who has twice given me the lie in your house. Such conduct is, at least, very unusual; and as no absolute punishment can be inflicted, the offender can only be avoided. It is thus, and thus only, that such offences can be punished. I shall be satisfied if you will give her to understand that I should prefer that she should not address me again." Poor Lady Fawn was beginning to think that Lucy was right in saying that there was no remedy for all these evils but that she should go away. But whither was she to go? She had no home but such home as she could earn for herself by her services as a governess, and in her present position it was almost out of the question that she should seek another place. Lady Fawn, too, felt that she had pledged herself to Mr. Greystock that till next year Lucy should have a home at Fawn Court. Mr. Greystock, indeed, was now an enemy to the family; but Lucy was not an enemy, and it was out of the question that she should be treated with real enmity. She might be scolded, and scowled at, and put into a kind of drawing-room Coventry for a time,--so that all kindly intercourse with her should be confined to school-room work and bed-room conferences. She could be generally "sat upon," as Nina would call it. But as for quarrelling with her,--making a real enemy of one whom they all loved, one whom Lady Fawn knew to be "as good as gold," one who had become so dear to the old lady that actual extrusion from their family affections would be like the cutting off of a limb,--that was simply impossible. "I suppose I had better go and see her," said Lady Fawn,--"and I have got such a headache." "Do not see her on my account," said Lord Fawn. The duty, however, was obligatory, and Lady Fawn with slow steps sought Lucy in the school-room. "Lucy," she said, seating herself, "what is to be the end of all this?" Lucy came up to her and knelt at her feet. "If you knew how unhappy I am because I have vexed you!" "I am unhappy, my dear, because I think you have been betrayed by warm temper into misbehaviour." "I know I have." "Then why do you not control your temper?" "If anybody were to come to you, Lady Fawn, and make horrible accusations against Lord Fawn, or against Augusta, would not you be angry? Would you be able to stand it?" Lady Fawn was not clear-headed; she was not clever; nor was she even always rational. But she was essentially honest. She knew that she would fly at anybody who should in her presence say such bitter things of any of her children as Lord Fawn had said of Mr. Greystock in Lucy's hearing;--and she knew also that Lucy was entitled to hold Mr. Greystock as dearly as she held her own sons and daughters. Lord Fawn, at Fawn Court, could not do wrong. That was a tenet by which she was obliged to hold fast. And yet Lucy had been subjected to great cruelty. She thought awhile for a valid argument. "My dear," she said, "your youth should make a difference." "Of course it should." "And though to me and to the girls you are as dear as any friend can be, and may say just what you please-- Indeed, we all live here in such a way that we all do say just what we please,--young and old together. But you ought to know that Lord Fawn is different." "Ought he to say that Mr. Greystock is not a gentleman to me?" "We are, of course, very sorry that there should be any quarrel. It is all the fault of that--nasty, false young woman." "So it is, Lady Fawn. Lady Fawn, I have been thinking about it all the day, and I am quite sure that I had better not stay here while you and the girls think badly of Mr. Greystock. It is not only about Lord Fawn, but because of the whole thing. I am always wanting to say something good about Mr. Greystock, and you are always thinking something bad about him. You have been to me,--oh, the very best friend that a girl ever had. Why you should have treated me so generously I never could know." "Because we have loved you." "But when a girl has got a man whom she loves, and has promised to marry, he must be her best friend of all. Is it not so, Lady Fawn?" The old woman stooped down and kissed the girl who had got the man. "It is not ingratitude to you that makes me think most of him; is it?" "Certainly not, dear." "Then I had better go away." "But where will you go, Lucy?" "I will consult Mr. Greystock." "But what can he do, Lucy? It will only be a trouble to him. He can't find a home for you." "Perhaps they would have me at the deanery," said Lucy slowly. She had evidently been thinking much of it all. "And, Lady Fawn, I will not go down-stairs while Lord Fawn is here; and when he comes,--if he does come again while I am here,--he shall not be troubled by seeing me. He may be sure of that. And you may tell him that I don't defend myself, only I shall always think that he ought not to have said that Mr. Greystock wasn't a gentleman before me." When Lady Fawn left Lucy the matter was so far settled that Lucy had neither been asked to come down to dinner, nor had she been forbidden to seek another home. CHAPTER XXX Mr. Greystock's Troubles Frank Greystock stayed the Sunday in London and went down to Bobsborough on the Monday. His father and mother and sister all knew of his engagement to Lucy, and they had heard also that Lady Eustace was to become Lady Fawn. Of the necklace they had hitherto heard very little, and of the quarrel between the two lovers they had heard nothing. There had been many misgivings at the deanery, and some regrets, about these marriages. Mrs. Greystock, Frank's mother, was, as we are so wont to say of many women, the best woman in the world. She was unselfish, affectionate, charitable, and thoroughly feminine. But she did think that her son Frank, with all his advantages,--good looks, cleverness, general popularity, and seat in Parliament,--might just as well marry an heiress as a little girl without twopence in the world. As for herself, who had been born a Jackson, she could do with very little; but the Greystocks were all people who wanted money. For them there was never more than ninepence in a shilling, if so much. They were a race who could not pay their way with moderate incomes. Even the dear dean, who really had a conscience about money, and who hardly ever left Bobsborough, could not be kept quite clear of debt, let her do what she would. As for the admiral, the dean's elder brother, he had been notorious for insolvency; and Frank was a Greystock all over. He was the very man to whom money with a wife was almost a necessity of existence. And his pretty cousin, the widow, who was devoted to him, and would have married him at a word, had ever so many thousands a year! Of course, Lizzie Eustace was not just all that she should be;--but then who is? In one respect, at any rate, her conduct had always been proper. There was no rumour against her as to lovers or flirtations. She was very young, and Frank might have moulded her as he pleased. Of course there were regrets. Poor dear little Lucy Morris was as good as gold. Mrs. Greystock was quite willing to admit that. She was not good-looking;--so at least Mrs. Greystock said. She never would allow that Lucy was good-looking. And she didn't see much in Lucy, who, according to her idea, was a little chit of a thing. Her position was simply that of a governess. Mrs. Greystock declared to her daughter that no one in the whole world had a higher respect for governesses than had she. But a governess is a governess;--and for a man in Frank's position such a marriage would be simply suicide. "You shouldn't say that, mamma, now; for it's fixed," said Ellinor Greystock. "But I do say it, my dear. Things sometimes are fixed which must be unfixed. You know your brother." "Frank is earning a large income, mamma." "Did you ever know a Greystock who didn't want more than his income?" "I hope I don't, mamma, and mine is very small." "You're a Jackson. Frank is Greystock to the very backbone. If he marries Lucy Morris he must give up Parliament. That's all." The dean himself was more reticent and less given to interference than his wife; but he felt it also. He would not for the world have hinted to his son that it might be well to marry money; but he thought that it was a good thing that his son should go where money was. He knew that Frank was apt to spend his guineas faster than he got them. All his life long the dean had seen what came of such spending. Frank had gone out into the world and had prospered,--but he could hardly continue to prosper unless he married money. Of course, there had been regrets when the news came of that fatal engagement with Lucy Morris. "It can't be for the next ten years, at any rate," said Mrs. Greystock. "I thought at one time that he would have made a match with his cousin," said the dean. "Of course;--so did everybody," replied Mrs. Dean. Then Frank came among them. He had intended staying some weeks,--perhaps for a month, and great preparations were made for him; but immediately on his arrival he announced the necessity that was incumbent on him of going down again to Scotland in ten days. "You've heard about Lizzie, of course?" he said. They had heard that Lizzie was to become Lady Fawn, but beyond that they had heard nothing. "You know about the necklace?" asked Frank. Something of a tale of a necklace had made its way even down to quiet Bobsborough. They had been informed that there was a dispute between the widow and the executors of the late Sir Florian about some diamonds. "Lord Fawn is behaving about it in the most atrocious manner," continued Frank, "and the long and the short of it is that there will be no marriage!" "No marriage!" exclaimed Mrs. Greystock. "And what is the truth about the diamonds?" asked the dean. "Ah;--it will give the lawyers a job before they decide that. They're very valuable;--worth about ten thousand pounds, I'm told; but the most of it will go among some of my friends at the Chancery bar. It's a pity that I should be out of the scramble myself." "But why should you be out?" asked his mother with tender regrets,--not thinking of the matter as her son was thinking of it, but feeling that when there was so much wealth so very near him, he ought not to let it all go past him. "As far as I can see," continued Frank, "she has a fair claim to them. I suppose they'll file a bill in Chancery, and then it will be out of my line altogether. She says her husband gave them to her,--absolutely put them on her neck himself, and told her that they were hers. As to their being an heirloom, that turns out to be impossible. I didn't know it, but it seems you can't make diamonds an heirloom. What astonishes me is, that Fawn should object to the necklace. However, he has objected, and has simply told her that he won't marry her unless she gives them up." "And what does she say?" "Storms and raves,--as of course any woman would. I don't think she is behaving badly. What she wants is, to reduce him to obedience, and then to dismiss him. I think that is no more than fair. Nothing on earth would make her marry him now." "Did she ever care for him?" "I don't think she ever did. She found her position to be troublesome, and she thought she had better marry. And then he's a lord,--which always goes for something." "I am sorry you should have so much trouble," said Mrs. Greystock. But in truth the mother was not sorry. She did not declare to herself that it would be a good thing that her son should be false to Lucy Morris in order that he might marry his rich cousin; but she did feel it to be an advantage that he should be on terms of intimacy with so large an income as that belonging to Lady Eustace. "Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is." Mrs. Greystock would have repudiated the idea of mercenary marriages in any ordinary conversation, and would have been severe on any gentleman who was false to a young lady. But it is so hard to bring one's general principles to bear on one's own conduct or in one's own family;--and then the Greystocks were so peculiar a people! When her son told her that he must go down to Scotland again very shortly, she reconciled herself to his loss. Had he left Bobsborough for the sake of being near Lucy at Richmond, she would have felt it very keenly. Days passed by, and nothing was said about poor Lucy. Mrs. Greystock had made up her mind that she would say nothing on the subject. Lucy had behaved badly in allowing herself to be loved by a man who ought to have loved money, and Mrs. Greystock had resolved that she would show her feelings by silence. The dean had formed no fixed determination, but he had thought that it might be, perhaps, as well to drop the subject. Frank himself was unhappy about it; but from morning to evening, and from day to day, he allowed it to pass by without a word. He knew that it should not be so, that such silence was in truth treachery to Lucy;--but he was silent. What had he meant when, as he left Lizzie Eustace among the rocks at Portray,--in that last moment,--he had assured her that he would be true to her? And what had been Lizzie's meaning? He was more sure of Lizzie's meaning than he was of his own. "It's a very rough world to live in," he said to himself in these days as he thought of his difficulties. But when he had been nearly a week at the deanery, and when the day of his going was so near as to be a matter of concern, his sister did at last venture to say a word about Lucy. "I suppose there is nothing settled about your own marriage, Frank?" "Nothing at all." "Nor will be for some while?" "Nor will be,--for some while." This he said in a tone which he himself felt to be ill-humoured and almost petulant. And he felt also that such ill-humour on such a subject was unkind, not to his sister, but to Lucy. It seemed to imply that the matter of his marriage was distasteful to him. "The truth is," he said, "that nothing can be fixed. Lucy understands that as well as I do. I am not in a position at once to marry a girl who has nothing. It's a pity, perhaps, that one can't train one's self to like some girl best that has got money; but as I haven't, there must be some delay. She is to stay where she is,--at any rate, for a twelvemonth." "But you mean to see her?" "Well, yes; I hardly know how I can see her, as I have quarrelled to the knife with Lord Fawn; and Lord Fawn is recognised by his mother and sisters as the one living Jupiter upon earth." "I like them for that," said Ellinor. "Only it prevents my going to Richmond;--and poor Fawn himself is such an indifferent Jupiter." That was all that was said about Lucy at Bobsborough, till there came a letter from Lucy to her lover acquainting him with the circumstances of her unfortunate position at Richmond. She did not tell him quite all the circumstances. She did not repeat the strong expressions which Lord Fawn had used, nor did she clearly explain how wrathful she had been herself. "Lord Fawn has been here," she said, "and there has been ever so much unpleasantness. He is very angry with you about Lady Eustace, and of course Lady Fawn takes his part. I need not tell you whose part I take. And so there have been what the servants call--'just a few words.' It is very dreadful, isn't it? And, after all, Lady Fawn has been as kind as possible. But the upshot of it is, that I am not to stay here. You mustn't suppose that I'm to be turned out at twelve hours' notice. I am to stay till arrangements have been made, and everybody will be kind to me. But what had I better do? I'll try and get another situation at once if you think it best, only I suppose I should have to explain how long I could stay. Lady Fawn knows that I am writing to you to ask you what you think best." On receipt of this, Greystock was very much puzzled. What a little fool Lucy had been, and yet what a dear little fool! Who cared for Lord Fawn and his hard words? Of course, Lord Fawn would say all manner of evil things of him, and would crow valiantly in his own farm-yard; but it would have been so much wiser on Lucy's part to have put up with the crowing, and to have disregarded altogether the words of a man so weak and insignificant! But the evil was done, and he must make some arrangement for poor Lucy's comfort. Had he known exactly how matters stood, that the proposition as to Lucy's departure had come wholly from herself, and that at the present time all the ladies at Fawn Court,--of course, in the absence of Lord Fawn,--were quite disposed to forgive Lucy if Lucy would only be forgiven, and hide herself when Lord Fawn should come;--had Frank known all this, he might, perhaps, have counselled her to remain at Richmond. But he believed that Lady Fawn had insisted on Lucy's departure; and of course, in such a case, Lucy must depart. He showed the letter to his sister, and asked for advice. "How very unfortunate!" said Ellinor. "Yes; is it not?" "I wonder what she said to Lord Fawn?" "She would speak out very plainly." "I suppose she has spoken out plainly, or otherwise they would never have told her to go away. It seems so unlike what I have always heard of Lady Fawn." "Lucy can be very headstrong if she pleases," said Lucy's lover. "What on earth had I better do for her? I don't suppose she can get another place that would suit." "If she is to be your wife, I don't think she should go into another place. If it is quite fixed,--" she said, and then she looked into her brother's face. "Well; what then?" "If you are sure you mean it--" "Of course I mean it." "Then she had better come here. As for her going out as a governess, and telling the people that she is to be your wife in a few months, that is out of the question. And it would, I think, be equally so that she should go into any house and not tell the truth. Of course, this would be the place for her." It was at last decided that Ellinor should discuss the matter with her mother. When the whole matter was unfolded to Mrs. Greystock, that lady was more troubled than ever. If Lucy were to come to the deanery, she must come as Frank's affianced bride, and must be treated as such by all Bobsborough. The dean would be giving his express sanction to the marriage, and so would Mrs. Greystock herself. She knew well that she had no power of refusing her sanction. Frank must do as he pleased about marrying. Were Lucy once his wife, of course she would be made welcome to the best the deanery could give her. There was no doubt about Lucy being as good as gold;--only that real gold, vile as it is, was the one thing that Frank so much needed. The mother thought that she had discovered in her son something which seemed to indicate a possibility that this very imprudent match might at last be abandoned; and if there were such possibility, surely Lucy ought not now to be brought to the deanery. Nevertheless, if Frank were to insist upon her coming,--she must come. But Mrs. Greystock had a plan. "Oh, mamma," said Ellinor, when the plan was proposed to her, "do not you think that would be cruel?" "Cruel, my dear! no; certainly not cruel." "She is such a virago." "You think that because Lizzie Eustace has said so. I don't know that she's a virago at all. I believe her to be a very good sort of woman." "Do you remember, mamma, what the admiral used to say of her?" "The admiral, my dear, tried to borrow her money, as he did everybody's, and when she wouldn't give him any, then he said severe things. The poor admiral was never to be trusted in such matters." "I don't think Frank would like it," said Ellinor. The plan was this. Lady Linlithgow, who, through her brother-in-law, the late Admiral Greystock, was connected with the dean's family, had made known her desire to have a new companion for six months. The lady was to be treated like a lady, but was to have no salary. Her travelling expenses were to be paid for her, and no duties were to be expected from her, except that of talking and listening to the countess. "I really think it's the very thing for her," said Mrs. Greystock. "It's not like being a governess. She's not to have any salary." "I don't know whether that makes it better, mamma." "It would just be a visit to Lady Linlithgow. It is that which makes the difference, my dear." Ellinor felt sure that her brother would not hear of such an engagement,--but he did hear of it, and, after various objections, gave a sort of sanction to it. It was not to be pressed upon Lucy if Lucy disliked it. Lady Linlithgow was to be made to understand that Lucy might leave whenever she pleased. It was to be an invitation, which Lucy might accept if she were so minded. Lucy's position as an honourable guest was to be assured to her. It was thought better that Lady Linlithgow should not be told of Lucy's engagement unless she asked questions;--or unless Lucy should choose to tell her. Every precaution was to be taken, and then Frank gave his sanction. He could understand, he said, that it might be inexpedient that Lucy should come at once to the deanery, as,--were she to do so,--she must remain there till her marriage, let the time be ever so long. "It might be two years," said the mother. "Hardly so long as that," said the son. "I don't think it would be--quite fair--to papa," said the mother. It was well that the argument was used behind the dean's back, as, had it been made in his hearing, the dean would have upset it at once. The dean was so short-sighted and imprudent, that he would have professed delight at the idea of having Lucy Morris as a resident at the deanery. Frank acceded to the argument,--and was ashamed of himself for acceding. Ellinor did not accede, nor did her sisters, but it was necessary that they should yield. Mrs. Greystock at once wrote to Lady Linlithgow, and Frank wrote by the same post to Lucy Morris. "As there must be a year's delay," he wrote, "we all here think it best that your visit to us should be postponed for a while. But if you object to the Linlithgow plan, say so at once. You shall be asked to do nothing disagreeable." He found the letter very difficult to write. He knew that she ought to have been welcomed at once to Bobsborough. And he knew, too, the reason on which his mother's objection was founded. But it might be two years before he could possibly marry Lucy Morris;--or it might be three. Would it be proper that she should be desired to make the deanery her home for so long and so indefinite a time? And when an engagement was for so long, could it be well that everybody should know it,--as everybody would if Lucy were to take up her residence permanently at the deanery? Some consideration, certainly, was due to his father. And, moreover, it was absolutely necessary that he and Lizzie Eustace should understand each other as to that mutual pledge of truth which had passed between them. In the meantime he received the following letter from Messrs. Camperdown:-- 62, New Square, Lincoln's Inn, 15 September, 18-- DEAR SIR, After what passed in our chambers the other day, we think it best to let you know that we have been instructed by the executor of the late Sir Florian Eustace to file a bill in Chancery against the widow, Lady Eustace, for the recovery of valuable diamonds. You will oblige us by making the necessary communication to her ladyship, and will perhaps tell us the names of her ladyship's solicitors. We are, dear sir, Your very obedient servants, CAMPERDOWN & SON. F. Greystock, Esq., M.P. A few days after the receipt of this letter Frank started for Scotland. CHAPTER XXXI Frank Greystock's Second Visit to Portray On this occasion Frank Greystock went down to Portray Castle with the intention of staying at the house during the very short time that he would remain in Scotland. He was going there solely on his cousin's business,--with no view to grouse-shooting or other pleasure, and he purposed remaining but a very short time,--perhaps only one night. His cousin, moreover, had spoken of having guests with her, in which case there could be no tinge of impropriety in his doing so. And whether she had guests, or whether she had not, what difference could it really make? Mr. Andrew Gowran had already seen what there was to see, and could do all the evil that could be done. He could, if he were so minded, spread reports in the neighbourhood, and might, perhaps, have the power of communicating what he had discovered to the Eustace faction,--John Eustace, Mr. Camperdown, and Lord Fawn. That evil, if it were an evil, must be encountered with absolute indifference. So he went direct to the castle, and was received quietly, but very graciously, by his cousin Lizzie. There were no guests then staying at Portray; but that very distinguished lady, Mrs. Carbuncle, with her niece, Miss Roanoke, had been there; as had also that very well-known nobleman, Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. Lord George and Mrs. Carbuncle were in the habit of seeing a good deal of each other, though, as all the world knew, there was nothing between them but the simplest friendship. And Sir Griffin Tewett had also been there, a young baronet who was supposed to be enamoured of that most gorgeous of beauties, Lucinda Roanoke. Of all these grand friends,--friends with whom Lizzie had become acquainted in London,--nothing further need be said here, as they were not at the castle when Frank arrived. When he came, whether by premeditated plan or by the chance of circumstances, Lizzie had no one with her at Portray,--except the faithful Macnulty. "I thought to have found you with all the world here," said Frank,--the faithful Macnulty being then present. "Well,--we have had people, but only for a couple of days. They are all coming again, but not till November. You hunt;--don't you, Frank?" "I have no time for hunting. Why do you ask?" "I'm going to hunt. It's a long way to go,--ten or twelve miles generally; but almost everybody hunts here. Mrs. Carbuncle is coming again, and she is about the best lady in England after hounds;--so they tell me. And Lord George is coming again." "Who is Lord George?" "You remember Lord George Carruthers, whom we all knew in London?" "What,--the tall man with the hollow eyes and the big whiskers, whose life is a mystery to every one? Is he coming?" "I like him, just because he isn't a ditto to every man one meets. And Sir Griffin Tewett is coming." "Who is a ditto to everybody." "Well;--yes; poor Sir Griffin! The truth is, he is awfully smitten with Mrs. Carbuncle's niece." "Don't you go match-making, Lizzie," said Frank. "That Sir Griffin is a fool, we will all allow; but it's my belief he has wit enough to make himself pass off as a man of fortune, with very little to back it. He's at law with his mother, at law with his sisters, and at law with his younger brother." "If he were at law with his great-grandmother, it would be nothing to me, Frank. She has her aunt to take care of her, and Sir Griffin is coming with Lord George." "You don't mean to put up all their horses, Lizzie?" "Well, not all. Lord George and Sir Griffin are to keep theirs at Troon, or Kilmarnock, or somewhere. The ladies will bring two apiece, and I shall have two of my own." "And carriage-horses and hacks?" "The carriage-horses are here,--of course." "It will cost you a great deal of money, Lizzie." "That's just what I tell her," said Miss Macnulty. "I've been living here, not spending one shilling, for the last two months," said Lizzie, "and all for the sake of economy; yet people think that no woman was ever left so rich. Surely I can afford to see a few friends for one month in the year. If I find I can't afford so much as that, I shall let the place, and go and live abroad somewhere. It's too much to suppose that a woman should shut herself up here for six or eight months and see nobody all the time." On that, the day of Frank's arrival, not a word was said about the necklace, nor of Lord Fawn, nor of that mutual pledge which had been taken and given down among the rocks. Frank, before dinner, went out about the place, that he might see how things were going on, and observe whether the widow was being ill-treated and unfairly eaten up by her dependants. He was, too, a little curious as to a matter as to which his curiosity was soon relieved. He had hardly reached the out-buildings which lay behind the kitchen-gardens on his way to the Portray woods, before he encountered Andy Gowran. That faithful adherent of the family raised his hand to his cap and bobbed his head, and then silently, and with renewed diligence, applied himself to the job which he had in hand. The gate of the little yard in which the cow-shed stood was off its hinges, and Andy was resetting the post and making the fence tight and tidy. Frank stood a moment watching him, and then asked after his health. "'Deed am I nae that to boost about in the way of bodily heelth, Muster Greystock. I've just o'er mony things to tent to, to tent to my ain sell as a prudent mon ought. It's airly an' late wi' me, Muster Greystock; and the lumbagy just a' o'er a mon isn't the pleasantest freend in the warld." Frank said that he was sorry to hear so bad an account of Mr. Gowran's health, and passed on. It was not for him to refer to the little scene in which Mr. Gowran had behaved so badly and had shaken his head. If the misbehaviour had been condoned by Lady Eustace, the less that he said about it the better. Then he went on through the woods, and was well aware that Mr. Gowran's fostering care had not been abated by his disapproval of his mistress. The fences had been repaired since Frank was there, and stones had been laid on the road or track over which was to be carried away the under-wood which it would be Lady Eustace's privilege to cut during the coming winter. Frank was not alone for one moment with his cousin during that evening, but in the presence of Miss Macnulty all the circumstances of the necklace were discussed. "Of course it is my own," said Lady Eustace, standing up,--"my own to do just what I please with. If they go on like this with me, they will almost tempt me to sell it for what it will fetch,--just to prove to them that I can do so. I have half a mind to sell it, and then send them the money, and tell them to put it by for my little Flory. Would not that serve them right, Frank?" "I don't think I'd do that, Lizzie." "Why not? You always tell me what not to do, but you never say what I ought!" "That is because I am so wise and prudent. If you were to attempt to sell the diamonds they would stop you, and would not give you credit for the generous purpose afterwards." "They wouldn't stop you if you sold the ring you wear." The ring had been given to him by Lucy after their engagement, and was the only present she had ever made him. It had been purchased out of her own earnings, and had been put on his finger by her own hand. Either from accident or craft he had not worn it when he had been before at Portray, and Lizzie had at once observed it as a thing she had never seen before. She knew well that he would not buy such a ring. Who had given him the ring? Frank almost blushed as he looked down at the trinket, and Lizzie was sure that it had been given by that sly little creeping thing, Lucy. "Let me look at the ring," she said. "Nobody could stop you if you chose to sell this to me." "Little things are always less troublesome than big things," he said. "What is the price?" she asked. "It is not in the market, Lizzie. Nor should your diamonds be there. You must be content to let them take what legal steps they may think fit, and defend your property. After that you can do as you please; but keep them safe till the thing is settled. If I were you I would have them at the bankers." "Yes;--and then when I asked for them be told that they couldn't be given up to me, because of Mr. Camperdown or the Lord Chancellor. And what's the good of a thing locked up? You wear your ring;--why shouldn't I wear my necklace?" "I have nothing to say against it." "It isn't that I care for such things. Do I, Julia?" "All ladies like them, I suppose," said that stupidest and most stubborn of all humble friends, Miss Macnulty. "I don't like them at all, and you know I don't. I hate them. They have been the misery of my life. Oh, how they have tormented me! Even when I am asleep I dream about them, and think that people steal them. They have never given me one moment's happiness. When I have them on I am always fearing that Camperdown and Son are behind me and are going to clutch them. And I think too well of myself to believe that anybody will care more for me because of a necklace. The only good they have ever done me has been to save me from a man who I now know never cared for me. But they are mine;--and therefore I choose to keep them. Though I am only a woman I have an idea of my own rights, and will defend them as far as they go. If you say I ought not to sell them, Frank, I'll keep them; but I'll wear them as commonly as you do that gage d'amour which you carry on your finger. Nobody shall ever see me without them. I won't go to any old dowager's tea-party without them. Mr. John Eustace has chosen to accuse me of stealing them." "I don't think John Eustace has ever said a word about them," said Frank. "Mr. Camperdown, then;--the people who choose to call themselves the guardians and protectors of my boy, as if I were not his best guardian and protector! I'll show them at any rate that I'm not ashamed of my booty. I don't see why I should lock them up in a musty old bank. Why don't you send your ring to the bank?" Frank could not but feel that she did it all very well. In the first place she was very pretty in the display of her half-mock indignation. Though she used some strong words, she used them with an air that carried them off and left no impression that she had been either vulgar or violent. And then, though the indignation was half mock, it was also half real, and her courage and spirit were attractive. Greystock had at last taught himself to think that Mr. Camperdown was not justified in the claim which he made, and that in consequence of that unjust claim Lizzie Eustace had been subjected to ill-usage. "Did you ever see this bone of contention," she asked;--"this fair Helen for which Greeks and Romans are to fight?" "I never saw the necklace, if you mean that." "I'll fetch it. You ought to see it, as you have to talk about it so often." "Can I get it?" asked Miss Macnulty. "Heaven and earth! To suppose that I should ever keep them under less than seven keys, and that there should be any of the locks that anybody should be able to open except myself!" "And where are the seven keys?" asked Frank. "Next to my heart," said Lizzie, putting her hand on her left side. "And when I sleep they are always tied round my neck in a bag, and the bag never escapes from my grasp. And I have such a knife under my pillow, ready for Mr. Camperdown should he come to seize them!" Then she ran out of the room, and in a couple of minutes returned with the necklace hanging loose in her hand. It was part of her little play to show by her speed that the close locking of the jewels was a joke, and that the ornament, precious as it was, received at her hands no other treatment than might any indifferent feminine bauble. Nevertheless within those two minutes she had contrived to unlock the heavy iron case which always stood beneath the foot of her bed. "There," she said, chucking the necklace across the table to Frank, so that he was barely able to catch it. "There is ten thousand pounds' worth, as they tell me. Perhaps you will not believe me when I say that I should have the greatest satisfaction in the world in throwing them out among those blue waves yonder, did I not think that Camperdown and Son would fish them up again." Frank spread the necklace on the table, and stood up to look at it, while Miss Macnulty came and gazed at the jewels over his shoulder. "And that is worth ten thousand pounds," said he. "So people say." "And your husband gave it you just as another man gives a trinket that costs ten shillings!" "Just as Lucy Morris gave you that ring." He smiled, but took no other notice of the accusation. "I am so poor a man," said he, "that this string of stones, which you throw about the room like a child's toy, would be the making of me." "Take it and be made," said Lizzie. "It seems an awful thing to me to have so much value in my hands," said Miss Macnulty, who had lifted the necklace off the table. "It would buy an estate; wouldn't it?" "It would buy the honourable estate of matrimony if it belonged to many women," said Lizzie,--"but it hasn't had just that effect with me;--has it, Frank?" "You haven't used it with that view yet." "Will you have it, Frank?" she said. "Take it with all its encumbrances and weight of cares. Take it with all the burthen of Messrs. Camperdown's lawsuits upon it. You shall be as welcome to it as flowers were ever welcomed in May." "The encumbrances are too heavy," said Frank. "You prefer a little ring." "Very much." "I don't doubt but you're right," said Lizzie. "Who fears to rise will hardly get a fall. But there they are for you to look at, and there they shall remain for the rest of the evening." So saying, she clasped the string round Miss Macnulty's throat. "How do you feel, Julia, with an estate upon your neck? Five hundred acres at twenty pounds an acre. Let us call it five hundred pounds a year. That's about it." Miss Macnulty looked as though she did not like it, but she stood for a time bearing the precious burthen, while Frank explained to his cousin that she could hardly buy land to pay her five per cent. They were then taken off and left lying on the table till Lady Eustace took them with her as she went to bed. "I do feel so like some naughty person in the 'Arabian Nights,'" she said, "who has got some great treasure that always brings him into trouble; but he can't get rid of it, because some spirit has given it to him. At last some morning it turns into slate stones, and then he has to be a water-carrier, and is happy ever afterwards, and marries the king's daughter. What sort of a king's son will there be for me when this turns into slate stones? Good night, Frank." Then she went off with her diamonds and her bed-candle. On the following day Frank suggested that there should be a business conversation. "That means that I am to sit silent and obedient while you lecture me," she said. But she submitted, and they went together into the little sitting-room which looked out over the sea,--the room where she kept her Shelley and her Byron, and practised her music and did water-colours, and sat, sometimes, dreaming of a Corsair. "And now, my gravest of Mentors, what must a poor ignorant female Telemachus do, so that the world may not trample on her too heavily?" He began by telling her what had happened between himself and Lord Fawn, and recommended her to write to that unhappy nobleman, returning any present that she might have received from him, and expressing, with some mild but intelligible sarcasm, her regret that their paths should have crossed each other. "I've worse in store for his lordship than that," said Lizzie. "Do you mean by any personal interview?" "Certainly." "I think you are wrong, Lizzie." "Of course you do. Men have become so soft themselves, that they no longer dare to think even of punishing those who behave badly, and they expect women to be softer and more fainéant than themselves. I have been ill-used." "Certainly you have." "And I will be revenged. Look here, Frank; if your view of these things is altogether different from mine, let us drop the subject. Of all living human beings you are the one that is most to me now. Perhaps you are more than any other ever was. But, even for you, I cannot alter my nature. Even for you I would not alter it if I could. That man has injured me, and all the world knows it. I will have my revenge, and all the world shall know that. I did wrong;--I am sensible enough of that." "What wrong do you mean?" "I told a man whom I never loved that I would marry him. God knows that I have been punished." "Perhaps, Lizzie, it is better as it is." "A great deal better. I will tell you now that I could never induce myself to go into church with that man as his bride. With a man I didn't love I might have done so, but not with a man I despised." "You have been saved, then, from a greater evil." "Yes;--but not the less is his injury to me. It is not because he despises me that he rejects me;--nor is it because he thought that I had taken property that was not my own." "Why then?" "Because he was afraid the world would say that I had done so. Poor shallow creature! But he shall be punished." "I do not know how you can punish him." "Leave that to me. I have another thing to do much more difficult." She paused, looking for a moment up into his face, and then turning her eyes upon the ground. As he said nothing, she went on. "I have to excuse myself to you for having accepted him." "I have never blamed you." "Not in words. How should you? But if you have not blamed me in your heart, I despise you. I know you have. I have seen it in your eyes when you have counselled me, either to take the poor creature or to leave him. Speak out, now, like a man. Is it not so?" "I never thought you loved him." "Loved him! Is there anything in him or about him that a woman could love? Is he not a poor social stick;--a bit of half-dead wood, good to make a post of, if one wants a post? I did want a post so sorely then!" "I don't see why." "You don't?" "No, indeed. It was natural that you should be inclined to marry again." "Natural that I should be inclined to marry again! And is that all? It is hard sometimes to see whether men are thick-witted, or hypocrites so perfect that they seem to be so. I cannot bring myself to think you thick-witted, Frank." "Then I must be the perfect hypocrite,--of course." "You believed I accepted Lord Fawn because it was natural that I should wish to marry again! Frank, you believed nothing of the kind. I accepted him in my anger, in my misery, in my despair, because I had expected you to come to me,--and you had not come!" She had thrown herself now into a chair, and sat looking at him. "You had told me that you would come, and you had stayed away. It was you, Frank, that I wanted to punish then;--but there was no punishment in it for you. When is it to be, Frank?" "When is what to be?" he asked, in a low voice, all but dumb-founded. How was he to put an end to this conversation, and what was he to say to her? "Your marriage with that little wizened thing who gave you the ring--that prim morsel of feminine propriety who has been clever enough to make you believe that her morality would suffice to make you happy." "I will not hear Lucy Morris abused, Lizzie." "Is that abuse? Is it abuse to say that she is moral and proper? But, sir, I shall abuse her. I know her for what she is, while your eyes are sealed. She is wise and moral, and decorous and prim; but she is a hypocrite, and has no touch of real heart in her composition. Not abuse her when she has robbed me of all--all--all that I have in the world! Go to her. You had better go at once. I did not mean to say all this, but it has been said, and you must leave me. I, at any rate, cannot play the hypocrite;--I wish I could." He rose and came to her, and attempted to take her hand, but she flung away from him. "No!" she said--"never again; never, unless you will tell me that the promise you made me when we were down on the sea-shore was a true promise. Was that truth, sir, or was it a--lie?" "Lizzie, do not use such a word as that to me." "I cannot stand picking my words when the whole world is going round with me, and my very brain is on fire. What is it to me what my words are? Say one syllable to me, and every word I utter again while breath is mine shall be spoken to do you pleasure. If you cannot say it, it is nothing to me what you or any one may think of my words. You know my secret, and I care not who else knows it. At any rate, I can die!" Then she paused a moment, and after that stalked steadily out of the room. That afternoon Frank took a long walk by himself over the mountains, nearly to the Cottage and back again; and on his return was informed that Lady Eustace was ill, and had gone to bed. At any rate, she was too unwell to come down to dinner. He, therefore, and Miss Macnulty sat down to dine, and passed the evening together without other companionship. Frank had resolved during his walk that he would leave Portray the next day; but had hardly resolved upon anything else. One thing, however, seemed certain to him. He was engaged to marry Lucy Morris, and to that engagement he must be true. His cousin was very charming,--and had never looked so lovely in his eyes as when she had been confessing her love for him. And he had wondered at and admired her courage, her power of language, and her force. He could not quite forget how useful would be her income to him. And, added to this, there was present to him an unwholesome feeling,--ideas absolutely at variance with those better ideas which had prompted him when he was writing his offer to Lucy Morris in his chambers,--that a woman such as was his cousin Lizzie was fitter to be the wife of a man thrown, as he must be, into the world, than a dear, quiet, domestic little girl such as Lucy Morris. But to Lucy Morris he was engaged, and therefore there was an end of it. The next morning he sent his love to his cousin, asking whether he should see her before he went. It was still necessary that he should know what attorneys to employ on her behalf if the threatened bill were filed by Messrs. Camperdown. Then he suggested a firm in his note. Might he put the case into the hands of Mr. Townsend, who was a friend of his own? There came back to him a scrap of paper, an old envelope, on which were written the names of Mowbray and Mopus;--Mowbray and Mopus in a large scrawling hand, and with pencil. He put the scrap of paper into his pocket, feeling that he could not remonstrate with her at this moment, and was prepared to depart, when there came a message to him. Lady Eustace was still unwell, but had risen; and if it were not giving him too much trouble, would see him before he went. He followed the messenger to the same little room, looking out upon the sea, and then found her, dressed indeed, but with a white morning wrapper on, and with hair loose over her shoulders. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face was pale, and thin, and woe-begone. "I am so sorry that you are ill, Lizzie," he said. "Yes, I am ill;--sometimes very ill; but what does it matter? I did not send for you, Frank, to speak of aught so trivial as that. I have a favour to ask." "Of course I will grant it." "It is your forgiveness for my conduct yesterday." "Oh, Lizzie!" "Say that you forgive me. Say it!" "How can I forgive where there has been no fault?" "There has been fault. Say that you forgive me." And she stamped her foot as she demanded his pardon. "I do forgive you," he said. "And now, one farewell." She then threw herself upon his breast and kissed him. "Now, go," she said; "go, and come no more to me, unless you would see me mad. May God Almighty bless you, and make you happy!" As she uttered this prayer she held the door in her hand, and there was nothing for him but to leave her. CHAPTER XXXII Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway in Scotland A great many people go to Scotland in the autumn. When you have your autumn holiday in hand to dispose of it, there is nothing more aristocratic that you can do than go to Scotland. Dukes are more plentiful there than in Pall Mall, and you will meet an earl or at least a lord on every mountain. Of course, if you merely travel about from inn to inn, and neither have a moor of your own nor stay with any great friend, you don't quite enjoy the cream of it; but to go to Scotland in August and stay there, perhaps, till the end of September, is about the most certain step you can take towards autumnal fashion. Switzerland and the Tyrol, and even Italy, are all redolent of Mr. Cook, and in those beautiful lands you become subject at least to suspicion. By no persons was the duty of adhering to the best side of society more clearly appreciated than by Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway of Warwick Square. Mr. Hittaway was Chairman of the Board of Civil Appeals, and was a man who quite understood that there are chairmen--and chairmen. He could name to you three or four men holding responsible permanent official positions quite as good as that he filled in regard to salary,--which, as he often said of his own, was a mere nothing, just a poor two thousand pounds a year, not as much as a grocer would make in a decent business,--but they were simply head clerks and nothing more. Nobody knew anything of them. They had no names. You did not meet them anywhere. Cabinet ministers never heard of them; and nobody out of their own offices ever consulted them. But there are others, and Mr. Hittaway felt greatly conscious that he was one of them, who move altogether in a different sphere. One minister of State would ask another whether Hittaway had been consulted on this or on that measure;--so at least the Hittawayites were in the habit of reporting. The names of Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway were constantly in the papers. They were invited to evening gatherings at the houses of both the alternate Prime Ministers. They were to be seen at fashionable gatherings up the river. They attended concerts at Buckingham Palace. Once a year they gave a dinner-party which was inserted in the "Morning Post." On such occasions at least one Cabinet Minister always graced the board. In fact, Mr. Hittaway, as Chairman of the Board of Civil Appeals, was somebody; and Mrs. Hittaway, as his wife and as sister to a peer, was somebody also. The reader will remember that Mrs. Hittaway had been a Fawn before she married. There is this drawback upon the happy condition which Mr. Hittaway had achieved,--that it demands a certain expenditure. Let nobody dream that he can be somebody without having to pay for that honour;--unless, indeed, he be a clergyman. When you go to a concert at Buckingham Palace you pay nothing, it is true, for your ticket; and a Cabinet Minister dining with you does not eat or drink more than your old friend Jones the attorney. But in some insidious, unforeseen manner,--in a way that can only be understood after much experience,--these luxuries of fashion do make a heavy pull on a modest income. Mrs. Hittaway knew this thoroughly, having much experience, and did make her fight bravely. For Mr. Hittaway's income was no more than modest. A few thousand pounds he had of his own when he married, and his Clara had brought to him the unpretending sum of fifteen hundred. But, beyond that, the poor official salary,--which was less than what a decent grocer would make,--was their all. The house in Warwick Square they had prudently purchased on their marriage,--when houses in Warwick Square were cheaper than they are now,--and there they carried on their battle, certainly with success. But two thousand a year does not go very far in Warwick Square, even though you sit rent free, if you have a family and absolutely must keep a carriage. It therefore resulted that when Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway went to Scotland, which they would endeavour to do every year, it was very important that they should accomplish their aristocratic holiday as visitors at the house of some aristocratic friend. So well had they played their cards in this respect, that they seldom failed altogether. In one year they had been the guests of a great marquis quite in the north, and that had been a very glorious year. To talk of Stackallan was, indeed, a thing of beauty. But in that year Mr. Hittaway had made himself very useful in London. Since that they had been at delicious shooting lodges in Ross and Inverness-shire, had visited a millionaire at his palace amidst the Argyle mountains, had been fêted in a western island, had been bored by a Dundee dowager, and put up with a Lothian laird. But the thing had been almost always done, and the Hittaways were known as people that went to Scotland. He could handle a gun, and was clever enough never to shoot a keeper. She could read aloud, could act a little, could talk or hold her tongue; and let her hosts be who they would and as mighty as you please, never caused them trouble by seeming to be out of their circle, and on that account requiring peculiar attention. On this occasion Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway were the guests of old Lady Pierrepoint, in Dumfries. There was nothing special to recommend Lady Pierrepoint except that she had a large house and a good income, and that she liked to have people with her of whom everybody knew something. So far was Lady Pierrepoint from being high in the Hittaway world, that Mrs. Hittaway felt herself called upon to explain to her friends that she was forced to go to Dumdum House by the duties of old friendship. Dear old Lady Pierrepoint had been insisting on it for the last ten years. And there was this advantage, that Dumfriesshire is next to Ayrshire, that Dumdum was not very far,--some twenty or thirty miles,--from Portray, and that she might learn something about Lizzie Eustace in her country house. It was nearly the end of August when the Hittaways left London to stay an entire month with Lady Pierrepoint. Mr. Hittaway had very frequently explained his defalcation as to fashion,--in that he was remaining in London for three weeks after Parliament had broken up,--by the peculiar exigencies of the Board of Appeals in that year. To one or two very intimate friends Mrs. Hittaway had hinted that everything must be made to give way to this horrid business of Fawn's marriage. "Whatever happens, and at whatever cost, that must be stopped," she had ventured to say to Lady Glencora Palliser,--who, however, could hardly be called one of her very intimate friends. "I don't see it at all," said Lady Glencora. "I think Lady Eustace is very nice. And why shouldn't she marry Lord Fawn if she's engaged to him?" "But you have heard of the necklace, Lady Glencora?" "Yes, I've heard of it. I wish anybody would come to me and try and get my diamonds! They should hear what I would say." Mrs. Hittaway greatly admired Lady Glencora, but not the less was she determined to persevere. Had Lord Fawn been altogether candid and open with his family at this time, some trouble might have been saved; for he had almost altogether resolved that, let the consequences be what they might, he would not marry Lizzie Eustace. But he was afraid to say this even to his own sister. He had promised to marry the woman, and he must walk very warily, or the objurgations of the world would be too many for him. "It must depend altogether on her conduct, Clara," he had said when last his sister had persecuted him on the subject. She was not, however, sorry to have an opportunity of learning something of the lady's doings. Mr. Hittaway had more than once called on Mr. Camperdown. "Yes," Mr. Camperdown had said in answer to a question from Lord Fawn's brother-in-law; "she would play old gooseberry with the property if we hadn't some one to look after it. There's a fellow named Gowran who has lived there all his life, and we depend very much upon him." It is certainly true, that as to many points of conduct, women are less nice than men. Mr. Hittaway would not probably have condescended himself to employ espionage, but Mrs. Hittaway was less scrupulous. She actually went down to Troon and had an interview with Mr. Gowran, using freely the names of Mr. Camperdown and of Lord Fawn; and some ten days afterwards Mr. Gowran travelled as far as Dumfries, and Dumdum, and had an interview with Mrs. Hittaway. The result of all this, and of further inquiries, will be shown by the following letter from Mrs. Hittaway to her sister Amelia:-- Dumdum, 9th September, 18--. MY DEAR AMELIA, Here we are, and here we have to remain to the end of the month. Of course it suits, and all that; but it is awfully dull. Richmond for this time of the year is a paradise to it; and as for coming to Scotland every autumn, I am sick of it. Only what is one to do if one lives in London? If it wasn't for Orlando and the children, I'd brazen it out, and let people say what they pleased. As for health, I'm never so well as at home, and I do like having my own things about me. Orlando has literally nothing to do here. There is no shooting, except pheasants, and that doesn't begin till October. But I'm very glad I've come as to Frederic, and the more so, as I have learned the truth as to that Mr. Greystock. She, Lady Eustace, is a bad creature in every way. She still pretends that she is engaged to Frederic, and tells everybody that the marriage is not broken off, and yet she has her cousin with her, making love to him in the most indecent way. People used to say in her favour that at any rate she never flirted. I never quite know what people mean when they talk of flirting. But you may take my word for it that she allows her cousin to embrace her, and _embraces him_. I would not say it if I could not prove it. It is horrible to think of it, when one remembers that she is almost justified in saying that Frederic is engaged to her. No doubt he was engaged to her. It was a great misfortune, but, thank God, is not yet past remedy. He has some foolish feeling of what he calls honour; as if a man can be bound in honour to marry a woman who has deceived him in every point! She still sticks to the diamonds,--if she has not sold them, as I believe she has; and Mr. Camperdown is going to bring an action against her in the High Court of Chancery. But still Frederic will not absolutely declare the thing off. I feel, therefore, that it is my duty to let him know what I have learned. I should be the last to stir in such a matter unless I was sure I could prove it. But I don't quite like to write to Frederic. Will mamma see him, and tell him what I say? Of course you will show this letter to mamma. If not, I must postpone it till I am in town;--but I think it would come better from mamma. Mamma may be sure that she is a bad woman. And now what do you think of your Mr. Greystock? As sure as I am here he was seen with his arm round his cousin's waist, sitting out of doors,--_kissing her!_ I was never taken in by that story of his marrying Lucy Morris. He is the last man in the world to marry a governess. He is over head and ears in debt, and if he marries at all, he must marry some one with money. I really think that mamma, and you, and all of you have been soft about that girl. I believe she has been a good governess,--that is, good after mamma's easy fashion; and I don't for a moment suppose that she is doing anything underhand. But a governess with a lover never does suit, and I'm sure it won't suit in this case. If I were you I would tell her. I think it would be the best charity. Whether they mean to marry I can't tell,--Mr. Greystock, that is, and this woman; _but they ought to mean it_;--that's all. Let me know at once whether mamma will see Frederic, and speak to him openly. She is quite at liberty to use my name; only nobody but mamma should see this letter. Love to them all, Your most affectionate sister, CLARA HITTAWAY. In writing to Amelia instead of to her mother, Mrs. Hittaway was sure that she was communicating her ideas to at least two persons at Fawn Court, and that therefore there would be discussion. Had she written to her mother, her mother might probably have held her peace, and done nothing. CHAPTER XXXIII "It Won't Be True" Mrs. Greystock, in making her proposition respecting Lady Linlithgow, wrote to Lady Fawn, and by the same post Frank wrote to Lucy. But before those letters reached Fawn Court there had come that other dreadful letter from Mrs. Hittaway. The consternation caused at Fawn Court in respect to Mr. Greystock's treachery almost robbed of its importance the suggestion made as to Lord Fawn. Could it be possible that this man, who had so openly and in so manly a manner engaged himself to Lucy Morris, should now be proposing to himself a marriage with his rich cousin? Lady Fawn did not believe that it was possible. Clara had not seen those horrid things with her own eyes, and other people might be liars. But Amelia shook her head. Amelia evidently believed that all manner of iniquities were possible to man. "You see, mamma, the sacrifice he was making was so very great!" "But he made it!" pleaded Lady Fawn. "No, mamma, he said he would make it. Men do these things. It is very horrid, but I think they do them more now than they used to. It seems to me that nobody cares now what he does, if he's not to be put into prison." It was resolved between these two wise ones that nothing at the present should be said to Lucy or to any one of the family. They would wait awhile, and in the meantime they attempted,--as far as it was possible to make the attempt without express words,--to let Lucy understand that she might remain at Fawn Court if she pleased. While this was going on, Lord Fawn did come down once again, and on that occasion Lucy simply absented herself from the dinner-table and from the family circle for that evening. "He's coming in, and you've got to go to prison again," Nina said to her, with a kiss. The matter to which Mrs. Hittaway's letter more specially alluded was debated between the mother and daughter at great length. They, indeed, were less brave and less energetic than was the married daughter of the family; but as they saw Lord Fawn more frequently, they knew better than Mrs. Hittaway the real state of the case. They felt sure that he was already sufficiently embittered against Lady Eustace, and thought that therefore the peculiarly unpleasant task assigned to Lady Fawn need not be performed. Lady Fawn had not the advantage of living so much in the world as her daughter, and was oppressed by, perhaps, a squeamish delicacy. "I really could not tell him about her sitting and--and kissing the man. Could I, my dear?" "I couldn't," said Amelia;--"but Clara would." "And to tell the truth," continued Lady Fawn, "I shouldn't care a bit about it if it was not for poor Lucy. What will become of her if that man is untrue to her?" "Nothing on earth would make her believe it, unless it came from himself," said Amelia,--who really did know something of Lucy's character. "Till he tells her, or till she knows that he's married, she'll never believe it." Then, after a few days, there came those other letters from Bobsborough,--one from the dean's wife and the other from Frank. The matter there proposed it was necessary that they should discuss with Lucy, as the suggestion had reached Lucy as well as themselves. She at once came to Lady Fawn with her lover's letter, and with a gentle merry laughing face declared that the thing would do very well. "I am sure I should get on with her, and I should know that it wouldn't be for long," said Lucy. "The truth is, we don't want you to go at all," said Lady Fawn. "Oh, but I must," said Lucy in her sharp, decided tone. "I must go. I was bound to wait till I heard from Mr. Greystock, because it is my first duty to obey him. But of course I cannot stay here after what has passed. As Nina says, it is simply going to prison when Lord Fawn comes here." "Nina is an impertinent little chit," said Amelia. "She is the dearest little friend in all the world," said Lucy, "and always tells the exact truth. I do go to prison, and when he comes I feel that I ought to go to prison. Of course, I must go away. What does it matter? Lady Linlithgow won't be exactly like you,"--and she put her little hand upon Lady Fawn's fat arm caressingly, "and I sha'n't have you all to spoil me; but I shall be simply waiting till he comes. Everything now must be no more than waiting till he comes." If it was to be that "he" would never come, this was very dreadful. Amelia clearly thought that "he" would never come, and Lady Fawn was apt to think her daughter wiser than herself. And if Mr. Greystock were such as Mrs. Hittaway had described him to be,--if there were to be no such coming as that for which Lucy fondly waited,--then there would be reason ten-fold strong why she should not leave Fawn Court and go to Lady Linlithgow. In such case,--when that blow should fall,--Lucy would require very different treatment than might be expected for her from the hands of Lady Linlithgow. She would fade and fall to the earth like a flower with an insect at its root. She would be like a wounded branch, into which no sap would run. With such misfortune and wretchedness possibly before her, Lady Fawn could not endure the idea that Lucy should be turned out to encounter it all beneath the cold shade of Lady Linlithgow's indifference. "My dear," she said, "let bygones be bygones. Come down and meet Lord Fawn. Nobody will say anything. After all, you were provoked very much, and there has been quite enough about it." This, from Lady Fawn, was almost miraculous,--from Lady Fawn, to whom her son had ever been the highest of human beings! But Lucy had told the tale to her lover, and her lover approved of her going. Perhaps there was acting upon her mind some feeling, of which she was hardly conscious, that as long as she remained at Fawn Court she would not see her lover. She had told him that she could make herself supremely happy in the simple knowledge that he loved her. But we all know how far such declarations should be taken as true. Of course, she was longing to see him. "If he would only pass by the road," she would say to herself, "so that I might peep at him through the gate!" She had no formed idea in her own mind that she would be able to see him should she go to Lady Linlithgow, but still there would be the chances of her altered life! She would tell Lady Linlithgow the truth, and why should Lady Linlithgow refuse her so rational a pleasure? There was, of course, a reason why Frank should not come to Fawn Court; but the house in Bruton Street need not be closed to him. "I hardly know how to love you enough," she said to Lady Fawn, "but indeed I must go. I do so hope the time may come when you and Mr. Greystock may be friends. Of course, it will come. Shall it not?" "Who can look into the future?" said the wise Amelia. "Of course, if he is your husband, we shall love him," said the less wise Lady Fawn. "He is to be my husband," said Lucy, springing up. "What do you mean? Do you mean anything?" Lady Fawn, who was not at all wise, protested that she meant nothing. What were they to do? On that special day they merely stipulated that there should be a day's delay before Lady Fawn answered Mrs. Greystock's letter,--so that she might sleep upon it. The sleeping on it meant that further discussion which was to take place between Lady Fawn and her second daughter in her ladyship's bed-room that night. During all this period the general discomfort of Fawn Court was increased by a certain sullenness on the part of Augusta, the elder daughter, who knew that letters had come and that consultations were being held,--but who was not admitted to those consultations. Since the day on which poor Augusta had been handed over to Lizzie Eustace as her peculiar friend in the family, there had always existed a feeling that she, by her position, was debarred from sympathising in the general desire to be quit of Lizzie; and then, too, poor Augusta was never thoroughly trusted by that great guide of the family, Mrs. Hittaway. "She couldn't keep it to herself if you'd give her gold to do it," Mrs. Hittaway would say. Consequently Augusta was sullen and conscious of ill-usage. "Have you fixed upon anything?" she said to Lucy that evening. "Not quite;--only I am to go away." "I don't see why you should go away at all. Frederic doesn't come here so very often, and when he does come he doesn't say much to any one. I suppose it's all Amelia's doing." "Nobody wants me to go, only I feel that I ought. Mr. Greystock thinks it best." "I suppose he's going to quarrel with us all." "No, dear. I don't think he wants to quarrel with any one;--but above all he must not quarrel with me. Lord Fawn has quarrelled with him, and that's a misfortune,--just for the present." "And where are you going?" "Nothing has been settled yet; but we are talking of Lady Linlithgow,--if she will take me." "Lady Linlithgow! Oh dear!" "Won't it do?" "They say she is the most dreadful old woman in London. Lady Eustace told such stories about her." "Do you know, I think I shall rather like it." But things were very different with Lucy the next morning. That discussion in Lady Fawn's room was protracted till midnight, and then it was decided that just a word should be said to Lucy, so that, if possible, she might be induced to remain at Fawn Court. Lady Fawn was to say the word, and on the following morning she was closeted with Lucy. "My dear," she began, "we all want you to do us a particular favour." As she said this, she held Lucy by the hand, and no one looking at them would have thought that Lucy was a governess and that Lady Fawn was her employer. "Dear Lady Fawn, indeed it is better that I should go." "Stay just one month." "I couldn't do that, because then this chance of a home would be gone. Of course, we can't wait a month before we let Mrs. Greystock know." "We must write to her, of course." "And then, you see, Mr. Greystock wishes it." Lady Fawn knew that Lucy could be very firm, and had hardly hoped that anything could be done by simple persuasion. They had long been accustomed among themselves to call her obstinate, and knew that even in her acts of obedience she had a way of obeying after her own fashion. It was as well, therefore, that the thing to be said should be said at once. "My dear Lucy, has it ever occurred to you that there may be a slip between the cup and the lip?" "What do you mean, Lady Fawn?" "That sometimes engagements take place which never become more than engagements. Look at Lord Fawn and Lady Eustace." "Mr. Greystock and I are not like that," said Lucy, proudly. "Such things are very dreadful, Lucy, but they do happen." "Do you mean anything;--anything real, Lady Fawn?" "I have so strong a reliance on your good sense, that I will tell you just what I do mean. A rumour has reached me that Mr. Greystock is--paying more attention than he ought to do to Lady Eustace." "His own cousin!" "But people marry their cousins, Lucy." "To whom he has always been just like a brother! I do think that is the cruellest thing. Because he sacrifices his time and his money and all his holidays to go and look after her affairs, this is to be said of him! She hasn't another human being to look after her, and, therefore, he is obliged to do it. Of course he has told me all about it. I do think, Lady Fawn,--I do think that is the greatest shame I ever heard!" "But if it should be true--?" "It isn't true." "But just for the sake of showing you, Lucy--; if it was to be true." "It won't be true." "Surely I may speak to you as your friend, Lucy. You needn't be so abrupt with me. Will you listen to me, Lucy?" "Of course I will listen;--only nothing that anybody on earth could say about that would make me believe a word of it." "Very well! Now just let me go on. If it were to be so--" "Oh-h, Lady Fawn!" "Don't be foolish, Lucy. I will say what I've got to say. If--if-- Let me see. Where was I? I mean just this. You had better remain here till things are a little more settled. Even if it be only a rumour,--and I'm sure I don't believe it's anything more,--you had better hear about it with us,--with friends round you, than with a perfect stranger like Lady Linlithgow. If anything were to go wrong there, you wouldn't know where to go for comfort. If anything were wrong with you here, you could come to me as though I were your mother.--Couldn't you, now?" "Indeed, indeed I could! And I will;--I always will. Lady Fawn, I love you and the dear darling girls better than all the world--except Mr. Greystock. If anything like that were to happen, I think I should creep here and ask to die in your house. But it won't. And just now it will be better that I should go away." It was found at last that Lucy must have her way, and letters were written both to Mrs. Greystock and to Frank, requesting that the suggested overtures might at once be made to Lady Linlithgow. Lucy, in her letter to her lover, was more than ordinarily cheerful and jocose. She had a good deal to say about Lady Linlithgow that was really droll, and not a word to say indicative of the slightest fear in the direction of Lady Eustace. She spoke of poor Lizzie, and declared her conviction that that marriage never could come off now. "You mustn't be angry when I say that I can't break my heart for them, for I never did think that they were very much in love. As for Lord Fawn, of course he is my--ENEMY!" And she wrote the word in big letters. "And as for Lizzie,--she's your cousin, and all that. And she's ever so pretty, and all that. And she's as rich as Croesus, and all that. But I don't think she'll break her own heart. I would break mine; only--only--only-- You will understand the rest. If it should come to pass, I wonder whether 'the duchess' would ever let a poor creature see a friend of hers in Bruton Street?" Frank had once called Lady Linlithgow the duchess, after a certain popular picture in a certain popular book, and Lucy never forgot anything that Frank had said. It did come to pass. Mrs. Greystock at once corresponded with Lady Linlithgow, and Lady Linlithgow, who was at Ramsgate for her autumn vacation, requested that Lucy Morris might be brought to see her at her house in London on the 2nd of October. Lady Linlithgow's autumn holiday always ended on the last day of September. On the 2nd of October Lady Fawn herself took Lucy up to Bruton Street, and Lady Linlithgow appeared. "Miss Morris," said Lady Fawn, "thinks it right that you should be told that she's engaged to be married." "Who to?" demanded the countess. Lucy was as red as fire, although she had especially made up her mind that she would not blush when the communication was made. "I don't know that she wishes me to mention the gentleman's name, just at present; but I can assure you that he is all that he ought to be." "I hate mysteries," said the countess. "If Lady Linlithgow--" began Lucy. "Oh, it's nothing to me," continued the old woman. "It won't come off for six months, I suppose?" Lucy gave a mute assurance that there would be no such difficulty as that. "And he can't come here, Miss Morris." To this Lucy said nothing. Perhaps she might win over even the countess, and if not, she must bear her six months of prolonged exclusion from the light of day. And so the matter was settled. Lucy was to be taken back to Richmond, and to come again on the following Monday. "I don't like this parting at all, Lucy," Lady Fawn said on her way home. "It is better so, Lady Fawn." "I hate people going away; but, somehow, you don't feel it as we do." "You wouldn't say that if you really knew what I do feel." "There was no reason why you should go. Frederic was getting not to care for it at all. What's Nina to do now? I can't get another governess after you. I hate all these sudden breaks up. And all for such a trumpery thing. If Frederic hasn't forgotten all about it, he ought." "It hasn't come altogether from him, Lady Fawn." "How has it come, then?" "I suppose it is because of Mr. Greystock. I suppose when a girl has engaged herself to marry a man she must think more of him than of anything else." "Why couldn't you think of him at Fawn Court?" "Because--because things have been unfortunate. He isn't your friend,--not as yet. Can't you understand, Lady Fawn, that, dear as you all must be to me, I must live in his friendships, and take his part when there is a part?" "Then I suppose that you mean to hate all of us?" Lucy could only cry at hearing this;--whereupon Lady Fawn also burst into tears. On the Sunday before Lucy took her departure, Lord Fawn was again at Richmond. "Of course, you'll come down,--just as if nothing had happened," said Lydia. "We'll see," said Lucy. "Mamma will be very angry if you don't," said Lydia. But Lucy had a little plot in her head, and her appearance at the dinner-table on that Sunday must depend on the manner in which her plot was executed. After church, Lord Fawn would always hang about the grounds for awhile before going into the house; and on this morning Lucy also remained outside. She soon found her opportunity, and walked straight up to him, following him on the path. "Lord Fawn," she said, "I have come to beg your pardon." He had turned round hearing footsteps behind him, but still was startled and unready. "It does not matter at all," he said. "It matters to me, because I behaved badly." "What I said about Mr. Greystock wasn't intended to be said to you, you know." "Even if it was it would make no matter. I don't mean to think of that now. I beg your pardon because I said what I ought not to have said." "You see, Miss Morris, that as the head of this family--" "If I had said it to Juniper, I would have begged his pardon." Now Juniper was the gardener, and Lord Fawn did not quite like the way in which the thing was put to him. The cloud came across his brow, and he began to fear that she would again insult him. "I oughtn't to accuse anybody of an untruth,--not in that way; and I am very sorry for what I did, and I beg your pardon." Then she turned as though she were going back to the house. But he stopped her. "Miss Morris, if it will suit you to stay with my mother, I will never say a word against it." "It is quite settled that I am to go to-morrow, Lord Fawn. Only for that I would not have troubled you again." Then she did turn towards the house, but he recalled her. "We will shake hands, at any rate," he said, "and not part as enemies." So they shook hands, and Lucy came down and sat in his company at the dinner-table. CHAPTER XXXIV Lady Linlithgow at Home Lucy, in her letter to her lover, had distinctly asked whether she might tell Lady Linlithgow the name of her future husband, but had received no reply when she was taken to Bruton Street. The parting at Richmond was very painful, and Lady Fawn had declared herself quite unable to make another journey up to London with the ungrateful runagate. Though there was no diminution of affection among the Fawns, there was a general feeling that Lucy was behaving badly. That obstinacy of hers was getting the better of her. Why should she have gone? Even Lord Fawn had expressed his desire that she should remain. And then, in the breasts of the wise ones, all faith in the Greystock engagement had nearly vanished. Another letter had come from Mrs. Hittaway, who now declared that it was already understood about Portray that Lady Eustace intended to marry her cousin. This was described as a terrible crime on the part of Lizzie, though the antagonistic crime of a remaining desire to marry Lord Fawn was still imputed to her. And, of course, the one crime heightened the other. So that words from the eloquent pen of Mrs. Hittaway failed to make dark enough the blackness of poor Lizzie's character. As for Mr. Greystock, he was simply a heartless man of the world, wishing to feather his nest. Mrs. Hittaway did not for a moment believe that he had ever dreamed of marrying Lucy Morris. Men always have three or four little excitements of that kind going on for the amusement of their leisure hours,--so, at least, said Mrs. Hittaway. "The girl had better be told at once." Such was her decision about poor Lucy. "I can't do more than I have done," said Lady Fawn to Augusta. "She'll never get over it, mamma; never," said Augusta. Nothing more was said, and Lucy was sent off in the family carriage. Lydia and Nina were sent with her, and though there was some weeping on the journey, there was also much laughing. The character of the "duchess" was discussed very much at large, and many promises were made as to long letters. Lucy, in truth, was not unhappy. She would be nearer to Frank; and then it had been almost promised her that she should go to the deanery, after a residence of six months with Lady Linlithgow. At the deanery of course she would see Frank; and she also understood that a long visit to the deanery would be the surest prelude to that home of her own of which she was always dreaming. "Dear me;--sent you up in the carriage, has she? Why shouldn't you have come by the railway?" "Lady Fawn thought the carriage best. She is so very kind." "It's what I call twaddle, you know. I hope you ain't afraid of going in a cab." "Not in the least, Lady Linlithgow." "You can't have the carriage to go about here. Indeed, I never have a pair of horses till after Christmas. I hope you know that I'm as poor as Job." "I didn't know." "I am, then. You'll get nothing beyond wholesome food with me. And I'm not sure it is wholesome always. The butchers are scoundrels, and the bakers are worse. What used you to do at Lady Fawn's?" "I still did lessons with the two youngest girls." "You won't have any lessons to do here, unless you do 'em with me. You had a salary there?" "Oh yes." "Fifty pounds a year, I suppose." "I had eighty." "Had you, indeed; eighty pounds;--and a coach to ride in!" "I had a great deal more than that, Lady Linlithgow." "How do you mean?" "I had downright love and affection. They were just so many dear friends. I don't suppose any governess was ever so treated before. It was just like being at home. The more I laughed, the better every one liked it." "You won't find anything to laugh at here; at least, I don't. If you want to laugh, you can laugh up-stairs, or down in the parlour." "I can do without laughing for a while." "That's lucky, Miss Morris. If they were all so good to you, what made you come away? They sent you away, didn't they?" "Well;--I don't know that I can explain it just all. There were a great many things together. No;--they didn't send me away. I came away because it suited." "It was something to do with your having a lover, I suppose." To this Lucy thought it best to make no answer, and the conversation for a while was dropped. Lucy had arrived at about half-past three, and Lady Linlithgow was then sitting in the drawing-room. After the first series of questions and answers, Lucy was allowed to go up to her room, and on her return to the drawing-room, found the countess still sitting upright in her chair. She was now busy with accounts, and at first took no notice of Lucy's return. What were to be the companion's duties? What tasks in the house were to be assigned to her? What hours were to be her own; and what was to be done in those of which the countess would demand the use? Up to the present moment nothing had been said of all this. She had simply been told that she was to be Lady Linlithgow's companion,--without salary, indeed,--but receiving shelter, guardianship, and bread and meat in return for her services. She took up a book from the table and sat with it for ten minutes. It was Tupper's great poem, and she attempted to read it. Lady Linlithgow sat, totting up her figures, but said nothing. She had not spoken a word since Lucy's return to the room; and as the great poem did not at first fascinate the new companion,--whose mind not unnaturally was somewhat disturbed,--Lucy ventured upon a question. "Is there anything I can do for you, Lady Linlithgow?" "Do you know about figures?" "Oh, yes. I consider myself quite a ready-reckoner." "Can you make two and two come to five on one side of the sheet, and only come to three on the other?" "I'm afraid I can't do that, and prove it afterwards." "Then you ain't worth anything to me." Having so declared, Lady Linlithgow went on with her accounts and Lucy relapsed into her great poem. "No, my dear," said the countess, when she had completed her work. "There isn't anything for you to do. I hope you haven't come here with that mistaken idea. There won't be any sort of work of any kind expected from you. I poke my own fires, and I carve my own bit of mutton. And I haven't got a nasty little dog to be washed. And I don't care twopence about worsted work. I have a maid to darn my stockings, and because she has to work, I pay her wages. I don't like being alone, so I get you to come and live with me. I breakfast at nine, and if you don't manage to be down by that time, I shall be cross." "I'm always up long before that." "There's lunch at two,--just bread and butter and cheese, and perhaps a bit of cold meat. There's dinner at seven;--and very bad it is, because they don't have any good meat in London. Down in Fifeshire the meat's a deal better than it is here, only I never go there now. At half-past ten I go to bed. It's a pity you're so young, because I don't know what you'll do about going out. Perhaps, as you ain't pretty, it won't signify." "Not at all, I should think," said Lucy. "Perhaps you consider yourself pretty. It's all altered now since I was young. Girls make monsters of themselves, and I'm told the men like it;--going about with unclean, frowsy structures on their heads, enough to make a dog sick. They used to be clean and sweet and nice,--what one would like to kiss. How a man can like to kiss a face with a dirty horse's tail all whizzing about it, is what I can't at all understand. I don't think they do like it, but they have to do it." "I haven't even a pony's tail," said Lucy. "They do like to kiss you, I daresay." "No, they don't," ejaculated Lucy, not knowing what answer to make. "I haven't hardly looked at you, but you didn't seem to me to be a beauty." "You're quite right about that, Lady Linlithgow." "I hate beauties. My niece, Lizzie Eustace, is a beauty; and I think that, of all the heartless creatures in the world, she is the most heartless." "I know Lady Eustace very well." "Of course you do. She was a Greystock, and you know the Greystocks. And she was down staying with old Lady Fawn at Richmond. I should think old Lady Fawn had a time with her;--hadn't she?" "It didn't go off very well." "Lizzie would be too much for the Fawns, I should think. She was too much for me, I know. She's about as bad as anybody ever was. She's false, dishonest, heartless, cruel, irreligious, ungrateful, mean, ignorant, greedy, and vile!" "Good gracious, Lady Linlithgow!" "She's all that, and a great deal worse. But she is handsome. I don't know that I ever saw a prettier woman. I generally go out in a cab at three o'clock, but I sha'n't want you to go with me. I don't know what you can do. Macnulty used to walk round Grosvenor Square and think that people mistook her for a lady of quality. You mustn't go and walk round Grosvenor Square by yourself, you know. Not that I care." "I'm not a bit afraid of anybody," said Lucy. "Now you know all about it. There isn't anything for you to do. There are Miss Edgeworth's novels down-stairs, and 'Pride and Prejudice' in my bed-room. I don't subscribe to Mudie's, because when I asked for 'Adam Bede,' they always sent me the 'Bandit Chief.' Perhaps you can borrow books from your friends at Richmond. I daresay Mrs. Greystock has told you that I'm very cross." "I haven't seen Mrs. Greystock for ever so long." "Then Lady Fawn has told you,--or somebody. When the wind is east, or north-east, or even north, I am cross, for I have the lumbago. It's all very well talking about being good-humoured. You can't be good-humoured with the lumbago. And I have the gout sometimes in my knee. I'm cross enough then, and so you'd be. And, among 'em all, I don't get much above half what I ought to have out of my jointure. That makes me very cross. My teeth are bad, and I like to have the meat tender. But it's always tough, and that makes me cross. And when people go against the grain with me, as Lizzie Eustace always did, then I'm very cross." "I hope you won't be very bad with me," said Lucy. "I don't bite, if you mean that," said her ladyship. "I'd sooner be bitten than barked at,--sometimes," said Lucy. "Humph!" said the old woman, and then she went back to her accounts. Lucy had a few books of her own, and she determined to ask Frank to send her some. Books are cheap things, and she would not mind asking him for magazines, and numbers, and perhaps for the loan of a few volumes. In the meantime she did read Tupper's poem, and "Pride and Prejudice," and one of Miss Edgeworth's novels,--probably for the third time. During the first week in Bruton Street she would have been comfortable enough, only that she had not received a line from Frank. That Frank was not specially good at writing letters she had already taught herself to understand. She was inclined to believe that but few men of business do write letters willingly, and that, of all men, lawyers are the least willing to do so. How reasonable it was that a man who had to perform a great part of his daily work with a pen in his hand, should loathe a pen when not at work. To her the writing of letters was perhaps the most delightful occupation of her life, and the writing of letters to her lover was a foretaste of heaven; but then men, as she knew, are very different from women. And she knew this also,--that of all her immediate duties, no duty could be clearer than that of abstaining from all jealousy, petulance, and impatient expectation of little attentions. He loved her, and had told her so, and had promised her that she should be his wife, and that ought to be enough for her. She was longing for a letter, because she was very anxious to know whether she might mention his name to Lady Linlithgow;--but she would abstain from any idea of blaming him because the letter did not come. On various occasions the countess showed some little curiosity about the lover; and at last, after about ten days, when she found herself beginning to be intimate with her new companion, she put the question point-blank. "I hate mysteries," she said. "Who is the young man you are to marry?" "He is a gentleman I've known a long time." "That's no answer." "I don't want to tell his name quite yet, Lady Linlithgow." "Why shouldn't you tell his name, unless it's something improper? Is he a gentleman?" "Yes;--he is a gentleman." "And how old?" "Oh, I don't know;--perhaps thirty-two." "And has he any money?" "He has his profession." "I don't like these kind of secrets, Miss Morris. If you won't say who he is, what was the good of telling me that you were engaged at all? How is a person to believe it?" "I don't want you to believe it." "Highty, tighty!" "I told you my own part of the affair, because I thought you ought to know it as I was coming into your house. But I don't see that you ought to know his part of it. As for not believing, I suppose you believed Lady Fawn?" "Not a bit better than I believe you. People don't always tell truth because they have titles, nor yet because they've grown old. He don't live in London;--does he?" "He generally lives in London. He is a barrister." "Oh,--oh; a barrister is he. They're always making a heap of money, or else none at all. Which is it with him?" "He makes something." "As much as you could put in your eye and see none the worse." To see the old lady, as she made this suggestion, turn sharp round upon Lucy, was as good as a play. "My sister's nephew, the dean's son, is one of the best of the rising ones, I'm told." Lucy blushed up to her hair, but the dowager's back was turned, and she did not see the blushes. "But he's in Parliament, and they tell me he spends his money faster than he makes it. I suppose you know him?" "Yes;--I knew him at Bobsborough." "It's my belief that after all this fuss about Lord Fawn, he'll marry his cousin, Lizzie Eustace. If he's a lawyer, and as sharp as they say, I suppose he could manage her. I wish he would." "And she so bad as you say she is!" "She'll be sure to get somebody, and why shouldn't he have her money as well as another? There never was a Greystock who didn't want money. That's what it will come to;--you'll see." "Never," said Lucy decidedly. "And why not?" "What I mean is that Mr. Greystock is,--at least, I should think so from what I hear,--the very last man in the world to marry for money." "What do you know of what a man would do?" "It would be a very mean thing;--particularly if he does not love her." "Bother!" said the countess. "They were very near it in town last year before Lord Fawn came up at all. I knew as much as that. And it's what they'll come to before they've done." "They'll never come to it," said Lucy. Then a sudden light flashed across the astute mind of the countess. She turned round in her chair, and sat for awhile silent, looking at Lucy. Then she slowly asked another question. "He isn't your young man;--is he?" To this Lucy made no reply. "So that's it, is it?" said the dowager. "You've done me the honour of making my house your home till my own sister's nephew shall be ready to marry you?" "And why not?" said Lucy, rather roughly. "And dame Greystock, from Bobsborough, has sent you here to keep you out of her son's way. I see it all. And that old frump at Richmond has passed you over to me because she did not choose to have such goings on under her own eye." "There have been no goings on," said Lucy. "And he's to come here, I suppose, when my back's turned?" "He is not thinking of coming here. I don't know what you mean. Nobody has done anything wrong to you. I don't know why you say such cruel things." "He can't afford to marry you, you know." "I don't know anything about it. Perhaps we must wait ever so long;--five years. That's nobody's business but my own." "I found it all out;--didn't I?" "Yes;--you found it out." "I'm thinking of that sly old dame Greystock at Bobsborough,--sending you here!" Neither on that nor on the two following days did Lady Linlithgow say a word further to Lucy about her engagement. CHAPTER XXXV Too Bad for Sympathy When Frank Greystock left Bobsborough to go to Scotland, he had not said that he would return, nor had he at that time made up his mind whether he would do so or no. He had promised to go and shoot in Norfolk, and had half undertaken to be up in London with Herriot, working. Though it was holiday-time, still there was plenty of work for him to do,--various heavy cases to get up, and papers to be read, if only he could settle himself down to the doing of it. But the scenes down in Scotland had been of a nature to make him unfit for steady labour. How was he to sail his bark through the rocks by which his present voyage was rendered so dangerous? Of course, to the reader, the way to do so seems to be clear enough. To work hard at his profession; to explain to his cousin that she had altogether mistaken his feelings; and to be true to Lucy Morris was so manifestly his duty, that to no reader will it appear possible that to any gentleman there could be a doubt. Instead of the existence of a difficulty, there was a flood of light upon his path,--so the reader will think;--a flood so clear that not to see his way was impossible. A man carried away by abnormal appetites, and wickedness, and the devil, may of course commit murder, or forge bills, or become a fraudulent director of a bankrupt company. And so may a man be untrue to his troth,--and leave true love in pursuit of tinsel, and beauty, and false words, and a large income. But why should one tell the story of creatures so base? One does not willingly grovel in gutters, or breathe fetid atmospheres, or live upon garbage. If we are to deal with heroes and heroines, let us, at any rate, have heroes and heroines who are above such meanness as falsehood in love. This Frank Greystock must be little better than a mean villain, if he allows himself to be turned from his allegiance to Lucy Morris for an hour by the seductions and money of such a one as Lizzie Eustace. We know the dear old rhyme:-- "It is good to be merry and wise, It is good to be honest and true, It is good to be off with the old love Before you are on with the new." There was never better truth spoken than this, and if all men and women could follow the advice here given, there would be very little sorrow in the world. But men and women do not follow it. They are no more able to do so than they are to use a spear, the staff of which is like a weaver's beam, or to fight with the sword Excalibur. The more they exercise their arms, the nearer will they get to using the giant's weapon,--or even the weapon that is divine. But as things are at present, their limbs are limp and their muscles soft, and over-feeding impedes their breath. They attempt to be merry without being wise, and have theories about truth and honesty with which they desire to shackle others, thinking that freedom from such trammels may be good for themselves. And in that matter of love,--though love is very potent,--treachery will sometimes seem to be prudence, and a hankering after new delights will often interfere with real devotion. It is very easy to depict a hero,--a man absolutely stainless, perfect as an Arthur,--a man honest in all his dealings, equal to all trials, true in all his speech, indifferent to his own prosperity, struggling for the general good, and, above all, faithful in love. At any rate, it is as easy to do that as to tell of the man who is one hour good and the next bad, who aspires greatly but fails in practice, who sees the higher but too often follows the lower course. There arose at one time a school of art, which delighted to paint the human face as perfect in beauty; and from that time to this we are discontented unless every woman is drawn for us as a Venus, or, at least, a Madonna. I do not know that we have gained much by this untrue portraiture, either in beauty or in art. There may be made for us a pretty thing to look at, no doubt;--but we know that that pretty thing is not really visaged as the mistress whom we serve, and whose lineaments we desire to perpetuate on the canvas. The winds of heaven, or the flesh-pots of Egypt, or the midnight gas,--passions, pains, and, perhaps, rouge and powder, have made her something different. But there still is the fire of her eye, and the eager eloquence of her mouth, and something, too, perhaps, left of the departing innocence of youth, which the painter might give us without the Venus or the Madonna touches. But the painter does not dare to do it. Indeed, he has painted so long after the other fashion that he would hate the canvas before him, were he to give way to the rouge-begotten roughness or to the flesh-pots,--or even to the winds. And how, my lord, would you, who are giving hundreds, more than hundreds, for this portrait of your dear one, like to see it in print from the art critic of the day, that she is a brazen-faced hoyden who seems to have had a glass of wine too much, or to have been making hay? And so also has the reading world taught itself to like best the characters of all but divine men and women. Let the man who paints with pen and ink give the gas-light, and the flesh-pots, the passions and pains, the prurient prudence and the rouge-pots and pounce-boxes of the world as it is, and he will be told that no one can care a straw for his creations. With whom are we to sympathise? says the reader, who not unnaturally imagines that a hero should be heroic. Oh, thou, my reader, whose sympathies are in truth the great and only aim of my work, when you have called the dearest of your friends round you to your hospitable table, how many heroes are there sitting at the board? Your bosom friend,--even if he be a knight without fear, is he a knight without reproach? The Ivanhoe that you know, did he not press Rebecca's hand? Your Lord Evandale,--did he not bring his coronet into play when he strove to win his Edith Bellenden? Was your Tresilian still true and still forbearing when truth and forbearance could avail him nothing? And those sweet girls whom you know, do they never doubt between the poor man they think they love, and the rich man whose riches they know they covet? Go into the market, either to buy or sell, and name the thing you desire to part with or to get, as it is, and the market is closed against you. Middling oats are the sweepings of the granaries. A useful horse is a jade gone at every point. Good sound port is sloe juice. No assurance short of A 1 betokens even a pretence to merit. And yet in real life we are content with oats that are really middling, are very glad to have a useful horse, and know that if we drink port at all we must drink some that is neither good nor sound. In those delineations of life and character which we call novels a similarly superlative vein is desired. Our own friends around us are not always merry and wise, nor, alas! always honest and true. They are often cross and foolish, and sometimes treacherous and false. They are so, and we are angry. Then we forgive them, not without a consciousness of imperfection on our own part. And we know--or, at least, believe,--that though they be sometimes treacherous and false, there is a balance of good. We cannot have heroes to dine with us. There are none. And were these heroes to be had, we should not like them. But neither are our friends villains,--whose every aspiration is for evil, and whose every moment is a struggle for some achievement worthy of the devil. The persons whom you cannot care for in a novel, because they are so bad, are the very same that you so dearly love in your life, because they are so good. To make them and ourselves somewhat better,--not by one spring heavenwards to perfection, because we cannot so use our legs,--but by slow climbing, is, we may presume, the object of all teachers, leaders, legislators, spiritual pastors, and masters. He who writes tales such as this, probably also has, very humbly, some such object distantly before him. A picture of surpassing godlike nobleness,--a picture of a King Arthur among men, may perhaps do much. But such pictures cannot do all. When such a picture is painted, as intending to show what a man should be, it is true. If painted to show what men are, it is false. The true picture of life as it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they are, and how they might rise, not, indeed, to perfection, but one step first, and then another, on the ladder. Our hero, Frank Greystock, falling lamentably short in his heroism, was not in a happy state of mind when he reached Bobsborough. It may be that he returned to his own borough and to his mother's arms because he felt, that were he to determine to be false to Lucy, he would there receive sympathy in his treachery. His mother would, at any rate, think that it was well, and his father would acknowledge that the fault committed was in the original engagement with poor Lucy, and not in the treachery. He had written that letter to her in his chambers one night in a fit of ecstasy; and could it be right that the ruin of a whole life should be the consequence? It can hardly be too strongly asserted that Lizzie Greystock did not appear to Frank as she has been made to appear to the reader. In all this affair of the necklace he was beginning to believe that she was really an ill-used woman; and as to other traits in Lizzie's character,--traits which he had seen, and which were not of a nature to attract,--it must be remembered that beauty reclining in a man's arms does go far towards washing white the lovely blackamoor. Lady Linlithgow, upon whom Lizzie's beauty could have no effect of that kind, had nevertheless declared her to be very beautiful. And this loveliness was of a nature that was altogether pleasing, if once the beholder of it could get over the idea of falseness which certainly Lizzie's eye was apt to convey to the beholder. There was no unclean horse's tail. There was no get-up of flounces, and padding, and paint, and hair, with a dorsal excrescence appended with the object surely of showing in triumph how much absurd ugliness women can force men to endure. She was lithe, and active, and bright,--and was at this moment of her life at her best. Her growing charms had as yet hardly reached the limits of full feminine loveliness,--which, when reached, have been surpassed. Luxuriant beauty had with her not as yet become comeliness; nor had age or the good things of the world added a pound to the fairy lightness of her footstep. All this had been tendered to Frank,--and with it that worldly wealth which was so absolutely necessary to his career. For though Greystock would not have said to any man or woman that nature had intended him to be a spender of much money and a consumer of many good things, he did undoubtedly so think of himself. He was a Greystock, and to what miseries would he not reduce his Lucy if, burthened by such propensities, he were to marry her and then become an aristocratic pauper! The offer of herself by a woman to a man is, to us all, a thing so distasteful that we at once declare that the woman must be abominable. There shall be no whitewashing of Lizzie Eustace. She was abominable. But the man to whom the offer is made hardly sees the thing in the same light. He is disposed to believe that, in his peculiar case, there are circumstances by which the woman is, if not justified, at least excused. Frank did put faith in his cousin's love for himself. He did credit her when she told him that she had accepted Lord Fawn's offer in pique, because he had not come to her when he had promised that he would come. It did seem natural to him that she should have desired to adhere to her engagement when he would not advise her to depart from it. And then her jealousy about Lucy's ring, and her abuse of Lucy, were proofs to him of her love. Unless she loved him, why should she care to marry him? What was his position that she should desire to share it;--unless she so desired because he was dearer to her than aught beside? He had not eyes clear enough to perceive that his cousin was a witch whistling for a wind, and ready to take the first blast that would carry her and her broomstick somewhere into the sky. And then, in that matter of the offer, which in ordinary circumstances certainly should not have come from her to him, did not the fact of her wealth and of his comparative poverty cleanse her from such stain as would, in usual circumstances, attach to a woman who is so forward? He had not acceded to her proposition. He had not denied his engagement to Lucy. He had left her presence without a word of encouragement, because of that engagement. But he believed that Lizzie was sincere. He believed, now, that she was genuine; though he had previously been all but sure that falsehood and artifice were second nature to her. At Bobsborough he met his constituents, and made them the normal autumn speech. The men of Bobsborough were well pleased and gave him a vote of confidence. As none but those of his own party attended the meeting, it was not wonderful that the vote was unanimous. His father, mother, and sister all heard his speech, and there was a strong family feeling that Frank was born to set the Greystocks once more upon their legs. When a man can say what he likes with the certainty that every word will be reported, and can speak to those around him as one manifestly their superior, he always looms large. When the Conservatives should return to their proper place at the head of affairs, there could be no doubt that Frank Greystock would be made Solicitor-General. There were not wanting even ardent admirers who conceived that, with such claims and such talents as his, the ordinary steps in political promotion would not be needed, and that he would become Attorney-General at once. All men began to say all good things to the dean, and to Mrs. Greystock it seemed that the woolsack, or at least the Queen's Bench with a peerage, was hardly an uncertainty. But then,--there must be no marriage with a penniless governess. If he would only marry his cousin one might say that the woolsack was won. Then came Lucy's letter; the pretty, dear, joking letter about the "duchess," and broken hearts. "I would break my heart, only--only--only--" Yes, he knew very well what she meant. I shall never be called upon to break my heart, because you are not a false scoundrel. If you were a false scoundrel,--instead of being, as you are, a pearl among men,--then I should break my heart. That was what Lucy meant. She could not have been much clearer, and he understood it perfectly. It is very nice to walk about one's own borough and be voted unanimously worthy of confidence, and be a great man; but if you are a scoundrel, and not used to being a scoundrel, black care is apt to sit very close behind you as you go caracoling along the streets. Lucy's letter required an answer, and how should he answer it? He certainly did not wish her to tell Lady Linlithgow of her engagement, but Lucy clearly wished to be allowed to tell, and on what ground could he enjoin her to be silent? He knew, or he thought he knew, that till he answered the letter, she would not tell his secret,--and therefore from day to day he put off the answer. A man does not write a love-letter easily when he is in doubt himself whether he does or does not mean to be a scoundrel. Then there came a letter to "Dame" Greystock from Lady Linlithgow, which filled them all with amazement. MY DEAR MADAM,--[began the letter] Seeing that your son is engaged to marry Miss Morris,--at least she says so,--you ought not to have sent her here without telling me all about it. She says you know of the match, and she says that I can write to you if I please. Of course, I can do that without her leave. But it seems to me that if you know all about it, and approve the marriage, your house and not mine would be the proper place for her. I'm told that Mr. Greystock is a great man. Any lady being with me as my companion can't be a great woman. But perhaps you wanted to break it off;--else you would have told me. She shall stay here six months, but then she must go. Yours truly, SUSANNA LINLITHGOW. It was considered absolutely necessary that this letter should be shown to Frank. "You see," said his mother, "she told the old lady at once." "I don't see why she shouldn't." Nevertheless Frank was annoyed. Having asked for permission, Lucy should at least have waited for a reply. "Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Greystock. "It is generally considered that young ladies are more reticent about such things. She has blurted it out and boasted about it at once." "I thought girls always told of their engagements," said Frank, "and I can't for the life of me see that there was any boasting in it." Then he was silent for a moment. "The truth is, we are, all of us, treating Lucy very badly." "I cannot say that I see it," said his mother. "We ought to have had her here." "For how long, Frank?" "For as long as a home was needed by her." "Had you demanded it, Frank, she should have come, of course. But neither I nor your father could have had pleasure in receiving her as your future wife. You, yourself, say that it cannot be for two years at least." "I said one year." "I think, Frank, you said two. And we all know that such a marriage would be ruinous to you. How could we make her welcome? Can you see your way to having a house for her to live in within twelve months?" "Why not a house? I could have a house to-morrow." "Such a house as would suit you in your position? And, Frank, would it be a kindness to marry her and then let her find that you were in debt?" "I don't believe she'd care if she had nothing but a crust to eat." "She ought to care, Frank." "I think," said the dean to his son, on the next day, "that in our class of life an imprudent marriage is the one thing that should be avoided. My marriage has been very happy, God knows; but I have always been a poor man, and feel it now when I am quite unable to help you. And yet your mother had some fortune. Nobody, I think, cares less for wealth than I do. I am content almost with nothing."--The nothing with which the dean had hitherto been contented had always included every comfort of life, a well-kept table, good wine, new books, and canonical habiliments with the gloss still on; but as the Bobsborough tradesmen had, through the agency of Mrs. Greystock, always supplied him with these things as though they came from the clouds, he really did believe that he had never asked for anything.--"I am content almost with nothing. But I do feel that marriage cannot be adopted as the ordinary form of life by men in our class as it can be by the rich or by the poor. You, for instance, are called upon to live with the rich, but are not rich. That can only be done by wary walking, and is hardly consistent with a wife and children." "But men in my position do marry, sir." "After a certain age,--or else they marry ladies with money. You see, Frank, there are not many men who go into Parliament with means so moderate as yours; and they who do perhaps have stricter ideas of economy." The dean did not say a word about Lucy Morris, and dealt entirely with generalities. In compliance with her son's advice,--or almost command,--Mrs. Greystock did not answer Lady Linlithgow's letter. He was going back to London, and would give personally, or by letter written there, what answer might be necessary. "You will then see Miss Morris?" asked his mother. "I shall certainly see Lucy. Something must be settled." There was a tone in his voice as he said this which gave some comfort to his mother. CHAPTER XXXVI Lizzie's Guests True to their words, at the end of October, Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke, and Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, and Sir Griffin Tewett, arrived at Portray Castle. And for a couple of days there was a visitor whom Lizzie was very glad to welcome, but of whose good nature on the occasion Mr. Camperdown thought very ill indeed. This was John Eustace. His sister-in-law wrote to him in very pressing language; and as,--so he said to Mr. Camperdown,--he did not wish to seem to quarrel with his brother's widow as long as such seeming might be avoided, he accepted the invitation. If there was to be a lawsuit about the diamonds, that must be Mr. Camperdown's affair. Lizzie had never entertained her friends in style before. She had had a few people to dine with her in London, and once or twice had received company on an evening. But in all her London doings there had been the trepidation of fear,--to be accounted for by her youth and widowhood; and it was at Portray,--her own house at Portray,--that it would best become her to exercise hospitality. She had bided her time even there, but now she meant to show her friends that she had got a house of her own. She wrote even to her husband's uncle, the bishop, asking him down to Portray. He could not come, but sent an affectionate answer, and thanked her for thinking of him. Many people she asked who, she felt sure, would not come,--and one or two of them accepted her invitation. John Eustace promised to be with her for two days. When Frank had left her, going out of her presence in the manner that has been described, she actually wrote to him, begging him to join her party. This was her note: "Come to me, just for a week," she said, "when my people are here, so that I may not seem to be deserted. Sit at the bottom of my table, and be to me as a brother might. I shall expect you to do so much for me." To this he had replied that he would come during the first week in November. And she got a clergyman down from London, the Rev. Joseph Emilius, of whom it was said that he was born a Jew in Hungary, and that his name in his own country had been Mealyus. At the present time he was among the most eloquent of London preachers, and was reputed by some to have reached such a standard of pulpit-oratory as to have had no equal within the memory of living hearers. In regard to his reading it was acknowledged that no one since Mrs. Siddons had touched him. But he did not get on very well with any particular bishop, and there was doubt in the minds of some people whether there was or was not any--Mrs. Emilius. He had come up quite suddenly within the last season, and had made church-going quite a pleasant occupation to Lizzie Eustace. On the last day of October, Mr. Emilius and Mr. John Eustace came, each alone. Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke came over with post-horses from Ayr,--as also did Lord George and Sir Griffin about an hour after them. Frank was not yet expected. He had promised to name a day and had not yet named it. "Varra weel; varra weel," Gowran had said when he was told of what was about to occur, and was desired to make preparations necessary in regard to the outside plenishing of the house; "nae doobt she'll do with her ain what pleases her ainself. The mair ye poor out, the less there'll be left in. Mr. Jo-ohn coming? I'll be glad then to see Mr. Jo-ohn. Oo, ay; aits,--there'll be aits eneuch. And anither coo? You'll want twa ither coos. I'll see to the coos." And Andy Gowran, in spite of the internecine warfare which existed between him and his mistress, did see to the hay, and the cows, and the oats, and the extra servants that were wanted both inside and outside the house. There was enmity between him and Lady Eustace, and he didn't care who knew it;--but he took her wages and he did her work. Mrs. Carbuncle was a wonderful woman. She was the wife of a man with whom she was very rarely seen, whom nobody knew, who was something in the City, but somebody who never succeeded in making money; and yet she went everywhere. She had at least the reputation of going everywhere, and did go to a great many places. Carbuncle had no money,--so it was said; and she had none. She was the daughter of a man who had gone to New York and had failed there. Of her own parentage no more was known. She had a small house in one of the very small Mayfair streets, to which she was wont to invite her friends for five o'clock tea. Other receptions she never attempted. During the London seasons she always kept a carriage, and during the winters she always had hunters. Who paid for them no one knew or cared. Her dress was always perfect,--as far as fit and performance went. As to approving Mrs. Carbuncle's manner of dress,--that was a question of taste. Audacity may, perhaps, be said to have been the ruling principle of her toilet;--not the audacity of indecency, which, let the satirists say what they may, is not efficacious in England, but audacity in colour, audacity in design, and audacity in construction. She would ride in the park in a black and yellow habit, and appear at the opera in white velvet without a speck of colour. Though certainly turned thirty, and probably nearer to forty, she would wear her jet-black hair streaming down her back, and when June came would drive about London in a straw hat. But yet it was always admitted that she was well dressed. And then would arise that question, who paid the bills? Mrs. Carbuncle was certainly a handsome woman. She was full-faced,--with bold eyes, rather far apart, perfect black eyebrows, a well-formed broad nose, thick lips, and regular teeth. Her chin was round and short, with, perhaps, a little bearing towards a double chin. But though her face was plump and round, there was a power in it, and a look of command, of which it was, perhaps, difficult to say in what features was the seat. But in truth the mind will lend a tone to every feature, and it was the desire of Mrs. Carbuncle's heart to command. But perhaps the wonder of her face was its complexion. People said,--before they knew her, that, as a matter of course, she had been made beautiful for ever. But, though that too brilliant colour was almost always there, covering the cheeks but never touching the forehead or the neck, it would at certain moments shift, change, and even depart. When she was angry, it would vanish for a moment and then return intensified. There was no chemistry on Mrs. Carbuncle's cheek; and yet it was a tint so brilliant and so little transparent, as almost to justify a conviction that it could not be genuine. There were those who declared that nothing in the way of complexion so beautiful as that of Mrs. Carbuncle's had been seen on the face of any other woman in this age, and there were others who called her an exaggerated milkmaid. She was tall, too, and had learned so to walk as though half the world belonged to her. Her niece, Miss Roanoke, was a lady of the same stamp, and of similar beauty, with those additions and also with those drawbacks which belong to youth. She looked as though she were four-and-twenty, but in truth she was no more than eighteen. When seen beside her aunt, she seemed to be no more than half the elder lady's size; and yet her proportions were not insignificant. She, too, was tall, and was as one used to command, and walked as though she were a young Juno. Her hair was very dark,--almost black,--and very plentiful. Her eyes were large and bright, though too bold for a girl so young. Her nose and mouth were exactly as her aunt's, but her chin was somewhat longer, so as to divest her face of that plump roundness which, perhaps, took something from the majesty of Mrs. Carbuncle's appearance. Miss Roanoke's complexion was certainly marvellous. No one thought that she had been made beautiful for ever, for the colour would go and come and shift and change with every word and every thought;--but still it was there, as deep on her cheeks as on her aunt's, though somewhat more transparent, and with more delicacy of tint as the bright hues faded away and became merged in the almost marble whiteness of her skin. With Mrs. Carbuncle there was no merging and fading. The red and white bordered one another on her cheek without any merging, as they do on a flag. Lucinda Roanoke was undoubtedly a very handsome woman. It probably never occurred to man or woman to say that she was lovely. She had sat for her portrait during the last winter, and her picture had caused much remark in the Exhibition. Some said that she might be a Brinvilliers, others a Cleopatra, and others again a Queen of Sheba. In her eyes as they were limned there had been nothing certainly of love, but they who likened her to the Egyptian queen believed that Cleopatra's love had always been used simply to assist her ambition. They who took the Brinvilliers side of the controversy were men so used to softness and flattery from women as to have learned to think that a woman silent, arrogant, and hard of approach, must be always meditating murder. The disciples of the Queen of Sheba school, who formed, perhaps, the more numerous party, were led to their opinion by the majesty of Lucinda's demeanour rather than by any clear idea in their own minds of the lady who visited Solomon. All men, however, agreed in this, that Lucinda Roanoke was very handsome, but that she was not the sort of girl with whom a man would wish to stray away through the distant beech-trees at a picnic. In truth she was silent, grave, and, if not really haughty, subject to all the signs of haughtiness. She went everywhere with her aunt, and allowed herself to be walked out at dances, and to be accosted when on horseback, and to be spoken to at parties; but she seemed hardly to trouble herself to talk;--and as for laughing, flirting, or giggling, one might as well expect such levity from a marble Minerva. During the last winter she had taken to hunting with her aunt, and already could ride well to hounds. If assistance were wanted at a gate, or in the management of a fence, and the servant who attended the two ladies were not near enough to give it, she would accept it as her due from the man nearest to her; but she rarely did more than bow her thanks, and, even by young lords, or hard-riding handsome colonels, or squires of undoubted thousands, she could hardly ever be brought to what might be called a proper hunting-field conversation. All of which things were noted, and spoken of, and admired. It must be presumed that Lucinda Roanoke was in want of a husband, and yet no girl seemed to take less pains to get one. A girl ought not to be always busying herself to bring down a man, but a girl ought to give herself some charm. A girl so handsome as Lucinda Roanoke, with pluck enough to ride like a bird, dignity enough for a duchess, and who was undoubtedly clever, ought to put herself in the way of taking such good things as her charms and merits would bring her;--but Lucinda Roanoke stood aloof and despised everybody. So it was that Lucinda was spoken of when her name was mentioned; and her name was mentioned a good deal after the opening of the exhibition of pictures. There was some difficulty about her,--as to who she was. That she was an American was the received opinion. Her mother, as well as Mrs. Carbuncle, had certainly been in New York. Carbuncle was a London man; but it was supposed that Mr. Roanoke was, or had been, an American. The received opinion was correct. Lucinda had been born in New York, had been educated there till she was sixteen, had then been taken to Paris for nine months, and from Paris had been brought to London by her aunt. Mrs. Carbuncle always spoke of Lucinda's education as having been thoroughly Parisian. Of her own education and antecedents, Lucinda never spoke at all. "I'll tell you what it is," said a young scamp from Eton to his elder sister, when her character and position were once being discussed. "She's a heroine, and would shoot a fellow as soon as look at him." In that scamp's family, Lucinda was ever afterwards called the heroine. The manner in which Lord George de Bruce Carruthers had attached himself to these ladies was a mystery;--but then Lord George was always mysterious. He was a young man,--so considered,--about forty-five years of age, who had never done anything in the manner of other people. He hunted a great deal, but he did not fraternise with hunting men, and would appear now in this county and now in that, with an utter disregard of grass, fences, friendships, or foxes. Leicester, Essex, Ayrshire, or the Baron had equal delights for him; and in all counties he was quite at home. He had never owned a fortune, and had never been known to earn a shilling. It was said that early in life he had been apprenticed to an attorney at Aberdeen as George Carruthers. His third cousin, the Marquis of Killiecrankie, had been killed out hunting; the second scion of the noble family had fallen at Balaclava; a third had perished in the Indian Mutiny; and a fourth, who did reign for a few months, died suddenly, leaving a large family of daughters. Within three years the four brothers vanished, leaving among them no male heir, and George's elder brother, who was then in a West India Regiment, was called home from Demerara to be Marquis of Killiecrankie. By a usual exercise of the courtesy of the Crown, all the brothers were made lords, and some twelve years before the date of our story George Carruthers, who had long since left the attorney's office at Aberdeen, became Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. How he lived no one knew. That his brother did much for him was presumed to be impossible, as the property entailed on the Killiecrankie title certainly was not large. He sometimes went into the City, and was supposed to know something about shares. Perhaps he played a little, and made a few bets. He generally lived with men of means;--or perhaps with one man of means at a time; but they who knew him well declared that he never borrowed a shilling from a friend, and never owed a guinea to a tradesman. He always had horses, but never had a home. When in London he lodged in a single room, and dined at his club. He was a Colonel of Volunteers, having got up the regiment known as the Long Shore Riflemen,--the roughest regiment of Volunteers in all England,--and was reputed to be a bitter Radical. He was suspected even of republican sentiments, and ignorant young men about London hinted that he was the grand centre of the British Fenians. He had been invited to stand for the Tower Hamlets, but had told the deputation which waited upon him that he knew a thing worth two of that. Would they guarantee his expenses, and then give him a salary? The deputation doubted its ability to promise so much. "I more than doubt it," said Lord George; and then the deputation went away. In person he was a long-legged, long-bodied, long-faced man, with rough whiskers and a rough beard on his upper lip, but with a shorn chin. His eyes were very deep set in his head, and his cheeks were hollow and sallow, and yet he looked to be and was a powerful, healthy man. He had large hands, which seemed to be all bone, and long arms, and a neck which looked to be long because he so wore his shirt that much of his throat was always bare. It was manifest enough that he liked to have good-looking women about him, and yet nobody presumed it probable that he would marry. For the last two or three years there had been friendship between him and Mrs. Carbuncle; and during the last season he had become almost intimate with our Lizzie. Lizzie thought that perhaps he might be the Corsair whom, sooner or later in her life, she must certainly encounter. Sir Griffin Tewett, who at the present period of his existence was being led about by Lord George, was not exactly an amiable young baronet. Nor were his circumstances such as make a man amiable. He was nominally, not only the heir to, but actually the possessor of, a large property;--but he could not touch the principal, and of the income only so much as certain legal curmudgeons would allow him. As Greystock had said, everybody was at law with him,--so successful had been his father in mismanaging, and miscontrolling, and misappropriating the property. Tewett Hall had gone to rack and ruin for four years, and was now let almost for nothing. He was a fair, frail young man, with a bad eye, and a weak mouth, and a thin hand, who was fond of liqueurs, and hated to the death any acquaintance who won a five-pound note of him, or any tradesman who wished to have his bill paid. But he had this redeeming quality,--that having found Lucinda Roanoke to be the handsomest woman he had ever seen, he did desire to make her his wife. Such were the friends whom Lizzie Eustace received at Portray Castle on the first day of her grand hospitality,--together with John Eustace and Mr. Joseph Emilius, the fashionable preacher from Mayfair. CHAPTER XXXVII Lizzie's First Day The coming of John Eustace was certainly a great thing for Lizzie, though it was only for two days. It saved her from that feeling of desertion before her friends,--desertion by those who might naturally belong to her,--which would otherwise have afflicted her. His presence there for two days gave her a start. She could call him John, and bring down her boy to him, and remind him, with the sweetest smile,--with almost a tear in her eye,--that he was the boy's guardian. "Little fellow! So much depends on that little life,--does it not, John?" she said, whispering the words into his ear. "Lucky little dog!" said John, patting the boy's head. "Let me see! of course he'll go to Eton." "Not yet," said Lizzie with a shudder. "Well; no; hardly;--when he's twelve." And then the boy was done with and was carried away. She had played that card and had turned her trick. John Eustace was a thoroughly good-natured man of the world, who could forgive many faults, not expecting people to be perfect. He did not like Mrs. Carbuncle;--was indifferent to Lucinda's beauty;--was afraid of that Tartar, Lord George;--and thoroughly despised Sir Griffin. In his heart he believed Mr. Emilius to be an impostor, who might, for aught he knew, pick his pocket; and Miss Macnulty had no attraction for him. But he smiled, and was gay, and called Lady Eustace by her Christian name, and was content to be of use to her in showing her friends that she had not been altogether dropped by the Eustace people. "I got such a nice affectionate letter from the dear bishop," said Lizzie, "but he couldn't come. He could not escape a previous engagement." "It's a long way," said John, "and he's not so young as he was once;--and then there are the Bobsborough parsons to look after." "I don't suppose anything of that kind stops him," said Lizzie, who did not think it possible that a bishop's bliss should be alloyed by work. John was so very nice that she almost made up her mind to talk to him about the necklace; but she was cautious, and thought of it, and found that it would be better that she should abstain. John Eustace was certainly very good-natured, but perhaps he might say an ugly word to her if she were rash. She refrained, therefore, and after breakfast on the second day he took his departure without an allusion to things that were unpleasant. "I call my brother-in-law a perfect gentleman," said Lizzie with enthusiasm, when his back was turned. "Certainly," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "He seems to me to be very quiet." "He didn't quite like his party," said Lord George. "I am sure he did," said Lizzie. "I mean as to politics. To him we are all turbulent demagogues and Bohemians. Eustace is an old-world Tory, if there's one left anywhere. But you're right, Lady Eustace; he is a gentleman." "He knows on which side his bread is buttered as well as any man," said Sir Griffin. "Am I a demagogue," said Lizzie, appealing to the Corsair, "or a Bohemian? I didn't know it." "A little in that way, I think, Lady Eustace;--not a demagogue, but demagognical;--not a Bohemian, but that way given." "And is Miss Roanoke demagognical?" "Certainly," said Lord George. "I hardly wrong you there, Miss Roanoke?" "Lucinda is a democrat, but hardly a demagogue, Lord George," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Those are distinctions which we hardly understand on this thick-headed side of the water. But demagogues, democrats, demonstrations, and Demosthenic oratory are all equally odious to John Eustace. For a young man he's about the best Tory I know." "He is true to his colours," said Mr. Emilius, who had been endeavouring to awake the attention of Miss Roanoke on the subject of Shakespeare's dramatic action, "and I like men who are true to their colours." Mr. Emilius spoke with the slightest possible tone of a foreign accent,--a tone so slight that it simply served to attract attention to him. While Eustace was still in the house, there had come a letter from Frank Greystock, saying that he would reach Portray, by way of Glasgow, on Wednesday, the 5th of November. He must sleep in Glasgow on that night, having business, or friends, or pleasure demanding his attention in that prosperous mart of commerce. It had been impressed upon him that he should hunt, and he had consented. There was to be a meet out on the Kilmarnock side of the county on that Wednesday, and he would bring a horse with him from Glasgow. Even in Glasgow a hunter was to be hired, and could be sent forty or fifty miles out of the town in the morning and brought back in the evening. Lizzie had learned all about that, and had told him. If he would call at MacFarlane's stables in Buchanan Street, or even write to Mr. MacFarlane, he would be sure to get a horse that would carry him. MacFarlane was sending horses down into the Ayrshire country every day of his life. It was simply an affair of money. Three guineas for the horse, and then just the expense of the railway. Frank, who knew quite as much about it as did his cousin, and who never thought much of guineas or of railway tickets, promised to meet the party at the meet ready equipped. His things would go on by train, and Lizzie must send for them to Troon. He presumed a beneficent Providence would take the horse back to the bosom of Mr. MacFarlane. Such was the tenour of his letter. "If he don't mind, he'll find himself astray," said Sir Griffin. "He'll have to go one way by rail and his horse another." "We can manage better for our cousin than that," said Lizzie, with a rebuking nod. But there was hunting from Portray before Frank Greystock came. It was specially a hunting party, and Lizzie was to be introduced to the glories of the field. In giving her her due, it must be acknowledged that she was fit for the work. She rode well, though she had not ridden to hounds, and her courage was cool. She looked well on horseback, and had that presence of mind which should never desert a lady when she is hunting. A couple of horses had been purchased for her, under Lord George's superintendence,--his conjointly with Mrs. Carbuncle's,--and had been at the castle for the last ten days--"eating their varra heeds off," as Andy Gowran had said in sorrow. There had been practising even while John Eustace was there, and before her preceptors had slept three nights at the castle, she had ridden backwards and forwards half-a-dozen times over a stone wall. "Oh, yes," Lucinda had said, in answer to a remark from Sir Griffin, "It's easy enough,--till you come across something difficult." "Nothing difficult stops you," said Sir Griffin;--to which compliment Lucinda vouchsafed no reply. On the Monday Lizzie went out hunting for the first time in her life. It must be owned that, as she put her habit on, and afterwards breakfasted with all her guests in hunting gear around her, and then was driven with them in her own carriage to the meet, there was something of trepidation at her heart. And her feeling of cautious fear in regard to money had received a shock. Mrs. Carbuncle had told her that a couple of horses fit to carry her might perhaps cost her about £180. Lord George had received the commission, and the cheque required from her had been for £320. Of course she had written the cheque without a word, but it did begin to occur to her that hunting was an expensive amusement. Gowran had informed her that he had bought a rick of hay from a neighbour for £75 15s. 9d. "God forgie me," said Andy, "but I b'lieve I've been o'er hard on the puir man in your leddyship's service." £75 15s. 9d. did seem a great deal of money to pay; and could it be necessary that she should buy a whole rick? There were to be eight horses in the stable. To what friend could she apply to learn how much of a rick of hay one horse ought to eat in a month of hunting? In such a matter she might have trusted Andy Gowran implicitly; but how was she to know that? And then, what if at some desperate fence she were to be thrown off and break her nose and knock out her front teeth! Was the game worth the candle? She was by no means sure that she liked Mrs. Carbuncle very much. And though she liked Lord George very well, could it be possible that he bought the horses for £90 each and charged her £160? Corsairs do do these sort of things. The horses themselves were two sweet dears, with stars on their foreheads, and shining coats, and a delicious aptitude for jumping over everything at a moment's notice. Lord George had not, in truth, made a penny by them, and they were good hunters, worth the money;--but how was Lizzie to know that? But though she doubted, and was full of fears, she could smile and look as though she liked it. If the worst should come she could certainly get money for the diamonds. On that Monday the meet was comparatively near to them,--distant only twelve miles. On the following Wednesday it would be sixteen, and they would use the railway,--having the carriage sent to meet them in the evening. The three ladies and Lord George filled the carriage, and Sir Griffin was perched upon the box. The ladies' horses had gone on with two grooms, and those for Lord George and Sir Griffin were to come to the meet. Lizzie felt somewhat proud of her establishment and her equipage;--but at the same time somewhat fearful. Hitherto she knew but very little of the county people, and was not sure how she might be received;--and then how would it be with her if the fox should at once start away across country, and she should lack either the pluck or the power to follow? There was Sir Griffin to look after Miss Roanoke, and Lord George to attend to Mrs. Carbuncle. At last an idea so horrible struck her that she could not keep it down. "What am I to do," she said, "if I find myself all alone in a field, and everybody else gone away!" "We won't treat you quite in that fashion," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "The only possible way in which you can be alone in a field is that you will have cut everybody else down," said Lord George. "I suppose it will all come right," said Lizzie, plucking up her courage, and telling herself that a woman can die but once. Everything was right,--as it usually is. The horses were there,--quite a throng of horses, as the two gentlemen had two each; and there was, moreover, a mounted groom to look after the three ladies. Lizzie had desired to have a groom to herself, but had been told that the expenditure in horseflesh was more than the stable could stand. "All I ever want of a man is to carry for me my flask, and waterproof, and luncheon," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "I don't care if I never see a groom, except for that." "It's convenient to have a gate opened sometimes," said Lucinda, slowly. "Will no one but a groom do that for you?" asked Sir Griffin. "Gentlemen can't open gates," said Lucinda. Now, as Sir Griffin thought that he had opened many gates during the last season for Miss Roanoke, he felt this to be hard. But there were eight horses, and eight horses with three servants and a carriage made quite a throng. Among the crowd of Ayrshire hunting men,--a lord or two, a dozen lairds, two dozen farmers, and as many men of business out of Ayr, Kilmarnock, and away from Glasgow,--it was soon told that Lady Eustace and her party were among them. A good deal had been already heard of Lizzie, and it was at least known of her that she had, for her life, the Portray estate in her hands. So there was an undercurrent of whispering, and that sort of commotion which the appearance of new-comers does produce at a hunt-meet. Lord George knew one or two men, who were surprised to find him in Ayrshire, and Mrs. Carbuncle was soon quite at home with a young nobleman whom she had met in the vale with the Baron. Sir Griffin did not leave Lucinda's side, and for a while poor Lizzie felt herself alone in a crowd. Who does not know that terrible feeling, and the all but necessity that exists for the sufferer to pretend that he is not suffering,--which again is aggravated by the conviction that the pretence is utterly vain? This may be bad with a man, but with a woman, who never looks to be alone in a crowd, it is terrible. For five minutes, during which everybody else was speaking to everybody,--for five minutes, which seemed to her to be an hour, Lizzie spoke to no one, and no one spoke to her. Was it for such misery as this that she was spending hundreds upon hundreds, and running herself into debt? For she was sure that there would be debt before she had parted with Mrs. Carbuncle. There are people, very many people, to whom an act of hospitality is in itself a good thing; but there are others who are always making calculations, and endeavouring to count up the thing purchased against the cost. Lizzie had been told that she was a rich woman,--as women go, very rich. Surely she was entitled to entertain a few friends; and if Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke could hunt, it could not be that hunting was beyond her own means. And yet she was spending a great deal of money. She had seen a large waggon loaded with sacks of corn coming up the hill to the Portray stables, and she knew that there would be a long bill at the corn-chandler's. There had been found a supply of wine in the cellars at Portray,--which at her request had been inspected by her cousin Frank;--but it had been necessary, so he had told her, to have much more sent down from London,--champagne, and liqueurs, and other nice things that cost money. "You won't like not to have them if these people are coming?" "Oh, no; certainly not," said Lizzie, with enthusiasm. What other rich people did, she would do. But now, in her five minutes of misery, she counted it all up, and was at a loss to find what was to be her return for her expenditure. And then, if on this her first day she should have a fall, with no tender hand to help her, and then find that she had knocked out her front teeth! But the cavalcade began to move, and then Lord George was by her side. "You mustn't be angry if I seem to stick too close to you," he said. She gave him her sweetest smile as she told him that that would be impossible. "Because, you know, though it's the easiest thing in the world to get along out hunting, and women never come to grief, a person is a little astray at first." "I shall be so much astray," said Lizzie. "I don't at all know how we are going to begin. Are we hunting a fox now?" At this moment they were trotting across a field or two, through a run of gates up to the first covert. "Not quite yet. The hounds haven't been put in yet. You see that wood there? I suppose they'll draw that." "What is drawing, Lord George? I want to know all about it, and I am so ignorant. Nobody else will tell me." Then Lord George gave his lesson, and explained the theory and system of fox-hunting. "We're to wait here, then, till the fox runs away? But it's ever so large, and if he runs away, and nobody sees him? I hope he will, because it will be nice to go on easily." "A great many people hope that, and a great many think it nice to go on easily. Only you must not confess to it." Then he went on with his lecture, and explained the meaning of scent, was great on the difficulty of getting away, described the iniquity of heading the fox, spoke of up wind and down wind, got as far as the trouble of "carrying," and told her that a good ear was everything in a big wood,--when there came upon them the thrice-repeated note of an old hound's voice, and the quick scampering, and low, timid, anxious, trustful whinnying of a dozen comrade younger hounds, who recognised the sagacity of their well-known and highly-appreciated elder,--"That's a fox," said Lord George. "What shall I do now?" said Lizzie, all in a twitter. "Sit just where you are and light a cigar, if you're given to smoking." "Pray don't joke with me. You know I want to do it properly." "And therefore you must sit just where you are, and not gallop about. There's a matter of a hundred and twenty acres here, I should say, and a fox doesn't always choose to be evicted at the first notice. It's a chance whether he goes at all from a wood like this. I like woods myself, because, as you say, we can take it easy; but if you want to ride, you should-- By George, they've killed him!" "Killed the fox?" "Yes; he's dead. Didn't you hear?" "And is that a hunt?" "Well;--as far as it goes, it is." "Why didn't he run away? What a stupid beast! I don't see so very much in that. Who killed him? That man that was blowing the horn?" "The hounds chopped him." "Chopped him!" Lord George was very patient, and explained to Lizzie, who was now indignant and disappointed, the misfortune of chopping. "And are we to go home now? Is it all over?" "They say the country is full of foxes," said Lord George. "Perhaps we shall chop half-a-dozen." "Dear me! Chop half-a-dozen foxes! Do they like to be chopped? I thought they always ran away." Lord George was constant and patient, and rode at Lizzie's side from covert to covert. A second fox they did kill in the same fashion as the first; a third they couldn't hunt a yard; a fourth got to ground after five minutes, and was dug out ingloriously;--during which process a drizzling rain commenced. "Where is the man with my waterproof?" demanded Mrs. Carbuncle. Lord George had sent the man to see whether there was shelter to be had in a neighbouring yard. And Mrs. Carbuncle was angry. "It's my own fault," she said, "for not having my own man. Lucinda, you'll be wet." "I don't mind the wet," said Lucinda. Lucinda never did mind anything. "If you'll come with me, we'll get into a barn," said Sir Griffin. "I like the wet," said Lucinda. All the while seven men were at work with picks and shovels, and the master and four or five of the more ardent sportsmen were deeply engaged in what seemed to be a mining operation on a small scale. The huntsman stood over giving his orders. One enthusiastic man, who had been lying on his belly, grovelling in the mud for five minutes, with a long stick in his hand, was now applying the point of it scientifically to his nose. An ordinary observer with a magnifying-glass might have seen a hair at the end of the stick. "He's there," said the enthusiastic man, covered with mud, after a long-drawn, eager sniff at the stick. The huntsman deigned to give one glance. "That's rabbit," said the huntsman. A conclave was immediately formed over the one visible hair that stuck to the stick, and three experienced farmers decided that it was rabbit. The muddy enthusiastic man, silenced but not convinced, retired from the crowd, leaving his stick behind him, and comforted himself with his brandy-flask. "He's here, my lord," said the huntsman to his noble master, "only we ain't got nigh him yet." He spoke almost in a whisper, so that the ignorant crowd should not hear the words of wisdom, which they wouldn't understand or perhaps believe. "It's that full of rabbits that the holes is all hairs. They ain't got no terrier here, I suppose. They never has aught that is wanted in these parts. Work round to the right, there;--that's his line." The men did work round to the right, and in something under an hour the fox was dragged out by his brush and hind legs, while the experienced whip who dragged him held the poor brute tight by the back of his neck. "An old dog, my lord. There's such a many of 'em here, that they'll be a deal better for a little killing." Then the hounds ate their third fox for that day. Lady Eustace, in the meantime, and Mrs. Carbuncle, with Lord George, had found their way to the shelter of a cattle-shed. Lucinda had slowly followed, and Sir Griffin had followed her. The gentlemen smoked cigars, and the ladies, when they had eaten their luncheons and drank their sherry, were cold and cross. "If this is hunting," said Lizzie, "I really don't think so much about it." "It's Scotch hunting," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "I have seen foxes dug out south of the Tweed," suggested Lord George. "I suppose everything is slow after the Baron," said Mrs. Carbuncle, who had distinguished herself with the Baron's stag-hounds last March. "Are we to go home now?" asked Lizzie, who would have been well-pleased to have received an answer in the affirmative. "I presume they'll draw again," exclaimed Mrs. Carbuncle, with an angry frown on her brow. "It's hardly two o'clock." "They always draw till seven, in Scotland," said Lord George. "That's nonsense," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "It's dark at four." "They have torches in Scotland," said Lord George. "They have a great many things in Scotland that are very far from agreeable," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Lucinda, did you ever see three foxes killed without five minutes' running, before? I never did." "I've been out all day without finding at all," said Lucinda, who loved the truth. "And so have I," said Sir Griffin;--"often. Don't you remember that day when we went down from London to Bringher Wood, and they pretended to find at half-past four? That's what I call a sell." "They're going on, Lady Eustace," said Lord George. "If you're not tired, we might as well see it out." Lizzie was tired, but said that she was not, and she did see it out. They found a fifth fox, but again there was no scent. "Who the ---- is to hunt a fox with people scurrying about like that!" said the huntsman, very angrily, dashing forward at a couple of riders. "The hounds is behind you, only you ain't a-looking. Some people never do look!" The two peccant riders unfortunately were Sir Griffin and Lucinda. The day was one of those from which all the men and women return home cross, and which induce some half-hearted folk to declare to themselves that they never will hunt again. When the master decided a little after three that he would draw no more, because there wasn't a yard of scent, our party had nine or ten miles to ride back to their carriages. Lizzie was very tired, and, when Lord George took her from her horse, could almost have cried from fatigue. Mrs. Carbuncle was never fatigued, but she had become damp,--soaking wet through, as she herself said,--during the four minutes that the man was absent with her waterproof jacket, and could not bring herself to forget the ill-usage she had suffered. Lucinda had become absolutely dumb, and any observer would have fancied that the two gentlemen had quarrelled with each other. "You ought to go on the box now," said Sir Griffin, grumbling. "When you're my age, and I'm yours, I will," said Lord George, taking his seat in the carriage. Then he appealed to Lizzie. "You'll let me smoke, won't you?" She simply bowed her head. And so they went home,--Lord George smoking, and the ladies dumb. Lizzie, as she dressed for dinner, almost cried with vexation and disappointment. There was a little conversation up-stairs between Mrs. Carbuncle and Lucinda, when they were free from the attendance of their joint maid. "It seems to me," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "that you won't make up your mind about anything." "There is nothing to make up my mind about." "I think there is;--a great deal. Do you mean to take this man who is dangling after you?" "He isn't worth taking." "Carruthers says that the property must come right, sooner or later. You might do better, perhaps, but you won't trouble yourself. We can't go on like this for ever, you know." "If you hated it as much as I do, you wouldn't want to go on." "Why don't you talk to him? I don't think he's at all a bad fellow." "I've nothing to say." "He'll offer to-morrow, if you'll accept him." "Don't let him do that, Aunt Jane. I couldn't say Yes. As for loving him;--oh, laws!" "It won't do to go on like this, you know." "I'm only eighteen;--and it's my money, aunt." "And how long will it last? If you can't accept him, refuse him, and let somebody else come." "It seems to me," said Lucinda, "that one is as bad as another. I'd a deal sooner marry a shoemaker and help him to make shoes." "That's downright wickedness," said Mrs. Carbuncle. And then they went down to dinner. CHAPTER XXXVIII Nappie's Grey Horse During the leisure of Tuesday, our friends regained their good humour, and on the Wednesday morning they again started for the hunting-field. Mrs. Carbuncle, who probably felt that she had behaved ill about the groom and in regard to Scotland, almost made an apology, and explained that a cold shower always did make her cross. "My dear Lady Eustace, I hope I wasn't very savage." "My dear Mrs. Carbuncle, I hope I wasn't very stupid," said Lizzie with a smile. "My dear Lady Eustace, and my dear Mrs. Carbuncle, and my dear Miss Roanoke, I hope I wasn't very selfish," said Lord George. "I thought you were," said Sir Griffin. "Yes, Griff; and so were you;--but I succeeded." "I am almost glad that I wasn't of the party," said Mr. Emilius, with that musical foreign tone of his. "Miss Macnulty and I did not quarrel; did we?" "No, indeed," said Miss Macnulty, who had liked the society of Mr. Emilius. But on this morning there was an attraction for Lizzie which the Monday had wanted. She was to meet her cousin, Frank Greystock. The journey was long, and the horses had gone on over night. They went by railway to Kilmarnock, and there a carriage from the inn had been ordered to meet them. Lizzie, as she heard the order given, wondered whether she would have to pay for that, or whether Lord George and Sir Griffin would take so much off her shoulders. Young women generally pay for nothing; and it was very hard that she, who was quite a young woman, should have to pay for all. But she smiled, and accepted the proposition. "Oh, yes; of course a carriage at the station. It is so nice to have some one to think of things, like Lord George." The carriage met them, and everything went prosperously. Almost the first person they saw was Frank Greystock, in a black coat, indeed, but riding a superb grey horse, and looking quite as though he knew what he was about. He was introduced to Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke and Sir Griffin. With Lord George he had some slight previous acquaintance. "You've had no difficulty about a horse?" said Lizzie. "Not the slightest. But I was in an awful fright this morning. I wrote to MacFarlane from London, and absolutely hadn't a moment to go to his place yesterday or this morning. I was staying over at Glenshiels, and had not a moment to spare in catching the train. But I found a horse-box on, and a lad from MacFarlane's just leaving as I came up." "Didn't he send a boy down with the horse?" asked Lord George. "I believe there is a boy, and the boy'll be awfully bothered. I told him to book the horse for Kilmarnock." "They always do book for Kilmarnock for this meet," said a gentleman who had made acquaintance with some of Lizzie's party on the previous hunting-day;--"but Stewarton is ever so much nearer." "So somebody told me in the carriage," continued Frank, "and I contrived to get my box off at Stewarton. The guard was uncommon civil, and so was the porter. But I hadn't a moment to look for the boy." "I always make my fellow stick to his horses," said Sir Griffin. "But you see, Sir Griffin, I haven't got a fellow, and I've only hired a horse. But I shall hire a good many horses from Mr. MacFarlane if he'll always put me up like this." "I'm so glad you're here," said Lizzie. "So am I. I hunt about twice in three years, and no man likes it so much. I've still got to find out whether the beast can jump." "Any mortal thing alive, sir," said one of those horsey-looking men who are to be found in all hunting-fields, who wear old brown breeches, old black coats, old hunting-caps, who ride screws, and never get thrown out. "You know him, do you?" said Frank. "I know him. I didn't know as Muster MacFarlane owned him. No more he don't," said the horsey man, turning aside to one of his friends. "That's Nappie's horse, from Jamaica Street." "Not possible," said the friend. "You'll tell me I don't know my own horse next." "I don't believe you ever owned one," said the friend. Lizzie was in truth delighted to have her cousin beside her. He had, at any rate, forgiven what she had said to him at his last visit, or he would not have been there. And then, too, there was a feeling of reality in her connexion with him, which was sadly wanting to her,--unreal as she was herself,--in her acquaintance with the other people around her. And on this occasion three or four people spoke or bowed to her, who had only stared at her before; and the huntsman took off his cap, and hoped that he would do something better for her than on the previous Monday. And the huntsman was very courteous also to Miss Roanoke, expressing the same hope, cap in hand, and smiling graciously. A huntsman at the beginning of any day or at the end of a good day is so different from a huntsman at the end of a bad day! A huntsman often has a very bad time out hunting, and it is sometimes a marvel that he does not take the advice which Job got from his wife. But now all things were smiling, and it was soon known that his lordship intended to draw Craigattan Gorse. Now in those parts there is no surer find, and no better chance of a run, than Craigattan Gorse affords. "There is one thing I want to ask, Mr. Greystock," said Lord George, in Lizzie's hearing. "You shall ask two," said Frank. "Who is to coach Lady Eustace to-day;--you or I?" "Oh, do let me have somebody to coach me," said Lizzie. "For devotion in coachmanship," said Frank,--"devotion, that is, to my cousin,--I defy the world. In point of skill I yield to Lord George." "My pretensions are precisely the same," said Lord George. "I glow with devotion; my skill is naught." "I like you best, Lord George," said Lizzie, laughing. "That settles the question," said Lord George. "Altogether," said Frank, taking off his hat. "I mean as a coach," said Lizzie. "I quite understand the extent of the preference," said Lord George. Lizzie was delighted, and thought the game was worth the candle. The noble master had told her that they were sure of a run from Craigattan, and she wasn't in the least tired, and they were not called upon to stand still in a big wood, and it didn't rain, and, in every respect, the day was very different from Monday. Mounted on a bright-skinned, lively steed, with her cousin on one side and Lord George de Bruce Carruthers on the other, with all the hunting world of her own county civil around her, and a fox just found in Craigattan Gorse, what could the heart of woman desire more? This was to live. There was, however, just enough of fear to make the blood run quickly to her heart. "We'll be away at once now," said Lord George with utmost earnestness; "follow me close, but not too close. When the men see that I am giving you a lead, they won't come between. If you hang back, I'll not go ahead. Just check your horse as he comes to his fences, and, if you can, see me over before you go at them. Now then, down the hill;--there's a gate at the corner, and a bridge over the water. We couldn't be better. By George! there they are,--all together. If they don't pull him down in the first two minutes, we shall have a run." Lizzie understood most of it,--more at least than would nine out of ten young women who had never ridden a hunt before. She was to go wherever Lord George led her, and she was not to ride upon his heels. So much at least she understood,--and so much she was resolved to do. That dread about her front teeth which had perplexed her on Monday was altogether gone now. She would ride as fast as Lucinda Roanoke. That was her prevailing idea. Lucinda, with Mrs. Carbuncle, Sir Griffin, and the ladies' groom, was at the other side of the covert. Frank had been with his cousin and Lord George, but had crept down the hill while the hounds were in the gorse. A man who likes hunting but hunts only once a year is desirous of doing the best he can with his day. When the hounds came out and crossed the brook at the end of the gorse, perhaps he was a little too forward. But, indeed, the state of affairs did not leave much time for waiting, or for the etiquette of the hunting-field. Along the opposite margin of the brook there ran a low paling, which made the water a rather nasty thing to face. A circuit of thirty or forty yards gave the easy riding of a little bridge, and to that all the crowd hurried. But one or two men with good eyes, and hearts as good, had seen the leading hounds across the brook turning up the hill away from the bridge, and knew that two most necessary minutes might be lost in the crowd. Frank did as they did, having seen nothing of any hounds, but with instinctive knowledge that they were men likely to be right in a hunting-field. "If that ain't Nappie's horse, I'll eat him," said one of the leading men to the other, as all the three were breasting the hill together. Frank only knew that he had been carried over water and timber without a mistake, and felt a glow of gratitude towards Mr. MacFarlane. Up the hill they went, and, not waiting to inquire into the circumstances of a little gate, jumped a four-foot wall and were away. "How the mischief did he get atop of Nappie's horse?" said the horsey man to his friend. "We're about right for it now," said the huntsman, as he came up alongside of Frank. He had crossed the bridge, but had been the first across it, and knew how to get over his ground quickly. On they went, the horsey man leading on his thoroughbred screw, the huntsman second, and Frank third. The pace had already been too good for the other horsey man. When Lord George and Lizzie had mounted the hill, there was a rush of horses at the little gate. As they topped the hill Lucinda and Mrs. Carbuncle were jumping the wall. Lord George looked back and asked a question without a word. Lizzie answered it as mutely, Jump it! She was already a little short of breath, but she was ready to jump anything that Lucinda Roanoke had jumped. Over went Lord George, and she followed him almost without losing the stride of her horse. Surely in all the world there was nothing equal to this! There was a large grass field before them, and for a moment she came up alongside of Lord George. "Just steady him before he leaps," said Lord George. She nodded her assent, and smiled her gratitude. She had plenty of breath for riding, but none for speaking. They were now very near to Lucinda, and Sir Griffin, and Mrs. Carbuncle. "The pace is too good for Mrs. Carbuncle's horse," said Lord George. Oh, if she could only pass them, and get up to those men whom she saw before her! She knew that one of them was her cousin Frank. She had no wish to pass them, but she did wish that he should see her. In the next fence Lord George spied a rail, which he thought safer than a blind hedge, and he made for it. His horse took it well, and so did Lizzie's; but Lizzie jumped it a little too near him, as he had paused an instant to look at the ground. "Indeed, I won't do it again," she said, collecting all her breath for an apology. "You are going admirably," he said, "and your horse is worth double the money." She was so glad now that he had not spared for price in mounting her. Looking to the right she could see that Mrs. Carbuncle had only just floundered through the hedge. Lucinda was still ahead, but Sir Griffin was falling behind, as though divided in duty between the niece and the aunt. Then they passed through a gate, and Lord George stayed his horse to hold it for her. She tried to thank him but he stopped her. "Don't mind talking, but come along; and take it easy." She smiled again, and he told himself that she was wondrous pretty. And then her pluck was so good! And then she had four thousand a year! "Now for the gap!--don't be in a hurry. You first, and I'll follow you to keep off these two men. Keep to the left, where the other horses have been." On they went, and Lizzie was in heaven. She could not quite understand her feelings, because it had come to that with her that to save her life she could not have spoken a word. And yet she was not only happy but comfortable. The leaping was delightful, and her horse galloped with her as though his pleasure was as great as her own. She thought that she was getting nearer to Lucinda. For her, in her heart, Lucinda was the quarry. If she could only pass Lucinda! That there were any hounds she had altogether forgotten. She only knew that two or three men were leading the way, of whom her cousin Frank was one, that Lucinda Roanoke was following them closely, and that she was gaining upon Lucinda Roanoke. She knew she was gaining a little, because she could see now how well and squarely Lucinda sat upon her horse. As for herself, she feared that she was rolling;--but she need not have feared. She was so small, and lithe, and light, that her body adapted itself naturally to the pace of her horse. Lucinda was of a different build, and it behoved her to make for herself a perfect seat. "We must have the wall," said Lord George, who was again at her side for a moment. She would have "had" a castle wall, moat included, turrets and all, if he would only have shown her the way. The huntsman and Frank had taken the wall. The horsey man's bit of blood, knowing his own powers to an inch, had declined,--not roughly, with a sudden stop and a jerk, but with a swerve to the left which the horsey man at once understood. What the brute lacked in jumping he could make up in pace, and the horsey man was along the wall and over a broken bank at the head of it, with the loss of not more than a minute. Lucinda's horse, following the ill example, balked the jump. She turned him round with a savage gleam in her eye which Lizzie was just near enough to see, struck him rapidly over the shoulders with her whip, and the animal flew with her into the next field. "Oh, if I could do it like that!" thought Lizzie. But in that very minute she was doing it, not only as well but better. Not following Lord George, but close at his side, the little animal changed his pace, trotted for a yard or two, hopped up as though the wall were nothing, knocked off a top stone with his hind feet, and dropped onto the ground so softly that Lizzie hardly believed that she had gone over the big obstruction that had cost Lucinda such an effort. Lucinda's horse came down on all four legs, with a grunt and a groan, and she knew that she had bustled him. At that moment Lucinda was very full of wrath against the horsey man with the screw who had been in her way. "He touched it," gasped Lizzie, thinking that her horse had disgraced himself. "He's worth his weight in gold," said Lord George. "Come along. There's a brook with a ford. Morgan is in it." Morgan was the huntsman. "Don't let them get before you." Oh, no. She would let no one get before her. She did her very best, and just got her horse's nose on the broken track leading down into the brook before Lucinda. "Pretty good, isn't it?" said Lucinda. Lizzie smiled sweetly. She could smile, though she could not speak. "Only they do balk one so at one's fences!" said Lucinda. The horsey man had all but regained his place, and was immediately behind Lucinda, within hearing--as Lucinda knew. On the further side of the field, beyond the brook, there was a little spinny, and for half a minute the hounds came to a check. "Give 'em time, sir, give 'em time," said Morgan to Frank, speaking in full good humour, with no touch of Monday's savagery. "Wind him, Bolton; Beaver's got it. Very good thing, my lady, isn't it? Now, Carstairs, if you're a-going to 'unt the fox, you'd better 'unt him." Carstairs was the horsey man,--and one with whom Morgan very often quarrelled. "That's it, my hearties," and Morgan was across a broken wall in a moment, after the leading hounds. "Are we to go on?" said Lizzie, who feared much that Lucinda would get ahead of her. There was a matter of three dozen horsemen up now, and, as far as Lizzie saw, the whole thing might have to be done again. In hunting, to have ridden is the pleasure;--and not simply to have ridden well, but to have ridden better than others. "I call it very awkward ground," said Mrs. Carbuncle, coming up. "It can't be compared to the Baron's country." "Stone walls four feet and a half high, and well built, are awkward," said the noble master. But the hounds were away again, and Lizzie had got across the gap before Lucinda, who, indeed, made way for her hostess with a haughty politeness which was not lost upon Lizzie. Lizzie could not stop to beg pardon, but she would remember to do it in her prettiest way on their journey home. They were now on a track of open country, and the pace was quicker even than before. The same three men were still leading, Morgan, Greystock, and Carstairs. Carstairs had slightly the best of it; and of course Morgan swore afterwards that he was among the hounds the whole run. "The scent was that good, there wasn't no putting of 'em off;--no thanks to him," said Morgan. "I 'ate to see 'em galloping, galloping, galloping, with no more eye to the 'ounds than a pig. Any idiot can gallop, if he's got it under 'im." All which only signified that Jack Morgan didn't like to see any of his field before him. There was need, indeed, now for galloping, and it may be doubted whether Morgan himself was not doing his best. There were about five or six in the second flight, and among these Lord George and Lizzie were well placed. But Lucinda had pressed again ahead. "Miss Roanoke had better have a care, or she'll blow her horse," Lord George said. Lizzie didn't mind what happened to Miss Roanoke's horse, so that it could be made to go a little slower and fall behind. But Lucinda still pressed on, and her animal went with a longer stride than Lizzie's horse. They now crossed a road, descending a hill, and were again in a close country. A few low hedges seemed as nothing to Lizzie. She could see her cousin gallop over them ahead of her, as though they were nothing; and her own horse, as he came to them, seemed to do exactly the same. On a sudden they found themselves abreast with the huntsman. "There's a biggish brook below there, my lord," said he. Lizzie was charmed to hear it. Hitherto she had jumped all the big things so easily, that it was a pleasure to hear of them. "How are we to manage it?" asked Lord George. "It is rideable, my lord; but there's a place about half a mile down. Let's see how'll they head. Drat it, my lord, they've turned up, and we must have it or go back to the road." Morgan hurried on, showing that he meant to "have" it, as did also Lucinda. "Shall we go to the road?" said Lord George. "No, no!" said Lizzie. Lord George looked at her and at her horse, and then galloped after the huntsman and Lucinda. The horsey man with the well-bred screw was first over the brook. The little animal could take almost any amount of water, and his rider knew the spot. "He'll do it like a bird," he had said to Greystock, and Greystock had followed him. Mr. MacFarlane's hired horse did do it like a bird. "I know him, sir," said Carstairs. "Mr. Nappie gave £250 for him down in Northamptonshire last February;--bought him of Mr. Percival. You know Mr. Percival, sir?" Frank knew neither Mr. Percival nor Mr. Nappie, and at this moment cared nothing for either of them. To him, at this moment, Mr. MacFarlane, of Buchanan Street, Glasgow, was the best friend he ever had. Morgan, knowing well the horse he rode, dropped him into the brook, floundered and half swam through the mud and water, and scrambled out safely on the other side. "He wouldn't have jumped it with me, if I'd asked him ever so," he said afterwards. Lucinda rode at it, straight as an arrow, but her brute came to a dead balk, and, but that she sat well, would have thrown her into the stream. Lord George let Lizzie take the leap before he took it, knowing that, if there were misfortune, he might so best render help. To Lizzie it seemed as though the river were the blackest, and the deepest, and the broadest that ever ran. For a moment her heart quailed;--but it was but for a moment. She shut her eyes, and gave the little horse his head. For a moment she thought that she was in the water. Her horse was almost upright on the bank, with his hind-feet down among the broken ground, and she was clinging to his neck. But she was light, and the beast made good his footing, and then she knew that she had done it. In that moment of the scramble her heart had been so near her mouth that she was almost choked. When she looked round, Lord George was already by her side. "You hardly gave him powder enough," he said, "but still he did it beautifully. Good heavens! Miss Roanoke is in the river." Lizzie looked back, and there, in truth, was Lucinda struggling with her horse in the water. They paused a moment, and then there were three or four men assisting her. "Come on," said Lord George;--"there are plenty to take her out, and we couldn't get to her if we stayed." "I ought to stop," said Lizzie. "You couldn't get back if you gave your eyes for it," said Lord George. "She's all right." So instigated, Lizzie followed her leader up the hill, and in a minute was close upon Morgan's heels. The worst of doing a big thing out hunting is the fact that in nine cases out of ten they who don't do it are as well off as they who do. If there were any penalty for riding round, or any mark given to those who had ridden straight,--so that justice might in some sort be done,--it would perhaps be better. When you have nearly broken your neck to get to hounds, or made your horse exert himself beyond his proper power, and then find yourself, within three minutes, overtaking the hindmost ruck of horsemen on a road because of some iniquitous turn that the fox has taken, the feeling is not pleasant. And some man who has not ridden at all, who never did ride at all, will ask you where you have been; and his smile will give you the lie in your teeth if you make any attempt to explain the facts. Let it be sufficient for you at such a moment to feel that you are not ashamed of yourself. Self-respect will support a man even in such misery as this. The fox on this occasion, having crossed the river, had not left its bank, but had turned from his course up the stream, so that the leading spirits who had followed the hounds over the water came upon a crowd of riders on the road in a space something short of a mile. Mrs. Carbuncle, among others, was there, and had heard of Lucinda's mishap. She said a word to Lord George in anger, and Lord George answered her. "We were over the river before it happened, and if we had given our eyes we couldn't have got to her. Don't you make a fool of yourself!" The last words were spoken in a whisper, but Lizzie's sharp ears caught them. "I was obliged to do what I was told," said Lizzie apologetically. "It will be all right, dear Lady Eustace. Sir Griffin is with her. I am so glad you are going so well." They were off again now, and the stupid fox absolutely went back across the river. But, whether on one side or on the other, his struggle for life was now in vain. Two years of happy, free existence amidst the wilds of Craigattan had been allowed him. Twice previously had he been "found," and the kindly storm or not less beneficent brightness of the sun had enabled him to baffle his pursuers. Now there had come one glorious day, and the common lot of mortals must be his. A little spurt there was, back towards his own home,--just enough to give something of selectness to the few who saw him fall,--and then he fell. Among the few were Frank, and Lord George, and our Lizzie. Morgan was there, of course, and one of his whips. Of Ayrshire folk, perhaps five or six, and among them our friend Mr. Carstairs. They had run him down close to the outbuildings of a farm-yard, and they broke him up in the home paddock. "What do you think of hunting?" said Frank to his cousin. "It's divine!" "My cousin went pretty well, I think," he said to Lord George. "Like a celestial bird of Paradise. No one ever went better;--or I believe so well. You've been carried rather nicely yourself." "Indeed I have," said Frank, patting his still palpitating horse, "and he's not to say tired now." "You've taken it pretty well out of him, sir," said Carstairs. "There was a little bit of hill that told when we got over the brook. I know'd you'd find he'd jump a bit." "I wonder whether he's to be bought?" asked Frank in his enthusiasm. "I don't know the horse that isn't," said Mr. Carstairs,--"so long as you don't stand at the figure." They were collected on the farm road, and now, as they were speaking, there was a commotion among the horses. A man, driving a little buggy, was forcing his way along the road, and there was a sound of voices, as though the man in the buggy were angry. And he was very angry. Frank, who was on foot by his horse's head, could see that the man was dressed for hunting, with a bright red coat and a flat hat, and that he was driving the pony with a hunting-whip. The man was talking as he approached, but what he said did not much matter to Frank. It did not much matter to Frank till his new friend, Mr. Carstairs, whispered a word in his ear. "It's Nappie, by gum!" Then there crept across Frank's mind an idea that there might be trouble coming. "There he is," said Nappie, bringing his pony to a dead stop with a chuck, and jumping out of the buggy. "I say, you, sir; you've stole my 'orse!" Frank said not a word, but stood his ground with his hand on the nag's bridle. "You've stole my 'orse; you've stole him off the rail. And you've been a-riding him all day. Yes, you 'ave. Did ever anybody see the like of this? Why, the poor beast can't a'most stand!" "I got him from Mr. MacFarlane." "MacFarlane be blowed! You didn't do nothing of the kind. You stole him off the rail at Stewarton. Yes, you did;--and him booked to Kilmarnock. Where's a police? Who's to stand the like o' this? I say, my lord,--just look at this." A crowd had now been formed round poor Frank, and the master had come up. Mr. Nappie was a Huddersfield man, who had come to Glasgow in the course of the last winter, and whose popularity in the hunting-field was not as yet quite so great as it perhaps might have been. "There's been a mistake, I suppose," said the master. "Mistake, my lord! Take a man's 'orse off the rail at Stewarton, and him booked to Kilmarnock, and ride him to a standstill! It's no mistake at all. It's 'orse-nobbling; that's what it is. Is there any police here, sir?" This he said, turning round to a farmer. The farmer didn't deign any reply. "Perhaps you'll tell me your name, sir? if you've got a name. No gen'leman ever took a gen'leman's 'orse off the rail like that." "Oh, Frank, do come away," said Lizzie, who was standing by. "We shall be all right in two minutes," said Frank. "No, we sha'n't," said Mr. Nappie,--"nor yet in two hours. I've asked what's your name?" "My name is--Greystock." "Greystockings," said Mr. Nappie more angrily than ever. "I don't believe in no such name. Where do you live?" Then somebody whispered a word to him. "Member of Parliament,--is he? I don't care a ----. A member of Parliament isn't to steal my 'orse off the rail, and him booked to Kilmarnock. Now, my lord, what'd you do if you was served like that?" This was another appeal to the noble master. "I should express a hope that my horse had carried the gentleman as he liked to be carried," said the master. "And he has,--carried me remarkably well," said Frank;--whereupon there was a loud laugh among the crowd. "I wish he'd broken the infernal neck of you, you scoundrel, you,--that's what I do!" said Mr. Nappie. "There was my man, and my 'orse, and myself all booked from Glasgow to Kilmarnock;--and when I got there what did the guard say to me?--why, just that a man in a black coat had taken my horse off at Stewarton; and now I've been driving all about the country in that gig there for three hours!" When Mr. Nappie had got so far as this in his explanation he was almost in tears. "I'll make 'im pay, that I will. Take your hand off my horse's bridle, sir. Is there any gentleman here as would like to give two hundred and eighty guineas for a horse, and then have him rid to a standstill by a fellow like that down from London? If you're in Parliament, why don't you stick to Parliament? I don't suppose he's worth fifty pound this moment." Frank had all the while been endeavouring to explain the accident; how he had ordered a horse from Mr. MacFarlane, and the rest of it,--as the reader will understand; but quite in vain. Mr. Nappie in his wrath would not hear a word. But now that he spoke about money, Frank thought that he saw an opening. "Mr. Nappie," he said, "I'll buy the horse for the price you gave for him." "I'll see you ----; extremely well ---- first," said Mr. Nappie. The horse had now been surrendered to Mr. Nappie, and Frank suggested that he might as well return to Kilmarnock in the gig, and pay for the hire of it. But Mr. Nappie would not allow him to set a foot upon the gig. "It's my gig for the day," said he, "and you don't touch it. You shall foot it all the way back to Kilmarnock, Mr. Greystockings." But Mr. Nappie, in making this threat, forgot that there were gentlemen there with second horses. Frank was soon mounted on one belonging to Lord George, and Lord George's servant, at the corner of the farm-yard, got into the buggy, and was driven back to Kilmarnock by the man who had accompanied poor Mr. Nappie in their morning's hunt on wheels after the hounds. "Upon my word, I was very sorry," said Frank as he rode back with his friends to Kilmarnock; "and when I first really understood what had happened, I would have done anything. But what could I say? It was impossible not to laugh, he was so unreasonable." "I should have put my whip over his shoulder," said a stout farmer, meaning to be civil to Frank Greystock. "Not after using it so often over his horse," said Lord George. "I never had to touch him once," said Frank. "And are you to have it all for nothing?" asked the thoughtful Lizzie. "He'll send a bill in, you'll find," said a bystander. "Not he," said Lord George. "His grievance is worth more to him than his money." No bill did come to Frank, and he got his mount for nothing. When Mr. MacFarlane was applied to, he declared that no letter ordering a horse had been delivered in his establishment. From that day to this Mr. Nappie's grey horse has had a great character in Ayrshire; but all the world there says that its owner never rides him as Frank Greystock rode him that day. VOLUME II CHAPTER XXXIX Sir Griffin Takes an Unfair Advantage We must return to the unfortunate Lucinda, whom we last saw struggling with her steed in the black waters of the brook which she attempted to jump. A couple of men were soon in after her, and she was rescued and brought back to the side from which she had taken off without any great difficulty. She was neither hurt nor frightened, but she was wet through; and for a while she was very unhappy, because it was not found quite easy to extricate her horse. During the ten minutes of her agony, while the poor brute was floundering in the mud, she had been quite disregardful of herself, and had almost seemed to think that Sir Griffin, who was with her, should go into the water after her steed. But there were already two men in the water, and three on the bank, and Sir Griffin thought that duty required him to stay by the young lady's side. "I don't care a bit about myself," said Lucinda, "but if anything can be done for poor Warrior!" Sir Griffin assured her that "poor Warrior" was receiving the very best attention; and then he pressed upon her the dangerous condition in which she herself was standing,--quite wet through, covered, as to her feet and legs, with mud, growing colder and colder every minute. She touched her lips with a little brandy that somebody gave her, and then declared again that she cared for nothing but poor Warrior. At last poor Warrior was on his legs, with the water dripping from his black flanks, with his nose stained with mud, with one of his legs a little cut,--and, alas! with the saddle wet through. Nevertheless, there was nothing to be done better than to ride into Kilmarnock. The whole party must return to Kilmarnock, and, perhaps, if they hurried, she might be able to get her clothes dry before they would start by the train. Sir Griffin, of course, accompanied her, and they two rode into the town alone. Mrs. Carbuncle did hear of the accident soon after the occurrence, but had not seen her niece; nor when she heard of it, could she have joined Lucinda. If anything would make a girl talk to a man, such a ducking as Lucinda had had would do so. Such sudden events, when they come in the shape of misfortune, or the reverse, generally have the effect of abolishing shyness for the time. Let a girl be upset with you in a railway train, and she will talk like a Rosalind, though before the accident she was as mute as death. But with Lucinda Roanoke the accustomed change did not seem to take place. When Sir Griffin had placed her on her saddle, she would have trotted all the way into Kilmarnock without a word if he would have allowed her. But he, at least, understood that such a joint misfortune should create confidence,--for he, too, had lost the run, and he did not intend to lose his opportunity also. "I am so glad that I was near you," he said. "Oh, thank you, yes; it would have been bad to be alone." "I mean that I am glad that it was I," said Sir Griffin. "It's very hard even to get a moment to speak to you." They were now trotting along on the road, and there were still three miles before them. "I don't know," said she. "I'm always with the other people." "Just so." And then he paused. "But I want to find you when you're not with the other people. Perhaps, however, you don't like me." As he paused for a reply, she felt herself bound to say something. "Oh, yes, I do," she said,--"as well as anybody else." "And is that all?" "I suppose so." After that he rode on for the best part of another mile before he spoke to her again. He had made up his mind that he would do it. He hardly knew why it was that he wanted her. He had not determined that he was desirous of the charms or comfort of domestic life. He had not even thought where he would live were he married. He had not suggested to himself that Lucinda was a desirable companion, that her temper would suit his, that her ways and his were sympathetic, or that she would be a good mother to the future Sir Griffin Trewett. He had seen that she was a very handsome girl, and therefore he had thought that he would like to possess her. Had she fallen like a ripe plum into his mouth, or shown herself ready so to fall, he would probably have closed his lips and backed out of the affair. But the difficulty no doubt added something to the desire. "I had hoped," he said, "that after knowing each other so long there might have been more than that." She was again driven to speak because he paused. "I don't know that that makes much difference." "Miss Roanoke, you can't but understand what I mean." "I'm sure I don't," said she. "Then I'll speak plainer." "Not now, Sir Griffin, because I'm so wet." "You can listen to me even if you will not answer me. I am sure that you know that I love you better than all the world. Will you be mine?" Then he moved on a little forward so that he might look back into her face. "Will you allow me to think of you as my future wife?" Miss Roanoke was able to ride at a stone wall or at a river, and to ride at either the second time when her horse balked the first. Her heart was big enough for that. But her heart was not big enough to enable her to give Sir Griffin an answer. Perhaps it was that, in regard to the river and the stone wall, she knew what she wanted; but that, as to Sir Griffin, she did not. "I don't think this is a proper time to ask," she said. "Why not?" "Because I am wet through and cold. It is taking an unfair advantage." "I didn't mean to take any unfair advantage," said Sir Griffin scowling--"I thought we were alone--" "Oh, Sir Griffin, I am so tired!" As they were now entering Kilmarnock, it was quite clear he could press her no further. They clattered up, therefore, to the hotel, and he busied himself in getting a bedroom fire lighted, and in obtaining the services of the landlady. A cup of tea was ordered, and toast, and in two minutes Lucinda Roanoke was relieved from the presence of the baronet. "It's a kind of thing a fellow doesn't quite understand," said Sir Griffin to himself. "Of course she means it, and why the devil can't she say so?" He had no idea of giving up the chase, but he thought that perhaps he would take it out of her when she became Lady Tewett. They were an hour at the inn before Mrs. Carbuncle and Lady Eustace arrived, and during that hour Sir Griffin did not see Miss Roanoke. For this there was, of course, ample reason. Under the custody of the landlady, Miss Roanoke was being made dry and clean, and was by no means in a condition to receive a lover's vows. The baronet sent up half-a-dozen messages as he sauntered about the yard of the inn, but he got no message in return. Lucinda, as she sat drinking her tea and drying her clothes, did no doubt think about him,--but she thought about him as little as she could. Of course, he would come again, and she could make up her mind then. It was no doubt necessary that she should do something. Her fortune, such as it was, would soon be spent in the adventure of finding a husband. She also had her ideas about love, and had enough of sincerity about her to love a man thoroughly; but it had seemed to her that all the men who came near her were men whom she could not fail to dislike. She was hurried here and hurried there, and knew nothing of real social intimacies. As she told her aunt in her wickedness, she would almost have preferred a shoemaker,--if she could have become acquainted with a shoemaker in a manner that should be unforced and genuine. There was a savageness of antipathy in her to the mode of life which her circumstances had produced for her. It was that very savageness which made her ride so hard, and which forbade her to smile and be pleasant to people whom she could not like. And yet she knew that something must be done. She could not afford to wait as other girls might do. Why not Sir Griffin as well as any other fool? It may be doubted whether she knew how obstinate, how hard, how cruel to a woman a fool can be. Her stockings had been washed and dried, and her boots and trousers were nearly dry, when Mrs. Carbuncle, followed by Lizzie, rushed into the room. "Oh, my darling, how are you?" said the aunt, seizing her niece in her arms. "I'm only dirty now," said Lucinda. "We've got off the biggest of the muck, my lady," said the landlady. "Oh, Miss Roanoke," said Lizzie, "I hope you don't think I behaved badly in going on." "Everybody always goes on, of course," said Lucinda. "I did so pray Lord George to let me try and jump back to you. We were over, you know, before it happened. But he said it was quite impossible. We did wait till we saw you were out." "It didn't signify at all, Lady Eustace." "And I was so sorry when I went through the wall at the corner of the wood before you. But I was so excited I hardly knew what I was doing." Lucinda, who was quite used to these affairs in the hunting-field, simply nodded her acceptance of this apology. "But it was a glorious run; wasn't it?" "Pretty well," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Oh, it was glorious,--but then I got over the river. And oh, if you had been there afterwards. There was such an adventure between a man in a gig and my cousin Frank." Then they all went to the train, and were carried home to Portray. CHAPTER XL "You Are Not Angry?" On their journey back to Portray, the ladies were almost too tired for talking; and Sir Griffin was sulky. Sir Griffin had as yet heard nothing about Greystock's adventure, and did not care to be told. But when once they were at the castle, and had taken warm baths, and glasses of sherry, and got themselves dressed and had come down to dinner, they were all very happy. To Lizzie it had certainly been the most triumphant day of her life. Her marriage with Sir Florian had been triumphant, but that was only a step to something good that was to come after. She then had at her own disposal her little wits and her prettiness, and a world before her in which, as it then seemed to her, there was a deal of pleasure if she could only reach it. Up to this period of her career she had hardly reached any pleasure; but this day had been very pleasant. Lord George de Bruce Carruthers had in truth been her Corsair, and she had found the thing which she liked to do, and would soon know how to do. How glorious it was to jump over that black, yawning stream, and then to see Lucinda fall into it! And she could remember every jump, and her feeling of ecstasy as she landed on the right side. And she had by heart every kind word that Lord George had said to her,--and she loved the sweet, pleasant, Corsair-like intimacy that had sprung up between them. She wondered whether Frank was at all jealous. It wouldn't be amiss that he should be a little jealous. And then somebody had brought home in his pocket the fox's brush, which the master of the hounds had told the huntsman to give her. It was all delightful;--and so much more delightful because Mrs. Carbuncle had not gone quite so well as she liked to go, and because Lucinda had fallen into the water. They did not dine till past eight, and the ladies and gentlemen all left the room together. Coffee and liqueurs were to be brought into the drawing-room, and they were all to be intimate, comfortable, and at their ease;--all except Sir Griffin Tewett, who was still very sulky. "Did he say anything?" Mrs. Carbuncle had asked. "Yes." "Well?" "He proposed; but of course I could not answer him when I was wet through." There had been but a moment, and in that moment this was all that Lucinda would say. "Now I don't mean to stir again," said Lizzie, throwing herself into a corner of a sofa, "till somebody carries me to bed. I never was so tired in all my life." She was tired, but there is a fatigue which is delightful as long as all the surroundings are pleasant and comfortable. "I didn't call it a very hard day," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "You only killed one fox," said Mr. Emilius, pretending a delightfully clerical ignorance, "and on Monday you killed four. Why should you be tired?" "I suppose it was nearly twenty miles," said Frank, who was also ignorant. "About ten, perhaps," said Lord George. "It was an hour and forty minutes, and there was a good bit of slow hunting after we had come back over the river." "I'm sure it was thirty," said Lizzie, forgetting her fatigue in her energy. "Ten is always better than twenty," said Lord George, "and five generally better than ten." "It was just whatever is best," said Lizzie. "I know Frank's friend, Mr. Nappie, said it was twenty. By-the-bye, Frank, oughtn't we to have asked Mr. Nappie home to dinner?" "I thought so," said Frank; "but I couldn't take the liberty myself." "I really think poor Mr. Nappie was very badly used," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Of course he was," said Lord George;--"no man ever worse since hunting was invented. He was entitled to a dozen dinners and no end of patronage; but you see he took it out in calling your cousin Mr. Greystockings." "I felt that blow," said Frank. "I shall always call you Cousin Greystockings," said Lizzie. "It was hard," continued Lord George, "and I understood it all so well when he got into a mess in his wrath about booking the horse to Kilmarnock. If the horse had been on the roadside, he or his men could have protected him. He is put under the protection of a whole railway company, and the company gives him up to the first fellow that comes and asks for him." "It was cruel," said Frank. "If it had happened to me, I should have been very angry," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "But Frank wouldn't have had a horse at all," said Lizzie, "unless he had taken Mr. Nappie's." Lord George still continued his plea for Mr. Nappie. "There's something in that, certainly; but, still, I agree with Mrs. Carbuncle. If it had happened to me, I should--just have committed murder and suicide. I can't conceive anything so terrible. It's all very well for your noble master to talk of being civil, and hoping that the horse had carried him well, and all that. There are circumstances in which a man can't be civil. And then everybody laughed at him! It's the way of the world. The lower you fall, the more you're kicked." "What can I do for him?" asked Frank. "Put him down at your club, and order thirty dozen of grey shirtings from Nappie and Co., without naming the price." "He'd send you grey stockings instead," said Lizzie. But though Lizzie was in heaven, it behoved her to be careful. The Corsair was a very fine specimen of the Corsair breed;--about the best Corsair she had ever seen, and had been devoted to her for the day. But these Corsairs are known to be dangerous, and it would not be wise that she should sacrifice any future prospect of importance on behalf of a feeling, which, no doubt, was founded on poetry, but which might too probably have no possible beneficial result. As far as she knew, the Corsair had not even an island of his own in the �gean Sea. And, if he had, might not the island too probably have a Medora or two of its own? In a ride across the country the Corsair was all that a Corsair should be; but knowing, as she did, but very little of the Corsair, she could not afford to throw over her cousin for his sake. As she was leaving the drawing-room, she managed to say one word to her cousin. "You were not angry with me because I got Lord George to ride with me instead of you?" "Angry with you?" "I knew I should only be a hindrance to you." "It was a matter of course. He knows all about it, and I know nothing. I am very glad that you liked it so much." "I did like it;--and so did you. I was so glad you got that poor man's horse. You were not angry then?" They had now passed across the hall, and were on the bottom stair. "Certainly not." "And you are not angry for what happened before?" She did not look into his face as she asked this question, but stood with her eyes fixed on the stair-carpet. "Indeed no." "Good night, Frank." "Good night, Lizzie." Then she went, and he returned to a room below which had been prepared for purposes of tobacco and soda-water and brandy. "Why, Griff, you're rather out of sorts to-night," said Lord George to his friend, before Frank had joined them. "So would you be out of sorts if you'd lost your run and had to pick a young woman out of the water. I don't like young women when they're damp and smell of mud." "You mean to marry her, I suppose?" "How would you like me to ask you questions? Do you mean to marry the widow? And, if you do, what'll Mrs. Carbuncle say? And if you don't, what do you mean to do; and all the rest of it?" "As for marrying the widow, I should like to know the facts first. As to Mrs. C., she wouldn't object in the least. I generally have my horses so bitted that they can't very well object. And as to the other question, I mean to stay here for the next fortnight, and I advise you to make it square with Miss Roanoke. Here's my lady's cousin; for a man who doesn't ride often, he went very well to-day." "I wonder if he'd take a twenty-pound note if I sent it to him," said Frank, when they broke up for the night. "I don't like the idea of riding such a fellow's horse for nothing." "He'll bring an action against the railway, and then you can offer to pay if you like." Mr. Nappie did bring an action against the railway, claiming exorbitant damages;--but with what result, we need not trouble ourselves to inquire. CHAPTER XLI "Likewise the Bears in Couples Agree" Frank Greystock stayed till the following Monday at Portray, but could not be induced to hunt on the Saturday,--on which day the other sporting men and women went to the meet. He could not, he said, trust to that traitor MacFarlane, and he feared that his friend Mr. Nappie would not give him another mount on the grey horse. Lizzie offered him one of her two darlings,--an offer which he, of course, refused; and Lord George also proposed to put him up. But Frank averred that he had ridden his hunt for that season, and would not jeopardise the laurels he had gained. "And, moreover," said he, "I should not dare to meet Mr. Nappie in the field." So he remained at the castle and took a walk with Mr. Emilius. Mr. Emilius asked a good many questions about Portray, and exhibited the warmest sympathy with Lizzie's widowed condition. He called her a "sweet, gay, unsophisticated, light-hearted young thing." "She is very young," replied her cousin. "Yes," he continued, in answer to further questions; "Portray is certainly very nice. I don't know what the income is. Well; yes. I should think it is over a thousand. Eight! No, I never heard it said that it was as much as that." When Mr. Emilius put it down in his mind as five, he was not void of acuteness, as very little information had been given to him. There was a joke throughout the castle that Mr. Emilius had fallen in love with Miss Macnulty. They had been a great deal together on those hunting days; and Miss Macnulty was unusually enthusiastic in praise of his manner and conversation. To her, also, had been addressed questions as to Portray and its income, all of which she had answered to the best of her ability;--not intending to betray any secret, for she had no secret to betray; but giving ordinary information on that commonest of all subjects, our friends' incomes. Then there had risen a question whether there was a vacancy for such promotion to Miss Macnulty. Mrs. Carbuncle had certainly heard that there was a Mrs. Emilius. Lucinda was sure that there was not,--an assurance which might have been derived from a certain eagerness in the reverend gentleman's demeanour to herself on a former occasion. To Lizzie, who at present was very good-natured, the idea of Miss Macnulty having a lover, whether he were a married man or not, was very delightful. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," said Miss Macnulty. "I don't suppose Mr. Emilius had any idea of the kind." Upon the whole, however, Miss Macnulty liked it. On the Saturday nothing especial happened. Mr. Nappie was out on his grey horse, and condescended to a little conversation with Lord George. He wouldn't have minded, he said, if Mr. Greystock had come forward; but he did think Mr. Greystock hadn't come forward as he ought to have done. Lord George professed that he had observed the same thing; but then, as he whispered into Mr. Nappie's ear, Mr. Greystock was particularly known as a bashful man. "He didn't ride my 'orse anyway bashful," said Mr. Nappie;--all of which was told at dinner in the evening, amidst a great deal of laughter. There had been nothing special in the way of sport, and Lizzie's enthusiasm for hunting, though still high, had gone down a few degrees below fever heat. Lord George had again coached her; but there had been no great need for coaching, no losing of her breath, no cutting down of Lucinda, no river, no big wall,--nothing, in short, very fast. They had been much in a big wood; but Lizzie, in giving an account of the day to her cousin, had acknowledged that she had not quite understood what they were doing at any time. "It was a blowing of horns and a galloping up and down all the day," she said; "and then Morgan got cross again and scolded all the people. But there was one nice paling, and Dandy flew over it beautifully. Two men tumbled down, and one of them was a good deal hurt. It was very jolly;--but not at all like Wednesday." Nor had it been like Wednesday to Lucinda Roanoke, who did not fall into the water, and who did accept Sir Griffin when he again proposed to her in Sarkie wood. A great deal had been said to Lucinda on the Thursday and the Friday by Mrs. Carbuncle,--which had not been taken at all in good part by Lucinda. On those days Lucinda kept as much as she could out of Sir Griffin's way, and almost snapped at the baronet when he spoke to her. Sir Griffin swore to himself that he wasn't going to be treated that way. He'd have her, by George! There are men in whose love a good deal of hatred is mixed;--who love as the huntsman loves the fox, towards the killing of which he intends to use all his energies and intellects. Mrs. Carbuncle, who did not quite understand the sort of persistency by which a Sir Griffin can be possessed, feared greatly that Lucinda was about to lose her prize, and spoke out accordingly. "Will you, then, just have the kindness to tell me what it is you propose to yourself?" asked Mrs. Carbuncle. "I don't propose anything." "And where will you go when your money's done?" "Just where I am going now!" said Lucinda. By which it may be feared that she indicated a place to which she should not on such an occasion have made an allusion. "You don't like anybody else?" suggested Mrs. Carbuncle. "I don't like anybody or anything," said Lucinda. "Yes, you do;--you like horses to ride, and dresses to wear." "No, I don't. I like hunting because, perhaps, some day I may break my neck. It's no use your looking like that, Aunt Jane. I know what it all means. If I could break my neck it would be the best thing for me." "You'll break my heart, Lucinda." "Mine's broken long ago." "If you'll accept Sir Griffin, and just get a home round yourself, you'll find that everything will be happy. It all comes from the dreadful uncertainty. Do you think I have suffered nothing? Carbuncle is always threatening that he'll go back to New York, and as for Lord George, he treats me that way I'm sometimes afraid to show my face." "Why should you care for Lord George?" "It's all very well to say, why should I care for him. I don't care for him, only one doesn't want to quarrel with one's friends. Carbuncle says he owes him money." "I don't believe it," said Lucinda. "And he says Carbuncle owes him money." "I do believe that," said Lucinda. "Between it all, I don't know which way to be turning. And now, when there's this great opening for you, you won't know your own mind." "I know my mind well enough." "I tell you you'll never have such another chance. Good looks isn't everything. You've never a word to say to anybody; and when a man does come near you, you're as savage and cross as a bear." "Go on, Aunt Jane." "What with your hatings and dislikings, one would suppose you didn't think God Almighty made men at all." "He made some of 'em very bad," said Lucinda. "As for some others, they're only half made. What can Sir Griffin do, do you suppose?" "He's a gentleman." "Then if I were a man, I should wish not to be a gentleman; that's all. I'd a deal sooner marry a man like that huntsman, who has something to do and knows how to do it." Again she said, "Don't worry any more, Aunt Jane. It doesn't do any good. It seems to me that to make myself Sir Griffin's wife would be impossible; but I'm sure your talking won't do it." Then her aunt left her, and, having met Lord George, at his bidding went and made civil speeches to Lizzie Eustace. That was on the Friday afternoon. On the Saturday afternoon Sir Griffin, biding his time, found himself, in a ride with Lucinda, sufficiently far from other horsemen for his purpose. He wasn't going to stand any more nonsense. He was entitled to an answer, and he knew that he was entitled, by his rank and position, to a favourable answer. Here was a girl who, as far as he knew, was without a shilling, of whose birth and parentage nobody knew anything, who had nothing but her beauty to recommend her,--nothing but that and a certain capacity for carrying herself in the world as he thought ladies should carry themselves,--and she was to give herself airs with him, and expect him to propose to her half a dozen times! By George!--he had a very good mind to go away and let her find out her mistake. And he would have done so,--only that he was a man who always liked to have all that he wanted. It was intolerable to him that anybody should refuse him anything. "Miss Roanoke," he said; and then he paused. "Sir Griffin," said Lucinda, bowing her head. "Perhaps you will condescend to remember what I had the honour of saying to you as we rode into Kilmarnock last Wednesday." "I had just been dragged out of a river, Sir Griffin, and I don't think any girl ought to be asked to remember what was said to her in that condition." "If I say it again now, will you remember?" "I cannot promise, Sir Griffin." "Will you give me an answer?" "That must depend." "Come;--I will have an answer. When a man tells a lady that he admires her, and asks her to be his wife, he has a right to an answer. Don't you think that in such circumstances a man has a right to expect an answer?" Lucinda hesitated for a moment, and he was beginning again to remonstrate impatiently, when she altered her tone, and replied to him seriously, "In such circumstances a gentleman has a right to expect an answer." "Then give me one. I admire you above all the world, and I ask you to be my wife. I'm quite in earnest." "I know that you are in earnest, Sir Griffin. I would do neither you nor myself the wrong of supposing that it could be otherwise." "Very well then. Will you accept the offer that I make you?" Again she paused. "You have a right to an answer,--of course; but it may be so difficult to give it. It seems to me that you have hardly realised how serious a question it is." "Haven't I, though! By George, it is serious!" "Will it not be better for you to think it over again?" He now hesitated for a moment. Perhaps it might be better. Should she take him at his word there would be no going back from it. But Lord George knew that he had proposed before. Lord George had learned this from Mrs. Carbuncle, and had shown that he knew it. And then, too,--he had made up his mind about it. He wanted her, and he meant to have her. "It requires no more thinking with me, Lucinda. I'm not a man who does things without thinking; and when I have thought I don't want to think again. There's my hand;--will you have it?" "I will," said Lucinda, putting her hand into his. He no sooner felt her assurance than his mind misgave him that he had been precipitate, that he had been rash, and that she had taken advantage of him. After all, how many things are there in the world more precious than a handsome girl. And she had never told him that she loved him. "I suppose you love me?" he asked. "H'sh!--here they all are." The hand was withdrawn, but not before both Mrs. Carbuncle and Lady Eustace had seen it. Mrs. Carbuncle, in her great anxiety, bided her time, keeping close to her niece. Perhaps she felt that if the two were engaged, it might be well to keep the lovers separated for awhile, lest they should quarrel before the engagement should have been so confirmed by the authority of friends as to be beyond the power of easy annihilation. Lucinda rode quite demurely with the crowd. Sir Griffin remained near her, but without speaking. Lizzie whispered to Lord George that there had been a proposal. Mrs. Carbuncle sat in stately dignity on her horse, as though there were nothing which at that moment especially engaged her attention. An hour almost had passed before she was able to ask the important question, "Well;--what have you said to him?" "Oh;--just what you would have me." "You have accepted him?" "I suppose I was obliged. At any rate I did. You shall know one thing, Aunt Jane, at any rate, and I hope it will make you comfortable. I hate a good many people; but of all the people in the world I hate Sir Griffin Tewett the worst." "Nonsense, Lucinda." "It shall be nonsense, if you please; but it's true. I shall have to lie to him,--but there shall be no lying to you, however much you may wish it. I hate him!" This was very grim, but Mrs. Carbuncle quite understood that to persons situated in great difficulty things might be grim. A certain amount of grimness must be endured. And she knew, too, that Lucinda was not a girl to be driven without showing something of an intractable spirit in harness. Mrs. Carbuncle had undertaken the driving of Lucinda, and had been not altogether unsuccessful. The thing so necessary to be done was now effected. Her niece was engaged to a man with a title, to a man reported to have a fortune, to a man of family, and a man of the world. Now that the engagement was made, the girl could not go back from it, and it was for Mrs. Carbuncle to see that neither should Sir Griffin go back. Her first steps must be taken at once. The engagement should be made known to all the party, and should be recognised by some word spoken between herself and the lover. The word between herself and the lover must be the first thing. She herself, personally, was not very fond of Sir Griffin; but on such an occasion as this she could smile and endure the bear. Sir Griffin was a bear,--but so also was Lucinda. "The rabbits and hares All go in pairs; And likewise the bears In couples agree." Mrs. Carbuncle consoled herself with the song, and assured herself that it would all come right. No doubt the she-bears were not as civil to the he-bears as the turtle doves are to each other. It was, perhaps, her misfortune that her niece was not a turtle dove; but, such as she was, the best had been done for her. "Dear Sir Griffin," she said on the first available opportunity, not caring much for the crowd, and almost desirous that her very words should be overheard, "my darling girl has made me so happy by what she has told me." "She hasn't lost any time," said Sir Griffin. "Of course she would lose no time. She is the same to me as a daughter. I have no child of my own, and she is everything to me. May I tell you that you are the luckiest man in Europe?" "It isn't every girl that would suit me, Mrs. Carbuncle." "I am sure of that. I have noticed how particular you are. I won't say a word of Lucinda's beauty. Men are better judges of that than women; but for high, chivalrous spirit, for true principle and nobility, and what I call downright worth, I don't think you will easily find her superior. And she is as true as steel." "And about as hard, I was beginning to think." "A girl like that, Sir Griffin, does not give herself away easily. You will not like her the less for that now that you are the possessor. She is very young, and has known my wish that she should not engage herself to any one quite yet. But, as it is, I cannot regret anything." "I daresay not," said Sir Griffin. That the man was a bear was a matter of course, and bears probably do not themselves know how bearish they are. Sir Griffin, no doubt, was unaware of the extent of his own rudeness. And his rudeness mattered but little to Mrs. Carbuncle, so long as he acknowledged the engagement. She had not expected a lover's raptures from the one more than from the other. And was not there enough in the engagement to satisfy her? She allowed, therefore, no cloud to cross her brow as she rode up alongside of Lord George. "Sir Griffin has proposed, and she has accepted him," she said in a whisper. She was not now desirous that any one should hear her but he to whom she spoke. "Of course she has," said Lord George. "I don't know about that, George. Sometimes I thought she would, and sometimes that she wouldn't. You have never understood Lucinda." "I hope Griff will understand her,--that's all. And now that the thing is settled, you'll not trouble me about it any more. Their woes be on their own head. If they come to blows Lucinda will thrash him, I don't doubt. But while it's simply a matter of temper and words, she won't find Tewett so easy-going as he looks." "I believe they'll do very well together." "Perhaps they will. There's no saying who may do well together. You and Carbuncle get on à merveille. When is it to be?" "Of course nothing is settled yet." "Don't be too hard about settlements, or, maybe, he'll find a way of wriggling out. When a girl without a shilling asks very much, the world supports a man for breaking his engagement. Let her pretend to be indifferent about it;--that will be the way to keep him firm." "What is his income, George?" "I haven't an idea. There never was a closer man about money. I believe he must have the bulk of the Tewett property some day. He can't spend above a couple of thousand now." "He's not in debt, is he?" "He owes me a little money,--twelve hundred or so, and I mean to have it. I suppose he is in debt, but not much, I think. He makes stupid bets, and the devil won't break him of it." "Lucinda has two or three thousand pounds, you know." "That's a flea-bite. Let her keep it. You're in for it now, and you'd better say nothing about money. He has a decent solicitor, and let him arrange about the settlements. And look here, Jane;--get it done as soon as you can." "You'll help me?" "If you don't bother me, I will." On their way home Mrs. Carbuncle was able to tell Lady Eustace. "You know what has occurred?" "Oh, dear, yes," said Lizzie, laughing. "Has Lucinda told you?" "Do you think I've got no eyes? Of course it was going to be. I knew that from the very moment Sir Griffin reached Portray. I am so glad that Portray has been useful." "Oh, so useful, dear Lady Eustace! Not but what it must have come off anywhere, for there never was a man so much in love as Sir Griffin. The difficulty has been with Lucinda." "She likes him, I suppose?" "Oh, yes, of course," said Mrs. Carbuncle with energy. "Not that girls ever really care about men now. They've got to be married, and they make the best of it. She's very handsome, and I suppose he's pretty well off." "He will be very rich indeed. And they say he's such an excellent young man when you know him." "I dare say most young men are excellent,--when you come to know them. What does Lord George say?" "He's in raptures. He is very much attached to Lucinda, you know." And so that affair was managed. They hadn't been home a quarter of an hour before Frank Greystock was told. He asked Mrs. Carbuncle about the sport, and then she whispered to him, "An engagement has been made." "Sir Griffin?" suggested Frank. Mrs. Carbuncle smiled and nodded her head. It was well that everybody should know it. CHAPTER XLII Sunday Morning "So, miss, you've took him?" said the joint Abigail of the Carbuncle establishment that evening to the younger of her two mistresses. Mrs. Carbuncle had resolved that the thing should be quite public. "Just remember this," replied Lucinda, "I don't want to have a word said to me on the subject." "Only just to wish you joy, miss." Lucinda turned round with a flash of anger at the girl. "I don't want your wishing. That'll do. I can manage by myself. I won't have you come near me if you can't hold your tongue when you're told." "I can hold my tongue as well as anybody," said the Abigail with a toss of her head. This happened after the party had separated for the evening. At dinner Sir Griffin had, of course, given Lucinda his arm; but so he had always done since they had been at Portray. Lucinda hardly opened her mouth at table, and had retreated to bed with a headache when the men, who on that day lingered a few minutes after the ladies, went into the drawing-room. This Sir Griffin felt to be almost an affront, as there was a certain process of farewell for the night which he had anticipated. If she was going to treat him like that, he would cut up rough, and she should know it. "Well, Griff, so it's all settled," said Lord George in the smoking-room. Frank Greystock was there, and Sir Griffin did not like it. "What do you mean by settled? I don't know that anything is settled." "I thought it was. Weren't you told so?"--and Lord George turned to Greystock. "I thought I heard a hint," said Frank. "I'm ---- if I ever knew such people in my life!" said Sir Griffin. "They don't seem to have an idea that a man's own affairs may be private." "Such an affair as that never is private," said Lord George. "The women take care of that. You don't suppose they're going to run down their game, and let nobody know it." "If they take me for game--" "Of course you're game. Every man's game. Only some men are such bad game that they ain't worth following. Take it easy, Griff; you're caught." "No; I ain't." "And enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that she's about the handsomest girl out. As for me, I'd sooner have the widow. I beg your pardon, Mr. Greystock." Frank merely bowed. "Simply, I mean, because she rides about two stone lighter. It'll cost you something to mount Lady Tewett." "I don't mean that she shall hunt," said Sir Griffin. It will be seen, therefore, that the baronet made no real attempt to deny his engagement. On the following day, which was a Sunday, Sir Griffin, having ascertained that Miss Roanoke did not intend to go to church, stayed at home also. Mr. Emilius had been engaged to preach at the nearest episcopal place of worship, and the remainder of the party all went to hear him. Lizzie was very particular about her Bible and Prayer-book, and Miss Macnulty wore a brighter ribbon on her bonnet than she had ever been known to carry before. Lucinda, when she had heard of the arrangement, had protested to her aunt that she would not go down-stairs till they had all returned; but Mrs. Carbuncle, fearing the anger of Sir Griffin, doubting whether, in his anger, he might not escape them altogether, said a word or two which even Lucinda found to be rational. "As you have accepted him, you shouldn't avoid him, my dear. That is only making things worse for the future. And then it's cowardly, is it not?" No word that could have been spoken was more likely to be efficacious. At any rate, she would not be cowardly. As soon then as the wheels of the carriage were no longer heard grating upon the road, Lucinda, who had been very careful in her dress,--so careful as to avoid all appearance of care,--with slow majestic step descended to a drawing-room which they were accustomed to use on mornings. It was probable that Sir Griffin was smoking somewhere about the grounds, but it could not be her duty to go after him out of doors. She would remain there, and, if he chose, he might come to her. There could be no ground of complaint on his side if she allowed herself to be found in one of the ordinary sitting-rooms of the house. In about half an hour he sauntered upon the terrace, and flattened his nose against the window. She bowed and smiled to him,--hating herself for smiling. It was perhaps the first time that she had endeavoured to put on a pleasant face wherewithal to greet him. He said nothing then, but passed round the house, threw away the end of his cigar, and entered the room. Whatever happened, she would not be a coward. The thing had to be done. Seeing that she had accepted him on the previous day, had not run away in the night or taken poison, and had come down to undergo the interview, she would undergo it at least with courage. What did it matter, even though he should embrace her? It was her lot to undergo misery, and as she had not chosen to take poison, the misery must be endured. She rose as he entered and gave him her hand. She had thought what she would do, and was collected and dignified. He had not, and was very awkward. "So you haven't gone to church, Sir Griffin,--as you ought," she said, with another smile. "Come; I've gone as much as you." "But I had a headache. You stayed away to smoke cigars." "I stayed to see you, my girl." A lover may call his lady love his girl, and do so very prettily. He may so use the word that she will like it, and be grateful in her heart for the sweetness of the sound. But Sir Griffin did not do it nicely. "I've got ever so much to say to you." "I won't flatter you by saying that I stayed to hear it." "But you did;--didn't you now?" She shook her head, but there was something almost of playfulness in her manner of doing it. "Ah, but I know you did. And why shouldn't you speak out, now that we are to be man and wife? I like a girl to speak out. I suppose if I want to be with you, you want as much to be with me; eh?" "I don't see that that follows." "By ----, if it doesn't, I'll be off!" "You must please yourself about that, Sir Griffin." "Come; do you love me? You have never said you loved me." Luckily perhaps for her he thought that the best assurance of love was a kiss. She did not revolt, or attempt to struggle with him; but the hot blood flew over her entire face, and her lips were very cold to his, and she almost trembled in his grasp. Sir Griffin was not a man who could ever have been the adored of many women, but the instincts of his kind were strong enough within him to make him feel that she did not return his embrace with passion. He had found her to be very beautiful;--but it seemed to him that she had never been so little beautiful as when thus pressed close to his bosom. "Come," he said, still holding her; "you'll give me a kiss?" "I did do it," she said. "No;--nothing like it. Oh, if you won't, you know--" On a sudden she made up her mind, and absolutely did kiss him. She would sooner have leaped at the blackest, darkest, dirtiest river in the county. "There," she said, "that will do," gently extricating herself from his arms. "Some girls are different, I know; but you must take me as I am, Sir Griffin;--that is, if you do take me." "Why can't you drop the Sir?" "Oh yes;--I can do that." "And you do love me?" There was a pause, while she tried to swallow the lie. "Come;--I'm not going to marry any girl who is ashamed to say that she loves me. I like a little flesh and blood. You do love me?" "Yes," she said. The lie was told; and for the moment he had to be satisfied. But in his heart he didn't believe her. It was all very well for her to say that she wasn't like other girls. Why shouldn't she be like other girls? It might, no doubt, suit her to be made Lady Tewett;--but he wouldn't make her Lady Tewett if she gave herself airs with him. She should lie on his breast and swear that she loved him beyond all the world;--or else she should never be Lady Tewett. Different from other girls indeed! She should know that he was different from other men. Then he asked her to come and take a walk about the grounds. To that she made no objection. She would get her hat and be with him in a minute. But she was absent more than ten minutes. When she was alone she stood before her glass looking at herself, and then she burst into tears. Never before had she been thus polluted. The embrace had disgusted her. It made her odious to herself. And if this, the beginning of it, were so bad, how was she to drink the cup to the bitter dregs? Other girls, she knew, were fond of their lovers,--some so fond of them that all moments of absence were moments, if not of pain, at any rate of regret. To her, as she stood there ready to tear herself because of the vileness of her own condition, it now seemed as though no such love as that were possible to her. For the sake of this man who was to be her husband, she hated all men. Was not everything around her base, and mean, and sordid? She had understood thoroughly the quick divulgings of Mrs. Carbuncle's tidings, the working of her aunt's anxious mind. The man, now that he had been caught, was not to be allowed to escape. But how great would be the boon if he would escape. How should she escape? And yet she knew that she meant to go on and bear it all. Perhaps by study and due practice she might become,--as were some others,--a beast of prey, and nothing more. The feeling that had made these few minutes so inexpressibly loathsome to her might, perhaps, be driven from her heart. She washed the tears from her eyes with savage energy and descended to her lover with a veil fastened closely under her hat. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting," she said. "Women always do," he replied laughing. "It gives them importance." "It is not so with me, I can assure you. I will tell you the truth. I was agitated,--and I cried." "Oh, ay; I dare say." He rather liked the idea of having reduced the haughty Lucinda to tears. "But you needn't have been ashamed of my seeing it. As it is, I can see nothing. You must take that off presently." "Not now, Griffin." Oh, what a name it was! It seemed to blister her tongue as she used it without the usual prefix. "I never saw you tied up in that way before. You don't do it out hunting. I've seen you when the snow has been driving in your face, and you didn't mind it,--not so much as I did." "You can't be surprised that I should be agitated now." "But you're happy;--ain't you?" "Yes," she said. The lie once told must of course be continued. "Upon my word, I don't quite understand you," said Sir Griffin. "Look here, Lucinda; if you want to back out of it, you can, you know." "If you ask me again, I will." This was said with the old savage voice, and it at once reduced Sir Griffin to thraldom. To be rejected now would be the death of him. And should there come a quarrel he was sure that it would seem to be that he had been rejected. "I suppose it's all right," he said; "only when a man is only thinking how he can make you happy, he doesn't like to find nothing but crying." After this there was but little more said between them before they returned to the castle. CHAPTER XLIII Life at Portray On the Monday Frank took his departure. Everybody at the castle had liked him except Sir Griffin, who, when he had gone, remarked to Lucinda that he was an insufferable legal prig, and one of those chaps who think themselves somebody because they are in Parliament. Lucinda had liked Frank, and said so very boldly. "I see what it is," replied Sir Griffin; "you always like the people I don't." When he was going, Lizzie left her hand in his for a moment, and gave one look up into his eyes. "When is Lucy to be made blessed?" she asked. "I don't know that Lucy will ever be made blessed," he replied, "but I am sure I hope she will." Not a word more was said, and he returned to London. After that Mrs. Carbuncle and Lucinda remained at Portray Castle till after Christmas, greatly overstaying the original time fixed for their visit. Lord George and Sir Griffin went and returned, and went again and returned again. There was much hunting and a great many love passages, which need not be recorded here. More than once during these six or seven weeks there arose a quarrel, bitter, loud, and pronounced, between Sir Griffin and Lucinda; but Lord George and Mrs. Carbuncle between them managed to throw oil upon the waters, and when Christmas came the engagement was still an engagement. The absolute suggestion that it should be broken, and abandoned, and thrown to the winds, always came from Lucinda; and Sir Griffin, when he found that Lucinda was in earnest, would again be moved by his old desires, and would determine that he would have the thing he wanted. Once he behaved with such coarse brutality that nothing but an abject apology would serve the turn. He made the abject apology, and after that became conscious that his wings were clipped, and that he must do as he was bidden. Lord George took him away, and brought him back again, and blew him up;--and at last, under pressure from Mrs. Carbuncle, made him consent to the fixing of a day. The marriage was to take place during the first week in April. When the party moved from Portray, he was to go up to London and see his lawyer. Settlements were to be arranged, and something was to be fixed as to future residence. In the midst of all this Lucinda was passive as regarded the making of the arrangements, but very troublesome to those around her as to her immediate mode of life. Even to Lady Eustace she was curt and uncivil. To her aunt she was at times ferocious. She told Lord George more than once to his face that he was hurrying her to perdition. "What the d---- is it you want?" Lord George said to her. "Not to be married to this man." "But you have accepted him. I didn't ask you to take him. You don't want to go into a workhouse, I suppose?" Then she rode so hard that all the Ayrshire lairds were startled out of their propriety, and there was a general fear that she would meet some terrible accident. And Lizzie, instigated by jealousy, learned to ride as hard, and as they rode against each other every day, there was a turmoil in the hunt. Morgan, scratching his head, declared that he had known "drunken rampaging men," but had never seen ladies so wicked. Lizzie did come down rather badly at one wall, and Lucinda got herself jammed against a gate-post. But when Christmas was come and gone, and Portray Castle had been left empty, no very bad accident had occurred. A great friendship had sprung up between Mrs. Carbuncle and Lizzie, so that both had become very communicative. Whether both or either had been candid may, perhaps, be doubted. Mrs. Carbuncle had been quite confidential in discussing with her friend the dangerous varieties of Lucinda's humours, and the dreadful aversion which she still seemed to entertain for Sir Griffin. But then these humours and this aversion were so visible, that they could not well be concealed;--and what can be the use of confidential communications if things are kept back which the confidante would see even if they were not told? "She would be just like that whoever the man was," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "I suppose so," said Lizzie, wondering at such a phenomenon in female nature. But, with this fact understood between them to be a fact,--namely, that Lucinda would be sure to hate any man whom she might accept,--they both agreed that the marriage had better go on. "She must take a husband, some day, you know," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Of course," said Lizzie. "With her good looks, it would be out of the question that she shouldn't be married." "Quite out of the question," repeated Lizzie. "And I really don't see how she's to do better. It's her nature, you know. I have had enough of it, I can tell you. And at the pension, near Paris, they couldn't break her in at all. Nobody ever could break her in. You see it in the way she rides." "I suppose Sir Griffin must do it," said Lizzie laughing. "Well;--that, or the other thing, you know." But there was no doubt about this;--whoever might break or be broken, the marriage must go on. "If you don't persevere with one like her, Lady Eustace, nothing can be done." Lizzie quite concurred. What did it matter to her who should break, or who be broken, if she could only sail her own little bark without dashing it on the rocks? Rocks there were. She didn't quite know what to make of Lord George, who certainly was a Corsair,--who had said some very pretty things to her, quite à la Corsair. But in the meantime, from certain rumours that she heard, she believed that Frank had given up, or at least was intending to give up, the little chit who was living with Lady Linlithgow. There had been something of a quarrel,--so, at least, she had heard through Miss Macnulty, with whom Lady Linlithgow still occasionally corresponded in spite of their former breaches. From Frank, Lizzie heard repeatedly, but Frank in his letters never mentioned the name of Lucy Morris. Now, if there should be a division between Frank and Lucy, then, she thought, Frank would return to her. And if so, for a permanent holding rock of protection in the world, her cousin Frank would be at any rate safer than the Corsair. Lizzie and Mrs. Carbuncle had quite come to understand each other comfortably about money. It suited Mrs. Carbuncle very well to remain at Portray. It was no longer necessary that she should carry Lucinda about in search of game to be run down. The one head of game needed had been run down, such as it was,--not, indeed, a very noble stag; but the stag had been accepted; and a home for herself and her niece, which should have about it a sufficient air of fashion to satisfy public opinion,--out of London,--better still, in Scotland, belonging to a person with a title, enjoying the appurtenances of wealth, and one to which Lord George and Sir Griffin could have access,--was very desirable. But it was out of the question that Lady Eustace should bear all the expense. Mrs. Carbuncle undertook to find the stables, and did pay for that rick of hay and for the cart-load of forage which had made Lizzie's heart quake as she saw it dragged up the hill towards her own granaries. It is very comfortable when all these things are clearly understood. Early in January they were all to go back to London. Then for a while,--up to the period of Lucinda's marriage,--Lizzie was to be Mrs. Carbuncle's guest at the small house in Mayfair;--but Lizzie was to keep the carriage. There came at last to be some little attempt, perhaps, at a hard bargain at the hand of each lady, in which Mrs. Carbuncle, as the elder, probably got the advantage. There was a question about the liveries in London. The footman there must appertain to Mrs. Carbuncle, whereas the coachman would as necessarily be one of Lizzie's retainers. Mrs. Carbuncle assented at last to finding the double livery,--but, like a prudent woman, arranged to get her quid pro quo. "You can add something, you know, to the present you'll have to give Lucinda. Lucinda shall choose something up to forty pounds." "We'll say thirty," said Lizzie, who was beginning to know the value of money. "Split the difference," said Mrs. Carbuncle, with a pleasant little burst of laughter,--and the difference was split. That the very neat and even dandified appearance of the groom who rode out hunting with them should be provided at the expense of Mrs. Carbuncle was quite understood; but it was equally well understood that Lizzie was to provide the horse on which he rode, on every third day. It adds greatly to the comfort of friends living together when these things are accurately settled. Mr. Emilius remained longer than had been anticipated, and did not go till Lord George and Sir Griffin took their departure. It was observed that he never spoke of his wife; and yet Mrs. Carbuncle was almost sure that she had heard of such a lady. He had made himself very agreeable, and was, either by art or nature, a courteous man,--one who paid compliments to ladies. It was true, however, that he sometimes startled his hearers by things which might have been considered to border on coarseness if they had not been said by a clergyman. Lizzie had an idea that he intended to marry Miss Macnulty. And Miss Macnulty certainly received his attentions with pleasure. In these circumstances his prolonged stay at the castle was not questioned;--but when towards the end of November Lord George and Sir Griffin took their departure, he was obliged to return to his flock. On the great subject of the diamonds Lizzie had spoken her mind freely to Mrs. Carbuncle early in the days of their friendship,--immediately, that is, after the bargainings had been completed. "Ten thousand pounds!" ejaculated Mrs. Carbuncle, opening wide her eyes. Lizzie nodded her head thrice, in token of reiterated assurance. "Do you mean that you really know their value?" The ladies at this time were closeted together, and were discussing many things in the closest confidence. "They were valued for me by jewellers." "Ten thousand pounds! And Sir Florian gave them to you?" "Put them round my neck, and told me they were to be mine,--always." "Generous man!" "Ah, if you had but known him!" said Lizzie, just touching her eye with her handkerchief. "I daresay. And now the people claim them. I'm not a bit surprised at that, my dear. I should have thought a man couldn't give away so much as that,--not just as one makes a present that costs forty or fifty pounds." Mrs. Carbuncle could not resist the opportunity of showing that she did not think so very much of that coming thirty-five-pound "gift" for which the bargain had been made. "That's what they say. And they say ever so many other things besides. They mean to prove that it's an--heirloom." "Perhaps it is." "But it isn't. My cousin Frank, who knows more about law than any other man in London, says that they can't make a necklace an heirloom. If it was a brooch or a ring it would be different. I don't quite understand it, but it is so." "It's a pity Sir Florian didn't say something about it in his will," suggested Mrs. Carbuncle. "But he did;--at least, not just about the necklace." Then Lady Eustace explained the nature of her late husband's will, as far as it regarded chattels to be found in the Castle of Portray at the time of his death; and added the fiction, which had now become common to her, as to the necklace having been given to her in Scotland. "I shouldn't let them have it," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "I don't mean," said Lizzie. "I should--sell them," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "But why?" "Because there are so many accidents. A woman should be very rich indeed before she allows herself to walk about with ten thousand pounds upon her shoulders. Suppose somebody broke into the house and stole them. And if they were sold, my dear, so that some got to Paris, and others to St. Petersburg, and others to New York, they'd have to give it up then." Before the discussion was over, Lizzie tripped up-stairs and brought the necklace down, and put it on Mrs. Carbuncle's neck. "I shouldn't like to have such property in my house, my dear," continued Mrs. Carbuncle. "Of course, diamonds are very nice. Nothing is so nice. And if a person had a proper place to keep them, and all that--" "I've a very strong iron case," said Lizzie. "But they should be at the bank, or at the jewellers, or somewhere quite--quite safe. People might steal the case and all. If I were you, I should sell them." It was explained to Mrs. Carbuncle on that occasion that Lizzie had brought them down with her in the train from London, and that she intended to take them back in the same way. "There's nothing the thieves would find easier than to steal them on the way," said Mrs. Carbuncle. It was some days after this that there came down to her by post some terribly frightful documents, which were the first results, as far as she was concerned, of the filing of a bill in Chancery;--which hostile proceeding was, in truth, effected by the unaided energy of Mr. Camperdown, although Mr. Camperdown put himself forward simply as an instrument used by the trustees of the Eustace property. Within eight days she was to enter an appearance, or go through some preliminary ceremony towards showing why she should not surrender her diamonds to the Lord Chancellor, or to one of those satraps of his, the Vice-Chancellors, or to some other terrible myrmidon. Mr. Camperdown in his letter explained that the service of this document upon her in Scotland would amount to nothing,--even were he to send it down by a messenger; but that, no doubt, she would send it to her attorney, who would see the expedience of avoiding exposure by accepting the service. Of all which explanation Lizzie did not understand one word. Messrs. Camperdowns' letter and the document which it contained did frighten her considerably, although the matter had been discussed so often that she had accustomed herself to declare that no such bugbears as that should have any influence on her. She had asked Frank whether, in the event of such missiles reaching her, she might send them to him. He had told her that they should be at once placed in the hands of her attorney;--and consequently she now sent them to Messrs. Mowbray and Mopus, with a very short note from herself. "Lady Eustace presents her compliments to Messrs. Mowbray and Mopus, and encloses some papers she has received about her diamonds. They are her own diamonds, given to her by her late husband. Please do what is proper, but Mr. Camperdown ought to be made to pay all the expenses." She had, no doubt, allowed herself to hope that no further steps would be taken in the matter; and the very name of the Vice-Chancellor did for a few hours chill the blood at her heart. In those few hours she almost longed to throw the necklace into the sea, feeling sure that, if the diamonds were absolutely lost, there must be altogether an end of the matter. But, by degrees, her courage returned to her, as she remembered that her cousin had told her that, as far as he could see, the necklace was legally her own. Her cousin had, of course, been deceived by the lies which she had repeated to him; but lies which had been efficacious with him might be efficacious with others. Who could prove that Sir Florian had not taken the diamonds to Scotland, and given them to her there, in that very house which was now her own? She told Mrs. Carbuncle of the missiles which had been hurled at her from the London courts of law, and Mrs. Carbuncle evidently thought that the diamonds were as good as gone. "Then I suppose you can't sell them?" said she. "Yes, I could;--I could sell them to-morrow. What is to hinder me? Suppose I took them to jewellers in Paris?" "The jewellers would think you had stolen them." "I didn't steal them," said Lizzie; "they're my very own. Frank says that nobody can take them away from me. Why shouldn't a man give his wife a diamond necklace as well as a diamond ring? That's what I can't understand. What may he give her so that men sha'n't come and worry her life out of her in this way? As for an heirloom, anybody who knows anything, knows that it can't be an heirloom. A pot or a pan may be an heirloom;--but a diamond necklace cannot be an heirloom. Everybody knows that, that knows anything." "I daresay it will all come right," said Mrs. Carbuncle, who did not in the least believe Lizzie's law about the pot and pan. In the first week in January Lord George and Sir Griffin returned to the castle with the view of travelling up to London with the three ladies. This arrangement was partly thrown over by circumstances, as Sir Griffin was pleased to leave Portray two days before the others and to travel by himself. There was a bitter quarrel between Lucinda and her lover, and it was understood afterwards by Lady Eustace that Sir Griffin had had a few words with Lord George;--but what those few words were, she never quite knew. There was no open rupture between the two gentlemen, but Sir Griffin showed his displeasure to the ladies, who were more likely to bear patiently his ill-humour in the present circumstances than was Lord George. When a man has shown himself to be so far amenable to feminine authority as to have put himself in the way of matrimony, ladies will bear a great deal from him. There was nothing which Mrs. Carbuncle would not endure from Sir Griffin,--just at present; and, on behalf of Mrs. Carbuncle, even Lizzie was long-suffering. It cannot, however, be said that this Petruchio had as yet tamed his own peculiar shrew. Lucinda was as savage as ever, and would snap and snarl, and almost bite. Sir Griffin would snarl too, and say very bearish things. But when it came to the point of actual quarrelling, he would become sullen, and in his sullenness would yield. "I don't see why Carruthers should have it all his own way," he said, one hunting morning, to Lucinda. "I don't care twopence who have their way," said Lucinda, "I mean to have mine;--that's all." "I'm not speaking about you. I call it downright interference on his part. And I do think you give way to him. You never do anything that I suggest." "You never suggest anything that I like to do," said Lucinda. "That's a pity," said Sir Griffin, "considering that I shall have to suggest so many things that you will have to do." "I don't know that at all," said Lucinda. Mrs. Carbuncle came up during the quarrel, meaning to throw oil upon the waters. "What children you are!" she said laughing. "As if each of you won't have to do what the other suggests." "Mrs. Carbuncle," began Sir Griffin, "if you will have the great kindness not to endeavour to teach me what my conduct should be now or at any future time, I shall take it as a kindness." "Sir Griffin, pray don't quarrel with Mrs. Carbuncle," said Lizzie. "Lady Eustace, if Mrs. Carbuncle interferes with me, I shall quarrel with her. I have borne a great deal more of this kind of thing than I like. I'm not going to be told this and told that because Mrs. Carbuncle happens to be the aunt of the future Lady Tewett,--if it should come to that. I'm not going to marry a whole family; and the less I have of this kind of thing the more likely it is that I shall come up to scratch when the time is up." Then Lucinda rose and spoke. "Sir Griffin Tewett," she said, "there is not the slightest necessity that you should come up--'to scratch.' I wonder that I have not as yet been able to make you understand that if it will suit your convenience to break off our match, it will not in the least interfere with mine. And let me tell you this, Sir Griffin,--that any repetition of your unkindness to my aunt will make me utterly refuse to see you again." "Of course, you like her better than you do me." "A great deal better," said Lucinda. "If I stand that I'll be ----," said Sir Griffin, leaving the room. And he left the castle, sleeping that night at the inn at Kilmarnock. The day, however, was passed in hunting; and though he said nothing to either of the three ladies, it was understood by them as they returned to Portray that there was to be no quarrel. Lord George and Sir Griffin had discussed the matter, and Lord George took upon himself to say that there was no quarrel. On the morning but one following, there came a note from Sir Griffin to Lucinda,--just as they were leaving home for their journey up to London,--in which Sir Griffin expressed his regret if he had said anything displeasing to Mrs. Carbuncle. CHAPTER XLIV A Midnight Adventure Something as to the jewels had been told to Lord George;--and this was quite necessary, as Lord George intended to travel with the ladies from Portray to London. Of course, he had heard of the diamonds,--as who had not? He had heard too of Lord Fawn, and knew why it was that Lord Fawn had peremptorily refused to carry out his engagement. But, till he was told by Mrs. Carbuncle, he did not know that the diamonds were then kept within the castle, nor did he understand that it would be part of his duty to guard them on their way back to London. "They are worth ever so much; ain't they?" he said to Mrs. Carbuncle, when she first gave him the information. "Ten thousand pounds," said Mrs. Carbuncle, almost with awe. "I don't believe a word of it," said Lord George. "She says that they've been valued at that, since she's had them." Lord George owned to himself that such a necklace was worth having,--as also, no doubt, were Portray Castle and the income arising from the estate, even though they could be held in possession only for a single life. Hitherto in his very chequered career he had escaped the trammels of matrimony, and among his many modes of life had hardly even suggested to himself the expediency of taking a wife with a fortune, and then settling down for the future, if submissively, still comfortably. To say that he had never looked forward to such a marriage as a possible future arrangement would probably be incorrect. To men such as Lord George it is too easy a result of a career to be altogether banished from the mind. But no attempt had ever yet been made, nor had any special lady ever been so far honoured in his thoughts as to be connected in them with any vague ideas which he might have formed on the subject. But now it did occur to him that Portray Castle was a place in which he could pass two or three months annually without ennui; and that if he were to marry, little Lizzie Eustace would do as well as any other woman with money whom he might chance to meet. He did not say all this to anybody, and therefore cannot be accused of vanity. He was the last man in the world to speak on such a subject to any one. And as our Lizzie certainly bestowed upon him many of her smiles, much of her poetry, and some of her confidence, it cannot be said that he was not justified in his views. But then she was such "an infernal little liar." Lord George was quite able to discover so much of her. "She does lie, certainly," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "but then who doesn't?" On the morning of their departure the box with the diamonds was brought down into the hall just as they were about to depart. The tall London footman again brought it down, and deposited it on one of the oak hall-chairs, as though it were a thing so heavy that he could hardly stagger along with it. How Lizzie did hate the man as she watched him, and regret that she had not attempted to carry it down herself. She had been with her diamonds that morning, and had seen them out of the box and into it. Few days passed on which she did not handle them and gaze at them. Mrs. Carbuncle had suggested that the box, with all her diamonds in it, might be stolen from her,--and as she thought of this her heart almost sank within her. When she had them once again in London she would take some steps to relieve herself from this embarrassment of carrying about with her so great a burthen of care. The man, with a vehement show of exertion, deposited the box on a chair, and then groaned aloud. Lizzie knew very well that she could lift the box by her own unaided exertions, and that the groan was at any rate unnecessary. "Supposing somebody were to steal that on the way," said Lord George to her, not in his pleasantest tone. "Do not suggest anything so horrible," said Lizzie, trying to laugh. "I shouldn't like it at all," said Lord George. "I don't think it would make me a bit unhappy. You've heard about it all. There never was such a persecution. I often say that I should be well pleased to take the bauble and fling it into the ocean waves." "I should like to be a mermaid and catch it," said Lord George. "And what better would you be? Such things are all vanity and vexation of spirit. I hate the shining thing." And she hit the box with the whip she held in her hand. It had been arranged that the party should sleep at Carlisle. It consisted of Lord George, the three ladies, the tall man servant, Lord George's own man, and the two maids. Miss Macnulty, with the heir and the nurses, were to remain at Portray for yet a while longer. The iron box was again put into the carriage, and was used by Lizzie as a footstool. This might have been very well, had there been no necessity for changing their train. At Troon the porter behaved well, and did not struggle much as he carried it from the carriage on to the platform. But at Kilmarnock, where they met the train from Glasgow, the big footman interfered again, and the scene was performed under the eyes of a crowd of people. It seemed to Lizzie that Lord George almost encouraged the struggling, as though he were in league with the footman to annoy her. But there was no further change between Kilmarnock and Carlisle, and they managed to make themselves very comfortable. Lunch had been provided;--for Mrs. Carbuncle was a woman who cared for such things, and Lord George also liked a glass of champagne in the middle of the day. Lizzie professed to be perfectly indifferent on such matters; but nevertheless she enjoyed her lunch, and allowed Lord George to press upon her a second, and perhaps a portion of a third glass of wine. Even Lucinda was roused up from her general state of apathy, and permitted herself to forget Sir Griffin for a while. During this journey to Carlisle Lizzie Eustace almost made up her mind that Lord George was the very Corsair she had been expecting ever since she had mastered Lord Byron's great poem. He had a way of doing things and of saying things, of proclaiming himself to be master, and at the same time of making himself thoroughly agreeable to his dependants,--and especially to the one dependant whom he most honoured at the time,--which exactly suited Lizzie's ideas of what a man should be. And then he possessed that utter indifference to all conventions and laws, which is the great prerogative of Corsairs. He had no reverence for aught divine or human,--which is a great thing. The Queen and Parliament, the bench of bishops, and even the police, were to him just so many fungi and parasites, and noxious vapours, and false hypocrites. Such were the names by which he ventured to call these bugbears of the world. It was so delightful to live with a man who himself had a title of his own, but who could speak of dukes and marquises as being quite despicable by reason of their absurd position. And as they became gay and free after their luncheon he expressed almost as much contempt for honesty as for dukes, and showed clearly that he regarded matrimony and marquises to be equally vain and useless. "How dare you say such things in our hearing!" exclaimed Mrs. Carbuncle. "I assert that if men and women were really true, no vows would be needed;--and if no vows, then no marriage vows. Do you believe such vows are kept?" "Yes," said Mrs. Carbuncle enthusiastically. "I don't," said Lucinda. "Nor I," said the Corsair. "Who can believe that a woman will always love her husband because she swears she will? The oath is false on the face of it." "But women must marry," said Lizzie. The Corsair declared freely that he did not see any such necessity. And then, though it could hardly be said that this Corsair was a handsome man, still he had fine Corsair's eyes, full of expression and determination, eyes that could look love and bloodshed almost at the same time; and then he had those manly properties,--power, bigness, and apparent boldness,--which belong to a Corsair. To be hurried about the world by such a man, treated sometimes with crushing severity, and at others with the tenderest love, not to be spoken to for one fortnight, and then to be embraced perpetually for another, to be cast every now and then into some abyss of despair by his rashness, and then raised to a pinnacle of human joy by his courage,--that, thought Lizzie, would be the kind of life which would suit her poetical temperament. But then, how would it be with her, if the Corsair were to take to hurrying about the world without carrying her with him;--and were to do so always at her expense! Perhaps he might hurry about the world and take somebody else with him. Medora, if Lizzie remembered rightly, had had no jointure or private fortune. But yet a woman must risk something if the spirit of poetry is to be allowed any play at all! "And now these weary diamonds again," said Lord George, as the carriage was stopped against the Carlisle platform. "I suppose they must go into your bedroom, Lady Eustace?" "I wish you'd let the man put the box in yours;--just for this night," said Lizzie. "No;--not if I know it," said Lord George. And then he explained. Such property would be quite as liable to be stolen when in his custody as it would in hers;--but if stolen while in his would entail upon him a grievous vexation which would by no means lessen the effect of her loss. She did not understand him, but finding that he was quite in earnest she directed that the box should be again taken to her own chamber. Lord George suggested that it should be entrusted to the landlord; and for a moment or two Lizzie submitted to the idea. But she stood for that moment thinking of it, and then decided that the box should go to her own room. "There's no knowing what that Mr. Camperdown mightn't do," she whispered to Lord George. The porter and the tall footman, between them, staggered along under their load, and the iron box was again deposited in the bedroom of the Carlisle inn. The evening at Carlisle was spent very pleasantly. The ladies agreed that they would not dress,--but of course they did so with more or less of care. Lizzie made herself to look very pretty, though the skirt of the gown in which she came down was that which she had worn during the journey. Pointing this out with much triumph, she accused Mrs. Carbuncle and Lucinda of great treachery, in that they had not adhered to any vestige of their travelling raiment. But the rancour was not vehement, and the evening was passed pleasantly. Lord George was infinitely petted by the three Houris around him, and Lizzie called him a Corsair to his face. "And you are the Medora," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Oh no. That is your place,--certainly," said Lizzie. "What a pity Sir Griffin isn't here," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "that we might call him the Giaour." Lucinda shuddered, without any attempt at concealing her shudder. "That's all very well, Lucinda, but I think Sir Griffin would make a very good Giaour." "Pray don't, aunt. Let one forget it all just for a moment." "I wonder what Sir Griffin would say if he was to hear this!" said Lord George. Late in the evening Lord George strolled out, and of course the ladies discussed his character in his absence. Mrs. Carbuncle declared that he was the soul of honour. In regard to her own feeling for him, she averred that no woman had ever had a truer friend. Any other sentiment was of course out of the question,--for was she not a married woman? Had it not been for that accident, Mrs. Carbuncle really thought that she could have given her heart to Lord George. Lucinda declared that she always regarded him as a kind of supplementary father. "I suppose he is a year or two older than Sir Griffin," said Lizzie. "Lady Eustace, why should you make me unhappy?" said Lucinda. Then Mrs. Carbuncle explained, that whereas Sir Griffin was not yet thirty, Lord George was over forty. "All I can say is, he doesn't look it," urged Lady Eustace enthusiastically. "Those sort of men never do," said Mrs. Carbuncle. Lord George, when he returned, was greeted with an allusion to angels' wings,--and would have been a good deal spoilt among them were it in the nature of such an article to receive injury. As soon as the clock had struck ten the ladies all went away to their beds. Lizzie, when she was in her own room, of course found her maid waiting for her. It was necessarily part of the religion of such a woman as Lizzie Eustace that she could not go to bed, or change her clothes, or get up in the morning, without the assistance of her own young woman. She would not like to have it thought that she could stick a pin into her own belongings without such assistance. Nevertheless it was often the case with her, that she was anxious to get rid of her girl's attendance. It had been so on this morning, and before dinner, and was so now again. She was secret in her movements, and always had some recess in her boxes and bags and dressing apparatuses to which she did not choose that Miss Patience Crabstick should have access. She was careful about her letters, and very careful about her money. And then as to that iron box in which the diamonds were kept! Patience Crabstick had never yet seen the inside of it. Moreover, it may be said,--either on Lizzie's behalf or to her discredit, as the reader may be pleased to take it,--that she was quite able to dress herself, to brush her own hair, to take off her own clothes; and that she was not, either by nature or education, an incapable young woman. But that honour and glory demanded it, she would almost as lief have had no Patience Crabstick to pry into her most private matters. All which Crabstick knew, and would often declare her missus to be "of all missuses the most slyest and least come-at-able." On this present night she was very soon despatched to her own chamber. Lizzie, however, took one careful look at the iron box before the girl was sent away. Crabstick, on this occasion, had not far to go to seek her own couch. Alongside of Lizzie's larger chamber there was a small room,--a dressing-room with a bed in it, which, for this night, was devoted to Crabstick's accommodation. Of course, she departed from attendance on her mistress by the door which opened from the one room to the other; but this had no sooner been closed than Crabstick descended to complete the amusements of the evening. Lizzie, when she was alone, bolted both the doors on the inside, and then quickly retired to rest. Some short prayer she said, with her knees close to the iron box. Then she put certain articles of property under her pillow,--her watch and chain, and the rings from her fingers, and a packet which she had drawn from her travelling-desk,--and was soon in bed, thinking that, as she fell away to sleep, she would revolve in her mind that question of the Corsair;--would it be good to trust herself and all her belongings to one who might perhaps take her belongings away, but leave herself behind? The subject was not unpleasant, and while she was considering it, she fell asleep. It was, perhaps, about two in the morning when a man, very efficient at the trade which he was then following, knelt outside Lady Eustace's door, and, with a delicately-made saw, aided, probably, by some other equally well-finished tools, absolutely cut out that portion of the bedroom door on which the bolt was fastened. He must have known the spot exactly, for he did not doubt a moment as he commenced his work; and yet there was nothing on the exterior of the door to show where the bolt was placed. The bit was cut out without the slightest noise, and then, when the door was opened, was placed, just inside, upon the floor. The man then with perfectly noiseless step entered the room, knelt again,--just where poor Lizzie had knelt as she said her prayers,--so that he might the more easily raise the iron box without a struggle, and left the room with it in his arms without disturbing the lovely sleeper. He then descended the stairs, passed into the coffee-room at the bottom of them, and handed the box through an open window to a man who was crouching on the outside in the dark. He then followed the box, pulled down the window, put on a pair of boots which his friend had ready for him; and the two, after lingering a few moments in the shade of the dark wall, retreated with their prize round a corner. The night itself was almost pitch-dark, and very wet. It was as nearly black with darkness as a night can be. So far, the enterprising adventurers had been successful, and we will now leave them in their chosen retreat, engaged on the longer operation of forcing open the iron safe. For it had been arranged between them that the iron safe should be opened then and there. Though the weight to him who had taken it out of Lizzie's room had not been oppressive, as it had oppressed the tall serving-man, it might still have been an encumbrance to gentlemen intending to travel by railway with as little observation as possible. They were, however, well supplied with tools, and we will leave them at their work. On the next morning Lizzie was awakened earlier than she had expected, and found, not only Patience Crabstick in her bedroom, but also a chambermaid, and the wife of the manager of the hotel. The story was soon told to her. Her room had been broken open, and her treasure was gone. The party had intended to breakfast at their leisure, and proceed to London by a train leaving Carlisle in the middle of the day; but they were soon disturbed from their rest. Lady Eustace had hardly time to get her slippers on her feet, and to wrap herself in her dressing-gown, to get rid of her dishevelled nightcap, and make herself just fit for public view, before the manager of the hotel, and Lord George, and the tall footman, and the boots were in her bedroom. It was too plainly manifest to them all that the diamonds were gone. The superintendent of the Carlisle police was there almost as soon as the others;--and following him very quickly came the important gentleman who was the head of the constabulary of the county. Lizzie, when she first heard the news, was awe-struck, rather than outwardly demonstrative of grief. "There has been a regular plot," said Lord George. Captain Fitzmaurice, the gallant chief, nodded his head. "Plot enough," said the superintendent,--who did not mean to confide his thoughts to any man, or to exempt any human being from his suspicion. The manager of the hotel was very angry, and at first did not restrain his anger. Did not everybody know that if articles of value were brought into an hotel they should be handed over to the safe-keeping of the manager? He almost seemed to think that Lizzie had stolen her own box of diamonds. "My dear fellow," said Lord George, "nobody is saying a word against you, or your house." "No, my lord;--but--" "Lady Eustace is not blaming you, and do not you blame anybody else," said Lord George. "Let the police do what is right." At last the men retreated, and Lizzie was left with Patience and Mrs. Carbuncle. But even then she did not give way to her grief, but sat upon the bed awe-struck and mute. "Perhaps I had better get dressed," she said at last. "I feared how it might be," said Mrs. Carbuncle, holding Lizzie's hand affectionately. "Yes;--you said so." "The prize was so great." "I always was a-telling my lady--" began Crabstick. "Hold your tongue!" said Lizzie angrily. "I suppose the police will do the best they can, Mrs. Carbuncle?" "Oh yes;--and so will Lord George." "I think I'll lie down again for a little while," said Lizzie. "I feel so sick I hardly know what to do. If I were to lie down for a little I should be better." With much difficulty she got them to leave her. Then, before she again undressed herself, she bolted the door that still had a bolt, and turned the lock in the other. Having done this, she took out from under her pillow the little parcel which had been in her desk,--and, untying it, perceived that her dear diamond necklace was perfect, and quite safe. The enterprising adventurers had, indeed, stolen the iron case, but they had stolen nothing else. The reader must not suppose that because Lizzie had preserved her jewels, she was therefore a consenting party to the abstraction of the box. The theft had been a genuine theft, planned with great skill, carried out with much ingenuity, one in the perpetration of which money had been spent,--a theft which for a while baffled the police of England, and which was supposed to be very creditable to those who had been engaged in it. But the box, and nothing but the box, had fallen into the hands of the thieves. Lizzie's silence when the abstraction of the box was made known to her,--her silence as to the fact that the necklace was at that moment within the grasp of her own fingers,--was not at first the effect of deliberate fraud. She was ashamed to tell them that she brought the box empty from Portray, having the diamonds in her own keeping because she had feared that the box might be stolen. And then it occurred to her, quick as thought could flash, that it might be well that Mr. Camperdown should be made to believe that they had been stolen. And so she kept her secret. The reflections of the next half-hour told her how very great would now be her difficulties. But, as she had not disclosed the truth at first, she could hardly disclose it now. CHAPTER XLV The Journey to London When we left Lady Eustace alone in her bedroom at the Carlisle hotel after the discovery of the robbery, she had very many cares upon her mind. The necklace was, indeed, safe under her pillow in the bed; but when all the people were around her,--her own friends, and the police, and they who were concerned with the inn,--she had not told them that it was so, but had allowed them to leave her with the belief that the diamonds had gone with the box. Even at this moment, as she knew well, steps were being taken to discover the thieves, and to make public the circumstances of the robbery. Already, no doubt, the fact that her chamber had been entered in the night, and her jewel-box withdrawn, was known to the London police officers. In such circumstances how could she now tell the truth? But it might be that already had the thieves been taken. In that case would not the truth be known, even though she should not tell it? Then she thought for a while that she would get rid of the diamonds altogether, so that no one should know aught of them. If she could only think of a place fit for such purpose she would so hide them that no human ingenuity could discover them. Let the thieves say what they might, her word would, in such case, be better than that of the thieves. She would declare that the jewels had been in the box when the box was taken. The thieves would swear that the box had been empty. She would appeal to the absence of the diamonds, and the thieves,--who would be known as thieves,--would be supposed, even by their own friends and associates, to have disposed of the diamonds before they had been taken. There would be a mystery in all this, and a cunning cleverness, the idea of which had in itself a certain charm for Lizzie Eustace. She would have all the world at a loss. Mr. Camperdown could do nothing further to harass her; and would have been, so far, overcome. She would be saved from the feeling of public defeat in the affair of the necklace, which would be very dreadful to her. Lord Fawn might probably be again at her feet. And in all the fuss and rumour which such an affair would make in London, there would be nothing of which she need be ashamed. She liked the idea, and she had grown to be very sick of the necklace. But what should she do with it? It was, at this moment, between her fingers beneath the pillow. If she were minded,--and she thought she was so minded,--to get rid of it altogether, the sea would be the place. Could she make up her mind absolutely to destroy so large a property, it would be best for her to have recourse to "her own broad waves," as she called them even to herself. It was within the "friendly depths of her own rock-girt ocean" that she should find a grave for her great trouble. But now her back was to the sea, and she could hardly insist on returning to Portray without exciting a suspicion that might be fatal to her. And then might it not be possible to get altogether quit of the diamonds and yet to retain the power of future possession? She knew that she was running into debt, and that money would, some day, be much needed. Her acquaintance with Mr. Benjamin, the jeweller, was a fact often present to her mind. She might not be able to get ten thousand pounds from Mr. Benjamin;--but if she could get eight, or six, or even five, how pleasant would it be! If she could put away the diamonds for three or four years,--if she could so hide them that no human eyes could see them till she should again produce them to the light,--surely, after so long an interval, they might be made available! But where should be found such hiding-place? She understood well how great was the peril while the necklace was in her own immediate keeping. Any accident might discover it, and if the slightest suspicion were aroused, the police would come upon her with violence and discover it. But surely there must be some such hiding-place,--if only she could think of it! Then her mind reverted to all the stories she had ever heard of mysterious villanies. There must be some way of accomplishing this thing, if she could only bring her mind to work upon it exclusively. A hole dug deep into the ground;--would not that be the place? But then, where should the hole be dug? In what spot should she trust the earth? If anywhere, it must be at Portray. But now she was going from Portray to London. It seemed to her to be certain that she could dig no hole in London that would be secret to herself. Nor could she trust herself, during the hour or two that remained to her, to find such a hole in Carlisle. What she wanted was a friend;--some one that she could trust. But she had no such friend. She could not dare to give the jewels up to Lord George. So tempted, would not any Corsair appropriate the treasure? And if, as might be possible, she were mistaken about him and he was no Corsair, then would he betray her to the police? She thought of all her dearest friends,--Frank Greystock, Mrs. Carbuncle, Lucinda, Miss Macnulty,--even of Patience Crabstick,--but there was no friend whom she could trust. Whatever she did she must do alone! She began to fear that the load of thought required would be more than she could bear. One thing, however, was certain to her;--she could not now venture to tell them all that the necklace was in her possession, and that the stolen box had been empty. Thinking of all this, she went to sleep,--still holding the packet tight between her fingers,--and in this position was awakened at about ten by a knock at the door from her friend Mrs. Carbuncle. Lizzie jumped out of bed, and admitted her friend, admitting also Patience Crabstick. "You had better get up now, dear," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "We are all going to breakfast." Lizzie declared herself to be so fluttered, that she must have her breakfast up-stairs. No one was to wait for her. Crabstick would go down and fetch for her a cup of tea,--and just a morsel of something to eat. "You can't be surprised that I shouldn't be quite myself," said Lizzie. Mrs. Carbuncle's surprise did not run at all in that direction. Both Mrs. Carbuncle and Lord George had been astonished to find how well she bore her loss. Lord George gave her credit for real bravery. Mrs. Carbuncle suggested, in a whisper, that perhaps she regarded the theft as an easy way out of a lawsuit. "I suppose you know, George, they would have got it from her." Then Lord George whistled, and, in another whisper, declared that, if the little adventure had all been arranged by Lady Eustace herself with the view of getting the better of Mr. Camperdown, his respect for that lady would be very greatly raised. "If," said Lord George, "it turns out that she has had a couple of bravos in her pay, like an old Italian marquis, I shall think very highly of her indeed." This had occurred before Mrs. Carbuncle came up to Lizzie's room;--but neither of them for a moment suspected that the necklace was still within the hotel. The box had been found, and a portion of the fragments were brought into the room while the party were still at breakfast. Lizzie was not in the room, but the news was at once taken up to her by Crabstick, together with a pheasant's wing and some buttered toast. In a recess beneath an archway running under the railroad, not distant from the hotel above a hundred and fifty yards, the iron box had been found. It had been forced open, so said the sergeant of police, with tools of the finest steel, peculiarly made for such purpose. The sergeant of police was quite sure that the thing had been done by London men who were at the very top of their trade. It was manifest that nothing had been spared. Every motion of the party must have been known to them, and probably one of the adventurers had travelled in the same train with them. And the very doors of the bedroom in the hotel had been measured by the man who had cut out the bolt. The sergeant of police was almost lost in admiration;--but the superintendent of police, whom Lord George saw more than once, was discreet and silent. To the superintendent of police it was by no means sure that Lord George himself might not be fond of diamonds. Of a suspicion flying so delightfully high as this, he breathed no word to any one; but simply suggested that he should like to retain the companionship of one of the party. If Lady Eustace could dispense with the services of the tall footman, the tall footman might be found useful at Carlisle. It was arranged, therefore, that the tall footman should remain;--and the tall footman did remain, though not with his own consent. The whole party, including Lady Eustace herself and Patience Crabstick, were called upon to give their evidence to the Carlisle magistrates before they could proceed to London. This Lizzie did, having the necklace at that moment locked up in her desk at the inn. The diamonds were supposed to be worth ten thousand pounds. There was to be a lawsuit about them. She did not for a moment doubt that they were her property. She had been very careful about the diamonds because of the lawsuit. Fearing that Mr. Camperdown might wrest them from her possession, she had caused the iron box to be made. She had last seen the diamonds on the evening before her departure from Portray. She had then herself locked them up, and she now produced the key. The lock was still so far uninjured that the key would turn it. That was her evidence. Crabstick, with a good deal of reticence, supported her mistress. She had seen the diamonds, no doubt, but had not seen them often. She had seen them down at Portray, but not for ever so long. Crabstick had very little to say about them; but the clever superintendent was by no means sure that Crabstick did not know more than she said. Mrs. Carbuncle and Lord George had also seen the diamonds at Portray. There was no doubt whatever as to the diamonds having been in the iron box;--nor was there, said Lord George, any doubt but that this special necklace had acquired so much public notice from the fact of the threatened lawsuit, as might make its circumstances and value known to London thieves. The tall footman was not examined, but was detained by the police under a remand given by the magistrates. Much information as to what had been done oozed out in spite of the precautions of the discreet superintendent. The wires had been put into operation in every direction, and it had been discovered that one man whom nobody knew had left the down mail train at Annan, and another at Dumfries. These men had taken tickets by the train leaving Carlisle between four and five a.m., and were supposed to have been the two thieves. It had been nearly seven before the theft had been discovered, and by that time not only had the men reached the towns named, but had had time to make their way back again or farther on into Scotland. At any rate, for the present, all trace of them was lost. The sergeant of police did not doubt but that one of these men was making his way up to London with the necklace in his pocket. This was told to Lizzie by Lord George; and though she was awe-struck by the danger of her situation, she nevertheless did feel some satisfaction in remembering that she and she only held the key of the mystery. And then as to those poor thieves! What must have been their consternation when they found, after all the labour and perils of the night, that the box contained no diamonds,--that the treasure was not there, and that they were nevertheless bound to save themselves by flight and stratagem from the hands of the police! Lizzie, as she thought of this, almost pitied the poor thieves. What a consternation there would be among the Camperdowns and Garnetts, among the Mopuses and Benjamins, when the news was heard in London! Lizzie almost enjoyed it. As her mind went on making fresh schemes on the subject, a morbid desire of increasing the mystery took possession of her. She was quite sure that nobody knew her secret, and that nobody as yet could even guess it. There was great danger, but there might be delight and even profit if she could safely dispose of the jewels before suspicion against herself should be aroused. She could understand that a rumour should get to the police that the box had been empty, even if the thieves were not taken;--but such rumour would avail nothing if she could only dispose of the diamonds. As she first thought of all this, the only plan hitherto suggested to herself would require her immediate return to Portray. If she were at Portray she could find a spot in which she could bury the necklace. But she was obliged to allow herself now to be hurried up to London. When she got into the train the little parcel was in her desk, and the key of her desk was fastened round her neck. They had secured a compartment for themselves from Carlisle to London, and of course filled four seats. "As I am alive," said Lord George as soon as the train had left the station, "that head policeman thinks that I am the thief!" Mrs. Carbuncle laughed. Lizzie protested that this was absurd. Lucinda declared that such a suspicion would be vastly amusing. "It's a fact," continued Lord George. "I can see it in the fellow's eye, and I feel it to be a compliment. They are so very 'cute that they delight in suspicions. I remember, when the altar-plate was stolen from Barchester Cathedral some years ago, a splendid idea occurred to one of the police, that the Bishop had taken it!" "Really?" asked Lizzie. "Oh, yes;--really. I don't doubt but that there is already a belief in some of their minds that you have stolen your own diamonds for the sake of getting the better of Mr. Camperdown." "But what could I do with them if I had?" asked Lizzie. "Sell them, of course. There is always a market for such goods." "But who would buy them?" "If you have been so clever, Lady Eustace, I'll find a purchaser for them. One would have to go a good distance to do it,--and there would be some expense. But the thing could be done. Vienna, I should think, would be about the place." "Very well, then," said Lizzie. "You won't be surprised if I ask you to take the journey for me." Then they all laughed, and were very much amused. It was quite agreed among them that Lizzie bore her loss very well. "I shouldn't care the least for losing them," said Lizzie,--"only that Florian gave them to me. They have been such a vexation to me that to be without them will be a comfort." Her desk had been brought into the carriage and was now used as a foot-stool in place of the box which was gone. They arrived at Mrs. Carbuncle's house in Hertford Street quite late, between ten and eleven;--but a note had been sent from Lizzie to her cousin Frank's address from the Euston Square station by a commissionaire. Indeed, two notes were sent,--one to the House of Commons, and the other to the Grosvenor Hotel. "My necklace has been stolen. Come to me early to-morrow at Mrs. Carbuncle's house, No. --, Hertford Street." And he did come,--before Lizzie was up. Crabstick brought her mistress word that Mr. Greystock was in the parlour soon after nine o'clock. Lizzie again hurried on her clothes so that she might see her cousin, taking care as she did so that though her toilet might betray haste, it should not be other than charming. And as she dressed she endeavoured to come to some conclusion. Would it not be best for her that she should tell everything to her cousin, and throw herself upon his mercy, trusting to his ingenuity to extricate her from her difficulties? She had been thinking of her position almost through the entire night, and had remembered that at Carlisle she had committed perjury. She had sworn that the diamonds had been left by her in the box. And should they be found with her it might be that they would put her in gaol for stealing them. Little mercy could she expect from Mr. Camperdown should she fall into that gentleman's hands! But Frank, if she would even yet tell him everything honestly, might probably save her. "What is this about the diamonds?" he asked as soon as he saw her. She had flown almost into his arms as though carried there by the excitement of the moment. "You don't really mean that they have been stolen?" "I do, Frank." "On the journey?" "Yes, Frank;--at the inn at Carlisle." "Box and all?" Then she told him the whole story;--not the true story, but the story as it was believed by all the world. She found it to be impossible to tell him the true story. "And the box was broken open, and left in the street?" "Under an archway," said Lizzie. "And what do the police think?" "I don't know what they think. Lord George says that they believe he is the thief." "He knew of them," said Frank, as though he imagined that the suggestion was not altogether absurd. "Oh, yes;--he knew of them." "And what is to be done?" "I don't know. I've sent for you to tell me." Then Frank averred that information should be immediately given to Mr. Camperdown. He would himself call on Mr. Camperdown, and would also see the head of the London police. He did not doubt but that all the circumstances were already known in London at the police office;--but it might be well that he should see the officer. He was acquainted with the gentleman, and might perhaps learn something. Lizzie at once acceded, and Frank went direct to Mr. Camperdown's offices. "If I had lost ten thousand pounds in that way," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "I think I should have broken my heart." Lizzie felt that her heart was bursting rather than being broken, because the ten thousand pounds' worth of diamonds was not really lost. CHAPTER XLVI Lucy Morris in Brook Street Lucy Morris went to Lady Linlithgow early in October, and was still with Lady Linlithgow when Lizzie Eustace returned to London in January. During these three months she certainly had not been happy. In the first place, she had not once seen her lover. This had aroused no anger or suspicion in her bosom against him, because the old countess had told her that she would have no lover come to the house, and that, above all, she would not allow a young man with whom she herself was connected to come in that guise to her companion. "From all I hear," said Lady Linlithgow, "it's not at all likely to be a match;--and at any rate it can't go on here." Lucy thought that she would be doing no more than standing up properly for her lover by asserting her conviction that it would be a match;--and she did assert it bravely; but she made no petition for his presence, and bore that trouble bravely. In the next place, Frank was not a satisfactory correspondent. He did write to her occasionally;--and he wrote also to the old countess immediately on his return to town from Bobsborough a letter which was intended as an answer to that which she had written to Mrs. Greystock. What was said in that letter Lucy never knew;--but she did know that Frank's few letters to herself were not full and hearty,--were not such thorough-going love-letters as lovers write to each other when they feel unlimited satisfaction in the work. She excused him,--telling herself that he was overworked, that with his double trade of legislator and lawyer he could hardly be expected to write letters,--that men, in respect of letter-writing, are not as women are, and the like; but still there grew at her heart a little weed of care, which from week to week spread its noxious, heavy-scented leaves, and robbed her of her joyousness. To be loved by her lover, and to feel that she was his,--to have a lover of her own to whom she could thoroughly devote herself,--to be conscious that she was one of those happy women in the world who find a mate worthy of worship as well as love,--this to her was so great a joy that even the sadness of her present position could not utterly depress her. From day to day she assured herself that she did not doubt and would not doubt,--that there was no cause for doubt;--that she would herself be base were she to admit any shadow of suspicion. But yet his absence,--and the shortness of those little notes, which came perhaps once a fortnight, did tell upon her in opposition to her own convictions. Each note as it came was answered,--instantly; but she would not write except when the notes came. She would not seem to reproach him by writing oftener than he wrote. When he had given her so much, and she had nothing but her confidence to give in return, would she stint him in that? There can be no love, she said, without confidence, and it was the pride of her heart to love him. The circumstances of her present life were desperately weary to her. She could hardly understand why it was that Lady Linlithgow should desire her presence. She was required to do nothing. She had no duties to perform, and, as it seemed to her, was of no use to any one. The countess would not even allow her to be of ordinary service in the house. Lady Linlithgow, as she had said of herself, poked her own fires, carved her own meat, lit her own candles, opened and shut the doors for herself, wrote her own letters,--and did not even like to have books read to her. She simply chose to have some one sitting with her to whom she could speak and make little cross-grained, sarcastic, and ill-natured remarks. There was no company at the house in Brook Street, and when the countess herself went out, she went out alone. Even when she had a cab to go shopping, or to make calls, she rarely asked Lucy to go with her,--and was benevolent chiefly in this,--that if Lucy chose to walk round the square, or as far as the park, her ladyship's maid was allowed to accompany her for protection. Poor Lucy often told herself that such a life would be unbearable,--were it not for the supreme satisfaction she had in remembering her lover. And then the arrangement had been made only for six months. She did not feel quite assured of her fate at the end of those six months, but she believed that there would come to her a residence in a sort of outer garden to that sweet Elysium in which she was to pass her life. The Elysium would be Frank's house; and the outer garden was the deanery at Bobsborough. Twice during the three months Lady Fawn, with two of the girls, came to call upon her. On the first occasion she was unluckily out, taking advantage of the protection of her ladyship's maid in getting a little air. Lady Linlithgow had also been away, and Lady Fawn had seen no one. Afterwards, both Lucy and her ladyship were found at home, and Lady Fawn was full of graciousness and affection. "I daresay you've got something to say to each other," said Lady Linlithgow, "and I'll go away." "Pray don't let us disturb you," said Lady Fawn. "You'd only abuse me if I didn't," said Lady Linlithgow. As soon as she was gone Lucy rushed into her friend's arms. "It is so nice to see you again." "Yes, my dear, isn't it? I did come before, you know." "You have been so good to me! To see you again is like the violets and primroses." She was crouching close to Lady Fawn, with her hand in that of her friend Lydia. "I haven't a word to say against Lady Linlithgow, but it is like winter here, after dear Richmond." "Well;--we think we're prettier at Richmond," said Lady Fawn. "There were such hundreds of things to do there," said Lucy. "After all, what a comfort it is to have things to do." "Why did you come away?" said Lydia. "Oh, I was obliged. You mustn't scold me now that you have come to see me." There were a hundred things to be said about Fawn Court and the children, and a hundred more things about Lady Linlithgow and Bruton Street. Then, at last, Lady Fawn asked the one important question. "And now, my dear, what about Mr. Greystock?" "Oh,--I don't know;--nothing particular, Lady Fawn. It's just as it was, and I am--quite satisfied." "You see him sometimes?" "No, never. I have not seen him since the last time he came down to Richmond. Lady Linlithgow doesn't allow--followers." There was a pleasant little spark of laughter in Lucy's eye as she said this, which would have told to any bystander the whole story of the affection which existed between her and Lady Fawn. "That's very ill-natured," said Lydia. "And he's a sort of cousin, too," said Lady Fawn. "That's just the reason why," said Lucy, explaining. "Of course, Lady Linlithgow thinks that her sister's nephew can do better than marry her companion. It's a matter of course she should think so. What I am most afraid of is that the dean and Mrs. Greystock should think so too." No doubt the dean and Mrs. Greystock would think so;--Lady Fawn was very sure of that. Lady Fawn was one of the best women breathing,--unselfish, motherly, affectionate, appreciative, and never happy unless she was doing good to somebody. It was her nature to be soft, and kind, and beneficent. But she knew very well that if she had had a son,--a second son,--situated as was Frank Greystock, she would not wish him to marry a girl without a penny, who was forced to earn her bread by being a governess. The sacrifice on Mr. Greystock's part would, in her estimation, be so great, that she did not believe that it would be made. Woman-like, she regarded the man as being so much more important than the woman, that she could not think that Frank Greystock would devote himself simply to such a one as Lucy Morris. Had Lady Fawn been asked which was the better creature of the two, her late governess or the rising barrister who had declared himself to be that governess's lover, she would have said that no man could be better than Lucy. She knew Lucy's worth and goodness so well that she was ready herself to do any act of friendship on behalf of one so sweet and excellent. For herself and her girls Lucy was a companion and friend in every way satisfactory. But was it probable that a man of the world, such as was Frank Greystock, a rising man, a member of Parliament, one who, as everybody knew, was especially in want of money,--was it probable that such a man as this would make her his wife just because she was good, and worthy, and sweet-natured? No doubt the man had said that he would do so,--and Lady Fawn's fears betrayed on her ladyship's part a very bad opinion of men in general. It may seem to be a paradox to assert that such bad opinion sprung from the high idea which she entertained of the importance of men in general;--but it was so. She had but one son, and of all her children he was the least worthy; but he was more important to her than all her daughters. Between her own girls and Lucy she hardly made any difference;--but when her son had chosen to quarrel with Lucy it had been necessary to send Lucy to eat her meals up-stairs. She could not believe that Mr. Greystock should think so much of such a little girl as to marry her. Mr. Greystock would no doubt behave very badly in not doing so;--but then men do so often behave very badly! And at the bottom of her heart she almost thought that they might be excused for doing so. According to her view of things, a man out in the world had so many things to think of, and was so very important, that he could hardly be expected to act at all times with truth and sincerity. Lucy had suggested that the dean and Mrs. Greystock would dislike the marriage, and upon that hint Lady Fawn spoke. "Nothing is settled, I suppose, as to where you are to go when the six months are over?" "Nothing as yet, Lady Fawn." "They haven't asked you to go to Bobsborough?" Lucy would have given the world not to blush as she answered, but she did blush. "Nothing is fixed, Lady Fawn." "Something should be fixed, Lucy. It should be settled by this time;--shouldn't it, dear? What will you do without a home, if at the end of the six months Lady Linlithgow should say that she doesn't want you any more?" Lucy certainly did not look forward to a condition in which Lady Linlithgow should be the arbitress of her destiny. The idea of staying with the countess was almost as bad to her as that of finding herself altogether homeless. She was still blushing, feeling herself to be hot and embarrassed. But Lady Fawn sat, waiting for an answer. To Lucy there was only one answer possible. "I will ask Mr. Greystock what I am to do." Lady Fawn shook her head. "You don't believe in Mr. Greystock, Lady Fawn; but I do." "My darling girl," said her ladyship, making the special speech for the sake of making which she had travelled up from Richmond,--"it is not exactly a question of belief, but one of common prudence. No girl should allow herself to depend on a man before she is married to him. By doing so she will be apt to lose even his respect." "I didn't mean for money," said Lucy, hotter than ever, with her eyes full of tears. "She should not be in any respect at his disposal till he has bound himself to her at the altar. You may believe me, Lucy, when I tell you so. It is only because I love you so that I say so." "I know that, Lady Fawn." "When your time here is over, just put up your things and come back to Richmond. You need fear nothing with us. Frederic quite liked your way of parting with him at last, and all that little affair is forgotten. At Fawn Court you'll be safe;--and you shall be happy, too, if we can make you happy. It's the proper place for you." "Of course you'll come," said Diana Fawn. "You'll be the worst little thing in the world if you don't," said Lydia. "We don't know what to do without you. Do we, mamma?" "Lucy will please us all by coming back to her old home," said Lady Fawn. The tears were now streaming down Lucy's face, so that she was hardly able to say a word in answer to all this kindness. And she did not know what word to say. Were she to accept the offer made to her, and acknowledge that she could do nothing better than creep back under her old friend's wing,--would she not thereby be showing that she doubted her lover? And yet she could not go to the dean's house unless the dean and his wife were pleased to take her; and, suspecting as she did, that they would not be pleased, would it become her to throw upon her lover the burthen of finding for her a home with people who did not want her? Had she been welcome at Bobsborough, Mrs. Greystock would surely have so told her before this. "You needn't say a word, my dear," said Lady Fawn. "You'll come, and there's an end of it." "But you don't want me any more," said Lucy, from amidst her sobs. "That's just all that you know about it," said Lydia. "We do want you,--more than anything." "I wonder whether I may come in now," said Lady Linlithgow, entering the room. As it was the countess's own drawing-room, as it was now mid-winter, and as the fire in the dining-room had been allowed, as was usual, to sink almost to two hot coals, the request was not unreasonable. Lady Fawn was profuse in her thanks, and immediately began to account for Lucy's tears, pleading their dear friendship and their long absence, and poor Lucy's emotional state of mind. Then she took her leave, and Lucy, as soon as she had been kissed by her friends outside the drawing-room door, took herself to her bedroom, and finished her tears in the cold. "Have you heard the news?" said Lady Linlithgow to her companion about a month after this. Lady Linlithgow had been out, and asked the question immediately on her return. Lucy, of course, had heard no news. "Lizzie Eustace has just come back to London, and has had all her jewels stolen on the road." "The diamonds?" asked Lucy, with amaze. "Yes,--the Eustace diamonds! And they didn't belong to her any more than they did to you. They've been taken, anyway; and from what I hear I shouldn't be at all surprised if she had arranged the whole matter herself." "Arranged that they should be stolen?" "Just that, my dear. It would be the very thing for Lizzie Eustace to do. She's clever enough for anything." "But, Lady Linlithgow--" "I know all about that. Of course, it would be very wicked, and if it were found out she'd be put in the dock and tried for her life. It is just what I expect she'll come to some of these days. She has gone and got up a friendship with some disreputable people, and was travelling with them. There was a man who calls himself Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. I know him, and can remember when he was errand-boy to a disreputable lawyer at Aberdeen." This assertion was a falsehood on the part of the countess; Lord George had never been an errand-boy, and the Aberdeen lawyer,--as provincial Scotch lawyers go,--had been by no means disreputable. "I'm told that the police think that he has got them." "How very dreadful!" "Yes;--it's dreadful enough. At any rate, men got into Lizzie's room at night and took away the iron box and diamonds and all. It may be she was asleep at the time;--but she's one of those who pretty nearly always sleep with one eye open." "She can't be so bad as that, Lady Linlithgow." "Perhaps not. We shall see. They had just begun a lawsuit about the diamonds,--to get them back. And then all at once,--they're stolen. It looks what the men call--fishy. I'm told that all the police in London are up about it." On the very next day who should come to Brook Street, but Lizzie Eustace herself. She and her aunt had quarrelled, and they hated each other;--but the old woman had called upon Lizzie, advising her, as the reader will perhaps remember, to give up the diamonds, and now Lizzie returned the visit. "So you're here, installed in poor Macnulty's place," began Lizzie to her old friend, the countess at the moment being out of the room. "I am staying with your aunt for a few months,--as her companion. Is it true, Lizzie, that all your diamonds have been stolen?" Lizzie gave an account of the robbery, true in every respect, except in regard to the contents of the box. Poor Lizzie had been wronged in that matter by the countess, for the robbery had been quite genuine. The man had opened her room and taken her box, and she had slept through it all. And then the broken box had been found, and was in the hands of the police, and was evidence of the fact. "People seem to think it possible," said Lizzie, "that Mr. Camperdown the lawyer arranged it all." As this suggestion was being made Lady Linlithgow came in, and then Lizzie repeated the whole story of the robbery. Though the aunt and niece were open and declared enemies, the present circumstances were so peculiar and full of interest that conversation, for a time almost amicable, took place between them. "As the diamonds were so valuable, I thought it right, Aunt Susanna, to come and tell you myself." "It's very good of you, but I'd heard it already. I was telling Miss Morris yesterday what very odd things there are being said about it." "Weren't you very much frightened?" asked Lucy. "You see, my child, I knew nothing about it till it was all over. The man cut the bit out of the door in the most beautiful way, without my ever hearing the least sound of the saw." "And you that sleep so light," said the countess. "They say that perhaps something was put into the wine at dinner to make me sleep." "Ah!" ejaculated the countess, who did not for a moment give up her own erroneous suspicion;--"very likely." "And they do say these people can do things without making the slightest tittle of noise. At any rate, the box was gone." "And the diamonds?" asked Lucy. "Oh yes;--of course. And now there is such a fuss about it! The police keep on coming to me almost every day." "And what do the police think?" asked Lady Linlithgow. "I'm told that they have their suspicions." "No doubt they have their suspicions," said Lizzie. "You travelled up with friends, I suppose." "Oh yes,--with Lord George de Bruce Carruthers; and with Mrs. Carbuncle,--who is my particular friend, and with Lucinda Roanoke, who is just going to be married to Sir Griffin Tewett. We were quite a large party." "And Macnulty?" "No. I left Miss Macnulty at Portray with my darling. They thought he had better remain a little longer in Scotland." "Ah, yes;--perhaps Lord George de Bruce Carruthers does not care for babies. I can easily believe that. I wish Macnulty had been with you." "Why do you wish that?" said Lizzie, who already was beginning to feel that the countess intended, as usual, to make herself disagreeable. "She's a stupid, dull, pig-headed creature; but one can believe what she says." "And don't you believe what I say?" demanded Lizzie. "It's all true, no doubt, that the diamonds are gone." "Indeed it is." "But I don't know much about Lord George de Bruce Carruthers." "He's the brother of a marquis, anyway," said Lizzie, who thought that she might thus best answer the mother of a Scotch Earl. "I remember when he was plain George Carruthers, running about the streets of Aberdeen, and it was well with him when his shoes weren't broken at the toes and down at heel. He earned his bread then, such as it was;--nobody knows how he gets it now. Why does he call himself de Bruce, I wonder?" "Because his godfathers and godmothers gave him that name when he was made a child of Christ, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven," said Lizzie, ever so pertly. "I don't believe a bit of it." "I wasn't there to see, Aunt Susanna; and therefore I can't swear to it. That's his name in all the peerages, and I suppose they ought to know." "And what does Lord George de Bruce say about the diamonds?" Now it had come to pass that Lady Eustace herself did not feel altogether sure that Lord George had not had a hand in this robbery. It would have been a trick worthy of a genuine Corsair to arrange and carry out such a scheme for the appropriation of so rich a spoil. A watch or a brooch would, of course, be beneath the notice of a good genuine Corsair,--of a Corsair who was written down in the peerage as a marquis's brother;--but diamonds worth ten thousand pounds are not to be had every day. A Corsair must live, and if not by plunder rich as that,--how then? If Lord George had concocted this little scheme, he would naturally be ignorant of the true event of the robbery till he should meet the humble executors of his design, and would, as Lizzie thought, have remained unaware of the truth till his arrival in London. That he had been ignorant of the truth during the journey was evident to her. But they had now been three days in London, during which she had seen him once. At that interview he had been sullen and almost cross,--and had said next to nothing about the robbery. He made but one remark about it. "I have told the chief man here," he said, "that I shall be ready to give any evidence in my power when called upon. Till then I shall take no further steps in the matter. I have been asked questions that should not have been asked." In saying this he had used a tone which prevented further conversation on the subject, but Lizzie, as she thought of it all, remembered his jocular remark, made in the railway carriage, as to the suspicion which had already been expressed on the matter in regard to himself. If he had been the perpetrator, and had then found that he had only stolen the box, how wonderful would be the mystery! "He hasn't got anything to say," replied Lizzie to the question of the countess. "And who is your Mrs. Carbuncle?" asked the old woman. "A particular friend of mine with whom I am staying at present. You don't go about a great deal, Aunt Linlithgow, but surely you must have met Mrs. Carbuncle." "I'm an ignorant old woman, no doubt. My dear, I'm not at all surprised at your losing your diamonds. The pity is that they weren't your own." "They were my own." "The loss will fall on you, no doubt, because the Eustace people will make you pay for them. You'll have to give up half your jointure for your life. That's what it will come to. To think of your travelling about with those things in a box!" "They were my own, and I had a right to do what I liked with them. Nobody accuses you of taking them." "That's quite true. Nobody will accuse me. I suppose Lord George has left England for the benefit of his health. It would not at all surprise me if I were to hear that Mrs. Carbuncle had followed him;--not in the least." "You're just like yourself, Aunt Susanna," said Lizzie, getting up and taking her leave. "Good-bye, Lucy,--I hope you're happy and comfortable here. Do you ever see a certain friend of ours now?" "If you mean Mr. Greystock, I haven't seen him since I left Fawn Court," said Lucy, with dignity. When Lizzie was gone, Lady Linlithgow spoke her mind freely about her niece. "Lizzie Eustace won't come to any good. When I heard that she was engaged to that prig, Lord Fawn, I had some hopes that she might be kept out of harm. That's all over, of course. When he heard about the necklace he wasn't going to put his neck into that scrape. But now she's getting among such a set that nothing can save her. She has taken to hunting, and rides about the country like a madwoman." "A great many ladies hunt," said Lucy. "And she's got hold of this Lord George, and of that horrid American woman that nobody knows anything about. They've got the diamonds between them, I don't doubt. I'll bet you sixpence that the police find out all about it, and that there is some terrible scandal. The diamonds were no more hers than they were mine, and she'll be made to pay for them." The necklace, the meanwhile, was still locked up in Lizzie's desk,--with a patent Bramah key,--in Mrs. Carbuncle's house, and was a terrible trouble to our unhappy friend. CHAPTER XLVII Matching Priory Before the end of January everybody in London had heard of the great robbery at Carlisle,--and most people had heard also that there was something very peculiar in the matter,--something more than a robbery. Various rumours were afloat. It had become widely known that the diamonds were to be the subject of litigation between the young widow and the trustees of the Eustace estate; and it was known also that Lord Fawn had engaged himself to marry the widow, and had then retreated from his engagement simply on account of this litigation. There were strong parties formed in the matter,--whom we may call Lizzieites and anti-Lizzieites. The Lizzieites were of opinion that poor Lady Eustace was being very ill-treated;--that the diamonds did probably belong to her, and that Lord Fawn, at any rate, clearly ought to be her own. It was worthy of remark that these Lizzieites were all of them Conservatives. Frank Greystock had probably set the party on foot;--and it was natural that political opponents should believe that a noble young Under-Secretary of State on the Liberal side,--such as Lord Fawn,--had misbehaved himself. When the matter at last became of such importance as to demand leading articles in the newspapers, those journals which had devoted themselves to upholding the Conservative politicians of the day were very heavy indeed upon Lord Fawn. The whole force of the Government, however, was anti-Lizzieite; and as the controversy advanced, every good Liberal became aware that there was nothing so wicked, so rapacious, so bold, or so cunning but that Lady Eustace might have done it, or caused it to be done, without delay, without difficulty, and without scruple. Lady Glencora Palliser for a while endeavoured to defend Lizzie in Liberal circles,--from generosity rather than from any real belief, and instigated, perhaps, by a feeling that any woman in society who was capable of doing anything extraordinary ought to be defended. But even Lady Glencora was forced to abandon her generosity, and to confess, on behalf of her party, that Lizzie Eustace was--a very wicked young woman, indeed. All this, no doubt, grew out of the diamonds, and chiefly arose from the robbery; but there had been enough of notoriety attached to Lizzie before the affair at Carlisle to make people fancy that they had understood her character long before that. The party assembled at Matching Priory, a country house belonging to Mr. Palliser, in which Lady Glencora took much delight, was not large, because Mr. Palliser's uncle, the Duke of Omnium, who was with them, was now a very old man, and one who did not like very large gatherings of people. Lord and Lady Chiltern were there,--that Lord Chiltern who had been known so long and so well in the hunting counties of England, and that Lady Chiltern who had been so popular in London as the beautiful Violet Effingham; and Mr. and Mrs. Grey were there, very particular friends of Mr. Palliser's. Mr. Grey was now sitting for the borough of Silverbridge, in which the Duke of Omnium was still presumed to have a controlling influence, in spite of all Reform bills, and Mrs. Grey was in some distant way connected with Lady Glencora. And Madame Max Goesler was there,--a lady whose society was still much affected by the old duke; and Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen,--who had been brought there, not, perhaps altogether because they were greatly loved, but in order that the gentleman's services might be made available by Mr. Palliser in reference to some great reform about to be introduced in monetary matters. Mr. Palliser, who was now Chancellor of the Exchequer, was intending to alter the value of the penny. Unless the work should be too much for him, and he should die before he had accomplished the self-imposed task, the future penny was to be made, under his auspices, to contain five farthings, and the shilling ten pennies. It was thought that if this could be accomplished, the arithmetic of the whole world would be so simplified that henceforward the name of Palliser would be blessed by all schoolboys, clerks, shopkeepers, and financiers. But the difficulties were so great that Mr. Palliser's hair was already grey from toil, and his shoulders bent by the burthen imposed upon them. Mr. Bonteen, with two private secretaries from the Treasury, was now at Matching to assist Mr. Palliser;--and it was thought that both Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen were near to madness under the pressure of the five-farthing penny. Mr. Bonteen had remarked to many of his political friends that those two extra farthings that could not be made to go into the shilling would put him into his cold grave before the world would know what he had done,--or had rewarded him for it with a handle to his name, and a pension. Lord Fawn was also at Matching,--a suggestion having been made to Lady Glencora by some leading Liberals that he should be supported in his difficulties by her hospitality. The mind of Mr. Palliser himself was too deeply engaged to admit of its being interested in the great necklace affair; but, of all the others assembled, there was not one who did not listen anxiously for news on the subject. As regarded the old duke, it had been found to be quite a godsend; and from post to post as the facts reached Matching they were communicated to him. And, indeed, there were some there who would not wait for the post, but had the news about poor Lizzie's diamonds down by the wires. The matter was of the greatest moment to Lord Fawn, and Lady Glencora was, perhaps, justified, on his behalf, in demanding a preference for her affairs over the messages which were continually passing between Matching and the Treasury respecting those two ill-conditioned farthings. "Duke," she said, entering rather abruptly the small, warm, luxurious room in which her husband's uncle was passing his morning, "duke, they say now that after all the diamonds were not in the box when it was taken out of the room at Carlisle." The duke was reclining in an easy-chair, with his head leaning forward on his breast, and Madame Goesler was reading to him. It was now three o'clock, and the old man had been brought down to this room after his breakfast. Madame Goesler was reading the last famous new novel, and the duke was dozing. That, probably, was the fault neither of the reader nor of the novelist, as the duke was wont to doze in these days. But Lady Glencora's tidings awakened him completely. She had the telegram in her hand,--so that he could perceive that the very latest news was brought to him. "The diamonds not in the box!" he said,--pushing his head a little more forward in his eagerness, and sitting with the extended fingers of his two hands touching each other. "Barrington Erle says that Major Mackintosh is almost sure the diamonds were not there." Major Mackintosh was an officer very high in the police force, whom everybody trusted implicitly, and as to whom the outward world believed that he could discover the perpetrators of any iniquity, if he would only take the trouble to look into it. Such was the pressing nature of his duties that he found himself compelled in one way or another to give up about sixteen hours a day to them;--but the outer world accused him of idleness. There was nothing he couldn't find out;--only he would not give himself the trouble to find out all the things that happened. Two or three newspapers had already been very hard upon him in regard to the Eustace diamonds. Such a mystery as that, they said, he ought to have unravelled long ago. That he had not unravelled it yet was quite certain. "The diamonds not in the box!" said the duke. "Then she must have known it," said Madame Goesler. "That doesn't quite follow, Madame Max," said Lady Glencora. "But why shouldn't the diamonds have been in the box?" asked the duke. As this was the first intimation given to Lady Glencora of any suspicion that the diamonds had not been taken with the box, and as this had been received by telegraph, she could not answer the duke's question with any clear exposition of her own. She put up her hands and shook her head. "What does Plantagenet think about it?" asked the duke. Plantagenet Palliser was the full name of the duke's nephew and heir. The duke's mind was evidently much disturbed. "He doesn't think that either the box or the diamonds were ever worth five farthings," said Lady Glencora. "The diamonds not in the box!" repeated the duke. "Madame Max, do you believe that the diamonds were not in the box?" Madame Goesler shrugged her shoulders and made no answer; but the shrugging of her shoulders was quite satisfactory to the duke, who always thought that Madame Goesler did everything better than anybody else. Lady Glencora stayed with her uncle for the best part of an hour, and every word spoken was devoted to Lizzie and her necklace; but as this new idea had been broached, and as they had no other information than that conveyed in the telegram, very little light could be thrown upon it. But on the next morning there came a letter from Barrington Erle to Lady Glencora, which told so much, and hinted so much more, that it will be well to give it to the reader. Travellers', 29 Jan., 186-- MY DEAR LADY GLENCORA, I hope you got my telegram yesterday. I had just seen Mackintosh,--on whose behalf, however, I must say that he told me as little as he possibly could. It is leaking out, however, on every side, that the police believe that when the box was taken out of the room at Carlisle, the diamonds were not in it. As far as I can learn, they ground this suspicion on the fact that they cannot trace the stones. They say that, if such a lot of diamonds had been through the thieves' market in London, they would have left some track behind them. As far as I can judge, Mackintosh thinks that Lord George has them, but that her ladyship gave them to him; and that this little game of the robbery at Carlisle was planned to put John Eustace and the lawyers off the scent. If it should turn out that the box was opened before it left Portray, that the door of her ladyship's room was cut by her ladyship's self, or by his lordship with her ladyship's aid, and that the fragments of the box were carried out of the hotel by his lordship in person, it will altogether have been so delightful a plot, that all concerned in it ought to be canonised,--or at least allowed to keep their plunder. One of the old detectives told me that the opening of the box under the arch of the railway, in an exposed place, could hardly have been executed so neatly as was done;--that no thief so situated would have given the time necessary to it; and that, if there had been thieves at all at work, they would have been traced. Against this, there is the certain fact,--as I have heard from various men engaged in the inquiry,--that certain persons among the community of thieves are very much at loggerheads with each other,--the higher, or creative department in thiefdom, accusing the lower or mechanical department of gross treachery in having appropriated to its own sole profit plunder, for the taking of which it had undertaken to receive a certain stipulated price. But then it may be the case that his lordship and her ladyship have set such a rumour abroad for the sake of putting the police off the scent. Upon the whole, the little mystery is quite delightful; and has put the ballot, and poor Mr. Palliser's five-farthinged penny, quite out of joint. Nobody now cares for anything except the Eustace diamonds. Lord George, I am told, has offered to fight everybody or anybody, beginning with Lord Fawn and ending with Major Mackintosh. Should he be innocent, which, of course, is possible, the thing must be annoying. I should not at all wonder myself, if it should turn out that her ladyship left them in Scotland. The place there, however, has been searched, in compliance with an order from the police and by her ladyship's consent. Don't let Mr. Palliser quite kill himself. I hope the Bonteen plan answers. I never knew a man who could find more farthings in a shilling than Mr. Bonteen. Remember me very kindly to the duke, and pray enable poor Fawn to keep up his spirits. If he likes to arrange a meeting with Lord George, I shall be only too happy to be his friend. You remember our last duel. Chiltern is with you, and can put Fawn up to the proper way of getting over to Flanders,--and of returning, should he chance to escape. Yours always most faithfully, BARRINGTON ERLE. Of course, I'll keep you posted in everything respecting the necklace till you come to town yourself. The whole of this letter Lady Glencora read to the duke, to Lady Chiltern, and to Madame Goesler;--and the principal contents of it she repeated to the entire company. It was certainly the general belief at Matching that Lord George had the diamonds in his possession,--either with or without the assistance of their late fair possessor. The duke was struck with awe when he thought of all the circumstances. "The brother of a marquis!" he said to his nephew's wife. "It's such a disgrace to the peerage!" "As for that, duke," said Lady Glencora, "the peerage is used to it by this time." "I never heard of such an affair as this before." "I don't see why the brother of a marquis shouldn't turn thief as well as anybody else. They say he hasn't got anything of his own;--and I suppose that is what makes men steal other people's property. Peers go into trade, and peeresses gamble on the Stock Exchange. Peers become bankrupt, and the sons of peers run away;--just like other men. I don't see why all enterprises should not be open to them. But to think of that little purring cat, Lady Eustace, having been so very--very clever! It makes me quite envious." All this took place in the morning;--that is, about two o'clock; but after dinner the subject became general. There might be some little reticence in regard to Lord Fawn's feelings,--but it was not sufficient to banish a subject so interesting from the minds and lips of the company. "The Tewett marriage is to come off, after all," said Mrs. Bonteen. "I've a letter from dear Mrs. Rutter, telling me so as a fact." "I wonder whether Miss Roanoke will be allowed to wear one or two of the diamonds at the wedding," suggested one of the private secretaries. "Nobody will dare to wear a diamond at all next season," said Lady Glencora. "As for my own, I sha'n't think of having them out. I should always feel that I was being inspected." "Unless they unravel the mystery," said Madame Goesler. "I hope they won't do that," said Lady Glencora. "The play is too good to come to an end so soon. If we hear that Lord George is engaged to Lady Eustace, nothing, I suppose, can be done to stop the marriage." "Why shouldn't she marry if she pleases?" asked Mr. Palliser. "I've not the slightest objection to her being married. I hope she will, with all my heart. I certainly think she should have her husband after buying him at such a price. I suppose Lord Fawn won't forbid the banns." These last words were only whispered to her next neighbour, Lord Chiltern; but poor Lord Fawn saw the whisper, and was aware that it must have had reference to his condition. On the next morning there came further news. The police had asked permission from their occupants to search the rooms in which lived Lady Eustace and Lord George, and in each case the permission had been refused. So said Barrington Erle in his letter to Lady Glencora. Lord George had told the applicant, very roughly, that nobody should touch any article belonging to him without a search-warrant. If any magistrate would dare to give such a warrant, let him do it. "I'm told that Lord George acts the indignant madman uncommonly well," said Barrington Erle in his letter. As for poor Lizzie, she had fainted when the proposition was made to her. The request was renewed as soon as she had been brought to herself; and then she refused,--on the advice, as she said, of her cousin, Mr. Greystock. Barrington Erle went on to say that the police were very much blamed. It was believed that no information could be laid before a magistrate sufficient to justify a search-warrant;--and, in such circumstances, no search should have been attempted. Such was the public verdict, as declared in Barrington Erle's last letter to Lady Glencora. Mr. Palliser was of opinion that the attempt to search the lady's house was iniquitous. Mr. Bonteen shook his head, and rather thought that, if he were Home Secretary, he would have had the search made. Lady Chiltern said that if policemen came to her, they might search everything she had in the world. Mrs. Grey reminded them that all they really knew of the unfortunate woman was, that her jewel-box had been stolen out of her bedroom at her hotel. Madame Goesler was of opinion that a lady who could carry such a box about the country with her deserved to have it stolen. Lord Fawn felt himself obliged to confess that he agreed altogether with Madame Goesler. Unfortunately, he had been acquainted with the lady, and now was constrained to say that her conduct had been such as to justify the suspicions of the police. "Of course, we all suspect her," said Lady Glencora; "and, of course, we suspect Lord George too, and Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke. But then, you know, if I were to lose my diamonds, people would suspect me just the same,--or perhaps Plantagenet. It is so delightful to think that a woman has stolen her own property, and put all the police into a state of ferment." Lord Chiltern declared himself to be heartily sick of the whole subject; and Mr. Grey, who was a very just man, suggested that the evidence, as yet, against anybody, was very slight. "Of course, it's slight," said Lady Glencora. "If it were more than slight, it would be just like any other robbery, and there would be nothing in it." On the same morning Mrs. Bonteen received a second letter from her friend Mrs. Rutter. The Tewett marriage had been certainly broken off. Sir Griffin had been very violent, misbehaving himself grossly in Mrs. Carbuncle's house, and Miss Roanoke had declared that under no circumstances would she ever speak to him again. It was Mrs. Rutter's opinion, however, that this violence had been "put on" by Sir Griffin, who was desirous of escaping from the marriage because of the affair of the diamonds. "He's very much bound up with Lord George," said Mrs. Rutter, "and is afraid that he may be implicated." "In my opinion he's quite right," said Lord Fawn. All these matters were told to the duke by Lady Glencora and Madame Goesler in the recesses of his grace's private room; for the duke was now infirm, and did not dine in company unless the day was very auspicious to him. But in the evening he would creep into the drawing-room, and on this occasion he had a word to say about the Eustace diamonds to every one in the room. It was admitted by them all that the robbery had been a godsend in the way of amusing the duke. "Wouldn't have her boxes searched, you know," said the duke; "that looks uncommonly suspicious. Perhaps, Lady Chiltern, we shall hear to-morrow morning something more about it." "Poor dear duke," said Lady Chiltern to her husband. "Doting old idiot!" he replied. CHAPTER XLVIII Lizzie's Condition When such a man as Barrington Erle undertakes to send information to such a correspondent as Lady Glencora in reference to such a matter as Lady Eustace's diamonds, he is bound to be full rather than accurate. We may say, indeed, that perfect accuracy would be detrimental rather than otherwise, and would tend to disperse that feeling of mystery which is so gratifying. No suggestion had in truth been made to Lord George de Bruce Carruthers as to the searching of his lordship's boxes and desks. That very eminent detective officer, Mr. Bunfit, had, however, called upon Lord George more than once, and Lord George had declared very plainly that he did not like it. "If you'll have the kindness to explain to me what it is you want, I'll be much obliged to you," Lord George had said to Mr. Bunfit. "Well, my lord," said Bunfit, "what we want is these diamonds." "Do you believe that I've got them?" "A man in my situation, my lord, never believes anything. We has to suspect, but we never believes." "You suspect that I stole them?" "No, my lord;--I didn't say that. But things are very queer; aren't they?" The immediate object of Mr. Bunfit's visit on this morning had been to ascertain from Lord George whether it was true that his lordship had been with Messrs. Harter and Benjamin, the jewellers, on the morning after his arrival in town. No one from the police had as yet seen either Harter or Benjamin in connexion with this robbery; but it may not be too much to say that the argus eyes of Major Mackintosh were upon Messrs. Harter and Benjamin's whole establishment, and it was believed that, if the jewels were in London, they were locked up in some box within that house. It was thought more than probable by Major Mackintosh and his myrmidons that the jewels were already at Hamburg; and by this time, as the major had explained to Mr. Camperdown, every one of them might have been reset,--or even recut. But it was known that Lord George had been at the house of Messrs. Harter and Benjamin early on the morning after his return to town, and the ingenuous Mr. Bunfit, who, by reason of his situation, never believed anything and only suspected, had expressed a very strong opinion to Major Mackintosh that the necklace had in truth been transferred to the Jews on that morning. That there was nothing "too hot or too heavy" for Messrs. Harter and Benjamin was quite a creed with the police of the west end of London. Might it not be well to ask Lord George what he had to say about the visit? Should Lord George deny the visit, such denial would go far to confirm Mr. Bunfit. The question was asked, and Lord George did not deny the visit. "Unfortunately, they hold acceptances of mine," said Lord George, "and I am often there." "We know as they have your lordship's name to paper," said Mr. Bunfit,--thanking Lord George, however, for his courtesy. It may be understood that all this would be unpleasant to Lord George, and that he should be indignant almost to madness. But Mr. Erle's information, though certainly defective in regard to Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, had been more correct when he spoke of the lady. An interview that was very terrible to poor Lizzie did take place between her and Mr. Bunfit in Mrs. Carbuncle's house on Tuesday, the 30th of January. There had been many interviews between Lizzie and various members of the police force in reference to the diamonds, but the questions put to her had always been asked on the supposition that she might have mislaid the necklace. Was it not possible that she might have thought that she locked it up, but have omitted to place it in the box? As long as these questions had reference to a possible oversight in Scotland,--to some carelessness which she might have committed on the night before she left her home,--Lizzie upon the whole seemed rather to like the idea. It certainly was possible. She believed thoroughly that the diamonds had been locked by her in the box,--but she acknowledged that it might be the case that they had been left on one side. This had happened when the police first began to suspect that the necklace had not been in the box when it was carried out of the Carlisle hotel, but before it had occurred to them that Lord George had been concerned in the robbery, and possibly Lady Eustace herself. Men had been sent down from London, of course at considerable expense, and Portray Castle had been searched, with the consent of its owner, from the weathercock to the foundation-stone,--much to the consternation of Miss Macnulty, and to the delight of Andy Gowran. No trace of the diamonds was found, and Lizzie had so far fraternised with the police. But when Mr. Bunfit called upon her, perhaps for the fifth or sixth time, and suggested that he should be allowed, with the assistance of the female whom he had left behind him in the hall, to search all her ladyship's boxes, drawers, presses, and receptacles in London, the thing took a very different aspect. "You see, my lady," said Mr. Bunfit, excusing the peculiar nature of his request, "it may have got anywhere among your ladyship's things, unbeknownst." Lady Eustace and Mrs. Carbuncle were at the time sitting together, and Mrs. Carbuncle was the first to protest. If Mr. Bunfit thought that he was going to search her things, Mr. Bunfit was very much mistaken. What she had suffered about this necklace no man or woman knew,--and she meant that there should be an end of it. It was her opinion that the police should have discovered every stone of it days and days ago. At any rate, her house was her own, and she gave Mr. Bunfit to understand that his repeated visits were not agreeable to her. But when Mr. Bunfit, without showing the slightest displeasure at the evil things said of him, suggested that the search should be confined to the rooms used exclusively by Lady Eustace, Mrs. Carbuncle absolutely changed her views, and recommended that he should be allowed to have his way. At that moment the condition of poor Lizzie Eustace was very sad. He who recounts these details has scorned to have a secret between himself and his readers. The diamonds were at this moment locked up within Lizzie's desk. For the last three weeks they had been there,--if it may not be more truly said that they were lying heavily on her heart. For three weeks had her mind with constant stretch been working on that point,--whither should she take the diamonds, and what should she do with them? A certain very wonderful strength she did possess, or she could not have endured the weight of so terrible an anxiety; but from day to day the thing became worse and worse with her, as gradually she perceived that suspicion was attached to herself. Should she confide the secret to Lord George, or to Mrs. Carbuncle, or to Frank Greystock? She thought she could have borne it all if only some one would have borne it with her. But when the moments came in which such confidence might be made, her courage failed her. Lord George she saw frequently; but he was unsympathetic and almost rough with her. She knew that he also was suspected, and she was almost disposed to think that he had planned the robbery. If it were so, if the robbery had been his handiwork, it was not singular that he should be unsympathetic with the owner and probable holder of the prey which he had missed. Nevertheless Lizzie thought that if he would have been soft with her, like a dear, good, genuine Corsair, for half an hour, she would have told him all, and placed the necklace in his hands. And there were moments in which she almost resolved to tell her secret to Mrs. Carbuncle. She had stolen nothing;--so she averred to herself. She had intended only to defend and save her own property. Even the lie that she had told, and the telling of which was continued from day to day, had in a measure been forced upon her by circumstances. She thought that Mrs. Carbuncle would sympathise with her in that feeling which had prevented her from speaking the truth when first the fact of the robbery was made known to herself in her own bedroom. Mrs. Carbuncle was a lady who told many lies, as Lizzie knew well,--and surely could not be horrified at a lie told in such circumstances. But it was not in Lizzie's nature to trust a woman. Mrs. Carbuncle would tell Lord George,--and that would destroy everything. When she thought of confiding everything to her cousin, it was always in his absence. The idea became dreadful to her as soon as he was present. She could not dare to own to him that she had sworn falsely to the magistrate at Carlisle. And so the burthen had to be borne, increasing every hour in weight, and the poor creature's back was not broad enough to bear it. She thought of the necklace every waking minute, and dreamed of it when she slept. She could not keep herself from unlocking her desk and looking at it twenty times a day, although she knew the peril of such nervous solicitude. If she could only rid herself of it altogether, she was sure now that she would do so. She would throw it into the ocean fathoms deep, if only she could find herself alone upon the ocean. But she felt that, let her go where she might, she would be watched. She might declare to-morrow her intention of going to Ireland,--or, for that matter, to America. But, were she to do so, some horrid policeman would be on her track. The iron box had been a terrible nuisance to her;--but the iron box had been as nothing compared to the necklace locked up in her desk. From day to day she meditated a plan of taking the thing out into the streets, and dropping it in the dark; but she was sure that, were she to do so, some one would have watched her while she dropped it. She was unwilling to trust her old friend Mr. Benjamin; but in these days her favourite scheme was to offer the diamonds for sale to him at some very low price. If he would help her they might surely be got out of their present hiding-place into his hands. Any man would be powerful to help, if there were any man whom she could trust. In furtherance of this scheme she went so far as to break a brooch,--a favourite brooch of her own,--in order that she might have an excuse for calling at the jewellers'. But even this she postponed from day to day. Circumstances, as they had occurred, had taught her to believe that the police could not insist on breaking open her desk unless some evidence could be brought against her. There was no evidence, and her desk was so far safe. But the same circumstances had made her understand that she was already suspected of some intrigue with reference to the diamonds,--though of what she was suspected she did not clearly perceive. As far as she could divine the thoughts of her enemies, they did not seem to suppose that the diamonds were in her possession. It seemed to be believed by those enemies that they had passed into the hands of Lord George. As long as her enemies were on a scent so false, might it not be best that she should remain quiet? But all the ingenuity, the concentrated force, and trained experience of the police of London would surely be too great and powerful for her in the long run. She could not hope to keep her secret and the diamonds till they should acknowledge themselves to be baffled. And then she was aware of a morbid desire on her own part to tell the secret,--of a desire that amounted almost to a disease. It would soon burst her bosom open, unless she could share her knowledge with some one. And yet, as she thought of it all, she told herself that she had no friend so fast and true as to justify such confidence. She was ill with anxiety, and,--worse than that,--Mrs. Carbuncle knew that she was ill. It was acknowledged between them that this affair of the necklace was so terrible as to make a woman ill. Mrs. Carbuncle at present had been gracious enough to admit so much as that. But might it not be probable that Mrs. Carbuncle would come to suspect that she did not know the whole secret? Mrs. Carbuncle had already, on more than one occasion, said a little word or two which had been unpleasant. Such was Lizzie's condition when Mr. Bunfit came, with his authoritative request to be allowed to inspect Lizzie's boxes,--and when Mrs. Carbuncle, having secured her own privacy, expressed her opinion that Mr. Bunfit should be allowed to do as he desired. CHAPTER XLIX Bunfit and Gager As soon as the words were out of Mrs. Carbuncle's mouth,--those ill-natured words in which she expressed her assent to Mr. Bunfit's proposition that a search should be made after the diamonds among all the possessions of Lady Eustace which were now lodged in her own house,--poor Lizzie's courage deserted her entirely. She had been very courageous; for, though her powers of endurance had sometimes nearly deserted her, though her heart had often failed her, still she had gone on and had endured and been silent. To endure and to be silent in her position did require great courage. She was all alone in her misery, and could see no way out of it. The diamonds were heavy as a load of lead within her bosom. And yet she had persevered. Now, as she heard Mrs. Carbuncle's words, her courage failed her. There came some obstruction in her throat, so that she could not speak. She felt as though her heart were breaking. She put out both her hands and could not draw them back again. She knew that she was betraying herself by her weakness. She could just hear the man explaining that the search was merely a thing of ceremony,--just to satisfy everybody that there was no mistake;--and then she fainted. So far, Barrington Erle was correct in the information given by him to Lady Glencora. She pressed one hand against her heart, gasped for breath, and then fell back upon the sofa. Perhaps she could have done nothing better. Had the fainting been counterfeit, the measure would have shown ability. But the fainting was altogether true. Mrs. Carbuncle first, and then Mr. Bunfit, hurried from their seats to help her. To neither of them did it occur for a moment that the fit was false. "The whole thing has been too much for her," said Mrs. Carbuncle severely, ringing the bell at the same time for further aid. "No doubt,--mum; no doubt. We has to see a deal of this sort of thing. Just a little air, if you please, mum,--and as much water as'd go to christen a babby. That's always best, mum." "If you'll have the kindness to stand on one side," said Mrs. Carbuncle, as she stretched Lizzie on the sofa. "Certainly, mum," said Bunfit, standing erect by the wall, but not showing the slightest disposition to leave the room. "You had better go," said Mrs. Carbuncle,--loudly and very severely. "I'll just stay and see her come to, mum. I won't do her a morsel of harm, mum. Sometimes they faints at the very fust sight of such as we; but we has to bear it. A little more air, if you could, mum;--and just dash the water on in drops like. They feels a drop more than they would a bucketful,--and then when they comes to they hasn't to change theirselves." Bunfit's advice, founded on much experience, was good, and Lizzie gradually came to herself and opened her eyes. She immediately clutched at her breast, feeling for her key. She found it unmoved, but before her finger had recognised the touch, her quick mind had told her how wrong the movement had been. It had been lost upon Mrs. Carbuncle, but not on Mr. Bunfit. He did not at once think that she had the diamonds in her desk; but he felt almost sure that there was something in her possession,--probably some document,--which, if found, would place him on the track of the diamonds. But he could not compel a search. "Your ladyship'll soon be better," said Bunfit graciously. Lizzie endeavoured to smile as she expressed her assent to this proposition. "As I was a saying to the elder lady--" "Saying to who, sir?" exclaimed Mrs. Carbuncle, rising up in wrath. "Elder, indeed!" "As I was a venturing to explain, these fits of fainting come often in our way. Thieves, mum,--that is, the regulars,--don't mind us a bit, and the women is more hardeneder than the men; but when we has to speak to a lady, it is so often that she goes off like that! I've known 'em do it just at being looked at." "Don't you think, sir, that you'd better leave us now?" said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Indeed you had," said Lizzie. "I'm fit for nothing just at present." "We won't disturb your ladyship the least in life," said Mr. Bunfit, "if you'll only just let us have your keys. Your servant can be with us, and we won't move one tittle of anything." But Lizzie, though she was still suffering that ineffable sickness which always accompanies and follows a real fainting-fit, would not surrender her keys. Already had an excuse for not doing so occurred to her. But for a while she seemed to hesitate. "I don't demand it, Lady Eustace," said Mr. Bunfit, "but if you'll allow me to say so, I do think it will look better for your ladyship." "I can take no step without consulting my cousin, Mr. Greystock," said Lizzie; and having thought of this she adhered to it. The detective supplied her with many reasons for giving up her keys, alleging that it would do no harm, and that her refusal would create infinite suspicions. But Lizzie had formed her answer and stuck to it. She always consulted her cousin, and always acted upon his advice. He had already cautioned her not to take any steps without his sanction. She would do nothing till he consented. If Mr. Bunfit would see Mr. Greystock, and if Mr. Greystock would come to her and tell her to submit,--she would submit. Ill as she was, she could be obstinate, and Bunfit left the house without having been able to finger that key which he felt sure that Lady Eustace carried somewhere on her person. As he walked back to his own quarters in Scotland Yard, Bunfit was by no means dissatisfied with his morning's work. He had not expected to find anything with Lady Eustace, and, when she fainted, had not hoped to be allowed to search. But he was now sure that her ladyship was possessed, at any rate, of some guilty knowledge. Bunfit was one of those who, almost from the first, had believed that the box was empty when taken out of the hotel. "Stones like them must turn up more or less," was Bunfit's great argument. That the police should already have found the stones themselves was not perhaps probable; but had any ordinary thieves had them in their hands, they could not have been passed on without leaving a trace behind them. It was his opinion that the box had been opened and the door cut by the instrumentality and concurrence of Lord George de Bruce Carruthers,--with the assistance of some well-skilled mechanical thief. Nothing could be made out of the tall footman;--indeed, the tall footman had already been set at liberty, although he was known to have evil associates; and the tall footman was now loud in demanding compensation for the injury done to him. Many believed that the tall footman had been concerned in the matter,--many, that is, among the experienced craftsmen of the police force. Bunfit thought otherwise. Bunfit believed that the diamonds were now either in the possession of Lord George or of Harter and Benjamin, that they had been handed over to Lord George to save them from Messrs. Camperdown and the lawsuit, and that Lord George and the lady were lovers. The lady's conduct at their last interview, her fit of fainting, and her clutching for the key, all confirmed Bunfit in his opinion. But unfortunately for Bunfit he was almost alone in his opinion. There were men in the force,--high in their profession as detectives,--who avowed that certainly two very experienced and well-known thieves had been concerned in the business. That a certain Mr. Smiler had been there,--a gentleman for whom the whole police of London entertained a feeling which approached to veneration, and that most diminutive of full-grown thieves, Billy Cann,--most diminutive but at the same time most expert,--was not doubted by some minds which were apt to doubt till conviction had become certainty. The traveller who had left the Scotch train at Dumfries had been a very small man, and it was a known fact that Mr. Smiler had left London by train, from the Euston Square station, on the day before that on which Lizzie and her party had reached Carlisle. If it were so, if Mr. Smiler and Billy Cann had both been at work at the hotel, then,--so argued they who opposed the Bunfit theory,--it was hardly conceivable that the robbery should have been arranged by Lord George. According to the Bunfit theory, the only thing needed by the conspirators had been that the diamonds should be handed over by Lady Eustace to Lord George in such a way as to escape suspicion that such transfer had been made. This might have been done with very little trouble,--by simply leaving the box empty, with the key in it. The door of the bedroom had been opened by skilful professional men, and the box had been forced by the use of tools which none but professional gentlemen would possess. Was it probable that Lord George would have committed himself with such men, and incurred the very heavy expense of paying for their services, when he was,--according to the Bunfit theory,--able to get at the diamonds without any such trouble, danger, and expenditure? There was a young detective in the force, very clever,--almost too clever, and certainly a little too fast,--Gager by name, who declared that the Bunfit theory "warn't on the cards." According to Gager's information, Smiler was at this moment a broken-hearted man,--ranging between mad indignation and suicidal despondency, because he had been treated with treachery in some direction. Mr. Gager was as fully convinced as Bunfit that the diamonds had not been in the box. There was bitter, raging, heart-breaking disappointment about the diamonds in more quarters than one. That there had been a double robbery Gager was quite sure;--or rather a robbery in which two sets of thieves had been concerned, and in which one set had been duped by the other set. In this affair Mr. Smiler and poor little Billy Cann had been the dupes. So far Gager's mind had arrived at certainty. But then how had they been duped, and who had duped them? And who had employed them? Such a robbery would hardly have been arranged and executed except on commission. Even Mr. Smiler would not have burthened himself with such diamonds without knowing what to do with them, and what he should get for them. That they were intended ultimately for the hands of Messrs. Harter and Benjamin, Gager almost believed. And Gager was inclined to think that Messrs. Harter and Benjamin,--or rather Mr. Benjamin, for Mr. Harter himself was almost too old for work requiring so very great mental activity,--that Mr. Benjamin, fearing the honesty of his executive officer Mr. Smiler, had been splendidly treacherous to his subordinate. Gager had not quite completed his theory; but he was very firm on one great point,--that the thieves at Carlisle had been genuine thieves, thinking that they were stealing the diamonds, and finding their mistake out when the box had been opened by them under the bridge. "Who have 'em, then?" asked Bunfit of his younger brother, in a disparaging whisper. "Well; yes; who 'ave 'em? It's easy to say, who 'ave 'em? Suppose 'e 'ave 'em." The "he" alluded to by Gager was Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. "But laws, Bunfit, they're gone--weeks ago. You know that, Bunfit." This had occurred before the intended search among poor Lizzie's boxes, but Bunfit's theory had not been shaken. Bunfit could see all round his own theory. It was whole, and the motives as well as the operations of the persons concerned were explained by it. But the Gager theory only went to show what had not been done, and offered no explanation of the accomplished scheme. Then Bunfit went a little further in his theory, not disdaining to accept something from Gager. Perhaps Lord George had engaged these men, and had afterwards found it practicable to get the diamonds without their assistance. On one great point all concerned in the inquiry were in unison,--that the diamonds had not been in the box when it was carried out of the bedroom at Carlisle. The great point of difference consisted in this, that whereas Gager was sure that the robbery when committed had been genuine, Bunfit was of opinion that the box had been first opened, and then taken out of the hotel in order that the police might be put on a wrong track. The matter was becoming very important. Two or three of the leading newspapers had first hinted at and then openly condemned the incompetence and slowness of the police. Such censure, as we all know, is very common, and in nine cases out of ten it is unjust. They who write it probably know but little of the circumstances;--and, in speaking of a failure here and a failure there, make no reference to the numerous successes, which are so customary as to partake of the nature of routine. It is the same in regard to all public matters,--army matters, navy matters, poor-law matters, and post-office matters. Day after day, and almost every day, one meets censure which is felt to be unjust;--but the general result of all this injustice is increased efficiency. The coach does go the faster because of the whip in the coachman's hand, though the horses driven may never have deserved the thong. In this matter of the Eustace diamonds the police had been very active; but they had been unsuccessful, and had consequently been abused. The robbery was now more than three weeks old. Property to the amount of ten thousand pounds had been abstracted, and as yet the police had not even formed an assured opinion on the subject! Had the same thing occurred in New York or Paris every diamond would by this time have been traced. Such were the assertions made, and the police were instigated to new exertions. Bunfit would have jeopardised his right hand, and Gager his life, to get at the secret. Even Major Mackintosh was anxious. The facts of the claim made by Mr. Camperdown, and of the bill which had been filed in Chancery for the recovery of the diamonds, were of course widely known, and added much to the general interest and complexity. It was averred that Mr. Camperdown's determination to get the diamonds had been very energetic, and Lady Eustace's determination to keep them equally so. Wonderful stories were told of Lizzie's courage, energy, and resolution. There was hardly a lawyer of repute but took up the question, and had an opinion as to Lizzie's right to the necklace. The Attorney and Solicitor-General were dead against her, asserting that the diamonds certainly did not pass to her under the will, and could not have become hers by gift. But they were members of a Liberal government, and of course anti-Lizzieite. Gentlemen who were equal to them in learning, who had held offices equally high, were distinctly of a different opinion. Lady Eustace might probably claim the jewels as paraphernalia properly appertaining to her rank;--in which claim the bestowal of them by her husband would no doubt assist her. And to these gentlemen,--who were Lizzieites and of course Conservatives in politics,--it was by no means clear that the diamonds did not pass to her by will. If it could be shown that the diamonds had been lately kept in Scotland, the ex-Attorney-General thought that they would so pass. All which questions, now that the jewels had been lost, were discussed openly, and added greatly to the anxiety of the police. Both Lizzieites and anti-Lizzieites were disposed to think that Lizzie was very clever. Frank Greystock in these days took up his cousin's part altogether in good faith. He entertained not the slightest suspicion that she was deceiving him in regard to the diamonds. That the robbery had been a bona-fide robbery, and that Lizzie had lost her treasure, was to him beyond doubt. He had gradually convinced himself that Mr. Camperdown was wrong in his claim, and was strongly of opinion that Lord Fawn had disgraced himself by his conduct to the lady. When he now heard, as he did hear, that some undefined suspicion was attached to his cousin,--and when he heard also, as unfortunately he did hear,--that Lord Fawn had encouraged that suspicion, he was very irate, and said grievous things of Lord Fawn. It seemed to him to be the extremity of cruelty that suspicion should be attached to his cousin because she had been robbed of her jewels. He was among those who were most severe in their denunciation of the police,--and was the more so, because he had heard it asserted that the necklace had not in truth been stolen. He busied himself very much in the matter, and even interrogated John Eustace as to his intentions. "My dear fellow," said Eustace, "if you hated those diamonds as much as I do, you would never mention them again." Greystock declared that this expression of aversion to the subject might be all very well for Mr. Eustace, but that he found himself bound to defend his cousin. "You cannot defend her against me," said Eustace, "for I do not attack her. I have never said a word against her. I went down to Portray when she asked me. As far as I am concerned she is perfectly welcome to wear the necklace, if she can get it back again. I will not make or meddle in the matter one way or the other." Frank, after that, went to Mr. Camperdown, but he could get no satisfaction from the attorney. Mr. Camperdown would only say that he had a duty to do, and that he must do it. On the matter of the robbery he refused to give an opinion. That was in the hands of the police. Should the diamonds be recovered, he would, of course, claim them on behalf of the estate. In his opinion, whether the diamonds were recovered or not, Lady Eustace was responsible to the estate for their value. In opposition, first to the entreaties, and then to the demands of her late husband's family, she had insisted on absurdly carrying about with her an enormous amount of property which did not belong to her. Mr. Camperdown opined that she must pay for the lost diamonds out of her jointure. Frank, in a huff, declared that, as far as he could see, the diamonds belonged to his cousin;--in answer to which Mr. Camperdown suggested that the question was one for the decision of the Vice-Chancellor. Frank Greystock found that he could do nothing with Mr. Camperdown, and felt that he could wreak his vengeance only on Lord Fawn. Bunfit, when he returned from Mrs. Carbuncle's house to Scotland Yard, had an interview with Major Mackintosh. "Well, Bunfit, have you seen the lady?" "Yes,--I did see her, sir." "And what came of it?" "She fainted away, sir--just as they always do." "There was no search, I suppose?" "No, sir;--no search. She wouldn't have it, unless her cousin, Mr. Greystock, permitted." "I didn't think she would." "Nor yet didn't I, sir. But I'll tell you what it is, major. She knows all about it." "You think she does, Bunfit?" "She does, sir; and she's got something locked up somewhere in that house as'd elucidate the whole of this aggravating mystery, if only we could get at it. Major,--" "Well, Bunfit?" "I ain't noways sure as she ain't got them very diamonds themselves locked up, or, perhaps, tied round her person." "Neither am I sure that she has not," said the major. "The robbery at Carlisle was no robbery," continued Bunfit. "It was a got-up plant, and about the best as I ever knowed. It's my mind that it was a got-up plant between her ladyship and his lordship; and either the one or the other is just keeping the diamonds till it's safe to take 'em into the market." CHAPTER L In Hertford Street During all this time Lucinda Roanoke was engaged to marry Sir Griffin Tewett, and the lover was an occasional visitor in Hertford Street. Mrs. Carbuncle was as anxious as ever that the marriage should be celebrated on the appointed day, and though there had been repeated quarrels, nothing had as yet taken place to make her despond. Sir Griffin would make some offensive speech; Lucinda would tell him that she had no desire ever to see him again; and then the baronet, usually under the instigation of Lord George, would make some awkward apology. Mrs. Carbuncle,--whose life at this period was not a pleasant one,--would behave on such occasions with great patience, and sometimes with great courage. Lizzie, who in her present emergency could not bear the idea of losing the assistance of any friend, was soft and graceful, and even gracious, to the bear. The bear himself certainly seemed to desire the marriage, though he would so often give offence which made any prospect of a marriage almost impossible. But with Sir Griffin, when the prize seemed to be lost, it again became valuable. He would talk about his passionate love to Mrs. Carbuncle, and to Lizzie,--and then, when things had been made straight for him, he would insult them, and neglect Lucinda. To Lucinda herself, however, he would rarely dare to say such words as he used daily to the other two ladies in the house. What could have been the man's own idea of his future married life, how can any reader be made to understand, or any writer adequately describe! He must have known that the woman despised him, and hated him. In the very bottom of his heart he feared her. He had no idea of other pleasure from her society than what might arise to him from the pride of having married a beautiful woman. Had she shown the slightest fondness for him, the slightest fear that she might lose him, the slightest feeling that she had won a valuable prize in getting him, he would have scorned her, and jilted her without the slightest remorse. But the scorn came from her, and it beat him down. "Yes;--you hate me, and would fain be rid of me; but you have said that you will be my wife, and you cannot now escape me." Sir Griffin did not exactly speak such words as these, but he acted them. Lucinda would bear his presence,--sitting apart from him, silent, imperious, but very beautiful. People said that she became more handsome from day to day, and she did so, in spite of her agony. Hers was a face which could stand such condition of the heart without fading or sinking under it. She did not weep, or lose her colour, or become thin. The pretty softness of a girl,--delicate feminine weakness, or laughing eyes and pouting lips, no one expected from her. Sir Griffin, in the early days of their acquaintance, had found her to be a woman with a character for beauty,--and she was now more beautiful than ever. He probably thought that he loved her; but, at any rate, he was determined that he would marry her. He had expressed himself more than once as very angry about this affair of the jewels. He had told Mrs. Carbuncle that her inmate, Lady Eustace, was suspected by the police, and that it might be well that Lady Eustace should be--be made to go, in fact. But it did not suit Mrs. Carbuncle that Lady Eustace should be made to go;--nor did it suit Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. Lord George, at Mrs. Carbuncle's instance, had snubbed Sir Griffin more than once, and then it came to pass that he was snubbed yet again more violently than before. He was at the house in Hertford Street on the day of Mr. Bunfit's visit, some hours after Mr. Bunfit was gone, when Lizzie was still lying on her bed up-stairs, nearly beaten by the great danger which had oppressed her. He was told of Mr. Bunfit's visit, and then again said that he thought that the continued residence of Lady Eustace beneath that roof was a misfortune. "Would you wish us to turn her out because her necklace has been stolen?" asked Mrs. Carbuncle. "People say very queer things," said Sir Griffin. "So they do, Sir Griffin," continued Mrs. Carbuncle. "They say such queer things that I can hardly understand that they should be allowed to say them. I am told that the police absolutely suggest that Lord George stole the diamonds." "That's nonsense." "No doubt, Sir Griffin. And so is the other nonsense. Do you mean to tell us that you believe that Lady Eustace stole her own diamonds?" "I don't see the use of having her here. Situated as I am, I have a right to object to it." "Situated as you are, Sir Griffin!" said Lucinda. "Well;--yes, of course; if we are to be married, I cannot but think a good deal of the persons you stay with." "You were very glad to stay yourself with Lady Eustace at Portray," said Lucinda. "I went there to follow you," said Sir Griffin gallantly. "I wish with all my heart you had stayed away," said Lucinda. At that moment Lord George was shown into the room, and Miss Roanoke continued speaking, determined that Lord George should know how the bear was conducting himself. "Sir Griffin is saying that my aunt ought to turn Lady Eustace out of the house." "Not quite that," said Sir Griffin with an attempt at laughter. "Quite that," said Lucinda. "I don't suppose that he suspects poor Lady Eustace, but he thinks that my aunt's friend should be like Caesar's wife, above the suspicion of others." "If you would mind your own business, Tewett," said Lord George, "it would be a deal better for us all. I wonder Mrs. Carbuncle does not turn you out of the room for making such a proposition here. If it were my room, I would." "I suppose I can say what I please to Mrs. Carbuncle? Miss Roanoke is not going to be your wife." "It is my belief that Miss Roanoke will be nobody's wife,--at any rate, for the present," said that young lady;--upon which Sir Griffin left the room, muttering some words which might have been, perhaps, intended for an adieu. Immediately after this, Lizzie came in, moving slowly, but without a sound, like a ghost, with pale cheeks and dishevelled hair, and that weary, worn look of illness which was become customary with her. She greeted Lord George with a faint attempt at a smile, and seated herself in a corner of a sofa. She asked whether he had been told the story of the proposed search, and then bade her friend Mrs. Carbuncle describe the scene. "If it goes on like this it will kill me," said Lizzie. "They are treating me in precisely the same way," said Lord George. "But think of your strength and of my weakness, Lord George." "By heavens, I don't know!" said Lord George. "In this matter your weakness is stronger than any strength of mine. I never was so cut up in my life. It was a good joke when we talked of the suspicions of that fellow at Carlisle as we came up by the railway,--but it is no joke now. I've had men with me, almost asking to search among my things." "They have quite asked me!" said Lizzie piteously. "You;--yes. But there's some reason in that. These infernal diamonds did belong to you, or, at any rate, you had them. You are the last person known to have seen them. Even if you had them still, you'd only have what you call your own." Lizzie looked at him with all her eyes and listened to him with all her ears. "But what the mischief can I have had to do with them?" "It's very hard upon you," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Unless I stole them," continued Lord George. "Which is so absurd, you know," said Lizzie. "That a pig-headed provincial fool should have taken me for a midnight thief, did not disturb me much. I don't think I am very easily annoyed by what other people think of me. But these fellows, I suppose, were sent here by the head of the metropolitan police; and everybody knows that they have been sent. Because I was civil enough to you women to look after you coming up to town, and because one of you was careless enough to lose her jewels, I--I am to be talked about all over London as the man who took them!" This was not spoken with much courtesy to the ladies present. Lord George had dropped that customary chivalry of manner which, in ordinary life, makes it to be quite out of the question that a man shall be uncivil to a woman. He had escaped from conventional usage into rough, truthful speech, under stress from the extremity of the hardship to which he had been subjected. And the women understood it and appreciated it, and liked it rather than otherwise. To Lizzie it seemed fitting that a Corsair so circumstanced should be as uncivil as he pleased; and Mrs. Carbuncle had long been accustomed to her friend's moods. "They can't really think it," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Somebody thinks it. I am told that your particular friend, Lord Fawn,"--this he said, specially addressing Lizzie,--"has expressed a strong opinion that I carry about the necklace always in my pocket. I trust to have the opportunity of wringing his neck some day." "I do so wish you would," said Lizzie. "I shall not lose a chance if I can get it. Before all this occurred I should have said of myself that nothing of the kind could put me out. I don't think there is a man in the world cares less what people say of him than I do. I am as indifferent to ordinary tittle-tattle as a rhinoceros. But, by George,--when it comes to stealing ten thousand pounds' worth of diamonds, and the delicate attentions of all the metropolitan police, one begins to feel that one is vulnerable. When I get up in the morning, I half feel that I shall be locked up before night, and I can see in the eyes of every man I meet that he takes me for the prince of burglars!" "And it is all my fault," said Lizzie. "I wish the diamonds had been thrown into the sea," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "What do you think about them yourself?" asked Lucinda. "I don't know what to think. I'm at a dead loss. You know that man Mr. Benjamin, Lady Eustace?" Lizzie, with a little start, answered that she did,--that she had had dealings with him before her marriage, and had once owed him two or three hundred pounds. As the man's name had been mentioned, she thought it better to own as much. "So he tells me. Now, in all London, I don't suppose there is a greater rascal than Benjamin." "I didn't know that," said Lizzie. "But I did; and with that rascal I have had money dealings for the last six or seven years. He has cashed bills for me, and has my name to bills now,--and Sir Griffin's too. I'm half inclined to think that he has got the diamonds." "Do you indeed?" said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Mr. Benjamin!" said Lizzie. "And he returns the compliment." "How does he return it?" asked Mrs. Carbuncle. "He either thinks that I've got 'em, or he wants to make me believe that he thinks so. He hasn't dared to say it;--but that's his intention. Such an opinion from such a man on such a subject would be quite a compliment. And I feel it. But yet it troubles me. You know that greasy, Israelitish smile of his, Lady Eustace." Lizzie nodded her head and tried to smile. "When I asked him yesterday about the diamonds, he leered at me and rubbed his hands. 'It's a pretty little game;--ain't it, Lord George?' he said. I told him that I thought it a very bad game, and that I hoped the police would have the thief and the necklace soon. 'It's been managed a deal too well for that, Lord George;--don't you think so?'" Lord George mimicked the Jew as he repeated the words, and the ladies, of course, laughed. But poor Lizzie's attempt at laughter was very sorry. "I told him to his face that I thought he had them among his treasures. 'No, no, no, Lord George,' he said, and seemed quite to enjoy the joke. If he's got them himself, he can't think that I have them;--but if he has not, I don't doubt but he believes that I have. And I'll tell you another person who suspects me." "What fools they are," said Lizzie. "I don't know how that may be. Sir Griffin, Lucinda, isn't at all sure but what I have them in my pocket." "I can believe anything of him," said Lucinda. "And it seems he can believe anything of me. I shall begin to think soon that I did take them, myself,--or, at any rate, that I ought to have done so. I wonder what you three women think of it. If you do think I've got 'em, don't scruple to say so. I'm quite used to it, and it won't hurt me any further." The ladies again laughed. "You must have your suspicions," continued he. "I suppose some of the London thieves did get them," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "The police say the box was empty," said Lord George. "How can the police know?" asked Lucinda. "They weren't there to see. Of course, the thieves would say that they didn't take them." "What do you think, Lady Eustace?" "I don't know what to think. Perhaps Mr. Camperdown did it." "Or the Lord Chancellor," said Lord George. "One is just as likely as the other. I wish I could get at what you really think. The whole thing would be so complete if all you three suspected me. I can't get out of it all by going to Paris or Kamschatka, as I should have half a dozen detectives on my heels wherever I went. I must brazen it out here; and the worst of it is, that I feel that a look of guilt is creeping over me. I have a sort of conviction growing upon me that I shall be taken up and tried, and that a jury will find me guilty. I dream about it; and if,--as is probable,--it drives me mad, I'm sure that I shall accuse myself in my madness. There's a fascination about it that I can't explain or escape. I go on thinking how I would have done it if I did do it. I spend hours in calculating how much I would have realised, and where I would have found my market. I couldn't keep myself from asking Benjamin the other day how much they would be worth to him." "What did he say?" asked Lizzie, who sat gazing upon the Corsair, and who was now herself fascinated. Lord George was walking about the room, then sitting for a moment in one chair and again in another, and after a while leaning on the mantelpiece. In his speaking he addressed himself almost exclusively to Lizzie, who could not keep her eyes from his. "He grinned greasily," said the Corsair, "and told me they had already been offered to him once before by you." "That's false," said Lizzie. "Very likely. And then he said that no doubt they'd fall into his hands some day. 'Wouldn't it be a game, Lord George,' he said, 'if, after all, they should be no more than paste?' That made me think he had got them, and that he'd get paste diamonds put into the same setting,--and then give them up with some story of his own making. 'You'd know whether they were paste or not; wouldn't you, Lord George?' he asked." The Corsair, as he repeated Mr. Benjamin's words, imitated the Jew's manner so well, that he made Lizzie shudder. "While I was there, a detective named Gager came in." "The same man who came here, perhaps," suggested Mrs. Carbuncle. "I think not. He seemed to be quite intimate with Mr. Benjamin, and went on at once about the diamonds. Benjamin said that they'd made their way over to Paris, and that he'd heard of them. I found myself getting quite intimate with Mr. Gager, who seemed hardly to scruple at showing that he thought that Benjamin and I were confederates. Mr. Camperdown has offered four hundred pounds reward for the jewels,--to be paid on their surrender to the hands of Mr. Garnett, the jeweller. Gager declared that, if any ordinary thief had them, they would be given up at once for that sum." "That's true, I suppose," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "How would the ordinary thief get his money without being detected? Who would dare to walk into Garnett's shop with the diamonds in his hands and ask for the four hundred pounds? Besides, they have been sold to some one,--and, as I believe, to my dear friend, Mr. Benjamin. 'I suppose you ain't a-going anywhere just at present, Lord George?' said that fellow Gager. 'What the devil's that to you?' I asked him. He just laughed and shook his head. I don't doubt but that there's a policeman about waiting till I leave this house;--or looking at me now with a magnifying glass from the windows at the other side. They've photographed me while I'm going about, and published a list of every hair on my face in the 'Hue and Cry.' I dined at the club yesterday, and found a strange waiter. I feel certain that he was a policeman done up in livery all for my sake. I turned sharp round in the street yesterday, and found a man at a corner. I am sure that man was watching me, and was looking at my pockets to see whether the jewel case was there. As for myself, I can think of nothing else. I wish I had got them. I should have something then to pay me for all this nuisance." "I do wish you had," said Lizzie. "What I should do with them I cannot even imagine. I am always thinking of that, too,--making plans for getting rid of them, supposing I had stolen them. My belief is, that I should be so sick of them that I should chuck them over the bridge into the river,--only that I should fear that some policeman's eye would be on me as I did it. My present position is not comfortable,--but if I had got them, I think that the weight of them would crush me altogether. Having a handle to my name, and being a lord, or, at least, called a lord, makes it all the worse. People are so pleased to think that a lord should have stolen a necklace." Lizzie listened to it all with a strange fascination. If this strong man were so much upset by the bare suspicion, what must be her condition? The jewels were in her desk up-stairs, and the police had been with her also,--were even now probably looking after her and watching her. How much more difficult must it be for her to deal with the diamonds than it would have been for this man. Presently Mrs. Carbuncle left the room, and Lucinda followed her. Lizzie saw them go, and did not dare to go with them. She felt as though her limbs would not have carried her to the door. She was now alone with her Corsair; and she looked up timidly into his deep-set eyes, as he came and stood over her. "Tell me all that you know about it," he said, in that deep, low voice which, from her first acquaintance with him, had filled her with interest, and almost with awe. CHAPTER LI Confidence Lizzie Eustace was speechless as she continued to look up into the Corsair's face. She ought to have answered him briskly, either with indignation or with a touch of humour. But she could not answer him at all. She was desired to tell him all that she knew about the robbery, and she was unable to declare that she knew nothing. How much did he suspect? What did he believe? Had she been watched by Mrs. Carbuncle, and had something of the truth been told to him? And then would it not be better for her that he should know it all? Unsupported and alone she could not bear the trouble which was on her. If she were driven to tell her secret to any one, had she not better tell it to him? She knew that if she did so, she would be a creature in his hands to be dealt with as he pleased;--but would there not be a certain charm in being so mastered? He was but a pinchbeck lord. She had wit enough to know that; but then she had wit enough also to feel that she herself was but a pinchbeck lady. He would be fit for her, and she for him,--if only he would take her. Since her daydreams first began, she had been longing for a Corsair; and here he was, not kneeling at her feet, but standing over her,--as became a Corsair. At any rate he had mastered her now, and she could not speak to him. He waited perhaps a minute, looking at her, before he renewed his question; and the minute seemed to her to be an age. During every second her power beneath his gaze sank lower and lower. There gradually came a grim smile over his face, and she was sure that he could read her very heart. Then he called her by her Christian name,--as he had never called her before. "Come, Lizzie," he said, "you might as well tell me all about it. You know." "Know what?" The words were audible to him, though they were uttered in the lowest whisper. "About this d---- necklace. What is it all? Where are they? And how did you manage it?" "I didn't manage anything!" "But you know where they are?" He paused again, still gazing at her. Gradually there came across his face, or she fancied that it was so, a look of ferocity which thoroughly frightened her. If he should turn against her, and be leagued with the police against her, what chance would she have? "You know where they are," he said, repeating his words. Then at last she nodded her head, assenting to his assertion. "And where are they? Come;--out with it! If you won't tell me, you must tell some one else. There has been a deal too much of this already." "You won't betray me?" "Not if you deal openly with me." "I will; indeed I will. And it was all an accident. When I took them out of the box, I only did it for safety." "You did take them out of the box then?" Again she nodded her head. "And have got them now?" There was another nod. "And where are they? Come; with such a spirit of enterprise as yours you ought to be able to speak. Has Benjamin got them?" "Oh, no." "And he knows nothing about them?" "Nothing." "Then I have wronged in my thoughts that son of Abraham?" "Nobody knows anything," said Lizzie. "Not even Jane or Lucinda?" "Nothing at all." "Then you have kept your secret marvellously. And where are they?" "Up-stairs." "In your bed-room?" "In my desk in the little sitting-room." "The Lord be good to us!" ejaculated Lord George. "All the police in London, from the chief downwards, are agog about this necklace. Every well-known thief in the town is envied by every other thief because he is thought to have had a finger in the pie. I am suspected, and Mr. Benjamin is suspected; Sir Griffin is suspected, and half the jewellers in London and Paris are supposed to have the stones in their keeping. Every man and woman is talking about it, and people are quarrelling about it till they almost cut each other's throats; and all the while you have got them locked up in your desk! How on earth did you get the box broken open and then conveyed out of your room at Carlisle?" Then Lizzie, in a frightened whisper, with her eyes often turned on the floor, told the whole story. "If I'd had a minute to think of it," she said, "I would have confessed the truth at Carlisle. Why should I want to steal what was my own? But they came to me all so quickly, and I didn't like to say that I had them under my pillow." "I daresay not." "And then I couldn't tell anybody afterwards. I always meant to tell you,--from the very first; because I knew you would be good to me. They are my own. Surely I might do what I liked with my own?" "Well,--yes; in one way. But you see there was a lawsuit in Chancery going on about them; and then you committed perjury at Carlisle. And altogether,--it's not quite straight sailing, you know." "I suppose not." "Hardly. Major Mackintosh, and the magistrates, and Messrs. Bunfit and Gager won't settle down, peaceable and satisfied, when they hear the end of the story. And I think Messrs. Camperdown will have a bill against you. It's been uncommonly clever, but I don't see the use of it." "I've been very foolish," said Lizzie,--"but you won't desert me!" "Upon my word I don't know what I'm to do." "Will you have them,--as a present?" "Certainly not." "They're worth ever so much;--ten thousand pounds! And they are my own, to do just what I please with them." "You are very good;--but what should I do with them?" "Sell them." "Who'd buy them? And before a week was over I should be in prison, and in a couple of months should be standing at the Old Bailey at my trial. I couldn't just do that, my dear." "What will you do for me? You are my friend;--ain't you?" The diamond necklace was not a desirable possession in the eyes of Lord George de Bruce Carruthers;--but Portray Castle, with its income, and the fact that Lizzie Eustace was still a very young woman, was desirable. Her prettiness too was not altogether thrown away on Lord George,--though, as he was wont to say to himself, he was too old now to sacrifice much for such a toy as that. Something he must do,--if only because of the knowledge which had come to him. He could not go away and leave her, and neither say nor do anything in the matter. And he could not betray her to the police. "You will not desert me!" she said, taking hold of his hand, and kissing it as a suppliant. He passed his arm round her waist, but more as though she were a child than a woman, as he stood thinking. Of all the affairs in which he had ever been engaged, it was the most difficult. She submitted to his embrace, and leaned upon his shoulder, and looked up into his face. If he would only tell her that he loved her, then he would be bound to her,--then must he share with her the burthen of the diamonds,--then must he be true to her. "George!" she said, and burst into a low suppressed wailing, with her face hidden upon his arm. "That's all very well," said he, still holding her,--for she was pleasant to hold,--"but what the d---- is a fellow to do? I don't see my way out of it. I think you'd better go to Camperdown, and give them up to him, and tell him the truth." Then she sobbed more violently than before, till her quick ear caught the sound of a footstep on the stairs, and in a moment she was out of his arms and seated on the sofa, with hardly a trace of tears in her eyes. It was the footman, who desired to know whether Lady Eustace would want the carriage that afternoon. Lady Eustace, with her cheeriest voice, sent her love to Mrs. Carbuncle, and her assurance that she would not want the carriage before the evening. "I don't know that you can do anything else," continued Lord George, "except just give them up and brazen it out. I don't suppose they'd prosecute you." "Prosecute me!" ejaculated Lizzie. "For perjury, I mean." "And what could they do to me?" "Oh, I don't know. Lock you up for five years, perhaps." "Because I had my own necklace under the pillow in my own room?" "Think of all the trouble you've given." "I'll never give them up to Mr. Camperdown. They are mine;--my very own. My cousin, Mr. Greystock, who is much more of a lawyer than Mr. Camperdown, says so. Oh, George, do think of something! Don't tell me that I must give them up! Wouldn't Mr. Benjamin buy them?" "Yes;--for half nothing; and then go and tell the whole story and get money from the other side. You can't trust Benjamin." "But I can trust you." She clung to him and implored him, and did get from him a renewed promise that he would not reveal her secret. She wanted him to take the terrible packet from her there and then, and use his own judgment in disposing of it. But this he positively refused to do. He protested that they were safer with her than they could be with him. He explained to her that if they were found in his hands, his offence in having them in his possession would be much greater than hers. They were her own,--as she was ever so ready to assert; or if not her own, the ownership was so doubtful that she could not be accused of having stolen them. And then he needed to consider it all,--to sleep upon it,--before he could make up his mind what he would do. But there was one other trouble on her mind as to which he was called upon to give her counsel before he was allowed to leave her. She had told the detective officer that she would submit her boxes and desks to be searched if her cousin Frank should advise it. If the policeman were to return with her cousin while the diamonds were still in her desk, what should she do? He might come at any time; and then she would be bound to obey him. "And he thinks that they were stolen at Carlisle?" asked Lord George. "Of course he thinks so," said Lizzie, almost indignantly. "They would never ask to search your person," suggested Lord George. Lizzie could not say. She had simply declared that she would be guided by her cousin. "Have them about you when he comes. Don't take them out with you; but keep them in your pocket while you are in the house during the day. They will hardly bring a woman with them to search you." "But there was a woman with the man when he came before." "Then you must refuse in spite of your cousin. Show yourself angry with him and with everybody. Swear that you did not intend to submit yourself to such indignity as that. They can't do it without a magistrate's order, unless you permit it. I don't suppose they will come at all; and if they do they will only look at your clothes and your boxes. If they ask to do more, be stout with them and refuse. Of course they'll suspect you, but they do that already. And your cousin will suspect you;--but you must put up with that. It will be very bad;--but I see nothing better. But, of all things, say nothing of me." "Oh, no," said Lizzie, promising to be obedient to him. And then he took his leave of her. "You will be true to me;--will you not?" she said, still clinging to his arm. He promised her that he would. "Oh, George," she said, "I have no friend now but you. You will care for me?" He took her in his arms and kissed her, and promised her that he would care for her. How was he to save himself from doing so? When he was gone, Lizzie sat down to think of it all, and felt sure that at last she had found her Corsair. CHAPTER LII Mrs. Carbuncle Goes to the Theatre Mrs. Carbuncle and Lizzie Eustace did not, in these days, shut themselves up because there was trouble in the household. It would not have suited the creed of Mrs. Carbuncle on social matters to be shut up from the amusements of life. She had sacrificed too much in seeking them for that, and was too conscious of the price she paid for them. It was still mid-winter, but nevertheless there was generally some amusement arranged for every evening. Mrs. Carbuncle was very fond of the play, and made herself acquainted with every new piece as it came out. Every actor and actress of note on the stage was known to her, and she dealt freely in criticisms on their respective merits. The three ladies had a box at the Haymarket taken for this very evening, at which a new piece, "The Noble Jilt," from the hand of a very eminent author, was to be produced. Mrs. Carbuncle had talked a great deal about "The Noble Jilt," and could boast that she had discussed the merits of the two chief characters with the actor and actress who were to undertake them. Miss Talbot had assured her that the Margaret was altogether impracticable, and Mrs. Carbuncle was quite of the same opinion. And as for the hero, Steinmark,--it was a part that no man could play so as to obtain the sympathy of an audience. There was a second hero,--a Flemish Count,--tame as rain-water, Mrs. Carbuncle said. She was very anxious for the success of the piece, which, as she said, had its merits; but she was sure that it wouldn't do. She had talked about it a great deal, and now, when the evening came, she was not going to be deterred from seeing it by any trouble in reference to a diamond necklace. Lizzie, when she was left by Lord George, had many doubts on the subject,--whether she would go or stay at home. If he would have come to her, or her cousin Frank, or if, had it been possible, Lord Fawn would have come, she would have given up the play very willingly. But to be alone,--with her necklace in the desk up-stairs, or in her pocket, was terrible to her. And then, they could not search her or her boxes while she was at the theatre. She must not take the necklace with her there. He had told her to leave it in her desk, when she went from home. Lucinda, also, was quite determined that she would see the new piece. She declared to her aunt, in Lizzie's presence, without a vestige of a smile, that it might be well to see how a jilt could behave herself, so as to do her work of jilting in any noble fashion. "My dear," said her aunt, "you let things weigh upon your heart a great deal too much." "Not upon my heart, Aunt Jane," the young lady had answered. She also intended to go, and when she had made up her mind to anything, nothing would deter her. She had no desire to stay at home in order that she might see Sir Griffin. "I daresay the play may be very bad," she said, "but it can hardly be so bad as real life." Lizzie, when Lord George had left her, crept up-stairs, and sat for awhile thinking of her condition, with the key of her desk in her hand. Should there come a knock at the door, the case of diamonds would be in her pocket in a moment. Her own room door was bolted on the inside, so that she might have an instant for her preparation. She was quite resolved that she would carry out Lord George's recommendation, and that no policeman or woman should examine her person, unless it were done by violence. There she sat, almost expecting that at every moment her cousin would be there with Bunfit and the woman. But nobody came, and at six she went down to dinner. After much consideration she then left the diamonds in the desk. Surely no one would come to search at such an hour as that. No one had come when the carriage was announced, and the three ladies went off together. During the whole way Mrs. Carbuncle talked of the terrible situation in which poor Lord George was placed by the robbery, and of all that Lizzie owed him on account of his trouble. "My dear," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "the least you can do for him is to give him all that you've got to give." "I don't know that he wants me to give him anything," said Lizzie. "I think that's quite plain," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "and I'm sure I wish it may be so. He and I have been dear friends,--very dear friends, and there is nothing I wish so much as to see him properly settled. Ill-natured people like to say all manner of things because everybody does not choose to live in their own heartless, conventional form. But I can assure you there is nothing between me and Lord George which need prevent him from giving his whole heart to you." "I don't suppose there is," said Lizzie, who loved an opportunity of giving Mrs. Carbuncle a little rap. The play, as a play, was a failure; at least so said Mrs. Carbuncle. The critics, on the next morning, were somewhat divided,--not only in judgment, but as to facts. To say how a play has been received is of more moment than to speak of its own merits or of the merits of the actors. Three or four of the papers declared that the audience was not only eulogistic, but enthusiastic. One or two others averred that the piece fell very flatly. As it was not acted above four or five dozen times consecutively, it must be regarded as a failure. On their way home Mrs. Carbuncle declared that Minnie Talbot had done her very best with such a part as Margaret, but that the character afforded no scope for sympathy. "A noble jilt, my dears," said Mrs. Carbuncle eloquently, "is a contradiction in terms. There can be no such thing. A woman, when she has once said the word, is bound to stick to it. The delicacy of the female character should not admit of hesitation between two men. The idea is quite revolting." "But may not one have an idea of no man at all?"--asked Lucinda. "Must that be revolting also?" "Of course a young woman may entertain such an idea; though for my part I look upon it as unnatural. But when she has once given herself there can be no taking back without the loss of that aroma which should be the apple of a young woman's eye." "If she finds that she has made a mistake--?" said Lucinda fiercely. "Why shouldn't a young woman make a mistake as well as an old woman? Her aroma won't prevent her from having been wrong and finding it out." "My dear, such mistakes, as you call them, always arise from fantastic notions. Look at this piece. Why does the lady jilt her lover? Not because she doesn't like him. She's just as fond of him as ever." "He's a stupid sort of a fellow, and I think she was quite right," said Lizzie. "I'd never marry a man merely because I said I would. If I found I didn't like him, I'd leave him at the altar. If I found I didn't like him, I'd leave him even after the altar. I'd leave him any time I found I didn't like him. It's all very well to talk of aroma, but to live with a man you don't like--is the devil!" "My dear, those whom God has joined together shouldn't be separated,--for any mere likings or dislikings." This Mrs. Carbuncle said in a high tone of moral feeling, just as the carriage stopped at the door in Hertford Street. They at once perceived that the hall-door was open, and Mrs. Carbuncle, as she crossed the pavement, saw that there were two policemen in the hall. The footman had been with them to the theatre, but the cook and housemaid, and Mrs. Carbuncle's own maid, were with the policemen in the passage. She gave a little scream, and then Lizzie, who had followed her, seized her by the arm. She turned round and saw by the gas-light that Lizzie's face was white as a sheet, and that all the lines of her countenance were rigid and almost distorted. "Then she does know all about it!" said Mrs. Carbuncle to herself. Lizzie didn't speak, but still hung on to Mrs. Carbuncle's arm, and Lucinda, having seen how it was, was also supporting her. A policeman stepped forward and touched his hat. He was not Bunfit;--neither was he Gager. Indeed, though the ladies had not perceived the difference, he was not at all like Bunfit or Gager. This man was dressed in a policeman's uniform, whereas Bunfit and Gager always wore plain clothes. "My lady," said the policeman, addressing Mrs. Carbuncle, "there's been a robbery here." "A robbery!" ejaculated Mrs. Carbuncle. "Yes, my lady. The servants all out,--all to one; and she's off. They've taken jewels, and, no doubt, money, if there was any. They don't mostly come unless they know what they comes for." With a horrid spasm across her heart, which seemed ready to kill her, so sharp was the pain, Lizzie recovered the use of her legs and followed Mrs. Carbuncle into the dining-room. She had been hardly conscious of hearing; but she had heard, and it had seemed to her that the robbery spoken of was something distinct from her own affair. The policemen did not speak of having found the diamonds. It was of something lost that they spoke. She seated herself in a chair against the wall, but did not utter a word. "We've been up-stairs, my lady, and they've been in most of the rooms. There's a desk broke open,"--Lizzie gave an involuntary little scream;--"Yes, mum, a desk," continued the policeman turning to Lizzie, "and a bureau, and a dressing-case. What's gone your ladyship can tell when you sees. And one of the young women is off. It's she as done it." Then the cook explained. She and the housemaid, and Mrs. Carbuncle's lady's maid, had just stepped out, only round the corner, to get a little air, leaving Patience Crabstick in charge of the house; and when they came back, the area gate was locked against them, the front door was locked, and finding themselves unable to get in after many knockings, they had at last obtained the assistance of a policeman. He had got into the place over the area gate, had opened the front door from within, and then the robbery had been discovered. It was afterwards found that the servants had all gone out to what they called a tea-party, at a public-house in the neighbourhood, and that by previous agreement Patience Crabstick had remained in charge. When they came back Patience Crabstick was gone, and the desk, and bureau, and dressing-case, were found to have been opened. "She had a reg'lar thief along with her, my lady," said the policeman, still addressing himself to Mrs. Carbuncle,--"'cause of the way the things was opened." "I always knew that young woman was downright bad," said Mrs. Carbuncle in her first expression of wrath. But Lizzie sat in her chair without saying a word, still pale, with that almost awful look of agony in her face. Within ten minutes of their entering the house, Mrs. Carbuncle was making her way up-stairs, with the two policemen following her. That her bureau and her dressing-case should have been opened was dreadful to her, though the value that she could thus lose was very small. She also possessed diamonds,--but her diamonds were paste; and whatever jewellery she had of any value,--a few rings, and a brooch, and such like,--had been on her person in the theatre. What little money she had by her was in the drawing-room, and the drawing-room, as it seemed, had not been entered. In truth, all Mrs. Carbuncle's possessions in the house were not sufficient to have tempted a well-bred, well-instructed thief. But it behoved her to be indignant; and she could be indignant with grace, as the thief was discovered to be, not her maid, but Patience Crabstick. The policemen followed Mrs. Carbuncle, and the maids followed the policemen; but Lizzie Eustace kept her seat in the chair by the wall. "Do you think they have taken much of yours?" said Lucinda, coming up to her and speaking very gently. Lizzie made a motion with her two hands upon her heart, and struggled, and gasped,--as though she wished to speak but could not. "I suppose it is that girl who has done it all," said Lucinda. Lizzie nodded her head, and tried to smile. The attempt was so ghastly that Lucinda, though not timid by nature, was frightened. She sat down and took Lizzie's hand, and tried to comfort her. "It is very hard upon you," she said, "to be twice robbed." Lizzie again nodded her head. "I hope it is not much now. Shall we go up and see?" The poor creature did get upon her legs, but she gasped so terribly that Lucinda feared that she was dying. "Shall I send for some one?" she said. Lizzie made an effort to speak, was shaken convulsively while the other supported her, and then burst into a flood of tears. When that had come she was relieved, and could again act her part. "Yes," she said, "we will go with them. It is so dreadful;--is it not?" "Very dreadful;--but how much better that we weren't at home! Shall we go now?" Then together they followed the others, and on the stairs Lizzie explained that in her desk, of which she always carried the key round her neck, there was what money she had by her;--two ten-pound notes, and four five-pound notes, and three sovereigns;--in all, forty-three pounds. Her other jewels,--the jewels which she had possessed over and above the fatal diamond necklace,--were in her dressing-case. Patience, she did not doubt, had known that the money was there, and certainly knew of her jewels. So they went up-stairs. The desk was open and the money gone. Five or six rings and a bracelet had been taken also from Lizzie's dressing-case, which she had left open. Of Mrs. Carbuncle's property sufficient had been stolen to make a long list in that lady's handwriting. Lucinda Roanoke's room had not been entered,--as far as they could judge. The girl had taken the best of her own clothes, and a pair of strong boots belonging to the cook. A superintendent of police was there before they went to bed, and a list was made out. The superintendent was of opinion that the thing had been done very cleverly, but was of opinion that the thieves had expected to find more plunder. "They don't care so much about banknotes, my lady, because they fetches such a low price with them as they deal with. The three sovereigns is more to them than all the forty pounds in notes." The superintendent had heard of the diamond necklace, and expressed an opinion that poor Lady Eustace was especially marked out for misfortune. "It all comes of having such a girl as that about her," said Mrs. Carbuncle. The superintendent, who intended to be consolatory to Lizzie, expressed his opinion that it was very hard to know what a young woman was. "They looks as soft as butter, and they're as sly as foxes, and as quick, as quick--as quick as greased lightning, my lady." Such a piece of business as this which had just occurred, will make people intimate at a very short notice. And so the diamond necklace, known to be worth ten thousand pounds, had at last been stolen in earnest! Lizzie, when the policemen were gone, and the noise was over, and the house was closed, slunk away to her bedroom, refusing any aid in lieu of that of the wicked Patience. She herself had examined the desk beneath the eyes of her two friends and of the policemen, and had seen at once that the case was gone. The money was gone too, as she was rejoiced to find. She perceived at once that had the money been left,--the very leaving of it would have gone to prove that other prize had been there. But the money was gone,--money of which she had given a correct account;--and she could now honestly allege that she had been robbed. But she had at last really lost her great treasure;--and if the treasure should be found, then would she infallibly be exposed. She had talked twice of giving away her necklace, and had seriously thought of getting rid of it by burying it deep in the sea. But now that it was in very truth gone from her, the loss of it was horrible to her. Ten thousand pounds, for which she had struggled so much and borne so many things, which had come to be the prevailing fact of her life, gone from her for ever! Nevertheless it was not that sorrow, that regret, which had so nearly overpowered her in the dining-parlour. At that moment she hardly knew, had hardly thought, whether the diamonds had or had not been taken. But the feeling came upon her at once that her own disgrace was every hour being brought nearer to her. Her secret was no longer quite her own. One man knew it, and he had talked to her of perjury and of five years' imprisonment. Patience must have known it, too; and now some one else also knew it. The police, of course, would find it out, and then horrid words would be used against her. She hardly knew what perjury was. It sounded like forgery and burglary. To stand up before a judge and be tried,--and then to be locked up for five years in prison--! What an end would this be to all her glorious success? And what evil had she done to merit all this terrible punishment? When they came to her in her bedroom at Carlisle she had simply been too much frightened to tell them all that the necklace was at that moment under her pillow. She tried to think of it all, and to form some idea in her mind of what might be the truth. Of course, Patience Crabstick had known her secret, but how long had the girl known it? And how had the girl discovered it? She was almost certain, from certain circumstances, from words which the girl had spoken, and from signs which she had observed, that Patience had not even suspected that the necklace had been brought with them from Carlisle to London. Of course, the coming of Bunfit and the woman would have set the girl's mind to work in that direction; but then Bunfit and the woman had only been there on that morning. The Corsair knew the facts, and no one but the Corsair. That the Corsair was a Corsair, the suspicions of the police had proved to her. She had offered the necklace to the Corsair; but when so offered, he had refused to take it. She could understand that he should see the danger of accepting the diamonds from her hand, and yet should be desirous of having them. And might not he have thought that he could best relieve her from the burthen of their custody in this manner? She felt no anger against the Corsair as she weighed the probability of his having taken them in this fashion. A Corsair must be a Corsair. Were he to come to her and confess the deed, she would almost like him the better for it,--admiring his skill and enterprise. But how very clever he must have been, and how brave! He had known, no doubt, that the three ladies were all going to the theatre; but in how short a time had he got rid of the other women and availed himself of the services of Patience Crabstick! But in what way would she conduct herself when the police should come to her on the following morning,--the police and all the other people who would crowd to the house? How should she receive her cousin Frank? How should she look when the coincidence of the double robbery should be spoken of in her hearing? How should she bear herself when, as of course would be the case, she should again be taken before the magistrates, and made to swear as to the loss of her property? Must she commit more perjury, with the certainty that various people must know that her oath was false? All the world would suspect her. All the world would soon know the truth. Might it not be possible that the diamonds were at this moment in the hands of Messrs. Camperdown, and that they would be produced before her eyes, as soon as her second false oath had been registered against her? And yet how could she tell the truth? And what would the Corsair think of her,--the Corsair, who would know everything? She made one resolution during the night. She would not be taken into court. The magistrates and the people might come to her, but she would not go before them. When the morning came she said that she was ill, and refused to leave her bed. Policemen, she knew, were in the house early. At about nine Mrs. Carbuncle and Lucinda were up and in her room. The excitement of the affair had taken them from their beds,--but she would not stir. If it were absolutely necessary, she said, the men must come into her room. She had been so overset by what had occurred on the previous night, that she could not leave her room. She appealed to Lucinda as to the fact of her illness. The trouble of these robberies was so great upon her that her heart was almost broken. If her deposition must be taken, she would make it in bed. In the course of the day the magistrate did come into her room and the deposition was taken. Forty-three pounds had been taken from her desk, and certain jewels, which she described, from her dressing-case. As far as she was aware, no other property of hers was missing. This she said in answer to a direct question from the magistrate, which, as she thought, was asked with a stern voice and searching eye. And so, a second time, she had sworn falsely. But this at least was gained,--that Lord George de Bruce Carruthers was not looking at her as she swore. Lord George was in the house for a great part of the day, but he did not ask to be admitted to Lizzie's room;--nor did she ask to see him. Frank Greystock was there late in the afternoon, and went up at once to his cousin. The moment that she saw him she stretched out her arms to him, and burst into tears. "My poor girl," said he, "what is the meaning of it all?" "I don't know. I think they will kill me. They want to kill me. How can I bear it all? The robbers were here last night, and magistrates and policemen and people have been here all day." Then she fell into a fit of sobbing and wailing, which was, in truth, hysterical. For,--if the readers think of it,--the poor woman had a great deal to bear. Frank, into whose mind no glimmer of suspicion against his cousin had yet entered, and who firmly believed that she had been made a victim because of the value of her diamonds,--and who had a theory of his own about the robbery at Carlisle, to the circumstances of which he was now at some pains to make these latter circumstances adhere,--was very tender with his cousin, and remained in the house for more than an hour. "Oh, Frank, what had I better do?" she asked him. "I would leave London, if I were you." "Yes;--of course. I will. Oh yes, I will!" "If you don't fear the cold of Scotland--" "I fear nothing,--nothing but being where these policemen can come to me. Oh!"--and then she shuddered and was again hysterical. Nor was she acting the condition. As she remembered the magistrates, and the detectives, and the policemen in their uniforms,--and reflected that she might probably see much more of them before the game was played out, the thoughts that crowded on her were almost more than she could bear. "Your child is there, and it is your own house. Go there till all this passes by." Whereupon she promised him that, as soon as she was well enough, she would at once go to Scotland. In the meantime, the Eustace diamonds were locked up in a small safe fixed into the wall at the back of a small cellar beneath the establishment of Messrs. Harter and Benjamin, in Minto Lane, in the City. Messrs. Harter and Benjamin always kept a second place of business. Their great shop was at the West-end; but they had accommodation in the City. The chronicler states this at once, as he scorns to keep from his reader any secret that is known to himself. CHAPTER LIII Lizzie's Sick-Room When the Hertford Street robbery was three days old, and was still the talk of all the town, Lizzie Eustace was really ill. She had promised to go down to Scotland in compliance with the advice given to her by her cousin Frank, and at the moment of promising would have been willing enough to be transported at once to Portray, had that been possible--so as to be beyond the visits of policemen and the authority of lawyers and magistrates; but as the hours passed over her head, and as her presence of mind returned to her, she remembered that even at Portray she would not be out of danger, and that she could do nothing in furtherance of her plans if once immured there. Lord George was in London, Frank Greystock was in London, and Lord Fawn was in London. It was more than ever necessary to her that she should find a husband among them,--a husband who would not be less her husband when the truth of that business at Carlisle should be known to all the world. She had, in fact, stolen nothing. She endeavoured to comfort herself by repeating to herself over and over again that assurance. She had stolen nothing; and she still thought that if she could obtain the support of some strong arm on which to lean, she might escape punishment for those false oaths which she had sworn. Her husband might take her abroad, and the whole thing would die away. If she should succeed with Lord George, of course he would take her abroad, and there would be no need for any speedy return. They might roam among islands in pleasant warm suns, and the dreams of her youth might be realised. Her income was still her own. They could not touch that. So she thought, at least,--oppressed by some slight want of assurance in that respect. Were she to go at once to Scotland, she must for the present give up that game altogether. If Frank would pledge himself to become her husband in three or four, or even in six months, she would go at once. She had more confidence in Frank than even in Lord George. As for love,--she would sometimes tell herself that she was violently in love; but she hardly knew with which. Lord George was certainly the best representative of that perfect Corsair which her dreams had represented to her; but, in regard to working life, she thought that she liked her cousin Frank better than she had ever yet liked any other human being. But, in truth, she was now in that condition, as she acknowledged to herself, that she was hardly entitled to choose. Lord Fawn had promised to marry her, and to him as a husband she conceived that she still had a right. Nothing had as yet been proved against her which could justify him in repudiating his engagement. She had, no doubt, asserted with all vehemence to her cousin that no consideration would now induce her to give her hand to Lord Fawn;--and when making that assurance she had been, after her nature, sincere. But circumstances were changed since that. She had not much hope that Lord Fawn might be made to succumb,--though evidence had reached her before the last robbery which induced her to believe that he did not consider himself to be quite secure. In these circumstances she was unwilling to leave London though she had promised, and was hardly sorry to find an excuse in her recognised illness. And she was ill. Though her mind was again at work with schemes on which she would not have busied herself without hope, yet she had not recovered from the actual bodily prostration to which she had been compelled to give way when first told of the robbery on her return from the theatre. There had been moments then in which she thought that her heart would have broken,--moments in which, but that the power of speech was wanting, she would have told everything to Lucinda Roanoke. When Mrs. Carbuncle was marching up-stairs with the policemen at her heels she would have willingly sold all her hopes, Portray Castle, her lovers, her necklace, her income, her beauty, for any assurance of the humblest security. With that quickness of intellect which was her peculiar gift, she had soon understood, in the midst of her sufferings, that her necklace had been taken by thieves whose robbery might assist her for a while in keeping her secret, rather than lead to the immediate divulging of it. Neither Camperdown nor Bunfit had been at work among the boxes. Her secret had been discovered, no doubt, by Patience Crabstick, and the diamonds were gone. But money also was taken, and the world need not know that the diamonds had been there. But Lord George knew. And then there arose to her that question: Had the diamonds been taken in consequence of that revelation to Lord George? It was not surprising that in the midst of all this Lizzie should be really ill. She was most anxious to see Lord George; but, if what Mrs. Carbuncle said to her was true, Lord George refused to see her. She did not believe Mrs. Carbuncle, and was, therefore, quite in the dark about her Corsair. As she could only communicate with him through Mrs. Carbuncle, it might well be the case that he should have been told that he could not have access to her. Of course there were difficulties. That her cousin Frank should see her in her bedroom,--her cousin Frank, with whom it was essentially necessary that she should hold counsel as to her present great difficulties,--was a matter of course. There was no hesitation about that. A fresh nightcap, and a clean pocket-handkerchief with a bit of lace round it, and, perhaps, some pretty covering to her shoulders if she were to be required to sit up in bed, and the thing was arranged. He might have spent the best part of his days in her bedroom if he could have spared the time. But the Corsair was not a cousin,--nor as yet an acknowledged lover. There was difficulty even in framing a reason for her request, when she made it to Mrs. Carbuncle; and the very reason which she gave was handed back to her as the Corsair's reason for not coming to her. She desired to see him because he had been so much mixed up in the matter of these terrible robberies. But Mrs. Carbuncle declared to her that Lord George would not come to her because his name had been so frequently mentioned in connexion with the diamonds. "You see, my dear," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "there can be no real reason for his seeing you up in your bedroom. If there had been anything between you, as I once thought there would--" There was something in the tone of Mrs. Carbuncle's voice which grated on Lizzie's ear,--something which seemed to imply that all that prospect was over. "Of course," said Lizzie querulously, "I am very anxious to know what he thinks. I care more about his opinion than anybody else's. As to his name being mixed up in it,--that is all a joke." "It has been no joke to him, I can assure you," said Mrs. Carbuncle. Lizzie could not press her request. Of course, she knew more about it than did Mrs. Carbuncle. The secret was in her own bosom,--the secret as to the midnight robbery at Carlisle, and that secret she had told to Lord George. As to the robbery in London she knew nothing,--except that it had been perpetrated through the treachery of Patience Crabstick. Did Lord George know more about it than she knew?--and if so, was he now deterred by that knowledge from visiting her? "You see, my dear," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "that a gentleman visiting a lady with whom he has no connexion, in her bedroom, is in itself something very peculiar." Lizzie made a motion of impatience under the bedclothes. Any such argument was trash to her, and she knew that it was trash to Mrs. Carbuncle also. What was one man in her bedroom more than another? She could see a dozen doctors if she pleased, and if so, why not this man, whose real powers of doctoring her would be so much more efficacious? "You would want to see him alone, too," continued Mrs. Carbuncle, "and, of course, the police would hear of it. I am not at all surprised that he should stay away." Lizzie's condition did not admit of much argument on her side, and she only showed her opposition to Mrs. Carbuncle by being cross and querulous. Frank Greystock came to her with great constancy almost every day, and from him she did hear about the robbery all that he knew or heard. When three days had passed,--when six days, and even when ten days were gone, nobody had been as yet arrested. The police, according to Frank, were much on the alert, but were very secret. They either would not, or could not, tell anything. To him the two robberies, that at Carlisle and the last affair in Hertford Street, were of course distinct. There were those who believed that the Hertford Street thieves and the Carlisle thieves were not only the same, but that they had been in quest of the same plunder,--and had at last succeeded. But Frank was not one of these. He never for a moment doubted that the diamonds had been taken at Carlisle, and explained the second robbery by the supposition that Patience Crabstick had been emboldened by success. The iron box had no doubt been taken by her assistance, and her familiarity with the thieves, then established, had led to the second robbery. Lizzie's loss in that second robbery had amounted to some hundred pounds. This was Frank Greystock's theory, and of course it was one very comfortable to Lizzie. "They all seem to think that the diamonds are at Paris," he said to her one day. "If you only knew how little I care about them. It seems as though I had almost forgotten them in these after troubles." "Mr. Camperdown cares about them. I'm told he says that he can make you pay for them out of your jointure." "That would be very terrible, of course," said Lizzie, to whose mind there was something consolatory in the idea that the whole affair of the robbery might perhaps remain so mysterious as to remove her from the danger of other punishment than this. "I feel sure that he couldn't do it," said Frank, "and I don't think he'll try it. John Eustace would not let him. It would be persecution." "Mr. Camperdown has always chosen to persecute me," said Lizzie. "I can understand that he shouldn't like the loss of the diamonds. I don't think, Lizzie, you ever realised their true value." "I suppose not. After all, a necklace is only a necklace. I cared nothing for it,--except that I could not bear the idea that that man should dictate to me. I would have given it up at once, at the slightest word from you." He did not care to remind her then, as she lay in bed, that he had been very urgent in his advice to her to abandon the diamonds,--and not the less urgent because he had thought that the demand for them was unjust. "I told you often," she continued, "that I was tempted to throw them among the waves. It was true;--quite true. I offered to give them to you, and should have been delighted to have been relieved from them." "That was, of course, simply impossible." "I know it was;--impossible on your part; but I would have been delighted. Of what use were they to me? I wore them twice because that man,"--meaning Lord Fawn,--"disputed my right to them. Before that I never even looked at them. Do you think I had pleasure in wearing them, or pleasure in looking at them? Never. They were only a trouble to me. It was a point of honour with me to keep them, because I was attacked. But I am glad they are gone,--thoroughly glad." This was all very well, and was not without its effect on Frank Greystock. It is hardly expected of a woman in such a condition, with so many troubles on her mind, who had been so persecuted, that every word uttered by her should be strictly true. Lizzie, with her fresh nightcap, and her laced handkerchief, pale, and with her eyes just glittering with tears, was very pretty. "Didn't somebody once give some one a garment which scorched him up when he wore it,--some woman who sent it because she loved the man so much?" "The shirt, you mean, which Dejanira sent to Hercules. Yes;--Hercules was a good deal scorched." "And that necklace, which my husband gave me because he loved me so well, has scorched me horribly. It has nearly killed me. It has been like the white elephant which the Eastern king gives to his subject when he means to ruin him. Only poor Florian didn't mean to hurt me. He gave it all in love. If these people bring a lawsuit against me, Frank, you must manage it for me." "There will be no lawsuit. Your brother-in-law will stop it." "I wonder who will really get the diamonds after all, Frank? They were very valuable. Only think that the ten thousand pounds should disappear in such a way!" The subject was a very dangerous one, but there was a fascination about it which made it impossible for her to refrain from it. "A dishonest dealer in diamonds will probably realise the plunder,--after some years. There would be something very alluring in the theft of articles of great value, were it not that, when got, they at once become almost valueless by the difficulty of dealing with them. Supposing I had the necklace!" "I wish you had, Frank." "I could do nothing with it. Ten sovereigns would go further with me,--or ten shillings. The burthen of possessing it would in itself be almost more than I could bear. The knowledge that I had the thing, and might be discovered in having it, would drive me mad. By my own weakness I should be compelled to tell my secret to some one. And then I should never sleep for fear my partner in the matter should turn against me." How well she understood it all! How probable it was that Lord George should turn against her! How exact was Frank's description of that burthen of a secret so heavy that it cannot be borne alone! "A little reflection," continued Frank, "soon convinces a man that rough downright stealing is an awkward, foolish trade; and it therefore falls into the hands of those who want education for the higher efforts of dishonesty. To get into a bank at midnight and steal what little there may be in the till, or even an armful of bank-notes, with the probability of a policeman catching you as you creep out of the chimney and through a hole, is clumsy work; but to walk in amidst the smiles and bows of admiring managers and draw out money over the counter by thousands and tens of thousands, which you have never put in and which you can never repay, and which, when all is done, you have only borrowed;--that is a great feat." "Do you really think so?" "The courage, the ingenuity, and the self-confidence needed are certainly admirable. And then there is a cringing and almost contemptible littleness about honesty, which hardly allows it to assert itself. The really honest man can never say a word to make those who don't know of his honesty believe that it is there. He has one foot in the grave before his neighbours have learned that he is possessed of an article for the use of which they would so willingly have paid, could they have been made to see that it was there. The dishonest man almost doubts whether in him dishonesty is dishonest, let it be practised ever so widely. The honest man almost doubts whether his honesty be honest, unless it be kept hidden. Let two unknown men be competitors for any place, with nothing to guide the judges but their own words and their own looks, and who can doubt but the dishonest man would be chosen rather than the honest? Honesty goes about with a hang-dog look about him, as though knowing that he cannot be trusted till he be proved. Dishonesty carries his eyes high, and assumes that any question respecting him must be considered to be unnecessary." "Oh, Frank, what a philosopher you are." "Well, yes; meditating about your diamonds has brought my philosophy out. When do you think you will go to Scotland?" "I am hardly strong enough for the journey yet. I fear the cold so much." "You would not find it cold there by the sea-side. To tell you the truth, Lizzie, I want to get you out of this house. I don't mean to say a word against Mrs. Carbuncle; but after all that has occurred, it would be better that you should be away. People talk about you and Lord George." "How can I help it, Frank?" "By going away;--that is, if I may presume one thing. I don't want to pry into your secrets." "I have none from you." "Unless there be truth in the assertion that you are engaged to marry Lord George Carruthers." "There is no truth in it." "And you do not wish to stay here in order that there may be an engagement? I am obliged to ask you home questions, Lizzie, as I could not otherwise advise you." "You do, indeed, ask home questions." "I will desist at once, if they be disagreeable." "Frank, you are false to me!" As she said this she rose in her bed, and sat with her eyes fixed upon his, and her thin hands stretched out upon the bedclothes. "You know that I cannot wish to be engaged to him or to any other man. You know, better almost than I can know myself, how my heart stands. There has, at any rate, been no hypocrisy with me in regard to you. Everything has been told to you;--at what cost I will not now say. The honest woman, I fear, fares worse even than the honest man of whom you spoke. I think you admitted that he would be appreciated at last. She to her dying day must pay the penalty of her transgressions. Honesty in a woman the world never forgives." When she had done speaking, he sat silent by her bedside, but, almost unconsciously, he stretched out his left hand and took her right hand in his. For a few seconds she admitted this, and she lay there with their hands clasped. Then with a start she drew back her arm, and retreated as it were from his touch. "How dare you," she said, "press my hand, when you know that such pressure from you is treacherous and damnable!" "Damnable, Lizzie!" "Yes;--damnable. I will not pick my words for you. Coming from you, what does such pressure mean?" "Affection." "Yes;--and of what sort? You are wicked enough to feed my love by such tokens, when you know that you do not mean to return it. Oh, Frank, Frank, will you give me back my heart? What was it that you promised me when we sat together upon the rocks at Portray?" It is inexpressibly difficult for a man to refuse the tender of a woman's love. We may almost say that a man should do so as a matter of course,--that the thing so offered becomes absolutely valueless by the offer,--that the woman who can make it has put herself out of court by her own abandonment of the privileges due to her as a woman,--that stern rebuke and even expressed contempt are justified by such conduct,--and that the fairest beauty and most alluring charms of feminine grace should lose their attraction when thus tendered openly in the market. No doubt such is our theory as to love and love-making. But the action to be taken by us in matters as to which the plainest theory prevails for the guidance of our practice, depends so frequently on accompanying circumstances and correlative issues, that the theory, as often as not, falls to the ground. Frank could not despise this woman, and could not be stern to her. He could not bring himself to tell her boldly that he would have nothing to say to her in the way of love. He made excuses for her, and persuaded himself that there were peculiar circumstances in her position justifying unwomanly conduct, although, had he examined himself on the subject, he would have found it difficult to say what those circumstances were. She was rich, beautiful, clever,--and he was flattered. Nevertheless he knew that he could not marry her;--and he knew also that much as he liked her he did not love her. "Lizzie," he said, "I think you hardly understand my position." "Yes, I do. That little girl has cozened you out of a promise." "If it be so, you would not have me break it." "Yes, I would, if you think she is not fit to be your wife. Is a man such as you are, to be tied by the leg for life, have all his ambition clipped, and his high hopes shipwrecked, because a girl has been clever enough to extract a word from him? Is it not true that you are in debt?" "What of that? At any rate, Lizzie, I do not want help from you." "That is so like a man's pride! Do we not all know that in such a career as you have marked out for yourself, wealth, or at any rate an easy income, is necessary? Do you think that I cannot put two and two together? Do you believe so meanly of me as to imagine that I should have said to you what I have said, if I did not know that I could help you? A man, I believe, cannot understand that love which induces a woman to sacrifice her pride simply for his advantage. I want to see you prosper. I want to see you a great man and a lord, and I know that you cannot become so without an income. Ah, I wish I could give you all that I have got, and save you from the encumbrance that is attached to it!" It might be that he would then have told her of his engagement to Lucy, and of his resolution to adhere to that promise, had not Mrs. Carbuncle at that moment entered the room. Frank had been there for above an hour, and as Lizzie was still an invalid, and to some extent under the care of Mrs. Carbuncle, it was natural that that lady should interfere. "You know, my dear, you should not exhaust yourself altogether. Mr. Emilius is to come to you this afternoon." "Mr. Emilius!" said Greystock. "Yes;--the clergyman. Don't you remember him at Portray? A dark man with eyes close together! You used to be very wicked, and say that he was once a Jew-boy in the streets." Lizzie, as she spoke of her spiritual guide, was evidently not desirous of doing him much honour. "I remember him well enough. He made sheep's eyes at Miss Macnulty, and drank a great deal of wine at dinner." "Poor Macnulty! I don't believe a word about the wine; and as for Macnulty, I don't see why she should not be converted as well as another. He is coming here to read to me. I hope you don't object." "Not in the least;--if you like it." "One does have solemn thoughts sometimes, Frank,--especially when one is ill." "Oh, yes. Well or ill, one does have solemn thoughts;--ghosts, as it were, which will appear. But is Mr. Emilius good at laying such apparitions?" "He is a clergyman, Mr. Greystock," said Mrs. Carbuncle, with something of rebuke in her voice. "So they tell me. I was not present at his ordination, but I daresay it was done according to rule. When one reflects what a deal of harm a bishop may do, one wishes that there was some surer way of getting bishops." "Do you know anything against Mr. Emilius?" asked Lizzie. "Nothing at all but his looks, and manners, and voice,--unless it be that he preaches popular sermons, and drinks too much wine, and makes sheep's eyes at Miss Macnulty. Look after your silver spoons, Mrs. Carbuncle,--if the last thieves have left you any. You were asking after the fate of your diamonds, Lizzie. Perhaps they will endow a Protestant church in Mr. Emilius's native land." Mr. Emilius did come and read to Lady Eustace that afternoon. A clergyman is as privileged to enter the bedroom of a sick lady as is a doctor or a cousin. There was another clean cap, and another laced handkerchief, and on this occasion a little shawl over Lizzie's shoulders. Mr. Emilius first said a prayer, kneeling at Lizzie's bedside; then he read a chapter in the Bible;--and after that he read the first half of the fourth canto of Childe Harold so well, that Lizzie felt for the moment that after all, poetry was life and life was poetry. CHAPTER LIV "I Suppose I May Say a Word" The second robbery to which Lady Eustace had been subjected by no means decreased the interest which was attached to her and her concerns in the fashionable world. Parliament had now met, and the party at Matching Priory,--Lady Glencora Palliser's party in the country,--had been to some extent broken up. All those gentlemen who were engaged in the service of Her Majesty's Government had necessarily gone to London, and they who had wives at Matching had taken their wives with them. Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen had seen the last of their holiday; Mr. Palliser himself was, of course, at his post; and all the private secretaries were with the public secretaries on the scene of action. On the 13th of February Mr. Palliser made his first great statement in Parliament on the matter of the five-farthinged penny, and pledged himself to do his very best to carry that stupendous measure through Parliament in the present session. The City men who were in the House that night,--and all the Directors of the Bank of England were in the gallery, and every chairman of a great banking company, and every Baring and every Rothschild, if there be Barings and Rothschilds who have not been returned by constituencies, and have not seats in the House by right,--agreed in declaring that the job in hand was too much for any one member or any one session. Some said that such a measure never could be passed, because the unfinished work of one session could not be used in lessening the labours of the next. Everything must be recommenced; and therefore,--so said these hopeless ones,--the penny with five farthings, the penny of which a hundred would make ten shillings, the halcyon penny, which would make all future pecuniary calculations easy to the meanest British capacity, could never become the law of the land. Others, more hopeful, were willing to believe that gradually the thing would so sink into the minds of members of Parliament, of writers of leading articles, and of the active public generally, as to admit of certain established axioms being taken as established, and placed, as it were, beyond the procrastinating power of debate. It might, for instance, at last be taken for granted that a decimal system was desirable,--so that a month or two of the spring need not be consumed on that preliminary question. But this period had not as yet been reached, and it was thought by the entire City that Mr. Palliser was much too sanguine. It was so probable, many said, that he might kill himself by labour which would be Herculean in all but success, and that no financier after him would venture to face the task. It behoved Lady Glencora to see that her Hercules did not kill himself. In this state of affairs Lady Glencora,--into whose hands the custody of Mr. Palliser's uncle, the duke, had now altogether fallen,--had a divided duty between Matching and London. When the members of Parliament went up to London, she went there also, leaving some half-dozen friends whom she could trust to amuse the duke; but she soon returned, knowing that there might be danger in a long absence. The duke, though old, was his own master; he much affected the company of Madame Goesler, and that lady's kindness to him was considerate and incessant; but there might still be danger, and Lady Glencora felt that she was responsible that the old nobleman should do nothing, in the feebleness of age, to derogate from the splendour of his past life. What if some day his grace should be off to Paris and insist on making Madame Goesler a duchess in the chapel of the Embassy! Madame Goesler had hitherto behaved very well;--would probably continue to behave well. Lady Glencora really loved Madame Goesler. But then the interests at stake were very great! So circumstanced, Lady Glencora found herself compelled to be often on the road between Matching and London. But though she was burthened with great care, Lady Glencora by no means dropped her interest in the Eustace diamonds; and when she learned that on the top of the great Carlisle robbery a second robbery had been superadded, and that this had been achieved while all the London police were yet astray about the former operation, her solicitude was of course enhanced. The duke himself, too, took the matter up so strongly, that he almost wanted to be carried up to London, with some view, as it was supposed by the ladies who were so good to him, of seeing Lady Eustace personally. "It's out of the question, my dear," Lady Glencora said to Madame Goesler, when the duke's fancy was first mentioned to her by that lady. "I told him that the trouble would be too much for him." "Of course it would be too much," said Lady Glencora. "It is quite out of the question." Then, after a moment, she added in a whisper, "Who knows but what he'd insist on marrying her! It isn't every woman that can resist temptation." Madame Goesler smiled, and shook her head, but made no answer to Lady Glencora's suggestion. Lady Glencora assured her uncle that everything should be told to him. She would write about it daily, and send him the latest news by the wires if the post should be too slow. "Ah;--yes," said the duke; "I like telegrams best. I think, you know, that that Lord George Carruthers has had something to do with it. Don't you, Madame Goesler?" It had long been evident that the duke was anxious that one of his own order should be proved to have been the thief, as the plunder taken was so lordly. In regard to Lizzie herself, Lady Glencora, on her return to London, took it into her head to make a diversion in our heroine's favour. It had hitherto been a matter of faith with all the Liberal party that Lady Eustace had had something to do with stealing her own diamonds. That esprit de corps which is the glorious characteristic of English statesmen had caused the whole Government to support Lord Fawn, and Lord Fawn could only be supported on the supposition that Lizzie Eustace had been a wicked culprit. But Lady Glencora, though very true as a politician, was apt to have opinions of her own, and to take certain flights in which she chose that others of the party should follow her. She now expressed an opinion that Lady Eustace was a victim, and all the Mrs. Bonteens, with some even of the Mr. Bonteens, found themselves compelled to agree with her. She stood too high among her set to be subject to that obedience which restrained others,--too high, also, for others to resist her leading. As a member of a party she was erratic and dangerous, but from her position and peculiar temperament she was powerful. When she declared that poor Lady Eustace was a victim, others were obliged to say so too. This was particularly hard upon Lord Fawn, and the more so as Lady Glencora took upon her to assert that Lord Fawn had no right to jilt the young woman. And Lady Glencora had this to support her views,--that, for the last week past, indeed ever since the depositions which had been taken after the robbery in Hertford Street, the police had expressed no fresh suspicions in regard to Lizzie Eustace. She heard daily from Barrington Erle that Major Mackintosh and Bunfit and Gager were as active as ever in their inquiries, that all Scotland Yard was determined to unravel the mystery, and that there were emissaries at work tracking the diamonds at Hamburg, Paris, Vienna, and New York. It had been whispered to Mr. Erle that the whereabouts of Patience Crabstick had been discovered, and that many of the leading thieves in London were assisting the police;--but nothing more was done in the way of fixing any guilt upon Lizzie Eustace. "Upon my word, I am beginning to think that she has been more sinned against than sinning." This was said to Lady Glencora on the morning after Mr. Palliser's great speech about the five farthings, by Barrington Erle, who, as it seemed, had been specially told off by the party to watch this investigation. "I am sure she has had nothing to do with it. I have thought so ever since the last robbery. Sir Simon Slope told me yesterday afternoon that Mr. Camperdown has given it up altogether." Sir Simon Slope was the Solicitor-General of that day. "It would be absurd for him to go on with his bill in Chancery now that the diamonds are gone,--unless he meant to make her pay for them." "That would be rank persecution. Indeed, she has been persecuted. I shall call upon her." Then she wrote the following letter to the duke:-- February 14, 18--. MY DEAR DUKE, Plantagenet was on his legs last night for three hours and three quarters, and I sat through it all. As far as I could observe through the bars I was the only person in the House who listened to him. I'm sure Mr. Gresham was fast asleep. It was quite piteous to see some of them yawning. Plantagenet did it very well, and I almost think I understood him. They seem to say that nobody on the other side will take trouble enough to make a regular opposition, but that there are men in the City who will write letters to the newspapers, and get up a sort of Bank clamour. Plantagenet says nothing about it, but there is a do-or-die manner with him which is quite tragical. The House was up at eleven, when he came home and eat three oysters, drank a glass of beer, and slept well. They say the real work will come when it's in Committee;--that is, if it gets there. The bill is to be brought in, and will be read the first time next Monday week. As to the robberies, I believe there is no doubt that the police have got hold of the young woman. They don't arrest her, but deal with her in a friendly sort of way. Barrington Erle says that a sergeant is to marry her in order to make quite sure of her. I suppose they know their business; but that wouldn't strike me as being the safest way. They seem to think the diamonds went to Paris but have since been sent on to New York. As to the little widow, I do believe she has been made a victim. She first lost her diamonds, and now her other jewels and her money have gone. I cannot see what she was to gain by treachery, and I think she has been ill-used. She is staying at the house of that Mrs. Carbuncle, but all the same I shall go and call on her. I wish you could see her, because she is such a little beauty;--just what you would like; not so much colour as our friend, but perfect features, with infinite play,--not perhaps always in the very best taste; but then we can't have everything; can we, dear duke? As to the real thief;--of course you must burn this at once, and keep it strictly private as coming from me;--I fancy that delightful Scotch lord managed it entirely. The idea is, that he did it on commission for the Jew jewellers. I don't suppose he had money enough to carry it out himself. As to the second robbery, whether he had or had not a hand in that, I can't make up my mind. I don't see why he shouldn't. If a man does go into a business, he ought to make the best of it. Of course, it was a poor thing after the diamonds; but still it was worth having. There is some story about a Sir Griffin Tewett. He's a real Sir Griffin, as you'll find by the peerage. He was to marry a young woman, and our Lord George insists that he shall marry her. I don't understand all about it, but the girl lives in the same house with Lady Eustace, and if I call I shall find out. They say that Sir Griffin knows all about the necklace, and threatens to tell unless he is let off marrying. I rather think the girl is Lord George's daughter, so that there is a thorough complication. I shall go down to Matching on Saturday. If anything turns up before that, I'll write again, or send a message. I don't know whether Plantagenet will be able to leave London. He says he must be back on Monday, and that he loses too much time on the road. Kiss my little darlings for me,--[the darlings were Lady Glencora's children, and the duke's playthings]--and give my love to Madame Max. I suppose you don't see much of the others. Most affectionately yours, GLENCORA. On the next day Lady Glencora actually did call in Hertford Street, and saw our friend Lizzie. She was told by the servant that Lady Eustace was in bed; but, with her usual persistence, she asked questions, and when she found that Lizzie did receive visitors in her room, she sent up her card. The compliment was one much too great to be refused. Lady Glencora stood so high in the world, that her countenance would be almost as valuable as another lover. If Lord George would keep her secret, and Lady Glencora would be her friend, might she not still be a successful woman? So Lady Glencora Palliser was shown up to Lizzie's chamber. Lizzie was found with her nicest nightcap and prettiest handkerchief, with a volume of Tennyson's poetry, and a scent-bottle. She knew that it behoved her to be very clever at this interview. Her instinct told her that her first greeting should show more of surprise than of gratification. Accordingly, in a pretty, feminine, almost childish way, she was very much surprised. "I'm doing the strangest thing in the world, I know, Lady Eustace," said Lady Glencora with a smile. "I'm sure you mean to do a kind thing." "Well;--yes, I do. I think we have not met since you were at my house near the end of last season." "No, indeed. I have been in London six weeks, but have not been out much. For the last fortnight I have been in bed. I have had things to trouble me so much that they have made me ill." "So I have heard, Lady Eustace, and I have just come to offer you my sympathy. When I was told that you did see people, I thought that perhaps you would admit me." "So willingly, Lady Glencora!" "I have heard, of course, of your terrible losses." "The loss has been as nothing to the vexation that has accompanied it. I don't know how to speak of it. Ladies have lost their jewels before now, but I don't know that any lady before me has ever been accused of stealing them herself." "There has been no accusation, surely?" "I haven't exactly been put in prison, Lady Glencora, but I have had policemen here wanting to search my things;--and then you know yourself what reports have been spread." "Oh, yes; I do. Only for that, to tell you plainly, I should hardly have been here now." Then Lady Glencora poured out her sympathy,--perhaps with more eloquence and grace than discretion. She was, at any rate, both graceful and eloquent. "As for the loss of the diamonds, I think you bear it wonderfully," said Lady Glencora. "If you could imagine how little I care about it!" said Lizzie with enthusiasm. "They had lost the delight which I used to feel in them as a present from my husband. People had talked about them, and I had been threatened because I chose to keep what I knew to be my own. Of course, I would not give them up. Would you have given them up, Lady Glencora?" "Certainly not." "Nor would I. But when once all that had begun, they became an irrepressible burthen to me. I often used to say that I would throw them into the sea." "I don't think I would have done that," said Lady Glencora. "Ah,--you have never suffered as I have suffered." "We never know where each other's shoes pinch each other's toes." "You have never been left desolate. You have a husband and friends." "A husband that wants to put five farthings into a penny! All is not gold that glistens, Lady Eustace." "You can never have known trials such as mine," continued Lizzie, not understanding in the least her new friend's allusion to the great currency question. "Perhaps you may have heard that in the course of last summer I became engaged to marry a nobleman, with whom I am aware that you are acquainted." This she said in her softest whisper. "Oh, yes;--Lord Fawn. I know him very well. Of course I heard of it. We all heard of it." "And you have heard how he has treated me?" "Yes,--indeed." "I will say nothing about him--to you, Lady Glencora. It would not be proper that I should do so. But all that came of this wretched necklace. After that, can you wonder that I should say that I wish these stones had been thrown into the sea?" "I suppose Lord Fawn will--will come all right again now?" said Lady Glencora. "All right!" exclaimed Lizzie in astonishment. "His objection to the marriage will now be over." "I'm sure I do not in the least know what are his lordship's views," said Lizzie in scorn, "and, to tell the truth, I do not very much care." "What I mean is, that he didn't like you to have the Eustace diamonds--" "They were not Eustace diamonds. They were my diamonds." "But he did not like you to have them; and as they are now gone--for ever--" "Oh, yes;--they are gone for ever." "His objection is gone too. Why don't you write to him, and make him come and see you? That's what I should do." Lizzie, of course, repudiated vehemently any idea of forcing Lord Fawn into a marriage which had become distasteful to him,--let the reason be what it might. "His lordship is perfectly free, as far as I am concerned," said Lizzie with a little show of anger. But all this Lady Glencora took at its worth. Lizzie Eustace had been a good deal knocked about, and Lady Glencora did not doubt but that she would be very glad to get back her betrothed husband. The little woman had suffered hardships,--so thought Lady Glencora,--and a good thing would be done by bringing her into fashion, and setting the marriage up again. As to Lord Fawn,--the fortune was there, as good now as it had been when he first sought it; and the lady was very pretty, a baronet's widow too!--and in all respects good enough for Lord Fawn. A very pretty little baronet's widow she was, with four thousand a year, and a house in Scotland, and a history. Lady Glencora determined that she would remake the match. "I think, you know, friends who have been friends should be brought together. I suppose I may say a word to Lord Fawn?" Lizzie hesitated for a moment before she answered, and then remembered that revenge, at least, would be sweet to her. She had sworn that she would be revenged upon Lord Fawn. After all, might it not suit her best to carry out her oath by marrying him? But whether so or otherwise, it would not but be well for her that he should be again at her feet. "Yes,--if you think good will come of it." The acquiescence was given with much hesitation;--but the circumstances required that it should be so, and Lady Glencora fully understood the circumstances. When she took her leave, Lizzie was profuse in her gratitude. "Oh, Lady Glencora, it has been so good of you to come. Pray come again, if you can spare me another moment." Lady Glencora said that she would come again. During the visit she had asked some question concerning Lucinda and Sir Griffin, and had been informed that that marriage was to go on. A hint had been thrown out as to Lucinda's parentage;--but Lizzie had not understood the hint, and the question had not been pressed. CHAPTER LV Quints or Semitenths The task which Lady Glencora had taken upon herself was not a very easy one. No doubt Lord Fawn was a man subservient to the leaders of his party, much afraid of the hard judgment of those with whom he was concerned, painfully open to impression from what he would have called public opinion, to a certain extent a coward, most anxious to do right so that he might not be accused of being in the wrong,--and at the same time gifted with but little of that insight into things which teaches men to know what is right and what is wrong. Lady Glencora, having perceived all this, felt that he was a man upon whom a few words from her might have an effect. But even Lady Glencora might hesitate to tell a gentleman that he ought to marry a lady, when the gentleman had already declared his intention of not marrying, and had attempted to justify his decision almost publicly by a reference to the lady's conduct. Lady Glencora almost felt that she had undertaken too much as she turned over in her mind the means she had of performing her promise to Lady Eustace. The five-farthing bill had been laid upon the table on a Tuesday, and was to be read the first time on the following Monday week. On the Wednesday Lady Glencora had written to the duke, and had called in Hertford Street. On the following Sunday she was at Matching, looking after the duke;--but she returned to London on the Tuesday, and on the Wednesday there was a little dinner at Mr. Palliser's house, given avowedly with the object of further friendly discussion respecting the new Palliser penny. The prime minister was to be there, and Mr. Bonteen, and Barrington Erle, and those special members of the Government who would be available for giving special help to the financial Hercules of the day. A question, perhaps of no great practical importance, had occurred to Mr. Palliser,--but one which, if overlooked, might be fatal to the ultimate success of the measure. There is so much in a name,--and then an ounce of ridicule is often more potent than a hundredweight of argument. By what denomination should the fifth part of a penny be hereafter known? Some one had, ill-naturedly, whispered to Mr. Palliser that a farthing meant a fourth, and at once there arose a new trouble, which for a time bore very heavily on him. Should he boldly disregard the original meaning of the useful old word; or should he venture on the dangers of new nomenclature? October, as he said to himself, is still the tenth month of the year, November the eleventh, and so on, though by these names they are so plainly called the eighth and ninth. All France tried to rid itself of this absurdity, and failed. Should he stick by the farthing; or should he call it a fifthing, a quint, or a semitenth? "There's the 'Fortnightly Review' comes out but once a month," he said to his friend Mr. Bonteen, "and I'm told that it does very well." Mr. Bonteen, who was a rational man, thought the "Review" would do better if it were called by a more rational name, and was very much in favour of "a quint." Mr. Gresham had expressed an opinion, somewhat off-hand, that English people would never be got to talk about quints, and so there was a difficulty. A little dinner was therefore arranged, and Mr. Palliser, as was his custom in such matters, put the affair of the dinner into his wife's hands. When he was told that she had included Lord Fawn among the guests he opened his eyes. Lord Fawn, who might be good enough at the India Office, knew literally nothing about the penny. "He'll take it as the greatest compliment in the world," said Lady Glencora. "I don't want to pay Lord Fawn a compliment," said Mr. Palliser. "But I do," said Lady Glencora. And so the matter was arranged. It was a very nice little dinner. Mrs. Gresham and Mrs. Bonteen were there, and the great question of the day was settled in two minutes, before the guests went out of the drawing-room. "Stick to your farthing," said Mr. Gresham. "I think so," said Mr. Palliser. "Quint's a very easy word," said Mr. Bonteen. "But squint is an easier," said Mr. Gresham, with all a prime minister's jocose authority. "They'd certainly be called cock-eyes," said Barrington Erle. "There's nothing of the sound of a quarter in farthing," said Mr. Palliser. "Stick to the old word," said Mr. Gresham. And so the matter was decided while Lady Glencora was flattering Lord Fawn as to the manner in which he had finally arranged the affair of the Sawab of Mygawb. Then they went down to dinner, and not a word more was said that evening about the new penny by Mr. Palliser. Before dinner Lady Glencora had exacted a promise from Lord Fawn that he would return to the drawing-room. Lady Glencora was very clever at such work, and said nothing then of her purpose. She did not want her guests to run away, and therefore Lord Fawn,--Lord Fawn especially,--must stay. If he were to go there would be nothing spoken of all the evening, but that weary new penny. To oblige her he must remain;--and, of course, he did remain. "Whom do you think I saw the other day?" said Lady Glencora, when she got her victim into a corner. Of course, Lord Fawn had no idea whom she might have seen. Up to that moment no suspicion of what was coming upon him had crossed his mind. "I called upon poor Lady Eustace, and found her in bed." Then did Lord Fawn blush up to the roots of his hair, and for a moment he was stricken dumb. "I do feel for her so much! I think she has been so hardly used!" He was obliged to say something. "My name has, of course, been much mixed up with hers." "Yes, Lord Fawn, I know it has. And it is because I am so sure of your high-minded generosity and--and thorough devotion, that I have ventured to speak to you. I am sure there is nothing you would wish so much as to get at the truth." "Certainly, Lady Glencora." "All manner of stories have been told about her, and, as I believe, without the slightest foundation. They tell me now that she had an undoubted right to keep the diamonds;--that even if Sir Florian did not give them to her, they were hers under his will. Those lawyers have given up all idea of proceeding against her." "Because the necklace has been stolen." "Altogether independently of that. Do you see Mr. Eustace, and ask him if what I say is not true. If it had not been her own she would have been responsible for the value, even though it were stolen; and with such a fortune as hers they would never have allowed her to escape. They were as bitter against her as they could be;--weren't they?" "Mr. Camperdown thought that the property should be given up." "Oh yes;--that's the man's name; a horrid man. I am told that he was really most cruel to her. And then, because a lot of thieves had got about her,--after the diamonds, you know, like flies round a honey-pot,--and took first her necklace and then her money, they were impudent enough to say that she had stolen her own things!" "I don't think they quite said that, Lady Glencora." "Something very much like it, Lord Fawn. I have no doubt in my own mind who did steal all the things." "Who was it?" "Oh,--one mustn't mention names in such an affair without evidence. At any rate, she has been very badly treated, and I shall take her up. If I were you I would go and call upon her;--I would indeed. I think you owe it to her. Well, duke, what do you think of Plantagenet's penny now? Will it ever be worth two halfpence?" This question was asked of the Duke of St. Bungay, a great nobleman whom all Liberals loved, and a member of the Cabinet. He had come in since dinner, and had been asking a question or two as to what had been decided. "Well, yes; if properly invested I think it will. I'm glad that it is not to contain five semitenths. A semitenth would never have been a popular form of money in England. We hate new names so much that we have not yet got beyond talking of fourpenny bits." "There's a great deal in a name;--isn't there? You don't think they'll call them Pallisers, or Palls, or anything of that sort;--do you? I shouldn't like to hear that under the new régime two lollypops were to cost three Palls. But they say it never can be carried this session,--and we sha'n't be in, in the next year." "Who says so? Don't be such a prophetess of evil, Lady Glencora. I mean to be in for the next three sessions, and I mean to see Palliser's measure carried through the House of Lords next session. I shall be paying for my mutton-chops at the club at so many quints a chop yet. Don't you think so, Fawn?" "I don't know what to think," said Lord Fawn, whose mind was intent on other matters. After that he left the room as quickly as he could, and escaped out into the street. His mind was very much disturbed. If Lady Glencora was determined to take up the cudgels for the woman he had rejected, the comfort and peace of his life would be over. He knew well enough how strong was Lady Glencora. CHAPTER LVI Job's Comforters Mrs. Carbuncle and Lady Eustace had now been up in town between six and seven weeks, and the record of their doings has necessarily dealt chiefly with robberies and the rumours of robberies. But at intervals the minds of the two ladies had been intent on other things. The former was still intent on marrying her niece, Lucinda Roanoke, to Sir Griffin, and the latter had never for a moment forgotten the imperative duty which lay upon her of revenging herself upon Lord Fawn. The match between Sir Griffin and Lucinda was still to be a match. Mrs. Carbuncle persevered in the teeth both of the gentleman and of the lady, and still promised herself success. And our Lizzie, in the midst of all her troubles, had not been idle. In doing her justice we must acknowledge that she had almost abandoned the hope of becoming Lady Fawn. Other hopes and other ambitions had come upon her. Latterly the Corsair had been all in all to her,--with exceptional moments in which she told herself that her heart belonged exclusively to her cousin Frank. But Lord Fawn's offences were not to be forgotten, and she continually urged upon her cousin the depth of the wrongs which she had suffered. On the part of Frank Greystock there was certainly no desire to let the Under-Secretary escape. It is hoped that the reader, to whom every tittle of this story has been told without reserve, and every secret unfolded, will remember that others were not treated with so much open candour. The reader knows much more of Lizzie Eustace than did her cousin Frank. He, indeed, was not quite in love with Lizzie; but to him she was a pretty, graceful young woman, to whom he was bound by many ties, and who had been cruelly injured. Dangerous she was doubtless, and perhaps a little artificial. To have had her married to Lord Fawn would have been a good thing,--and would still be a good thing. According to all the rules known in such matters Lord Fawn was bound to marry her. He had become engaged to her, and Lizzie had done nothing to forfeit her engagement. As to the necklace,--the plea made for jilting her on that ground was a disgraceful pretext. Everybody was beginning to perceive that Mr. Camperdown would never have succeeded in getting the diamonds from her, even if they had not been stolen. It was "preposterous," as Frank said over and over again to his friend Herriot, that a man when he was engaged to a lady, should take upon himself to judge her conduct as Lord Fawn had done,--and then ride out of his engagement on a verdict found by himself. Frank had therefore willingly displayed alacrity in persecuting his lordship, and had not been altogether without hope that he might drive the two into a marriage yet,--in spite of the protestations made by Lizzie at Portray. Lord Fawn had certainly not spent a happy winter. Between Mrs. Hittaway on one side and Frank Greystock on the other, his life had been a burthen to him. It had been suggested to him by various people that he was behaving badly to the lady,--who was represented as having been cruelly misused by fortune and by himself. On the other hand it had been hinted to him, that nothing was too bad to believe of Lizzie Eustace, and that no calamity could be so great as that by which he would be overwhelmed were he still to allow himself to be forced into that marriage. "It would be better," Mrs. Hittaway had said, "to retire to Ireland at once, and cultivate your demesne in Tipperary." This was a grievous sentence, and one which had greatly excited the brother's wrath;--but it had shown how very strong was his sister's opinion against the lady to whom he had unfortunately offered his hand. Then there came to him a letter from Mr. Greystock, in which he was asked for his "written explanation." If there be a proceeding which an official man dislikes worse than another, it is a demand for a written explanation. "It is impossible," Frank had said, "that your conduct to my cousin should be allowed to drop without further notice. Hers has been without reproach. Your engagement with her has been made public,--chiefly by you, and it is out of the question that she should be treated as you are treating her, and that your lordship should escape without punishment." What the punishment was to be he did not say; but there did come a punishment on Lord Fawn from the eyes of every man whose eyes met his own, and in the tones of every voice that addressed him. The looks of the very clerks in the India Office accused him of behaving badly to a young woman, and the doorkeeper at the House of Lords seemed to glance askance at him. And now Lady Glencora, who was the social leader of his own party, the feminine pole-star of the Liberal heavens, the most popular and the most daring woman in London, had attacked him personally, and told him that he ought to call on Lady Eustace! Let it not for a moment be supposed that Lord Fawn was without conscience in the matter, or indifferent to moral obligations. There was not a man in London less willing to behave badly to a young woman than Lord Fawn; or one who would more diligently struggle to get back to the right path, if convinced that he was astray. But he was one who detested interference in his private matters, and who was nearly driven mad between his sister and Frank Greystock. When he left Lady Glencora's house he walked towards his own abode with a dark cloud upon his brow. He was at first very angry with Lady Glencora. Even her position gave her no right to meddle with his most private affairs as she had done. He would resent it, and would quarrel with Lady Glencora. What right could she have to advise him to call upon any woman? But by degrees this wrath died away, and gave place to fears, and qualms, and inward questions. He, too, had found a change in general opinion about the diamonds. When he had taken upon himself with a high hand to dissolve his own engagement, everybody had, as he thought, acknowledged that Lizzie Eustace was keeping property which did not belong to her. Now people talked of her losses as though the diamonds had been undoubtedly her own. On the next morning Lord Fawn took an opportunity of seeing Mr. Camperdown. "My dear lord," said Mr. Camperdown, "I shall wash my hands of the matter altogether. The diamonds are gone, and the questions now are, who stole them, and where are they? In our business we can't meddle with such questions as those." "You will drop the bill in Chancery then?" "What good can the bill do us when the diamonds are gone? If Lady Eustace had anything to do with the robbery--" "You suspect her, then?" "No, my lord; no. I cannot say that. I have no right to say that. Indeed it is not Lady Eustace that I suspect. She has got into bad hands, perhaps; but I do not think that she is a thief." "You were suggesting that,--if she had anything to do with the robbery--" "Well;--yes;--if she had, it would not be for us to take steps against her in the matter. In fact, the trustees have decided that they will do nothing more, and my hands are tied. If the minor, when he comes of age, claims the property from them, they will prefer to replace it. It isn't very likely; but that's what they say." "But if it was an heirloom--" suggested Lord Fawn, going back to the old claim. "That's exploded," said Mr. Camperdown. "Mr. Dove was quite clear about that." This was the end of the filing of that bill in Chancery as to which Mr. Camperdown had been so very enthusiastic! Now it certainly was the case that poor Lord Fawn in his conduct towards Lizzie had trusted greatly to the support of Mr. Camperdown's legal proceeding. The world could hardly have expected him to marry a woman against whom a bill in Chancery was being carried on for the recovery of diamonds which did not belong to her. But that support was now altogether withdrawn from him. It was acknowledged that the necklace was not an heirloom,--clearly acknowledged by Mr. Camperdown! And even Mr. Camperdown would not express an opinion that the lady had stolen her own diamonds. How would it go with him, if after all, he were to marry her? The bone of contention between them had at any rate been made to vanish. The income was still there, and Lady Glencora Palliser had all but promised her friendship. As he entered the India Office on his return from Mr. Camperdown's chambers, he almost thought that that would be the best way out of his difficulty. In his room he found his brother-in-law, Mr. Hittaway, waiting for him. It is always necessary that a man should have some friend whom he can trust in delicate affairs, and Mr. Hittaway was selected as Lord Fawn's friend. He was not at all points the man whom Lord Fawn would have chosen, but for their close connexion. Mr. Hittaway was talkative, perhaps a little loud, and too apt to make capital out of every incident of his life. But confidential friends are not easily found, and one does not wish to increase the circle to whom one's family secrets must become known. Mr. Hittaway was at any rate zealous for the Fawn family, and then his character as an official man stood high. He had been asked on the previous evening to step across from the Civil Appeal Office to give his opinion respecting that letter from Frank Greystock demanding a written explanation. The letter had been sent to him; and Mr. Hittaway had carried it home and shown it to his wife. "He's a cantankerous Tory, and determined to make himself disagreeable," said Mr. Hittaway, taking the letter from his pocket and beginning the conversation. Lord Fawn seated himself in his great arm-chair, and buried his face in his hands. "I am disposed, after much consideration, to advise you to take no notice of the letter," said Mr. Hittaway, giving his counsel in accordance with instructions received from his wife. Lord Fawn still buried his face. "Of course the thing is painful,--very painful. But out of two evils one should choose the least. The writer of this letter is altogether unable to carry out his threat." "What can the man do to him?" Mrs. Hittaway had asked, almost snapping at her husband as she did so. "And then," continued Mr. Hittaway, "we all know that public opinion is with you altogether. The conduct of Lady Eustace is notorious." "Everybody is taking her part," said Lord Fawn, almost crying. "Surely not." "Yes;--they are. The bill in Chancery has been withdrawn, and it's my belief that if the necklace were found to-morrow, there would be nothing to prevent her keeping it,--just as she did before." "But it was an heirloom?" "No, it wasn't. The lawyers were all wrong about it. As far as I can see, lawyers always are wrong. About those nine lacs of rupees for the Sawab, Finlay was all wrong. Camperdown owns that he was wrong. If, after all, the diamonds were hers, I'm sure I don't know what I am to do. Thank you, Hittaway, for coming over. That'll do for the present. Just leave that ruffian's letter, and I'll think about it." This was considered by Mrs. Hittaway to be a very bad state of things, and there was great consternation in Warwick Square when Mr. Hittaway told his wife this new story of her brother's weakness. She was not going to be weak. She did not intend to withdraw her opposition to the marriage. She was not going to be frightened by Lizzie Eustace and Frank Greystock,--knowing as she did that they were lovers, and very improper lovers, too. "Of course she stole them herself," said Mrs. Hittaway; "and I don't doubt but she stole her own money afterwards. There's nothing she wouldn't do. I'd sooner see Frederic in his grave than married to such a woman as that. Men don't know how sly women can be;--that's the truth. And Frederic has been so spoilt among them down at Richmond, that he has no real judgment left. I don't suppose he means to marry her." "Upon my word I don't know," said Mr. Hittaway. Then Mrs. Hittaway made up her mind that she would at once write a letter to Scotland. There was an old lord about London in those days,--or, rather, one who was an old Liberal but a young lord,--one Lord Mount Thistle, who had sat in the Cabinet, and had lately been made a peer when his place in the Cabinet was wanted. He was a pompous, would-be important, silly old man, well acquainted with all the traditions of his party, and perhaps, on that account, useful,--but a bore, and very apt to meddle when he was not wanted. Lady Glencora, on the day after her dinner-party, whispered into his ear that Lord Fawn was getting himself into trouble, and that a few words of caution, coming to him from one whom he respected so much as he did Lord Mount Thistle, would be of service to him. Lord Mount Thistle had known Lord Fawn's father, and declared himself at once to be quite entitled to interfere. "He is really behaving badly to Lady Eustace," said Lady Glencora, "and I don't think that he knows it." Lord Mount Thistle, proud of a commission from the hands of Lady Glencora, went almost at once to his old friend's son. He found him at the House that night, and whispered his few words of caution in one of the lobbies. "I know you will excuse me, Fawn," Lord Mount Thistle said, "but people seem to think that you are not behaving quite well to Lady Eustace." "What people?" demanded Lord Fawn. "My dear fellow, that is a question that cannot be answered. You know that I am the last man to interfere if I didn't think it my duty as a friend. You were engaged to her?"--Lord Fawn only frowned. "If so," continued the late cabinet minister, "and if you have broken it off, you ought to give your reasons. She has a right to demand as much as that." On the next morning, Friday, there came to him the note which Lady Glencora had recommended Lizzie to write. It was very short. "Had you not better come and see me? You can hardly think that things should be left as they are now. L. E.--Hertford Street, Thursday." He had hoped,--he had ventured to hope,--that things might be left, and that they would arrange themselves; that he could throw aside his engagement without further trouble, and that the subject would drop. But it was not so. His enemy, Frank Greystock, had demanded from him a "written explanation" of his conduct. Mr. Camperdown had deserted him. Lady Glencora Palliser, with whom he had not the honour of any intimate acquaintance, had taken upon herself to give him advice. Lord Mount Thistle had found fault with him. And now there had come a note from Lizzie Eustace herself, which he could hardly venture to leave altogether unnoticed. On that Friday he dined at his club, and then went to his sister's house in Warwick Square. If assistance might be had anywhere, it would be from his sister;--she, at any rate, would not want courage in carrying on the battle on his behalf. "Ill-used!" she said, as soon as they were closeted together. "Who dares to say so?" "That old fool, Mount Thistle, has been with me." "I hope, Frederic, you don't mind what such a man as that says. He has probably been prompted by some friend of hers. And who else?" "Camperdown turns round now and says that they don't mean to do anything more about the necklace. Lady Glencora Palliser told me the other day that all the world believes that the thing was her own." "What does Lady Glencora Palliser know about it? If Lady Glencora Palliser would mind her own affairs it would be much better for her. I remember when she had troubles enough of her own, without meddling with other people's." "And now I've got this note." Lord Fawn had already shown Lizzie's few scrawled words to his sister. "I think I must go and see her." "Do no such thing, Frederic." "Why not? I must answer it, and what can I say?" "If you go there, that woman will be your wife, and you'll never have a happy day again as long as you live. The match is broken off, and she knows it. I shouldn't take the slightest notice of her, or of her cousin, or of any of them. If she chooses to bring an action against you, that is another thing." Lord Fawn paused for a few moments before he answered. "I think I ought to go," he said. "And I am sure that you ought not. It is not only about the diamonds,--though that was quite enough to break off any engagement. Have you forgotten what I told you that the man saw at Portray?" "I don't know that the man spoke the truth." "But he did." "And I hate that kind of espionage. It is so very likely that mistakes should be made." "When she was sitting in his arms,--and kissing him! If you choose to do it, Frederic, of course you must. We can't prevent it. You are free to marry any one you please." "I'm not talking of marrying her." "What do you suppose she wants you to go there for? As for political life, I am quite sure it would be the death of you. If I were you I wouldn't go near her. You have got out of the scrape, and I would remain out." "But I haven't got out," said Lord Fawn. On the next day, Saturday, he did nothing in the matter. He went down, as was his custom, to Richmond, and did not once mention Lizzie's name. Lady Fawn and her daughters never spoke of her now,--neither of her, nor, in his presence, of poor Lucy Morris. But on his return to London on the Sunday evening he found another note from Lizzie. "You will hardly have the hardihood to leave my note unanswered. Pray let me know when you will come to me." Some answer must, as he felt, be made to her. For a moment he thought of asking his mother to call;--but he at once saw that by doing so he might lay himself open to terrible ridicule. Could he induce Lord Mount Thistle to be his Mercury? It would, he felt, be quite impossible to make Lord Mount Thistle understand all the facts of his position. His sister, Mrs. Hittaway, might have gone, were it not that she herself was violently opposed to any visit. The more he thought of it the more convinced he became that, should it be known that he had received two such notes from a lady and that he had not answered or noticed them, the world would judge him to have behaved badly. So, at last, he wrote,--on that Sunday evening,--fixing a somewhat distant day for his visit to Hertford Street. His note was as follows:-- Lord Fawn presents his compliments to Lady Eustace. In accordance with the wish expressed in Lady Eustace's two notes of the 23rd instant and this date, Lord Fawn will do himself the honour of waiting upon Lady Eustace on Saturday next, March 3rd, at 12, noon. Lord Fawn had thought that under circumstances as they now exist, no further personal interview could lead to the happiness of either party; but as Lady Eustace thinks otherwise, he feels himself constrained to comply with her desire. Sunday evening, 25 February, 18--. "I am going to see her in the course of this week," he said, in answer to a further question from Lady Glencora, who, chancing to meet him in society, had again addressed him on the subject. He lacked the courage to tell Lady Glencora to mind her own business and to allow him to do the same. Had she been a little less great than she was,--either as regarded herself or her husband,--he would have done so. But Lady Glencora was the social queen of the party to which he belonged, and Mr. Palliser was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and would some day be Duke of Omnium. "As you are great, be merciful, Lord Fawn," said Lady Glencora. "You men, I believe, never realise what it is that women feel when they love. It is my belief that she will die unless you are re-united to her. And then she is so beautiful!" "It is a subject that I cannot discuss, Lady Glencora." "I daresay not. And I'm sure I am the last person to wish to give you pain. But you see,--if the poor lady has done nothing to merit your anger, it does seem rather a strong measure to throw her off and give her no reason whatever. How would you defend yourself, suppose she published it all?" Lady Glencora's courage was very great,--and perhaps we may say her impudence also. This last question Lord Fawn left unanswered, walking away in great dudgeon. In the course of the week he told his sister of the interview which he had promised, and she endeavoured to induce him to postpone it till a certain man should arrive from Scotland. She had written for Mr. Andrew Gowran,--sending down funds for Mr. Gowran's journey,--so that her brother might hear Mr. Gowran's evidence out of Mr. Gowran's own mouth. Would not Frederic postpone the interview till he should have seen Mr. Gowran? But to this request Frederic declined to accede. He had fixed a day and an hour. He had made an appointment;--of course he must keep it. CHAPTER LVII Humpty Dumpty The robbery at the house in Hertford Street took place on the 30th of January, and on the morning of the 28th of February Bunfit and Gager were sitting together in a melancholy, dark little room in Scotland Yard, discussing the circumstances of that nefarious act. A month had gone by, and nobody was yet in custody. A month had passed since that second robbery; but nearly eight weeks had passed since the robbery at Carlisle, and even that was still a mystery. The newspapers had been loud in their condemnation of the police. It had been asserted over and over again that in no other civilised country in the world could so great an amount of property have passed through the hands of thieves without leaving some clue by which the police would have made their way to the truth. Major Mackintosh had been declared to be altogether incompetent, and all the Bunfits and Gagers of the force had been spoken of as drones and moles and ostriches. They were idle and blind, and so stupid as to think that, when they saw nothing, others saw less. The major, who was a broad-shouldered, philosophical man, bore all this as though it were, of necessity, a part of the burthen of his profession;--but the Bunfits and Gagers were very angry, and at their wits' ends. It did not occur to them to feel animosity against the newspapers which abused them. The thieves who would not be caught were their great enemies; and there was common to them a conviction that men so obstinate as these thieves,--men to whom a large amount of grace and liberty for indulgence had accrued,--should be treated with uncommon severity when they were caught. There was this excuse always on their lips,--that had it been an affair simply of thieves, such as thieves ordinarily are, everything would have been discovered long since;--but when lords and ladies with titles come to be mixed up with such an affair,--folk in whose house a policeman can't have his will at searching and brow-beating,--how is a detective to detect anything? Bunfit and Gager had both been driven to recast their theories as to the great Carlisle affair by the circumstances of the later affair in Hertford Street. They both thought that Lord George had been concerned in the robbery;--that, indeed, had now become the general opinion of the world at large. He was a man of doubtful character, with large expenses, and with no recognised means of living. He had formed a great intimacy with Lady Eustace at a period in which she was known to be carrying these diamonds about with her, had been staying with her at Portray Castle when the diamonds were there, and had been her companion on the journey during which the diamonds were stolen. The only men in London supposed to be capable of dealing advantageously with such a property were Harter and Benjamin,--as to whom it was known that they were conversant with the existence of the diamonds, and known, also, that they were in the habit of having dealings with Lord George. It was, moreover, known that Lord George had been closeted with Mr. Benjamin on the morning after his arrival in London. These things put together made it almost a certainty that Lord George had been concerned in the matter. Bunfit had always been sure of it. Gager, though differing much from Bunfit as to details, had never been unwilling to suspect Lord George. But the facts known could not be got to dovetail themselves pleasantly. If Lord George had possessed himself of the diamonds at Carlisle,--or with Lizzie's connivance before they reached Carlisle,--then, why had there been a second robbery? Bunfit, who was very profound in his theory, suggested that the second robbery was an additional plant, got up with the view of throwing more dust into the eyes of the police. Patience Crabstick had, of course, been one of the gang throughout, and she had now been allowed to go off with her mistress's money and lesser trinkets,--so that the world of Scotland Yard might be thrown more and more into the mire of ignorance and darkness of doubt. To this view Gager was altogether opposed. He was inclined to think that Lord George had taken the diamonds at Carlisle with Lizzie's connivance;--that he had restored them in London to her keeping, finding the suspicion against him too heavy to admit of his dealing with them,--and that now he had stolen them a second time, again with Lizzie's connivance; but in this latter point Gager did not pretend to the assurance of any conviction. But Gager at the present moment had achieved a triumph in the matter which he was not at all disposed to share with his elder officer. Perhaps, on the whole, more power is lost than gained by habits of secrecy. To be discreet is a fine thing,--especially for a policeman; but when discretion is carried to such a length in the direction of self-confidence as to produce a belief that no aid is wanted for the achievement of great results, it will often militate against all achievement. Had Scotland Yard been less discreet and more confidential, the mystery might, perhaps, have been sooner unravelled. Gager at this very moment had reason to believe that a man whom he knew could,--and would, if operated upon duly,--communicate to him, Gager, the secret of the present whereabouts of Patience Crabstick! That belief was a great possession, and much too important, as Gager thought, to be shared lightly with such an one as Mr. Bunfit,--a thick-headed sort of man, in Gager's opinion, although, no doubt, he had by means of industry been successful in some difficult cases. "'Is lordship ain't stirred," said Bunfit. "How do you mean,--stirred, Mr. Bunfit?" "Ain't moved nowheres out of London." "What should he move out of London for? What could he get by cutting? There ain't nothing so bad when anything's up against one as letting on that one wants to bolt. He knows all that. He'll stand his ground. He won't bolt." "I don't suppose as he will, Gager. It's a rum go; ain't it?--the rummest as I ever see." This remark had been made so often by Mr. Bunfit, that Gager had become almost weary of hearing it. "Oh,--rum; rum be b---- What's the use of all that? From what the governor told me this morning, there isn't a shadow of doubt where the diamonds are." "In Paris,--of course," said Bunfit. "They never went to Paris. They were taken from here to Hamburg in a commercial man's kit,--a fellow as travels in knives and scissors. Then they was recut. They say the cutting was the quickest bit of work ever done by one man in Hamburg. And now they're in New York. That's what has come of the diamonds." "Benjamin, in course," said Bunfit, in a low whisper, just taking the pipe from between his lips. "Well;--yes. No doubt it was Benjamin. But how did Benjamin get 'em?" "Lord George,--in course," said Bunfit. "And how did he get 'em?" "Well;--that's where it is; isn't it?" Then there was a pause, during which Bunfit continued to smoke. "As sure as your name's Gager, he got 'em at Carlisle." "And what took Smiler down to Carlisle?" "Just to put a face on it," said Bunfit. "And who cut the door?" "Billy Cann did," said Bunfit. "And who forced the box?" "Them two did," said Bunfit. "And all to put a face on it?" "Yes;--just that. And an uncommon good face they did put on it between 'em;--the best as I ever see." "All right," said Gager. "So far, so good. I don't agree with you, Mr. Bunfit; because the thing, when it was done, wouldn't be worth the money. Lord love you, what would all that have cost? And what was to prevent the lady and Lord George together taking the diamonds to Benjamin and getting their price? It never does to be too clever, Mr. Bunfit. And when that was all done, why did the lady go and get herself robbed again? No;--I don't say but what you're a clever man, in your way, Mr. Bunfit; but you've not got a hold of the thing here. Why was Smiler going about like a mad dog,--only that he found himself took in?" "Maybe he expected something else in the box,--more than the necklace,--as was to come to him," suggested Bunfit. "Gammon." "I don't see why you say gammon, Gager. It ain't polite." "It is gammon,--running away with ideas like them, just as if you was one of the public. When they two opened that box at Carlisle, which they did as certain as you sit there, they believed as the diamonds were there. They were not there." "I don't think as they was," said Bunfit. "Very well;--where were they? Just walk up to it, Mr. Bunfit, making your ground good as you go. They two men cut the door, and took the box, and opened it,--and when they'd opened it, they didn't get the swag. Where was the swag?" "Lord George," said Bunfit again. "Very well,--Lord George. Like enough. But it comes to this. Benjamin, and they two men of his, had laid themselves out for the robbery. Now, Mr. Bunfit, whether Lord George and Benjamin were together in that first affair, or whether they weren't, I can't see my way just at present, and I don't know as you can see yours;--not saying but what you're as quick as most men, Mr. Bunfit. If he was,--and I rayther think that's about it,--then he and Benjamin must have had a few words, and he must have got the jewels from the lady over night." "Of course he did,--and Smiler and Billy Cann knew as they weren't there." "There you are, all back again, Mr. Bunfit, not making your ground good as you go. Smiler and Cann did their job according to order,--and precious sore hearts they had when they'd got the box open. Those fellows at Carlisle,--just like all the provincials,--went to work open-mouthed, and before the party had left Carlisle it was known that Lord George was suspected." "You can't trust them fellows any way," said Mr. Bunfit. "Well;--what happens next? Lord George, he goes to Benjamin, but he isn't goin' to take the diamonds with him. He has had words with Benjamin or he has not. Any ways he isn't goin' to take the necklace with him on that morning. He hasn't been goin' to keep the diamonds about him, not since what was up at Carlisle. So he gives the diamonds back to the lady." "And she had 'em all along?" "I don't say it was so,--but I can see my way upon that hypothesis." "There was something as she had to conceal, Gager. I've said that all through. I knew it in a moment when I see'd her faint." "She's had a deal to conceal, I don't doubt. Well, there they are,--with her still,--and the box is gone, and the people as is bringing the lawsuit, Mr. Camperdown and the rest of 'em, is off their tack. What's she to do with 'em?" "Take 'em to Benjamin," said Bunfit, with confidence. "That's all very well, Mr. Bunfit. But there's a quarrel up already with Benjamin. Benjamin was to have had 'em before. Benjamin has spent a goodish bit of money, and has been thrown over rather. I daresay Benjamin was as bad as Smiler, or worse. No doubt Benjamin let on to Smiler, and thought as Smiler was too many for him. I daresay there was a few words between him and Smiler. I wouldn't wonder if Smiler didn't threaten to punch Benjamin's head,--which well he could do it,--and if there wasn't a few playful remarks between 'em about penal servitude for life. You see, Mr. Bunfit, it couldn't have been pleasant for any of 'em." "They'd've split," said Bunfit. "But they didn't,--not downright. Well,--there we are. The diamonds is with the lady. Lord George has done it all. Lord George and Lady Eustace,--they're keeping company, no doubt, after their own fashion. He's a-robbing of her, and she has to do pretty much as she's bid. The diamonds is with the lady, and Lord George is pretty well afraid to look at 'em. After all that's being done, there isn't much to wonder at in that. Then comes the second robbery." "And Lord George planned that too?" asked Bunfit. "I don't pretend to say I know, but just put it this way, Mr. Bunfit. Of course the thieves were let in by the woman Crabstick." "Not a doubt." "Of course they was Smiler and Billy Cann." "I suppose they was." "She was always about the lady,--a-doing for her in everything. Say she goes to Benjamin and tells him as how her lady still has the necklace,--and then he puts up the second robbery. Then you'd have it all round." "And Lord George would have lost 'em. It can't be. Lord George and he are thick as thieves up to this day." "Very well. I don't say anything against that. Lord George knows as she has 'em;--indeed he'd given 'em back to her to keep. We've got as far as that, Mr. Bunfit." "I think she did 'ave 'em." "Very well. What does Lord George do then? He can't make money of 'em. They're too hot for his fingers, and so he finds when he thinks of taking 'em into the market. So he puts Benjamin up to the second robbery." "Who's drawing it fine, now, Gager;--eh?" "Mr. Bunfit, I'm not saying as I've got the truth beyond this,--that Benjamin and his two men were clean done at Carlisle, that Lord George and his lady brought the jewels up to town between 'em, and that the party who didn't get 'em at Carlisle tried their hand again and did get 'em in Hertford Street." In all of which the ingenious Gager would have been right, if he could have kept his mind clear from the alluring conviction that a lord had been the chief of the thieves. "We shall never make a case of it now," said Bunfit despondently. "I mean to try it on all the same. There's Smiler about town as bold as brass, and dressed to the nines. He had the cheek to tell me he was going down to the Newmarket Spring to look after a horse he's got a share in." "I was talking to Billy only yesterday," added Bunfit. "I've got it on my mind that they didn't treat Billy quite on the square. He didn't let on anything about Benjamin; but he told me out plain, as how he was very much disgusted. 'Mr. Bunfit,' said he, 'there's that roguery about, that a plain man like me can't touch it. There's them as'd pick my eyes out while I was sleeping, and then swear it against my very self.' Them were his words, and I knew as how Benjamin hadn't been on the square with him." "You didn't let on anything, Mr. Bunfit?" "Well,--I just reminded him as how there was five hundred pounds going a-begging from Mr. Camperdown." "And what did he say to that, Mr. Bunfit?" "Well, he said a good deal. He's a sharp little fellow, is Billy, as has read a deal. You've heard of 'Umpty Dumpty, Gager? 'Umpty Dumpty was a hegg." "All right." "As had a fall, and was smashed,--and there's a little poem about him." "I know." "Well;--Billy says to me: 'Mr. Camperdown don't want no hinformation; he wants the diamonds. Them diamonds is like 'Umpty Dumpty, Mr. Bunfit. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put 'Umpty Dumpty up again.'" "Billy was about right there," said the younger officer, rising from his seat. Late on the afternoon of the same day, when London had already been given over to the gaslights, Mr. Gager, having dressed himself especially for the occasion of the friendly visit which he intended to make, sauntered into a small public-house at the corner of Meek Street and Pineapple Court, which locality,--as all men well versed with London are aware,--lies within one minute's walk of the top of Gray's Inn Lane. Gager, during his conference with his colleague Bunfit, had been dressed in plain black clothes; but in spite of his plain clothes he looked every inch a policeman. There was a stiffness about his limbs, and, at the same time, a sharpness in his eyes, which, in the conjunction with the locality in which he was placed, declared his profession beyond the possibility of mistake. Nor, in that locality, would he have desired to be taken for anything else. But as he entered the "Rising Sun" in Meek Street, there was nothing of the policeman about him. He might probably have been taken for a betting man, with whom the world had latterly gone well enough to enable him to maintain that sleek, easy, greasy appearance which seems to be the beau-ideal of a betting man's personal ambition. "Well, Mr. Howard," said the lady at the bar, "a sight of you is good for sore eyes." "Six penn'orth of brandy,--warm, if you please, my dear," said the pseudo-Howard, as he strolled easily into an inner room, with which he seemed to be quite familiar. He seated himself in an old-fashioned wooden arm-chair, gazed up at the gas lamp, and stirred his liquor slowly. Occasionally he raised the glass to his lips, but he did not seem to be at all intent upon his drinking. When he entered the room, there had been a gentleman and a lady there, whose festive moments seemed to be disturbed by some slight disagreement; but Howard, as he gazed at the lamp, paid no attention to them whatever. They soon left the room, their quarrel and their drink finished together, and others dropped in and out. Mr. Howard's "warm" must almost have become cold, so long did he sit there, gazing at the gas lamps rather than attending to his brandy and water. Not a word did he speak to any one for more than an hour, and not a sign did he show of impatience. At last he was alone;--but had not been so for above a minute when in stepped a jaunty little man, certainly not more than five feet high, about three or four and twenty years of age, dressed with great care, with his trousers sticking to his legs, with a French chimney-pot hat on his head, very much peaked fore and aft and closely turned up at the sides. He had a bright-coloured silk handkerchief round his neck, and a white shirt, of which the collar and wristbands were rather larger and longer than suited the small dimensions of the man. He wore a white greatcoat tight buttoned round his waist, but so arranged as to show the glories of the coloured handkerchief; and in his hand he carried a diminutive cane with a little silver knob. He stepped airily into the room, and as he did so he addressed our friend the policeman with much cordiality. "My dear Mr. 'Oward," he said, "this is a pleasure. This is a pleasure. This is a pleasure." "What is it to be?" asked Gager. "Well;--ay, what? Shall I say a little port wine negus, with the nutmeg in it rayther strong?" This suggestion he made to a young lady from the bar, who had followed him into the room. The negus was brought and paid for by Gager, who then requested that they might be left there undisturbed for five minutes. The young lady promised to do her best, and then closed the door. "And now, Mr. 'Oward, what can I do for you?" said Mr. Cann, the burglar. Gager, before he answered, took a pipe-case out of his pocket, and lit the pipe. "Will you smoke, Billy?" said he. "Well;--no, I don't know that I will smoke. A very little tobacco goes a long way with me, Mr. 'Oward. One cigar before I turn in;--that's about the outside of it. You see, Mr. 'Oward, pleasures should never be made necessities, when the circumstances of a gentleman's life may perhaps require that they shall be abandoned for prolonged periods. In your line of life, Mr. 'Oward,--which has its objections,--smoking may be pretty well a certainty." Mr. Cann, as he made these remarks, skipped about the room, and gave point to his argument by touching Mr. Howard's waistcoat with the end of his cane. "And now, Billy, how about the young woman?" "I haven't set eyes on her these six weeks, Mr. 'Oward. I never see her but once in my life, Mr. 'Oward;--or, maybe, twice, for one's memory is deceitful; and I don't know that I ever wish to see her again. She ain't one of my sort, Mr. 'Oward. I likes 'em soft, and sweet, and coming. This one,--she has her good p'ints about her,--as clean a foot and ankle as I'd wish to see;--but, laws, what a nose, Mr. 'Oward! And then for manner;--she's no more manner than a stable dog." "She's in London, Billy?" "How am I to know, Mr. 'Oward?" "What's the good, then, of your coming here?" asked Gager, with no little severity in his voice. "I don't know as it is good. I 'aven't said nothing about any good, Mr. 'Oward. What you wants to find is them diamonds?" "Of course I do." "Well;--you won't find 'em. I knows nothing about 'em, in course, except just what I'm told. You know my line of life, Mr. 'Oward?" "Not a doubt about it." "And I know yours. I'm in the way of hearing about these things,--and for the matter of that, so are you too. It may be, my ears are the longer. I 'ave 'eard. You don't expect me to tell you more than just that. I 'ave 'eard. It was a pretty thing, wasn't it? But I wasn't in it myself, more's the pity. You can't expect fairer than that, Mr. 'Oward?" "And what have you heard?" "Them diamonds is gone where none of you can get at 'em. That five hundred pounds as the lawyers 'ave offered is just nowhere. If you want information, Mr. 'Oward, you should say information." "And you could give it;--eh, Billy?" "No--; no--" He uttered these two negatives in a low voice, and with much deliberation. "I couldn't give it. A man can't give what he hasn't got;--but perhaps I could get it." "What an ass you are, Billy. Don't you know that I know all about it?" "What an ass you are, Mr. 'Oward. Don't I know that you don't know;--or you wouldn't come to me. You guess. You're always a-guessing. And because you know how to guess, they pays you for guessing. But guessing ain't knowing. You don't know;--nor yet don't I. What is it to be, if I find out where that young woman is?" "A tenner, Billy." "Five quid now, and five when you've seen her." "All right, Billy." "She's a-going to be married to Smiler next Sunday as ever is down at Ramsgate;--and at Ramsgate she is now. You'll find her, Mr. 'Oward, if you'll keep your eyes open, somewhere about the 'Fiddle with One String.'" This information was so far recognised by Mr. Howard as correct, that he paid Mr. Cann five sovereigns down for it at once. CHAPTER LVIII "The Fiddle with One String" Mr. Gager reached Ramsgate by the earliest train on the following morning, and was not long in finding out the "Fiddle with One String." The "Fiddle with One String" was a public-house, very humble in appearance, in the outskirts of the town, on the road leading to Pegwell Bay. On this occasion Mr. Gager was dressed in his ordinary plain clothes, and though the policeman's calling might not be so manifestly declared by his appearance at Ramsgate as it was in Scotland Yard,--still, let a hint in that direction have ever been given, and the ordinary citizens of Ramsgate would at once be convinced that the man was what he was. Gager had doubtless considered all the circumstances of his day's work carefully, and had determined that success would more probably attend him with this than with any other line of action. He walked at once into the house, and asked whether a young woman was not lodging there. The man of the house was behind the bar, with his wife, and to him Gager whispered a few words. The man stood dumb for a moment, and then his wife spoke. "What's up now?" said she. "There's no young women here. We don't have no young women." Then the man whispered a word to his wife, during which Gager stood among the customers before the bar with an easy, unembarrassed air. "Well, what's the odds?" said the wife. "There ain't anything wrong with us." "Never thought there was, ma'am," said Gager. "And there's nothing wrong as I know of with the young woman." Then the husband and wife consulted together, and Mr. Gager was asked to take a seat in a little parlour, while the woman ran up-stairs for half an instant. Gager looked about him quickly, and took in at a glance the system of the construction of the "Fiddle with One String." He did sit down in the little parlour, with the door open, and remained there for perhaps a couple of minutes. Then he went to the front door, and glanced up at the roof. "It's all right," said the keeper of the house, following him. "She ain't a-going to get away. She ain't just very well, and she's a-lying down." "You tell her, with my regards," said Gager, "that she needn't be a bit the worse because of me." The man looked at him suspiciously. "You tell her what I say. And tell her, too, the quicker the better. She has a gentleman a-looking after her, I daresay. Perhaps I'd better be off before he comes." The message was taken up to the lady, and Gager again seated himself in the little parlour. We are often told that all is fair in love and war, and, perhaps, the operation on which Mr. Gager was now intent may be regarded as warlike. But he now took advantage of a certain softness in the character of the lady whom he wished to meet, which hardly seems to be justifiable even in a policeman. When Lizzie's tall footman had been in trouble about the necklace, a photograph had been taken from him which had not been restored to him. This was a portrait of Patience Crabstick, which she, poor girl, in a tender moment, had given to him who, had not things gone roughly with them, was to have been her lover. The little picture had fallen into Gager's hands, and he now pulled it from his pocket. He himself had never visited the house in Hertford Street till after the second robbery, and, in the flesh, had not as yet seen Miss Crabstick; but he had studied her face carefully, expecting, or, at any rate, hoping, that he might some day enjoy the pleasure of personal acquaintance. That pleasure was now about to come to him, and he prepared himself for it by making himself intimate with the lines of the lady's face as the sun had portrayed them. There was even yet some delay, and Mr. Gager more than once testified uneasiness. "She ain't a-going to get away," said the mistress of the house, "but a lady as is going to see a gentleman can't jump into her things as a man does." Gager intimated his acquiescence in all this, and again waited. "The sooner she comes the less trouble for her," said Gager to the woman; "if you'll only make her believe that." At last, when he had been somewhat over an hour in the house, he was asked to walk up-stairs, and then, in a little sitting-room over the bar, he had the opportunity, so much desired, of making personal acquaintance with Patience Crabstick. It may be imagined that the poor waiting-woman had not been in a happy state of mind since she had been told that a gentleman was waiting to see her down-stairs, who had declared himself to be a policeman immediately on entering the shop. To escape was of course her first idea, but she was soon made to understand that this was impracticable. In the first place there was but one staircase, at the bottom of which was the open door of the room in which the policeman was sitting; and then, the woman of the house was very firm in declaring that she would connive at nothing which might cost her and her husband their licence. "You've got to face it," said the woman. "I suppose they can't make me get out of bed unless I pleases," said Patience firmly. But she knew that even that resource would fail her, and that a policeman, when aggravated, can take upon him all the duties of a lady's maid. She had to face it,--and she did face it. "I've just got to have a few words with you, my dear," said Gager. "I suppose, then, we'd better be alone," said Patience; whereupon the woman of the house discreetly left the room. The interview was so long that the reader would be fatigued were he asked to study a record of all that was said on the occasion. The gentleman and lady were closeted together for more than an hour, and so amicably was the conversation carried on that when the time was half over Gager stepped down-stairs and interested himself in procuring Miss Crabstick's breakfast. He even condescended himself to pick a few shrimps and drink a glass of beer in her company. A great deal was said, and something was even settled, as may be learned from a few concluding words of that very memorable conversation. "Just don't you say anything about it, my dear, but leave word for him that you've gone up to town on business." "Lord love you, Mr. Gager, he'll know all about it." "Let him know. Of course he'll know,--if he comes down. It's my belief he'll never show himself at Ramsgate again." "But, Mr. Gager--" "Well, my dear?" "You aren't a perjuring of yourself?" "What;--about making you my wife? That I ain't. I'm upright, and always was. There's no mistake about me when you've got my word. As soon as this work is off my mind, you shall be Mrs. Gager, my dear. And you'll be all right. You've been took in, that's what you have." "That I have, Mr. Gager," said Patience, wiping her eyes. "You've been took in, and you must be forgiven." "I didn't get--not nothing out of the necklace; and as for the other things, they've frighted me so, that I let 'em all go for just what I tell you. And as for Mr. Smiler,--I never didn't care for him; that I didn't. He ain't the man to touch my heart,--not at all; and it was not likely either. A plain fellow,--very, Mr. Gager." "He'll be plainer before long, my dear." "But I've been that worrited among 'em, Mr. Gager, since first they made their wicked prepositions, that I've been jest-- I don't know how I've been. And though my lady was not a lady as any girl could like, and did deserve to have her things took if anybody's things ever should be took, still, Mr. Gager, I knows I did wrong. I do know it,--and I'm a-repenting of it in sackcloth and ashes;--so I am. But you'll be as good as your word, Mr. Gager?" It must be acknowledged that Mr. Gager had bidden high for success, and had allowed himself to be carried away by his zeal almost to the verge of imprudence. It was essential to him that he should take Patience Crabstick back with him to London,--and that he should take her as a witness and not as a criminal. Mr. Benjamin was the game at which he was flying,--Mr. Benjamin, and, if possible, Lord George; and he conceived that his net might be big enough to hold Smiler as well as the other two greater fishes, if he could induce Patience Crabstick and Billy Cann to co-operate with him cordially in his fishing. But his mind was still disturbed on one point. Let him press his beloved Patience as closely as he might with questions, there was one point on which he could not get from her what he believed to be the truth. She persisted that Lord George de Bruce Carruthers had had no hand in either robbery, and Gager had so firmly committed himself to a belief on this matter, that he could not throw the idea away from him, even on the testimony of Patience Crabstick. On that evening he returned triumphant to Scotland Yard with Patience Crabstick under his wing; and that lady was housed there with every comfort she could desire, except that of personal liberty. CHAPTER LIX Mr. Gowran Up in London In the meantime Mrs. Hittaway was diligently spreading a report that Lizzie Eustace either was engaged to marry her cousin Frank,--or ought to be so engaged. This she did, no doubt, with the sole object of saving her brother; but she did it with a zeal that dealt as freely with Frank's name as with Lizzie's. They, with all their friends, were her enemies, and she was quite sure that they were, altogether, a wicked, degraded set of people. Of Lord George and Mrs. Carbuncle, of Miss Roanoke and Sir Griffin Tewett, she believed all manner of evil. She had theories of her own about the jewels, stories,--probably of her own manufacture in part, although no doubt she believed them to be true,--as to the manner of living at Portray, little histories of Lizzie's debts, and the great fact of the scene which Mr. Gowran had seen with his own eyes. Lizzie Eustace was an abomination to her, and this abominable woman her brother was again in danger of marrying! She was very loud in her denunciations, and took care that they should reach even Lady Linlithgow, so that poor Lucy Morris might know of what sort was the lover in whom she trusted. Andy Gowran had been sent for to town, and was on his journey while Mr. Gager was engaged at Ramsgate. It was at present the great object of Mrs. Hittaway's life to induce her brother to see Mr. Gowran before he kept his appointment with Lady Eustace. Poor Lucy received the wound which was intended for her. The enemy's weapons had repeatedly struck her, but hitherto they had alighted on the strong shield of her faith. But let a shield be never so strong, it may at last be battered out of all form and service. On Lucy's shield there had been much of such batterings, and the blows which had come from him in whom she most trusted had not been the lightest. She had not seen him for months, and his letters were short, unsatisfactory, and rare. She had declared to herself and to her friend Lady Fawn, that no concurrence of circumstances, no absence, however long, no rumours that might reach her ears, would make her doubt the man she loved. She was still steadfast in the same resolution; but in spite of her resolution her heart began to fail her. She became weary, unhappy, and ill at ease, and though she would never acknowledge to herself that she doubted, she did doubt. "So, after all, your Mr. Greystock is to marry my niece, Lizzie Greystock." This good-natured speech was made one morning to poor Lucy by her present patroness, Lady Linlithgow. "I rather think not," said Lucy plucking up her spirits and smiling as she spoke. "Everybody says so. As for Lizzie, she has become quite a heroine. What with her necklace, and her two robberies, and her hunting, and her various lovers,--two lords and a member of Parliament, my dear,--there is nothing to equal her. Lady Glencora Palliser has been calling on her. She took care to let me know that. And I'm now told that she certainly is engaged to her cousin." "According to your own showing, Lady Linlithgow, she has got two other lovers. Couldn't you oblige me by letting her marry one of the lords?" "I'm afraid, my dear, that Mr. Greystock is to be the chosen one." Then after a pause the old woman became serious. "What is the use, Miss Morris, of not looking the truth in the face? Mr. Greystock is neglecting you." "He is not neglecting me. You won't let him come to see me." "Certainly not;--but if he were not neglecting you, you would not be here. And there he is with Lizzie Eustace every day of his life. He can't afford to marry you, and he can afford to marry her. It's a deal better that you should look it all in the face and know what it must all come to." "I shall just wait,--and never believe a word till he speaks it." "You hardly know what men are, my dear." "Very likely not, Lady Linlithgow. It may be that I shall have to pay dear for learning. Of course, I may be mistaken as well as another,--only I don't believe I am mistaken." When this little scene took place, only a month remained of the time for which Lucy's services were engaged to Lady Linlithgow, and no definite arrangement had been made as to her future residence. Lady Fawn was prepared to give her a home, and to Lady Fawn, as it seemed, she must go. Lady Linlithgow had declared herself unwilling to continue the existing arrangement because, as she said, it did not suit her that her companion should be engaged to marry her late sister's nephew. Not a word had been said about the deanery for the last month or two, and Lucy, though her hopes in that direction had once been good, was far too high-spirited to make any suggestion herself as to her reception by her lover's family. In the ordinary course of things she would have to look out for another situation, like any other governess in want of a place; but she could do this only by consulting Lady Fawn; and Lady Fawn when consulted would always settle the whole matter by simply bidding her young friend to come to Fawn Court. There must be some end of her living at Fawn Court. So much Lucy told herself over and over again. It could be but a temporary measure. If--if it was to be her fate to be taken away from Fawn Court a happy, glorious, triumphant bride, then the additional obligation put upon her by her dear friends would not be more than she could bear. But to go to Fawn Court, and, by degrees, to have it acknowledged that another place must be found for her, would be very bad. She would infinitely prefer any intermediate hardship. How, then, should she know? As soon as she was able to escape from the countess, she went up to her own room, and wrote the following letter. She studied the words with great care as she wrote them,--sitting and thinking before she allowed her pen to run on the paper. MY DEAR FRANK, It is a long time since we met;--is it not? I do not write this as a reproach; but because my friends tell me that I should not continue to think myself engaged to you. They say that, situated as you are, you cannot afford to marry a penniless girl, and that I ought not to wish you to sacrifice yourself. I do understand enough of your affairs to know that an imprudent marriage may ruin you, and I certainly do not wish to be the cause of injury to you. All I ask is that you should tell me the truth. It is not that I am impatient; but that I must decide what to do with myself when I leave Lady Linlithgow. Your most affectionate friend, LUCY MORRIS. March 2, 18--. She read this letter over and over again, thinking of all that it said and of all that it omitted to say. She was at first half disposed to make protestations of forgiveness,--to assure him that not even within her own heart would she reproach him, should he feel himself bound to retract the promise he had made her. She longed to break out into love, but so to express her love that her lover should know that it was strong enough even to sacrifice itself for his sake. But though her heart longed to speak freely, her judgment told her that it would be better that she should be reticent and tranquil in her language. Any warmth on her part would be in itself a reproach to him. If she really wished to assist him in extricating himself from a difficulty into which he had fallen in her behalf, she would best do so by offering him his freedom in the fewest and plainest words which she could select. But even when the letter was written she doubted as to the wisdom of sending it. She kept it that she might sleep upon it. She did sleep upon it,--and when the morning came she would not send it. Had not absolute faith in her lover been the rock on which she had declared to herself that she would build the house of her future hopes? Had not she protested again and again that no caution from others should induce her to waver in her belief? Was it not her great doctrine to trust,--to trust implicitly, even though all should be lost if her trust should be misplaced? And was it well that she should depart from all this, merely because it might be convenient for her to make arrangements as to the coming months? If it were to be her fate to be rejected, thrown over, and deceived, of what use to her could be any future arrangements? All to her would be ruin, and it would matter to her nothing whither she should be taken. And then, why should she lie to him as she would lie in sending such a letter? If he did throw her over he would be a traitor, and her heart would be full of reproaches. Whatever might be his future lot in life, he owed it to her to share it with her, and if he evaded his debt he would be a traitor and a miscreant. She would never tell him so. She would be far too proud to condescend to spoken or written reproaches. But she would know that it would be so, and why should she lie to him by saying that it would not be so? Thinking of all this, when the morning came, she left the letter lying within her desk. Lord Fawn was to call upon Lady Eustace on the Saturday, and on Friday afternoon Mr. Andrew Gowran was in Mrs. Hittaway's back parlour in Warwick Square. After many efforts, and with much persuasion, the brother had agreed to see his sister's great witness. Lord Fawn had felt that he would lower himself by any intercourse with such a one as Andy Gowran in regard to the conduct of the woman whom he had proposed to make his wife, and had endeavoured to avoid the meeting. He had been angry, piteous, haughty, and sullen by turns; but Mrs. Hittaway had overcome him by dogged perseverance; and poor Lord Fawn had at last consented. He was to come to Warwick Square as soon as the House was up on Friday evening, and dine there. Before dinner he was to be introduced to Mr. Gowran. Andy arrived at the house at half-past five, and after some conversation with Mrs. Hittaway, was left there all alone to await the coming of Lord Fawn. He was in appearance and manners very different from the Andy Gowran familiarly known among the braes and crofts of Portray. He had a heavy stiff hat, which he carried in his hand. He wore a black swallow-tail coat and black trousers, and a heavy red waistcoat buttoned up nearly to his throat, round which was tightly tied a dingy black silk handkerchief. At Portray no man was more voluble, no man more self-confident, no man more equal to his daily occupations than Andy Gowran; but the unaccustomed clothes, and the journey to London, and the town houses overcame him, and for a while almost silenced him. Mrs. Hittaway found him silent, cautious, and timid. Not knowing what to do with him, fearing to ask him to go and eat in the kitchen, and not liking to have meat and unlimited drink brought for him into the parlour, she directed the servant to supply him with a glass of sherry and a couple of biscuits. He had come an hour before the time named, and there, with nothing to cheer him beyond these slight creature-comforts, he was left to wait all alone till Lord Fawn should be ready to see him. Andy had seen lords before. Lords are not rarer in Ayrshire than in other Scotch counties; and then, had not Lord George de Bruce Carruthers been staying at Portray half the winter? But Lord George was not to Andy a real lord,--and then a lord down in his own county was so much less to him than a lord up in London. And this lord was a lord of Parliament, and a government lord, and might probably have the power of hanging such a one as Andy Gowran were he to commit perjury, or say anything which the lord might choose to call perjury. What it was that Lord Fawn wished him to say, he could not make himself sure. That the lord's sister wished him to prove Lady Eustace to be all that was bad, he knew very well. But he thought that he was able to perceive that the brother and sister were not at one, and more than once during his journey up to London he had almost made up his mind that he would turn tail and go back to Portray. No doubt there was enmity between him and his mistress; but then his mistress did not attempt to hurt him even though he had insulted her grossly; and were she to tell him to leave her service, it would be from Mr. John Eustace, and not from Mrs. Hittaway, that he must look for the continuation of his employment. Nevertheless he had taken Mrs. Hittaway's money and there he was. At half-past seven Lord Fawn was brought into the room by his sister, and Andy Gowran, rising from his chair, three times ducked his head. "Mr. Gowran," said Mrs. Hittaway, "my brother is desirous that you should tell him exactly what you have seen of Lady Eustace's conduct down at Portray. You may speak quite freely, and I know you will speak truly." Andy again ducked his head. "Frederic," continued the lady, "I am sure that you may implicitly believe all that Mr. Gowran will say to you." Then Mrs. Hittaway left the room,--as her brother had expressly stipulated that she should do. Lord Fawn was quite at a loss how to begin, and Andy was by no means prepared to help him. "If I am rightly informed," said the lord, "you have been for many years employed on the Portray property?" "A' my life,--so please your lairdship." "Just so;--just so. And, of course, interested in the welfare of the Eustace family?" "Nae doobt, my laird,--nae doobt; vera interasted indeed." "And being an honest man, have felt sorrow that the Portray property should--should--should--; that anything bad should happen to it." Andy nodded his head, and Lord Fawn perceived that he was nowhere near the beginning of his matter. "Lady Eustace is at present your mistress?" "Just in a fawshion, my laird,--as a mon may say. That is she is,--and she is nae. There's a mony things at Portray as ha' to be lookit after." "She pays you your wages?" said Lord Fawn shortly. "Eh;--wages! Yes, my laird; she does a' that." "Then she's your mistress." Andy again nodded his head, and Lord Fawn again struggled to find some way in which he might approach his subject. "Her cousin, Mr. Greystock, has been staying at Portray lately?" "More coothie than coosinly," said Andy, winking his eye. It was dreadful to Lord Fawn that the man should wink his eye at him. He did not quite understand what Andy had last said, but he did understand that some accusation as to indecent familiarity with her cousin was intended to be brought by this Scotch steward against the woman to whom he had engaged himself. Every feeling of his nature revolted against the task before him, and he found that on trial it became absolutely impracticable. He could not bring himself to inquire minutely as to poor Lizzie's flirting down among the rocks. He was weak, and foolish, and in many respects ignorant,--but he was a gentleman. As he got nearer to the point which it had been intended that he should reach, the more he hated Andy Gowran,--and the more he hated himself for having submitted to such contact. He paused a moment, and then he declared that the conversation was at an end. "I think that will do, Mr. Gowran," he said. "I don't know that you can tell me anything I want to hear. I think you had better go back to Scotland." So saying, he left Andy alone and stalked up to the drawing-room. When he entered it, both Mr. Hittaway and his sister were there. "Clara," he said very sternly, "you had better send some one to dismiss that man. I shall not speak to him again." Lord Fawn did not speak to Andy Gowran again, but Mrs. Hittaway did. After a faint and futile endeavour made by her to ascertain what had taken place in the parlour down-stairs, she descended and found Andy seated in his chair, still holding his hat in his hand, as stiff as a wax figure. He had been afraid of the lord, but as soon as the lord had left him he was very angry with the lord. He had been brought up all that way to tell his story to the lord, and the lord had gone away without hearing a word of it,--had gone away and had absolutely insulted him, had asked him who paid him his wages, and had then told him that Lady Eustace was his mistress. Andy Gowran felt strongly that this was not that kind of confidential usage which he had had a right to expect. And after his experience of the last hour and a half, he did not at all relish his renewed solitude in that room. "A drap of puir thin liquor,--poored out, too, in a weeny glass nae deeper than an egg-shell,--and twa cookies; that's what she ca'ed--rafrashment!" It was thus that Andy afterwards spoke to his wife of the hospitalities offered to him in Warwick Square, regarding which his anger was especially hot, in that he had been treated like a child or a common labourer, instead of having the decanter left with him to be used at his own discretion. When, therefore, Mrs. Hittaway returned to him, the awe with which new circumstances and the lord had filled him was fast vanishing, and giving place to that stubborn indignation against people in general which was his normal, condition. "I suppose I'm jist to gang bock again to Portray, Mrs. Heetaway, and that'll be a' you'll want o' me?" This he said the moment the lady entered the room. But Mrs. Hittaway did not want to lose his services quite so soon. She expressed regret that her brother should have found himself unable to discuss a subject that was naturally so very distasteful to him, and begged Mr. Gowran to come to her again the next morning. "What I saw wi' my ain twa e'es, Mrs. Heetaway, I saw,--and nane the less because his lairdship may nae find it jist tastefu', as your leddyship was saying. There were them twa, a' colloguing, and a-seetting ilk in ither's laps a' o'er, and a-keessing,--yes, my leddy, a-keessing as females, not to say males, ought nae to keess, unless they be mon and wife,--and then not amang the rocks, my leddy; and if his lairdship does nae care to hear tell o' it, and finds it nae tastefu', as your leddyship was saying, he should nae ha' sent for Andy Gowran a' the way from Portray, jist to tell him what he wanna hear, now I'm come to tell't to him!" All this was said with so much unction that even Mrs. Hittaway herself found it to be not "tasteful." She shrunk and shivered under Mr. Gowran's eloquence, and almost repented of her zeal. But women, perhaps, feel less repugnance than do men at using ignoble assistance in the achievement of good purposes. Though Mrs. Hittaway shrunk and shivered under the strong action with which Mr. Gowran garnished his strong words, still she was sure of the excellence of her purpose; and, believing that useful aid might still be obtained from Andy Gowran, and, perhaps, prudently anxious to get value in return for the cost of the journey up from Ayrshire, she made the man promise to return to her on the following morning. CHAPTER LX "Let It Be As Though It Had Never Been" Between her son, and her married daughter, and Lucy Morris, poor Lady Fawn's life had become a burthen to her. Everything was astray, and there was no happiness or tranquillity at Fawn Court. Of all simply human creeds the strongest existing creed for the present in the minds of the Fawn ladies was that which had reference to the general iniquity of Lizzie Eustace. She had been the cause of all these sorrows, and she was hated so much the more because she had not been proved to be iniquitous before all the world. There had been a time when it seemed to be admitted that she was so wicked in keeping the diamonds in opposition to the continued demands made for them by Mr. Camperdown, that all people would be justified in dropping her, and Lord Fawn among the number. But since the two robberies, public opinion had veered round three or four points in Lizzie's favour, and people were beginning to say that she had been ill-used. Then had come Mrs. Hittaway's evidence as to Lizzie's wicked doings down in Scotland,--the wicked doings which Andy Gowran had described with a vehemence so terribly moral; and that which had been at first, as it were, added to the diamonds, as a supplementary weight thrown into the scale, so that Lizzie's iniquities might bring her absolutely to the ground, had gradually assumed the position of being the first charge against her. Lady Fawn had felt no aversion to discussing the diamonds. When Lizzie was called a "thief," and a "robber," and a "swindler" by one or another of the ladies of the family,--who, in using those strong terms, whispered the words as ladies are wont to do when they desire to lessen the impropriety of the strength of their language by the gentleness of the tone in which the words are spoken,--when Lizzie was thus described in Lady Fawn's hearing in her own house, she had felt no repugnance to it. It was well that the fact should be known, so that everybody might be aware that her son was doing right in refusing to marry so wicked a lady. But when the other thing was added to it; when the story was told of what Mr. Gowran had seen among the rocks, and when gradually that became the special crime which was to justify her son in dropping the lady's acquaintance, then Lady Fawn became very unhappy, and found the subject to be, as Mrs. Hittaway had described it, very distasteful. And this trouble hit Lucy Morris as hard as it did Lord Fawn. If Lizzie Eustace was unfit to marry Lord Fawn because of these things, then was Frank Greystock not only unfit to marry Lucy, but most unlikely to do so, whether fit or unfit. For a week or two Lady Fawn had allowed herself to share Lucy's joy, and to believe that Mr. Greystock would prove himself true to the girl whose heart he had made all his own;--but she had soon learned to distrust the young member of Parliament who was always behaving insolently to her son, who spent his holidays down with Lizzie Eustace, who never visited and rarely wrote to the girl he had promised to marry, and as to whom all the world agreed in saying that he was far too much in debt to marry any woman who had not means to help him. It was all sorrow and vexation together; and yet when her married daughter would press the subject upon her, and demand her co-operation, she had no power of escaping. "Mamma," Mrs. Hittaway had said, "Lady Glencora Palliser has been with her, and everybody is taking her up, and if her conduct down in Scotland isn't proved, Frederic will be made to marry her." "But what can I do, my dear?" Lady Fawn had asked, almost in tears. "Insist that Frederic shall know the whole truth," replied Mrs. Hittaway with energy. "Of course, it is very disagreeable. Nobody can feel it more than I do. It is horrible to have to talk about such things,--and to think of them." "Indeed it is, Clara,--very horrible." "But anything, mamma, is better than that Frederic should be allowed to marry such a woman as that. It must be proved to him--how unfit she is to be his wife." With the view of carrying out this intention, Mrs. Hittaway had, as we have seen, received Andy Gowran at her own house; and with the same view she took Andy Gowran the following morning down to Richmond. Mrs. Hittaway, and her mother, and Andy were closeted together for half an hour, and Lady Fawn suffered grievously. Lord Fawn had found that he couldn't hear the story, and he had not heard it. He had been strong enough to escape, and had, upon the whole, got the best of it in the slight skirmish which had taken place between him and the Scotchman; but poor old Lady Fawn could not escape. Andy was allowed to be eloquent, and the whole story was told to her, though she would almost sooner have been flogged at a cart's tail than have heard it. Then "rafrashments" were administered to Andy of a nature which made him prefer Fawn Court to Warwick Square, and he was told that he might go back to Portray as soon as he pleased. When he was gone, Mrs. Hittaway opened her mind to her mother altogether. "The truth is, mamma, that Frederic will marry her." "But why? I thought that he had declared that he would give it up. I thought that he had said so to herself." "What of that, if he retracts what he said? He is so weak. Lady Glencora Palliser has made him promise to go and see her; and he is to go to-day. He is there now, probably,--at this very moment. If he had been firm, the thing was done. After all that has taken place, nobody would ever have supposed that his engagement need go for anything. But what can he say to her now that he is with her, except just do the mischief all over again? I call it quite wicked in that woman's interfering. I do, indeed! She's a nasty, insolent, impertinent creature;--that's what she is! After all the trouble I've taken, she comes and undoes it all with one word." "What can we do, Clara?" "Well;--I do believe that if Frederic could be made to act as he ought to do, just for a while, she would marry her cousin, Mr. Greystock, and then there would be an end of it altogether. I really think that she likes him best, and from all that I can hear, she would take him now, if Frederic would only keep out of the way. As for him, of course he is doing his very best to get her. He has not one shilling to rub against another, and is over head and ears in debt." "Poor Lucy!" ejaculated Lady Fawn. "Well;--yes; but really that is a matter of course. I always thought, mamma, that you and Amelia were a little wrong to coax her up in that belief." "But, my dear, the man proposed for her in the plainest possible manner. I saw his letter." "No doubt;--men do propose. We all know that. I'm sure I don't know what they get by it, but I suppose it amuses them. There used to be a sort of feeling that if a man behaved badly something would be done to him; but that's all over now. A man may propose to whom he likes, and if he chooses to say afterwards that it doesn't mean anything, there's nothing in the world to bring him to book." "That's very hard," said the elder lady, of whom everybody said that she did not understand the world as well as her daughter. "The girls,--they all know that it is so, and I suppose it comes to the same thing in the long run. The men have to marry, and what one girl loses another girl gets." "It will kill Lucy." "Girls ain't killed so easy, mamma;--not now-a-days. Saying that it will kill her won't change the man's nature. It wasn't to be expected that such a man as Frank Greystock, in debt, and in Parliament, and going to all the best houses, should marry your governess. What was he to get by it? That's what I want to know." "I suppose he loved her." "Laws, mamma, how antediluvian you are! No doubt he did like her,--after his fashion; though what he saw in her, I never could tell. I think Miss Morris would make a very nice wife for a country clergyman who didn't care how poor things were. But she has no style;--and as far as I can see, she has no beauty. Why should such a man as Frank Greystock tie himself by the leg for ever to such a girl as that? But, mamma, he doesn't mean to marry Lucy Morris. Would he have been going on in that way with his cousin down in Scotland had he meant it? He means nothing of the kind. He means to marry Lady Eustace's income if he can get it;--and she would marry him before the summer if only we could keep Frederic away from her." Mrs. Hittaway demanded from her mother that in season and out of season she should be urgent with Lord Fawn, impressing upon him the necessity of waiting, in order that he might see how false Lady Eustace was to him; and also that she should teach Lucy Morris how vain were all her hopes. If Lucy Morris would withdraw her claims altogether the thing might probably be more quickly and more surely managed. If Lucy could be induced to tell Frank that she withdrew her claim, and that she saw how impossible it was that they should ever be man and wife, then,--so argued Mrs. Hittaway,--Frank would at once throw himself at his cousin's feet, and all the difficulty would be over. The abominable, unjustifiable, and insolent interference of Lady Glencora just at the present moment would be the means of undoing all the good that had been done, unless it could be neutralised by some such activity as this. The necklace had absolutely faded away into nothing. The sly creature was almost becoming a heroine on the strength of the necklace. The very mystery with which the robberies were pervaded was acting in her favour. Lord Fawn would absolutely be made to marry her,--forced into it by Lady Glencora and that set,--unless the love affair between her and her cousin, of which Andy Gowran was able to give such sufficient testimony, could in some way be made available to prevent it. The theory of life and system on which social matters should be managed, as displayed by her married daughter, was very painful to poor old Lady Fawn. When she was told that under the new order of things promises from gentlemen were not to be looked upon as binding, that love was to go for nothing, that girls were to be made contented by being told that when one lover was lost another could be found, she was very unhappy. She could not disbelieve it all, and throw herself back upon her faith in virtue, constancy, and honesty. She rather thought that things had changed for the worse since she was young, and that promises were not now as binding as they used to be. She herself had married into a Liberal family, had a Liberal son, and would have called herself a Liberal; but she could not fail to hear from others, her neighbours, that the English manners, and English principles, and English society were all going to destruction in consequence of the so-called liberality of the age. Gentlemen, she thought, certainly did do things which gentlemen would not have done forty years ago; and as for ladies,--they, doubtless, were changed altogether. Most assuredly she could not have brought an Andy Gowran to her mother to tell such tales in their joint presence as this man had told! Mrs. Hittaway had ridiculed her for saying that poor Lucy would die when forced to give up her lover. Mrs. Hittaway had spoken of the necessity of breaking up that engagement without a word of anger against Frank Greystock. According to Mrs. Hittaway's views Frank Greystock had amused himself in the most natural way in the world when he asked Lucy to be his wife. A governess like Lucy had been quite foolish to expect that such a man as Greystock was in earnest. Of course she must give up her lover; and if there must be blame, she must blame herself for her folly! Nevertheless, Lady Fawn was so soft-hearted that she believed that the sorrow would crush Lucy, even if it did not kill her. But not the less was it her duty to tell Lucy what she thought to be the truth. The story of what had occurred among the rocks at Portray was very disagreeable, but she believed it to be true. The man had been making love to his cousin after his engagement to Lucy. And then, was it not quite manifest that he was neglecting poor Lucy in every way? He had not seen her for nearly six months. Had he intended to marry her, would he not have found a home for her at the deanery? Did he in any respect treat her as he would treat the girl whom he intended to marry? Putting all these things together, Lady Fawn thought that she saw that Lucy's case was hopeless;--and, so thinking, wrote to her the following letter:-- Fawn Court, 3rd March, 18--. DEAREST LUCY, I have so much to say to you that I did think of getting Lady Linlithgow to let you come to us here for a day, but I believe it will perhaps be better that I should write. I think you leave Lady Linlithgow after the first week in April, and it is quite necessary that you should come to some fixed arrangement as to the future. If that were all, there need not be any trouble, as you will come here, of course. Indeed, this is your natural home, as we all feel; and I must say that we have missed you most terribly since you went,--not only for Cecilia and Nina, but for all of us. And I don't know that I should write at all if it wasn't for something else, that must be said sooner or later;--because, as to your coming here in April, that is so much a matter of course. The only mistake was, that you should ever have gone away. So we shall expect you here on whatever day you may arrange with Lady Linlithgow as to leaving her. The poor, dear lady went on repeating her affectionate invitation, because of the difficulty she encountered in finding words with which to give the cruel counsel which she thought that it was her duty to offer. And now, dearest Lucy, I must say what I believe to be the truth about Mr. Greystock. I think that you should teach yourself to forget him,--or, at any rate, that you should teach yourself to forget the offer which he made to you last autumn. Whether he was or was not in earnest then, I think that he has now determined to forget it. I fear there is no doubt that he has been making love to his cousin, Lady Eustace. You well know that I should not mention such a thing, if I had not the strongest possible grounds to convince me that I ought to do so. But, independent of this, his conduct to you during the last six months has been such as to make us all feel sure that the engagement is distasteful to him. He has probably found himself so placed that he cannot marry without money, and has wanted the firmness, or perhaps you will say the hardness of heart, to say so openly. I am sure of this, and so is Amelia, that it will be better for you to give the matter up altogether, and to come here and recover the blow among friends who will be as kind to you as possible. I know all that you will feel, and you have my fullest sympathy; but even such sorrows as that are cured by time, and by the mercy of God, which is not only infinite, but all-powerful. Your most affectionate friend, C. FAWN. Lady Fawn, when she had written her letter, discussed it with Amelia, and the two together agreed that Lucy would never surmount the ill effects of the blow which was thus prophesied. "As to saying it will kill her, mamma," said Amelia, "I don't believe in that. If I were to break my leg, the accident might shorten my life, and this may shorten hers. It won't kill her in any other way. But it will alter her altogether. Nobody ever used to make herself happy so easily as Lucy Morris; but all that will be gone now." When Lucy received the letter, the immediate effect upon her, the effect which came from the first reading of it, was not very great. She succeeded for some half-hour in putting it aside, as referring to a subject on which she had quite made up her mind in a direction contrary to that indicated by her correspondent's advice. Lady Fawn told her that her lover intended to be false to her. She had thought the matter over very carefully within the last day or two, and had altogether made up her mind that she would continue to trust her lover. She had abstained from sending to him the letter which she had written, and had abstained on that resolution. Lady Fawn, of course, was as kind and friendly as a friend could be. She loved Lady Fawn dearly. But she was not bound to think Lady Fawn right, and in this instance she did not think Lady Fawn right. So she folded up the letter and put it in her pocket. But by putting the letter into her pocket she could not put it out of her mind. Though she had resolved, of what use to her was a resolution in which she could not trust? Day had passed by after day, week after week, and month after month, and her very soul within her had become sad for want of seeing this man, who was living almost in the next street to her. She was ashamed to own to herself how many hours she had sat at the window, thinking that, perhaps, he might walk before the house in which he knew that she was immured. And, even had it been impossible that he should come to her, the post was open to him. She had scorned to write to him oftener than he would write to her, and now their correspondence had dwindled almost to nothing. He knew as well as did Lady Fawn when the period of her incarceration in Lady Linlithgow's dungeon would come to an end; and he knew, too, how great had been her hope that she might be accepted as a guest at the deanery when that period should arrive. He knew that she must look for a new home, unless he would tell her where she should live. Was it likely,--was it possible, that he should be silent so long if he still intended to make her his wife? No doubt he had come to remember his debts, to remember his ambition, to think of his cousin's wealth,--and to think also of his cousin's beauty. What right had she ever had to hope for such a position as that of his wife,--she who had neither money nor beauty,--she who had nothing to give him in return for his name and the shelter of his house beyond her mind and her heart? As she thought of it all, she looked down upon her faded grey frock, and stood up that she might glance at her features in the glass; and she saw how small she was and insignificant, and reminded herself that all she had in the world was a few pounds which she had saved and was still saving in order that she might go to him with decent clothes upon her back. Was it reasonable that she should expect it? But why had he come to her and made her thus wretched? She could acknowledge to herself that she had been foolish, vain, utterly ignorant of her own value in venturing to hope; perhaps unmaidenly in allowing it to be seen that she had hoped;--but what was he in having first exalted her before all her friends, and then abasing her so terribly and bringing her to such utter shipwreck? From spoken or written reproaches she could, of course, abstain. She would neither write nor speak any;--but from unuttered reproaches how could she abstain? She had called him a traitor once in playful, loving irony, during those few hours in which her love had been to her a luxury that she could enjoy. But now he was a traitor indeed. Had he left her alone she would have loved him in silence, and not have been wretched in her love. She would, she knew, in that case, have had vigour enough and sufficient strength of character to bear her burthen without outward signs of suffering, without any inward suffering that would have disturbed the current of her life. But now everything was over with her. She had no thought of dying, but her future life was a blank to her. She came down-stairs to sit at lunch with Lady Linlithgow, and the old woman did not perceive that anything was amiss with her companion. Further news had been heard of Lizzie Eustace, and of Lord Fawn, and of the robberies, and the countess declared how she had read in the newspaper that one man was already in custody for the burglary at the house in Hertford Street. From that subject she went on to tidings which had reached her from her old friend Lady Clantantram that the Fawn marriage was on again. "Not that I believe it, my dear; because I think that Mr. Greystock has made it quite safe in that quarter." All this Lucy heard, and never showed by a single sign, or by a motion of a muscle, that she was in pain. Then Lady Linlithgow asked her what she meant to do after the 5th of April. "I don't see at all why you shouldn't stay here, if you like it, Miss Morris;--that is, if you have abandoned the stupid idea of an engagement with Frank Greystock." Lucy smiled, and even thanked the countess, and said that she had made up her mind to go back to Richmond for a month or two, till she could get another engagement as a governess. Then she returned to her room and sat again at her window, looking out upon the street. What did it matter now where she went? And yet she must go somewhere, and do something. There remained to her the wearisome possession of herself, and while she lived she must eat, and have clothes, and require shelter. She could not dawdle out a bitter existence under Lady Fawn's roof, eating the bread of charity, hanging about the rooms and shrubberies useless and idle. How bitter to her was that possession of herself, as she felt that there was nothing good to be done with the thing so possessed! She doubted even whether ever again she could become serviceable as a governess, and whether the energy would be left to her of earning her bread by teaching adequately the few things that she knew. But she must make the attempt,--and must go on making it, till God in his mercy should take her to himself. And yet but a few months since life had been so sweet to her! As she felt this she was not thinking of those short days of excited, feverish bliss in which she had believed that all the good things of the world were to be showered into her lap; but of previous years in which everything had been with her as it was now,--with the one exception that she had not then been deceived. She had been full of smiles, and humour, and mirth, absolutely happy among her friends, though conscious of the necessity of earning her bread by the exercise of a most precarious profession,--while elated by no hope. Though she had loved the man and had been hopeless, she was happy. But now, surely, of all maidens and of all women, she was the most forlorn. Having once acceded to the truth of Lady Fawn's views, she abandoned all hope. Everybody said so, and it was so. There was no word from any side to encourage her. The thing was done and over, and she would never mention his name again. She would simply beg of all the Fawns that no allusion might be made to him in her presence. She would never blame him, and certainly she would never praise him. As far as she could rule her tongue, she would never have his name upon her lips again. She thought for a time that she would send the letter which she had already written. Any other letter she could not bring herself to write. Even to think of him was an agony to her; but to communicate her thoughts to him was worse than agony. It would be almost madness. What need was there for any letter? If the thing was done, it was done. Perhaps there remained with her,--staying by her without her own knowledge, some faint spark of hope, that even yet he might return to her. At last she resolved that there should be no letter, and she destroyed that which she had written. But she did write a note to Lady Fawn, in which she gratefully accepted her old friend's kindness till such time as she could "find a place." "As to that other subject," she said, "I know that you are right. Please let it all be as though it had never been." CHAPTER LXI Lizzie's Great Friend The Saturday morning came at last for which Lord Fawn had made his appointment with Lizzie, and a very important day it was in Hertford Street,--chiefly on account of his lordship's visit, but also in respect to other events which crowded themselves into the day. In the telling of our tale, we have gone a little in advance of this, as it was not till the subsequent Monday that Lady Linlithgow read in the newspaper, and told Lucy, how a man had been arrested on account of the robbery. Early on the Saturday morning Sir Griffin Tewett was in Hertford Street, and, as Lizzie afterwards understood, there was a terrible scene between both him and Lucinda and him and Mrs. Carbuncle. She saw nothing of it herself, but Mrs. Carbuncle brought her the tidings. For the last few days Mrs. Carbuncle had been very affectionate in her manner to Lizzie, thereby showing a great change; for during nearly the whole of February the lady, who in fact owned the house, had hardly been courteous to her remunerative guest, expressing more than once a hint that the arrangement which had brought them together had better come to an end. "You see, Lady Eustace," Mrs. Carbuncle had once said, "the trouble about these robberies is almost too much for me." Lizzie, who was ill at the time, and still trembling with constant fear on account of the lost diamonds, had taken advantage of her sick condition, and declined to argue the question of her removal. Now she was supposed to be convalescent, but Mrs. Carbuncle had returned to her former ways of affection. No doubt there was cause for this,--cause that was patent to Lizzie herself. Lady Glencora Palliser had called,--which thing alone was felt by Lizzie to alter her position altogether. And then, though her diamonds were gone, and though the thieves who had stolen them were undoubtedly aware of her secret as to the first robbery, though she had herself told that secret to Lord George, whom she had not seen since she had done so,--in spite of all these causes for trouble, she had of late gradually found herself to be emerging from the state of despondency into which she had fallen while the diamonds were in her own custody. She knew that she was regaining her ascendancy; and, therefore, when Mrs. Carbuncle came to tell her of the grievous things which had been said down-stairs between Sir Griffin and his mistress, and to consult her as to the future, Lizzie was not surprised. "I suppose the meaning of it is that the match must be off," said Lizzie. "Oh dear, no;--pray don't say anything so horrid after all that I have gone through. Don't suggest anything of that kind to Lucinda." "But surely after what you've told me now, he'll never come here again." "Oh yes, he will. There's no danger about his coming back. It's only a sort of a way he has." "A very disagreeable way," said Lizzie. "No doubt, Lady Eustace. But then you know you can't have it all sweet. There must be some things disagreeable. As far as I can learn, the property will be all right after a few years,--and it is absolutely indispensable that Lucinda should do something. She has accepted him, and she must go on with it." "She seems to me to be very unhappy, Mrs. Carbuncle." "That was always her way. She was never gay and cheery like other girls. I have never known her once to be what you would call happy." "She likes hunting." "Yes,--because she can gallop away out of herself. I have done all I can for her, and she must go on with the marriage now. As for going back, it is out of the question. The truth is, we couldn't afford it." "Then you must keep him in a better humour." "I am not so much afraid about him; but, dear Lady Eustace, we want you to help us a little." "How can I help you?" "You can, certainly. Could you lend me two hundred and fifty pounds, just for six weeks?" Lizzie's face fell and her eyes became very serious in their aspect. Two hundred and fifty pounds! "You know you would have ample security. You need not give Lucinda her present till I've paid you, and that will be forty-five pounds." "Thirty-five," said Lizzie with angry decision. "I thought we agreed upon forty-five when we settled about the servants' liveries;--and then you can let the man at the stables know that I am to pay for the carriage and horses. You wouldn't be out of the money hardly above a week or so, and it might be the salvation of Lucinda just at present." "Why don't you ask Lord George?" "Ask Lord George! He hasn't got it. It's much more likely that he should ask me. I don't know what's come to Lord George this last month past. I did believe that you and he were to come together. I think these two robberies have upset him altogether. But, dear Lizzie;--you can let me have it, can't you?" Lizzie did not at all like the idea of lending money, and by no means appreciated the security now offered to her. It might be very well for her to tell the man at the stables that Mrs. Carbuncle would pay him her bill, but how would it be with her if Mrs. Carbuncle did not pay the bill? And as for her present to Lucinda,--which was to have been a present, and regarded by the future Lady Tewett as a voluntary offering of good-will and affection,--she was altogether averse to having it disposed of in this fashion. And yet she did not like to make an enemy of Mrs. Carbuncle. "I never was so poor in my life before,--not since I was married," said Lizzie. "You can't be poor, dear Lady Eustace." "They took my money out of my desk, you know,--ever so much." "Forty-three pounds," said Mrs. Carbuncle, who was, of course, well instructed in all the details of the robbery. "And I don't suppose you can guess what the autumn cost me at Portray. The bills are only coming in now, and really they sometimes so frighten me that I don't know what I shall do. Indeed, I haven't got the money to spare." "You'll have every penny of it back in six weeks," said Mrs. Carbuncle, upon whose face a glow of anger was settling down. She quite intended to make herself very disagreeable to her "dear Lady Eustace" or her "dear Lizzie" if she did not get what she wanted; and she knew very well how to do it. It must be owned that Lizzie was afraid of the woman. It was almost impossible for her not to be afraid of the people with whom she lived. There were so many things against her;--so many sources of fear! "I am quite sure you won't refuse me such a trifling favour as this," said Mrs. Carbuncle, with the glow of anger reddening more and more upon her brow. "I don't think I have so much at the bankers," said Lizzie. "They'll let you overdraw,--just as much as you please. If the cheque comes back that will be my look out." Lizzie had tried that game before, and knew that the bankers would allow her to overdraw. "Come, be a good friend and do it at once," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Perhaps I can manage a hundred and fifty," said Lizzie, trembling. Mrs. Carbuncle fought hard for the greater sum; but at last consented to take the less, and the cheque was written. "This, of course, won't interfere with Lucinda's present," said Mrs. Carbuncle,--"as we can make all this right by the horse and carriage account." To this proposition, however, Lady Eustace made no answer. Soon after lunch, at which meal Miss Roanoke did not show herself, Lady Glencora Palliser was announced, and sat for about ten minutes in the drawing-room. She had come, she said, especially to give the Duke of Omnium's compliments to Lady Eustace, and to express a wish on the part of the duke that the lost diamonds might be recovered. "I doubt," said Lady Glencora, "whether there is any one in England except professed jewellers who knows so much about diamonds as his grace." "Or who has so many," said Mrs. Carbuncle, smiling graciously. "I don't know about that. I suppose there are family diamonds, though I have never seen them. But he sympathises with you completely, Lady Eustace. I suppose there is hardly hope now of recovering them." Lizzie smiled and shook her head. "Isn't it odd that they never should have discovered the thieves? I'm told they haven't at all given it up,--only, unfortunately, they'll never get back the necklace." She sat there for about a quarter of an hour, and then, as she took her leave, she whispered a few words to Lizzie. "He is to come and see you;--isn't he?" Lizzie assented with a smile, but without a word. "I hope it will be all right," said Lady Glencora, and then she went. Lizzie liked this friendship from Lady Glencora amazingly. Perhaps, after all, nothing more would ever be known about the diamonds, and they would simply be remembered as having added a peculiar and not injurious mystery to her life. Lord George knew,--but then she trusted that a benevolent, true-hearted Corsair, such as was Lord George, would never tell the story against her. The thieves knew,--but surely they, if not detected, would never tell. And if the story were told by thieves, or even by a Corsair, at any rate half the world would not believe it. What she had feared,--had feared till the dread had nearly overcome her,--was public exposure at the hands of the police. If she could escape that, the world might still be bright before her. And the interest taken in her by such persons as the Duke of Omnium and Lady Glencora was evidence not only that she had escaped it hitherto, but also that she was in a fair way to escape it altogether. Three weeks ago she would have given up half her income to have been able to steal out of London without leaving a trace behind her. Three weeks ago Mrs. Carbuncle was treating her with discourtesy, and she was left alone nearly the whole day in her sick bedroom. Things were going better with her now. She was recovering her position. Mr. Camperdown, who had been the first to attack her, was, so to say, "nowhere." He had acknowledged himself beaten. Lord Fawn, whose treatment to her had been so great an injury, was coming to see her that very day. Her cousin Frank, though he had never offered to marry her, was more affectionate to her than ever. Mrs. Carbuncle had been at her feet that morning borrowing money. And Lady Glencora Palliser,--the very leading star of fashion,--had called upon her twice! Why should she succumb? She had an income of four thousand pounds a year, and she thought that she could remember that her aunt, Lady Linlithgow, had but seven hundred pounds. Lady Fawn with all her daughters had not near so much as she had. And she was beautiful, too, and young, and perfectly free to do what she pleased. No doubt the last eighteen months of her life had been made wretched by those horrid diamonds;--but they were gone, and she had fair reason to hope that the very knowledge of them was gone also. In this condition would it be expedient for her to accept Lord Fawn when he came? She could not, of course, be sure that any renewed offer would be the result of his visit;--but she thought it probable that with care she might bring him to that. Why should he come to her if he himself had no such intention? Her mind was quite made up on this point,--that he should be made to renew his offer; but whether she would renew her acceptance was quite another question. She had sworn to her cousin Frank that she would never do so, and she had sworn also that she would be revenged on this wretched lord. Now would be her opportunity of accomplishing her revenge, and of proving to Frank that she had been in earnest. And she positively disliked the man. That, probably, did not go for much, but it went for something, even with Lizzie Eustace. Her cousin she did like,--and Lord George. She hardly knew which was her real love;--though, no doubt, she gave the preference greatly to her cousin, because she could trust him. And then Lord Fawn was very poor. The other two men were poor also; but their poverty was not so objectionable in Lizzie's eyes as were the respectable, close-fisted economies of Lord Fawn. Lord Fawn, no doubt, had an assured income and a real peerage, and could make her a peeress. As she thought of it all, she acknowledged that there was a great deal to be said on each side, and that the necessity of making up her mind then and there was a heavy burthen upon her. Exactly at the hour named Lord Fawn came, and Lizzie was, of course, found alone. That had been carefully provided. He was shown up, and she received him very gracefully. She was sitting, and she rose from her chair, and put out her hand for him to take. She spoke no word of greeting, but looked at him with a pleasant smile, and stood for a few seconds with her hand in his. He was awkward, and much embarrassed, and she certainly had no intention of lessening his embarrassment. "I hope you are better than you have been," he said at last. "I am getting better, Lord Fawn. Will you not sit down?" He then seated himself, placing his hat beside him on the floor, but at the moment could not find words to speak. "I have been very ill." "I have been so sorry to hear it." "There has been much to make me ill,--has there not?" "About the robbery, you mean?" "About many things. The robbery has been by no means the worst, though, no doubt, it frightened me much. There were two robberies, Lord Fawn." "Yes,--I know that." "And it was very terrible. And then, I had been threatened with a lawsuit. You have heard that, too?" "Yes,--I had heard it." "I believe they have given that up now. I understand from my cousin, Mr. Greystock, who has been my truest friend in all my troubles, that the stupid people have found out at last that they had not a leg to stand on. I daresay you have heard that, Lord Fawn?" Lord Fawn certainly had heard, in a doubtful way, the gist of Mr. Dove's opinion, namely, that the necklace could not be claimed from the holder of it as an heirloom attached to the Eustace family. But he had heard at the same time that Mr. Camperdown was as confident as ever that he could recover the property by claiming it after another fashion. Whether or no that claim had been altogether abandoned, or had been allowed to fall into abeyance because of the absence of the diamonds, he did not know, nor did any one know,--Mr. Camperdown himself having come to no decision on the subject. But Lord Fawn had been aware that his sister had of late shifted the ground of her inveterate enmity to Lizzie Eustace, making use of the scene which Mr. Gowran had witnessed, in lieu of the lady's rapacity in regard to the necklace. It might therefore be assumed, Lord Fawn thought and feared, that his strong ground in regard to the necklace had been cut from under his feet. But still, it did not behove him to confess that the cause which he had always alleged as the ground for his retreat from the engagement was no cause at all. It might go hard with him should an attempt be made to force him to name another cause. He knew that he would lack the courage to tell the lady that he had heard from his sister that one Andy Gowran had witnessed a terrible scene down among the rocks at Portray. So he sat silent, and made no answer to Lizzie's first assertion respecting the diamonds. But the necklace was her strong point, and she did not intend that he should escape the subject. "If I remember right, Lord Fawn, you yourself saw that wretched old attorney once or twice on the subject?" "I did see Mr. Camperdown, certainly. He is my own family lawyer." "You were kind enough to interest yourself about the diamonds,--were you not?" She asked him this as a question, and then waited for a reply. "Was it not so?" "Yes, Lady Eustace; it was so." "They were of great value, and it was natural," continued Lizzie. "Of course you interested yourself. Mr. Camperdown was full of awful threats against me;--was he not? I don't know what he was not going to do. He stopped me in the street as I was driving to the station in my own carriage, when the diamonds were with me;--which was a very strong measure, I think. And he wrote me ever so many,--oh, such horrid letters. And he went about telling everybody that it was an heirloom;--didn't he? You know all that, Lord Fawn?" "I know that he wanted to recover them." "And did he tell you that he went to a real lawyer,--somebody who really knew about it, Mr. Turbot, or Turtle, or some such name as that, and the real lawyer told him that he was all wrong, and that the necklace couldn't be an heirloom at all, because it belonged to me, and that he had better drop his lawsuit altogether? Did you hear that?" "No;--I did not hear that." "Ah, Lord Fawn, you dropped your inquiries just at the wrong place. No doubt you had too many things to do in Parliament and the Government to go on with them; but if you had gone on, you would have learned that Mr. Camperdown had just to give it up,--because he had been wrong from beginning to end." Lizzie's words fell from her with extreme rapidity, and she had become almost out of breath from the effects of her own energy. Lord Fawn felt strongly the necessity of clinging to the diamonds as his one great and sufficient justification. "I thought," said he, "that Mr. Camperdown had abandoned his action for the present because the jewels had been stolen." "Not a bit of it," said Lizzie, rising suddenly to her legs. "Who says so? Who dares to say so? Whoever says so is--is a storyteller. I understand all about that. The action could go on just the same, and I could be made to pay for the necklace out of my own income if it hadn't been my own. I am sure, Lord Fawn, such a clever man as you, and one who has always been in the Government and in Parliament, can see that. And will anybody believe that such an enemy as Mr. Camperdown has been to me, persecuting me in every possible way, telling lies about me to everybody,--who tried to prevent my dear, darling husband from marrying me,--that he wouldn't go on with it if he could?" "Mr. Camperdown is a very respectable man, Lady Eustace." "Respectable! Talk to me of respectable after all that he has made me suffer! As you were so fond of making inquiries, Lord Fawn, you ought to have gone on with them. You never would believe what my cousin said." "Your cousin always behaved very badly to me." "My cousin, who is a brother rather than a cousin, has known how to protect me from the injuries done to me,--or, rather, has known how to take my part when I have been injured. My lord, as you have been unwilling to believe him, why have you not gone to that gentleman who, as I say, is a real lawyer? I don't know, my lord, that it need have concerned you at all, but as you began, you surely should have gone on with it. Don't you think so?" She was still standing up, and, small as was her stature, was almost menacing the unfortunate Under-Secretary of State, who was still seated in his chair. "My lord," continued Lizzie, "I have had great wrong done me." "Do you mean by me?" "Yes, by you. Who else has done it?" "I do not think that I have done wrong to any one. I was obliged to say that I could not recognise those diamonds as the property of my wife." "But what right had you to say so? I had the diamonds when you asked me to be your wife." "I did not know it." "Nor did you know that I had this little ring upon my finger. Is it fit that you, or that any man should turn round upon a lady and say to her that your word is to be broken, and that she is to be exposed before all her friends, because you have taken a fancy to dislike her ring or her brooch? I say, Lord Fawn, it was no business of yours, even after you were engaged to me. What jewels I might have, or not have, was no concern of yours till after I had become your wife. Go and ask all the world if it is not so? You say that my cousin affronts you because he takes my part,--like a brother. Ask any one else. Ask any lady you may know. Let us name some one to decide between us which of us has been wrong. Lady Glencora Palliser is a friend of yours, and her husband is in the Government. Shall we name her? It is true, indeed, that her uncle, the Duke of Omnium, the grandest and greatest of English noblemen, is specially interested on my behalf." This was very fine in Lizzie. The Duke of Omnium she had never seen; but his name had been mentioned to her by Lady Glencora, and she was quick to use it. "I can admit of no reference to any one," said Lord Fawn. "And I then,--what am I to do? I am to be thrown over simply because your lordship--chooses to throw me over? Your lordship will admit no reference to any one! Your lordship makes inquiries as long as an attorney tells you stories against me, but drops them at once when the attorney is made to understand that he is wrong. Tell me this, sir. Can you justify yourself,--in your own heart?" Unfortunately for Lord Fawn, he was not sure that he could justify himself. The diamonds were gone, and the action was laid aside, and the general opinion which had prevailed a month or two since, that Lizzie had been disreputably concerned in stealing her own necklace, seemed to have been laid aside. Lady Glencora and the duke went for almost as much with Lord Fawn as they did with Lizzie. No doubt the misbehaviour down among the rocks was left to him; but he had that only on the evidence of Andy Gowran,--and even Andy Gowran's evidence he had declined to receive otherwise than second-hand. Lizzie, too, was prepared with an answer to this charge,--an answer which she had already made more than once, though the charge was not positively brought against her, and which consisted in an assertion that Frank Greystock was her brother rather than her cousin. Such brotherhood was not altogether satisfactory to Lord Fawn, when he came once more to regard Lizzie Eustace as his possible future wife; but still the assertion was an answer, and one that he could not altogether reject. It certainly was the case that he had again begun to think what would be the result of a marriage with Lady Eustace. He must sever himself altogether from Mrs. Hittaway, and must relax the closeness of his relations with Fawn Court. He would have a wife respecting whom he himself had spread evil tidings, and the man whom he most hated in the world would be his wife's favourite cousin, or, so to say,--brother. He would, after a fashion, be connected with Mrs. Carbuncle, Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, and Sir Griffin Tewett, all of whom he regarded as thoroughly disreputable. And, moreover, at his own country house at Portray, as in such case it would be, his own bailiff or steward would be the man who had seen--what he had seen. These were great objections; but how was he to avoid marrying her? He was engaged to her. How, at any rate, was he to escape from the renewal of his engagement at this moment? He had more than once positively stated that he was deterred from marrying her only by her possession of the diamonds. The diamonds were now gone. Lizzie was still standing, waiting for an answer to her question,--Can you justify yourself in your own heart? Having paused for some seconds, she repeated her question in a stronger and more personal form. "Had I been your sister, Lord Fawn, and had another man behaved to me as you have now done, would you say that he had behaved well, and that she had no ground for complaint? Can you bring yourself to answer that question honestly?" "I hope I shall answer no question dishonestly." "Answer it then. No; you cannot answer it, because you would condemn yourself. Now, Lord Fawn, what do you mean to do?" "I had thought, Lady Eustace, that any regard which you might ever have entertained for me--" "Well;--what had you thought of my regard?" "That it had been dissipated." "Have I told you so? Has any one come to you from me with such a message?" "Have you not received attentions from any one else?" "Attentions,--what attentions? I have received plenty of attentions,--most flattering attentions. I was honoured even this morning by a most gratifying attention on the part of his grace the Duke of Omnium." "I did not mean that." "What do you mean, then? I am not going to marry the Duke of Omnium because of his attention,--nor any one else. If you mean, sir, after the other inquiries you have done me the honour to make, to throw it in my face now, that I have--have in any way rendered myself unworthy of the position of your wife because people have been civil and kind to me in my sorrow, you are a greater dastard than I took you to be. Tell me at once, sir, whom you mean." It is hardly too much to say that the man quailed before her. And it certainly is not too much to say that, had Lizzie Eustace been trained as an actress, she would have become a favourite with the town. When there came to her any fair scope for acting, she was perfect. In the ordinary scenes of ordinary life, such as befell her during her visit to Fawn Court, she could not acquit herself well. There was no reality about her, and the want of it was strangely plain to most unobservant eyes. But give her a part to play that required exaggerated, strong action, and she hardly ever failed. Even in that terrible moment, when, on her return from the theatre, she thought that the police had discovered her secret about the diamonds, though she nearly sank through fear, she still carried on her acting in the presence of Lucinda Roanoke; and when she had found herself constrained to tell the truth to Lord George Carruthers, the power to personify a poor, weak, injured creature was not wanting to her. The reader will not think that her position in society at the present moment was very well established,--will feel, probably, that she must still have known herself to be on the brink of social ruin. But she had now fully worked herself up to the necessities of the occasion, and was as able to play her part as well as any actress that ever walked the boards. She had called him a dastard, and now stood looking him in the face. "I didn't mean anybody in particular," said Lord Fawn. "Then what right can you have to ask me whether I have received attentions? Had it not been for the affectionate attention of my cousin, Mr. Greystock, I should have died beneath the load of sorrow you have heaped upon me!" This she said quite boldly, and yet the man she named was he of whom Andy Gowran told his horrid story, and whose love-making to Lizzie had, in Mrs. Hittaway's opinion, been sufficient to atone for any falling off of strength in the matter of the diamonds. "A rumour reached me," said Lord Fawn, plucking up his courage, "that you were engaged to marry your cousin." "Then rumour lied, my lord. And he or she who repeated the rumour to you, lied also. And any he or she who repeats it again will go on with the lie." Lord Fawn's brow became very black. The word "lie" itself was offensive to him,--offensive, even though it might not be applied directly to himself; but he still quailed, and was unable to express his indignation,--as he had done to poor Lucy Morris, his mother's governess. "And now let me ask, Lord Fawn, on what ground you and I stand together. When my friend, Lady Glencora, asked me, only this morning, whether my engagement with you was still an existing fact, and brought me the kindest possible message on the same subject from her uncle, the duke, I hardly knew what answer to make her." It was not surprising that Lizzie in her difficulties should use her new friend, but perhaps she over-did the friendship a little. "I told her that we were engaged, but that your lordship's conduct to me had been so strange, that I hardly knew how to speak of you among my friends." "I thought I explained myself to your cousin." "My cousin certainly did not understand your explanation." Lord Fawn was certain that Greystock had understood it well; and Greystock had in return insulted him,--because the engagement was broken off. But it is impossible to argue on facts with a woman who has been ill-used. "After all that has passed, perhaps we had better part," said Lord Fawn. "Then I shall put the matter into the hands of the Duke of Omnium," said Lizzie boldly. "I will not have my whole life ruined, my good name blasted--" "I have not said a word to injure your good name." "On what plea, then, have you dared to take upon yourself to put an end to an engagement which was made at your own pressing request,--which was, of course, made at your own request? On what ground do you justify such conduct? You are a Liberal, Lord Fawn; and everybody regards the Duke of Omnium as the head of the Liberal nobility in England. He is my friend, and I shall put the matter into his hands." It was, probably, from her cousin Frank that Lizzie had learned that Lord Fawn was more afraid of the leaders of his own party than of any other tribunal upon earth,--or perhaps elsewhere. Lord Fawn felt the absurdity of the threat, and yet it had effect upon him. He knew that the Duke of Omnium was a worn-out old debauchee, with one foot in the grave, who was looked after by two or three women who were only anxious that he should not disgrace himself by some absurdity before he died. Nevertheless, the Duke of Omnium, or the duke's name, was a power in the nation. Lady Glencora was certainly very powerful, and Lady Glencora's husband was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He did not suppose that the duke cared in the least whether Lizzie Eustace was or was not married;--but Lady Glencora had certainly interested herself about Lizzie, and might make London almost too hot to hold him if she chose to go about everywhere saying that he ought to marry the lady. And in addition to all this prospective grief, there was the trouble of the present moment. He was in Lizzie's own room,--fool that he had been to come there,--and he must get out as best he could. "Lady Eustace," he said, "I am most anxious not to behave badly in this matter." "But you are behaving badly,--very badly." "With your leave I will tell you what I would suggest. I will submit to you in writing my opinion on this matter;"--Lord Fawn had been all his life submitting his opinion in writing, and thought that he was rather a good hand at the work. "I will then endeavour to explain to you the reasons which make me think that it will be better for us both that our engagement should be at an end. If, after reading it, you shall disagree with me, and still insist on the right which I gave you when I asked you to become my wife,--I will then perform the promise which I certainly made." To this most foolish proposal on his part, Lizzie, of course, acquiesced. She acquiesced, and bade him farewell with her sweetest smile. It was now manifest to her that she could have her husband,--or her revenge, just as she might prefer. This had been a day of triumph to her, and she was talking of it in the evening triumphantly to Mrs. Carbuncle, when she was told that a policeman wanted to see her down-stairs! Oh, those wretched police! Again all the blood rushed to her head and nearly killed her. She descended slowly; and was then informed by a man, not dressed, like Bunfit, in plain clothes, but with all the paraphernalia of a policeman's uniform, that her late servant, Patience Crabstick, had given herself up as Queen's evidence, and was now in custody in Scotland Yard. It had been thought right that she should be so far informed; but the man was able to tell her nothing further. CHAPTER LXII "You Know Where My Heart Is" On the Sunday following, Frank, as usual, was in Hertford Street. He had become almost a favourite with Mrs. Carbuncle; and had so far ingratiated himself even with Lucinda Roanoke that, according to Lizzie's report, he might, if so inclined, rob Sir Griffin of his prize without much difficulty. On this occasion he was unhappy and in low spirits; and when questioned on the subject made no secret of the fact that he was harassed for money. "The truth is I have overdrawn my bankers by five hundred pounds, and they have, as they say, ventured to remind me of it. I wish they were not venturesome quite so often; for they reminded me of the same fact about a fortnight ago." "What do you do with your money, Mr. Greystock?" asked Mrs. Carbuncle, laughing. "Muddle it away, paying my bills with it,--according to the very, very old story. The fact is, I live in that detestable no-man's land, between respectability and insolvency, which has none of the pleasure of either. I am fair game for every creditor, as I am supposed to pay my way,--and yet I never can pay my way." "Just like my poor dear father," said Lizzie. "Not exactly, Lizzie. He managed much better, and never paid anybody. If I could only land on terra-firma,--one side or the other,--I shouldn't much care which. As it is I have all the recklessness, but none of the carelessness, of the hopelessly insolvent man. And it is so hard with us. Attorneys owe us large sums of money, and we can't dun them very well. I have a lot of money due to me from rich men, who don't pay me simply because they don't think that it matters. I talk to them grandly, and look big, as though money was the last thing I thought of, when I am longing to touch my hat and ask them as a great favour to settle my little bill." All this time Lizzie was full of matter which she must impart to her cousin, and could impart to him only in privacy. It was absolutely necessary that she should tell him what she had heard of Patience Crabstick. In her heart of hearts she wished that Patience Crabstick had gone off safely with her plunder to the Antipodes. She had no wish to get back what had been lost, either in the matter of the diamonds or of the smaller things taken. She had sincerely wished that the police might fail in all their endeavours, and that the thieves might enjoy perfect security with their booty. She did not even begrudge Mr. Benjamin the diamonds,--or Lord George, if in truth Lord George had been the last thief. The robbery had enabled her to get the better of Mr. Camperdown, and apparently of Lord Fawn; and had freed her from the custody of property which she had learned to hate. It had been a very good robbery. But now these wretched police had found Patience Crabstick, and would disturb her again! Of course she must tell her cousin. He must hear the news, and it would be better that he should hear it from her than from others. This was Sunday, and she thought he would be sure to know the truth on the following Monday. In this she was right; for on the Monday old Lady Linlithgow saw it stated in the newspapers that an arrest had been made. "I have something to tell you," she said, as soon as she had succeeded in finding herself alone with him. "Anything about the diamonds?" "Well, no; not exactly about the diamonds;--though perhaps it is. But first, Frank, I want to say something else to you." "Not about the diamonds?" "Oh no;--not at all. It is this. You must let me lend you that five hundred pounds you want." "Indeed you shall do no such thing. I should not have mentioned it to you if I had not thought that you were one of the insolvent yourself. You were in debt yourself when we last talked about money." "So I am;--and that horrid woman, Mrs. Carbuncle, has made me lend her one hundred and fifty pounds. But it is so different with you, Frank." "Yes;--my needs are greater than hers." "What is she to me?--while you are everything! Things can't be so bad with me but what I can raise five hundred pounds. After all, I am not really in debt, for a person with my income; but if I were, still my first duty would be to help you if you want help." "Be generous first, and just afterwards. That's it;--isn't it, Lizzie? But indeed, under no circumstances could I take a penny of your money. There are some persons from whom a man can borrow, and some from whom he cannot. You are clearly one of those from whom I cannot borrow." "Why not?" "Ah,--one can't explain these things. It simply is so. Mrs. Carbuncle was quite the natural person to borrow your money, and it seems that she has complied with nature. Some Jew who wants thirty per cent. is the natural person for me. All these things are arranged, and it is of no use disturbing the arrangements and getting out of course. I shall pull through. And now let me know your own news." "The police have taken Patience." "They have,--have they? Then at last we shall know all about the diamonds." This was gall to poor Lizzie. "Where did they get her?" "Ah!--I don't know that." "And who told you?" "A policeman came here last night and said so. She is going to turn against the thieves, and tell all that she knows. Nasty, mean creature." "Thieves are nasty, mean creatures generally. We shall get it all out now,--as to what happened at Carlisle and what happened here. Do you know that everybody believes, up to this moment, that your dear friend Lord George de Bruce sold the diamonds to Mr. Benjamin, the jeweller?" Lizzie could only shrug her shoulders. She herself, among many doubts, was upon the whole disposed to think as everybody thought. She did believe,--as far as she believed anything in the matter, that the Corsair had determined to become possessed of the prize from the moment that he saw it in Scotland, that the Corsair arranged the robbery in Carlisle, and that again he arranged the robbery in the London house as soon as he learned from Lizzie where the diamonds were placed. To her mind this had been the most ready solution of the mystery, and when she found that other people almost regarded him as the thief, her doubts became a belief. And she did not in the least despise or dislike him or condemn him for what he had done. Were he to come to her and confess it all, telling his story in such a manner as to make her seem to be safe for the future, she would congratulate him and accept him at once as her own dear, expected Corsair. But, if so, he should not have bungled the thing. He should have managed his subordinates better than to have one of them turn evidence against him. He should have been able to get rid of a poor weak female like Patience Crabstick. Why had he not sent her to New York, or--or--or anywhere? If Lizzie were to hear that Lord George had taken Patience out to sea in a yacht,--somewhere among the bright islands of which she thought so much,--and dropped the girl overboard, tied up in a bag, she would regard it as a proper Corsair arrangement. Now she was angry with Lord George because her trouble was coming back upon her. Frank had suggested that Lord George was the robber in chief, and Lizzie merely shrugged her shoulders. "We shall know all about it now," said he triumphantly. "I don't know that I want to know any more about it. I have been so tortured about these wretched diamonds, that I never wish to hear them mentioned again. I don't care who has got them. My enemies used to think that I loved them so well that I could not bear to part with them. I hated them always, and never took any pleasure in them. I used to think that I would throw them into the sea; and when they were gone I was glad of it." "Thieves ought to be discovered, Lizzie,--for the good of the community." "I don't care for the community. What has the community ever done for me? And now I have something else to tell you. Ever so many people came yesterday as well as that wretched policeman. Dear Lady Glencora was here again." "They'll make a Radical of you among them, Lizzie." "I don't care a bit about that. I'd just as soon be a Radical as a stupid old Conservative. Lady Glencora has been most kind, and she brought me the dearest message from the Duke of Omnium. The duke had heard how ill I had been treated." "The duke is doting." "It is so easy to say that when a man is old. I don't think you know him, Frank." "Not in the least;--nor do I wish." "It is something to have the sympathy of men high placed in the world. And as to Lady Glencora, I do love her dearly. She just comes up to my beau-ideal of what a woman should be,--disinterested, full of spirit, affectionate, with a dash of romance about her." "A great dash of romance, I fancy." "And a determination to be something in the world. Lady Glencora Palliser is something." "She is awfully rich, Lizzie." "I suppose so. At any rate, that is no disgrace. And then, Frank, somebody else came." "Lord Fawn was to have come." "He did come." "And how did it go between you?" "Ah,--that will be so difficult to explain. I wish you had been behind the curtain to hear it all. It is so necessary that you should know, and yet it is so hard to tell. I spoke up to him, and was quite high-spirited." "I daresay you were." "I told him out, bravely, of all the wrong he had done me. I did not sit and whimper, I can assure you. Then he talked about you,--of your attentions." Frank Greystock, of course, remembered the scene among the rocks, and Mr. Gowran's wagging head and watchful eyes. At the time he had felt certain that some use would be made of Andy's vigilance, though he had not traced the connexion between the man and Mrs. Hittaway. If Lord Fawn had heard of the little scene, there might, doubtless, be cause for him to talk of "attentions." "What did it matter to him?" asked Frank. "He is an insolent ass,--as I have told him once, and shall have to tell him again." "I think it did matter, Frank." "I don't see it a bit. He had resigned his rights,--whatever they were." "But I had not accepted his resignation,--as they say in the newspapers;--nor have I now." "You would still marry him?" "I don't say that, Frank. This is an important business, and let us go through it steadily. I would certainly like to have him again at my feet. Whether I would deign to lift him up again is another thing. Is not that natural, after what he has done to me?" "Woman's nature." "And I am a woman. Yes, Frank. I would have him again at my disposal,--and he is so. He is to write me a long letter;--so like a Government-man, isn't it? And he has told me already what he is to put into the letter. They always do, you know. He is to say that he'll marry me if I choose." "He has promised to say that?" "When he said that he would come, I made up my mind that he should not go out of the house till he had promised that. He couldn't get out of it. What had I done?" Frank thought of the scene among the rocks. He did not, of course, allude to it, but Lizzie was not so reticent. "As to what that old rogue saw down in Scotland, I don't care a bit about it, Frank. He has been up in London, and telling them all, no doubt. Nasty, dirty eavesdropper! But what does it come to? Psha! When he mentioned your name I silenced him at once. What could I have done, unless I had had some friend? At any rate, he is to ask me again in writing,--and then what shall I say?" "You must consult your own heart." "No, Frank;--I need not do that. Why do you say so?" "I know not what else to say." "A woman can marry without consulting her heart. Women do so every day. This man is a lord, and has a position. No doubt I despise him thoroughly,--utterly. I don't hate him, because he is not worth being hated." "And yet you would marry him?" "I have not said so. I will tell you this truth, though perhaps you will say it is not feminine. I would fain marry some one. To be as I have been for the last two years is not a happy condition." "I would not marry a man I despised." "Nor would I,--willingly. He is honest and respectable; and in spite of all that has come and gone would, I think, behave well to a woman when she was once his wife. Of course, I would prefer to marry a man that I could love. But if that is impossible, Frank--" "I thought that you had determined that you would have nothing to do with this lord." "I thought so too. Frank, you have known all that I have thought, and all that I have wished. You talk to me of marrying where my heart has been given. Is it possible that I should do so?" "How am I to say?" "Come, Frank, be true with me. I am forcing myself to speak truth to you. I think that between you and me, at any rate, there should be no words spoken that are not true. Frank, you know where my heart is." As she said this, she stood over him, and laid her hand upon his shoulder. "Will you answer me one question?" "If I can, I will." "Are you engaged to marry Lucy Morris?" "I am." "And you intend to marry her?" To this question he made no immediate answer. "We are old enough now, Frank, to know that something more than what you call heart is wanted to make us happy when we marry. I will say nothing hard of Lucy, though she be my rival." "You can say nothing hard of her. She is perfect." "We will let that pass, though it is hardly kind of you, just at the present moment. Let her be perfect. Can you marry this perfection without a sixpence,--you that are in debt, and who never could save a sixpence in your life? Would it be for her good,--or for yours? You have done a foolish thing, sir, and you know that you must get out of it." "I know nothing of the kind." "You cannot marry Lucy Morris. That is the truth. My present need makes me bold. Frank, shall I be your wife? Such a marriage will not be without love, at any rate on one side,--though there be utter indifference on the other!" "You know I am not indifferent to you," said he, with wicked weakness. "Now, at any rate," she continued, "you must understand what must be my answer to Lord Fawn. It is you that must answer Lord Fawn. If my heart is to be broken, I may as well break it under his roof as another." "I have no roof to offer you," he said. "But I have one for you," she said, throwing her arm round his neck. He bore her embrace for a minute, returning it with the pressure of his arm; and then, escaping from it, seized his hat and left her standing in the room. CHAPTER LXIII The Corsair Is Afraid On the following morning,--Monday morning,--there appeared in one of the daily newspapers the paragraph of which Lady Linlithgow had spoken to Lucy Morris. "We are given to understand,"--newspapers are very frequently given to understand,--"that a man well-known to the London police as an accomplished housebreaker has been arrested in reference to the robbery which was effected on the 30th of January last at Lady Eustace's house in Hertford Street. No doubt the same person was concerned in the robbery of her ladyship's jewels at Carlisle on the night of the 8th of January. The mystery which has so long enveloped these two affairs, and which has been so discreditable to the metropolitan police, will now probably be cleared up." There was not a word about Patience Crabstick in this; and, as Lizzie observed, the news brought by the policeman on Saturday night referred only to Patience, and said nothing of the arrest of any burglar. The ladies in Hertford Street scanned the sentence with the greatest care, and Mrs. Carbuncle was very angry because the house was said to be Lizzie's house. "It wasn't my doing," said Lizzie. "The policeman came to you about it." "I didn't say a word to the man,--and I didn't want him to come." "I hope it will be all found out now," said Lucinda. "I wish it were all clean forgotten," said Lizzie. "It ought to be found out," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "But the police should be more careful in what they say. I suppose we shall all have to go before the magistrates again." Poor Lizzie felt that fresh trouble was certainly coming upon her. She had learned now that the crime for which she might be prosecuted and punished was that of perjury,--that even if everything was known, she could not be accused of stealing, and that if she could only get out of the way till the wrath of the magistrate and policemen should have evaporated, she might possibly escape altogether. At any rate, they could not take her income away from her. But how could she get out of the way, and how could she endure to be cross-examined, and looked at, and inquired into, by all those who would be concerned in the matter? She thought that, if only she could have arranged her matrimonial affairs before the bad day came upon her, she could have endured it better. If she might be allowed to see Lord George, she could ask for advice,--could ask for advice, not as she was always forced to do from her cousin, on a false statement of facts, but with everything known and declared. On that very day Lord George came to Hertford Street. He had been there more than once, perhaps half a dozen times, since the robbery; but on all these occasions Lizzie had been in bed, and he had declined to visit her in her chamber. In fact, even Lord George had become somewhat afraid of her since he had been told the true story as to the necklace at Carlisle. That story he had heard from herself, and he had also heard from Mr. Benjamin some other little details as to her former life. Mr. Benjamin, whose very close attention had been drawn to the Eustace diamonds, had told Lord George how he had valued them at her ladyship's request, and had caused an iron case to be made for them, and how her ladyship had, on one occasion, endeavoured to sell the necklace to him. Mr. Benjamin, who certainly was intimate with Lord George, was very fond of talking about the diamonds, and had once suggested to his lordship that, were they to become his lordship's by marriage, he, Benjamin, might be willing to treat with his lordship. In regard to treating with her ladyship,--Mr. Benjamin acknowledged that he thought it would be too hazardous. Then came the robbery of the box, and Lord George was all astray. Mr. Benjamin was for a while equally astray, but neither friend believed in the other friend's innocence. That Lord George should suspect Mr. Benjamin was quite natural. Mr. Benjamin hardly knew what to think;--hardly gave Lord George credit for the necessary courage, skill, and energy. But at last, as he began to put two and two together, he divined the truth, and was enabled to set the docile Patience on the watch over her mistress's belongings. So it had been with Mr. Benjamin, who at last was able to satisfy Mr. Smiler and Mr. Cann that he had been no party to their cruel disappointment at Carlisle. How Lord George had learned the truth has been told;--the truth as to Lizzie's hiding the necklace under her pillow and bringing it up to London in her desk. But of the facts of the second robbery he knew nothing up to this morning. He almost suspected that Lizzie had herself again been at work,--and he was afraid of her. He had promised her that he would take care of her,--had, perhaps, said enough to make her believe that some day he would marry her. He hardly remembered what he had said;--but he was afraid of her. She was so wonderfully clever that, if he did not take care, she would get him into some mess from which he would be unable to extricate himself. He had never whispered her secret to any one; and had still been at a loss about the second robbery, when he too saw the paragraph in the newspaper. He went direct to Scotland Yard and made inquiry there. His name had been so often used in the affair, that such inquiry from him was justified. "Well, my lord; yes; we have found out something," said Bunfit. "Mr. Benjamin is off, you know." "Benjamin off?" "Cut the painter, my lord, and started. But what's the good, now we has the wires?" "And who were the thieves?" "Ah, my lord, that's telling. Perhaps I don't know. Perhaps I do. Perhaps two or three of us knows. You'll hear all in good time, my lord." Mr. Bunfit wished to appear communicative because he knew but little himself. Gager, in the meanest possible manner, had kept the matter very close; but the fact that Mr. Benjamin had started suddenly on foreign travel had become known to Mr. Bunfit. Lord George had been very careful, asking no question about the necklace;--no question which would have shown that he knew that the necklace had been in Hertford Street when the robbery took place there; but it seemed to him now that the police must be aware that it was so. The arrest had been made because of the robbery in Hertford Street, and because of that arrest Mr. Benjamin had taken his departure. Mr. Benjamin was too big a man to have concerned himself deeply in the smaller matters which had then been stolen. From Scotland Yard Lord George went direct to Hertford Street. He was in want of money, in want of a settled home, in want of a future income, and altogether unsatisfied with his present mode of life. Lizzie Eustace, no doubt, would take him,--unless she had told her secret to some other lover. To have his wife, immediately on her marriage, or even before it, arraigned for perjury, would not be pleasant. There was very much in the whole affair of which he would not be proud as he led his bride to the altar;--but a man does not expect to get four thousand pounds a year for nothing. Lord George, at any rate, did not conceive himself to be in a position to do so. Had there not been something crooked about Lizzie,--a screw loose, as people say,--she would never have been within his reach. There are men who always ride lame horses, and yet see as much of the hunting as others. Lord George, when he had begun to think that, after the tale which he had forced her to tell him, she had caused the diamonds to be stolen by her own maid out of her own desk, became almost afraid of her. But now, as he looked at the matter again and again, he believed that the second robbery had been genuine. He did not quite make up his mind, but he went to Hertford Street resolved to see her. He asked for her, and was shown at once into her own sitting-room. "So you have come at last," she said. "Yes;--I've come at last. It would not have done for me to come up to you when you were in bed. Those women down-stairs would have talked about it everywhere." "I suppose they would," said Lizzie almost piteously. "It wouldn't have been at all wise after all that has been said. People would have been sure to suspect that I had got the things out of your desk." "Oh, no;--not that." "I wasn't going to run the risk, my dear." His manner to her was anything but civil, anything but complimentary. If this was his Corsair humour, she was not sure that a Corsair might be agreeable to her. "And now tell me what you know about this second robbery." "I know nothing, Lord George." "Oh, yes, you do. You know something. You know, at any rate, that the diamonds were there." "Yes;--I know that." "And that they were taken?" "Of course they were taken." "You are sure of that?" There was something in his manner absolutely insolent to her. Frank was affectionate, and even Lord Fawn treated her with deference. "Because, you know, you have been very clever. To tell you the truth, I did not think at first that they had been really stolen. It might, you know, have been a little game to get them out of your own hands,--between you and your maid." "I don't know what you take me for, Lord George." "I take you for a lady who, for a long time, got the better of the police and the magistrates, and who managed to shift all the trouble off your own shoulders on to those of other people. You have heard that they have taken one of the thieves?" "And they have got the girl." "Have they? I didn't know that. That scoundrel Benjamin has levanted too." "Levanted!" said Lizzie, raising both her hands. "Not an hour too soon, my lady. And now what do you mean to do?" "What ought I to do?" "Of course the whole truth will come out." "Must it come out?" "Not a doubt of that. How can it be helped?" "You won't tell. You promised that you would not." "Psha;--promised! If they put me in a witness-box of course I must tell. When you come to this kind of work, promises don't go for much. I don't know that they ever do. What is a broken promise?" "It's a story," said Lizzie, in innocent amazement. "And what was it you told when you were upon your oath at Carlisle; and again when the magistrate came here?" "Oh, Lord George;--how unkind you are to me!" "Patience Crabstick will tell it all, without any help from me. Don't you see that the whole thing must be known? She'll say where the diamonds were found;--and how did they come there, if you didn't put them there? As for telling, there'll be telling enough. You've only two things to do." "What are they, Lord George?" "Go off, like Mr. Benjamin; or else make a clean breast of it. Send for John Eustace and tell him the whole. For his brother's sake he'll make the best of it. It will all be published, and then, perhaps, there will be an end of it." "I couldn't do that, Lord George!" said Lizzie, bursting into tears. "You ask me, and I can only tell you what I think. That you should be able to keep the history of the diamonds a secret, does not seem to me to be upon the cards. No doubt people who are rich, and are connected with rich people, and have great friends,--who are what the world call swells,--have great advantages over their inferiors when they get into trouble. You are the widow of a baronet, and you have an uncle a bishop, and another a dean, and a countess for an aunt. You have a brother-in-law and a first-cousin in Parliament, and your father was an admiral. The other day you were engaged to marry a peer." "Oh yes," said Lizzie, "and Lady Glencora Palliser is my particular friend." "She is; is she? So much the better. Lady Glencora, no doubt, is a very swell among swells." "The Duke of Omnium would do anything for me," said Lizzie with enthusiasm. "If you were nobody, you would, of course, be indicted for perjury, and would go to prison. As it is, if you will tell all your story to one of your swell friends, I think it very likely that you may be pulled through. I should say that Mr. Eustace, or your cousin Greystock, would be the best." "Why couldn't you do it? You know it all. I told you because--because--because I thought you would be the kindest to me." "You told me, my dear, because you thought it would not matter much with me, and I appreciate the compliment. I can do nothing for you. I am not near enough to those who wear wigs." Lizzie did not above half understand him,--did not at all understand him when he spoke of those who wore wigs, and was quite dark to his irony about her great friends;--but she did perceive that he was in earnest in recommending her to confess. She thought about it for a moment in silence, and the more she thought the more she felt that she could not do it. Had he not suggested a second alternative,--that she should go off like Mr. Benjamin? It might be possible that she should go off, and yet be not quite like Mr. Benjamin. In that case ought she not to go under the protection of her Corsair? Would not that be the proper way of going? "Might I not go abroad,--just for a time?" she asked. "And so let it blow over?" "Just so, you know." "It is possible that you might," he said. "Not that it would blow over altogether. Everybody would know it. It is too late now to stop the police, and if you meant to be off, you should be off at once;--to-day or to-morrow." "Oh dear!" "Indeed, there's no saying whether they will let you go. You could start now, this moment;--and if you were at Dover could get over to France. But when once it is known that you had the necklace all that time in your own desk, any magistrate, I imagine, could stop you. You'd better have some lawyer you can trust;--not that blackguard Mopus." Lord George had certainly brought her no comfort. When he told her that she might go at once if she chose, she remembered, with a pang of agony, that she had already overdrawn her account at the bankers. She was the actual possessor of an income of four thousand pounds a year, and now, in her terrible strait, she could not stir because she had no money with which to travel. Had all things been well with her, she could, no doubt, have gone to her bankers and have arranged this little difficulty. But as it was, she could not move, because her purse was empty. Lord George sat looking at her, and thinking whether he would make the plunge and ask her to be his wife,--with all her impediments and drawbacks about her. He had been careful to reduce her to such a condition of despair, that she would undoubtedly have accepted him, so that she might have some one to lean upon in her trouble;--but, as he looked at her, he doubted. She was such a mass of deceit, that he was afraid of her. She might say that she would marry him, and then, when the storm was over, refuse to keep her word. She might be in debt,--almost to any amount. She might be already married, for anything that he knew. He did know that she was subject to all manner of penalties for what she had done. He looked at her, and told himself that she was very pretty. But in spite of her beauty, his judgment went against her. He did not dare to share even his boat with so dangerous a fellow-passenger. "That's my advice," he said, getting up from his chair. "Are you going?" "Well;--yes; I don't know what else I can do for you." "You are so unkind!" He shrugged his shoulders, just touched her hand, and left the room without saying another word to her. CHAPTER LXIV Lizzie's Last Scheme Lizzie, when she was left alone, was very angry with the Corsair,--in truth, more sincerely angry than she had ever been with any of her lovers, or, perhaps, with any human being. Sincere, true, burning wrath was not the fault to which she was most exposed. She could snap and snarl, and hate, and say severe things; she could quarrel, and fight, and be malicious;--but to be full of real wrath was uncommon with her. Now she was angry. She had been civil, more than civil, to Lord George. She had opened her house to him, and her heart. She had told him her great secret. She had implored his protection. She had thrown herself into his arms. And now he had rejected her. That he should have been rough to her was only in accordance with the poetical attributes which she had attributed to him. But his roughness should have been streaked with tenderness. He should not have left her roughly. In the whole interview he had not said a loving word to her. He had given her advice,--which might be good or bad,--but he had given it as to one whom he despised. He had spoken to her throughout the interview exactly as he might have spoken to Sir Griffin Tewett. She could not analyse her feelings thoroughly, but she felt that because of what had passed between them, by reason of his knowledge of her secret, he had robbed her of all that observance which was due to her as a woman and a lady. She had been roughly used before,--by people of inferior rank who had seen through her ways. Andrew Gowran had insulted her. Patience Crabstick had argued with her. Benjamin, the employer of thieves, had been familiar with her. But hitherto, in what she was pleased to call her own set, she had always been treated with that courtesy which ladies seldom fail to receive. She understood it all. She knew how much of mere word-service there often is in such complimentary usage. But, nevertheless, it implies respect, and an acknowledgement of the position of her who is so respected. Lord George had treated her as one schoolboy treats another. And he had not spoken to her one word of love. Love will excuse roughness. Spoken love will palliate even spoken roughness. Had he once called her his own Lizzie, he might have scolded her as he pleased,--might have abused her to the top of his bent. But as there had been nothing of the manner of a gentleman to a lady, so also had there been nothing of the lover to his mistress. That dream was over. Lord George was no longer a Corsair, but a brute. But what should she do? Even a brute may speak truth. She was to have gone to a theatre that evening with Mrs. Carbuncle, but she stayed at home thinking over her position. She heard nothing throughout the day from the police; and she made up her mind that, unless she were stopped by the police, she would go to Scotland on the day but one following. She thought that she was sure that she would do so; but, of course, she must be guided by events as they occurred. She wrote, however, to Miss Macnulty saying that she would come, and she told Mrs. Carbuncle of her proposed journey as that lady was leaving the house for the theatre. On the following morning, however, news came which again made her journey doubtful. There was another paragraph in the newspaper about the robbery, acknowledging the former paragraph to have been in some respect erroneous. The "accomplished housebreaker" had not been arrested. A confederate of the "accomplished housebreaker" was in the hands of the police, and the police were on the track of the "accomplished housebreaker" himself. Then there was a line or two alluding in a very mysterious way to the disappearance of a certain jeweller. Taking it altogether, Lizzie thought that there was ground for hope,--and that, at any rate, there would be delay. She would, perhaps, put off going to Scotland for yet a day or two. Was it not necessary that she should wait for Lord Fawn's answer; and would it not be incumbent on her cousin Frank to send her some account of himself after the abrupt manner in which he had left her? If in real truth she should be driven to tell her story to any one,--and she began to think that she was so driven,--she would tell it to him. She believed more in his regard for her than that of any other human being. She thought that he would, in truth, have been devoted to her, had he not become entangled with that wretched little governess. And she thought that if he could see his way out of that scrape, he would marry her even yet,--would marry her, and be good to her, so that her dream of a poetical phase of life should not be altogether dissolved. After all, the diamonds were her own. She had not stolen them. When perplexed in the extreme by magistrates and policemen, with nobody near her whom she trusted to give her advice,--for Lizzie now of course declared to herself that she had never for a moment trusted the Corsair,--she had fallen into an error, and said what was not true. As she practised it before the glass, she thought that she could tell her story in a becoming manner, with becoming tears, to Frank Greystock. And were it not for Lucy Morris, she thought that he would take her with all her faults and all her burthens. As for Lord Fawn, she knew well enough that, let him write what he would, and renew his engagement in what most formal manner might be possible, he would be off again when he learned the facts as to that night at Carlisle. She had brought him to succumb, because he could no longer justify his treatment of her by reference to the diamonds. But when once all the world should know that she had twice perjured herself, his justification would be complete,--and his escape would be certain. She would use his letter simply to achieve that revenge which she had promised herself. Her effort,--her last final effort,--must be made to secure the hand and heart of her cousin Frank. "Ah, 'tis his heart I want!" she said to herself. She must settle something before she went to Scotland,--if there was anything that could be settled. If she could only get a promise from Frank before all her treachery had been exposed, he probably would remain true to his promise. He would not desert her as Lord Fawn had done. Then, after much thinking of it, she resolved upon a scheme which, of all her schemes, was the wickedest. Whatever it might cost her, she would create a separation between Frank Greystock and Lucy Morris. Having determined upon this, she wrote to Lucy, asking her to call in Hertford Street at a certain hour. DEAR LUCY, I particularly want to see you,--on business. Pray come to me at twelve to-morrow. I will send the carriage for you, and it will take you back again. Pray do this. We used to love one another, and I am sure I love you still. Your affectionate old friend, LIZZIE. As a matter of course Lucy went to her. Lizzie, before the interview, studied the part she was to play with all possible care,--even to the words which she was to use. The greeting was at first kindly, for Lucy had almost forgotten the bribe that had been offered to her, and had quite forgiven it. Lizzie Eustace never could be dear to her; but,--so Lucy had thought during her happiness,--this former friend of hers was the cousin of the man who was to be her husband, and was dear to him. Of course she had forgiven the offence. "And now, dear, I want to ask you a question," Lizzie said; "or rather, perhaps not a question. I can do it better than that. I think that my cousin Frank once talked of--of making you his wife." Lucy answered not a word, but she trembled in every limb, and the colour came to her face. "Was it not so, dear?" "What if it was? I don't know why you should ask me any question like that about myself." "Is he not my cousin?" "Yes,--he is your cousin. Why don't you ask him? You see him every day, I suppose?" "Nearly every day." "Why do you send for me, then?" "It is so hard to tell you, Lucy. I have sent to you in good faith, and in love. I could have gone to you,--only for the old vulture, who would not have let us had a word in peace. I do see him--constantly. And I love him dearly." "That is nothing to me," said Lucy. Anybody hearing them, and not knowing them, would have said that Lucy's manner was harsh in the extreme. "He has told me everything." Lizzie, when she said this, paused, looking at her victim. "He has told me things which he could not mention to you. It was only yesterday,--the day before yesterday,--that he was speaking to me of his debts. I offered to place all that I have at his disposal, so as to free him, but he would not take my money." "Of course he would not." "Not my money alone. Then he told me that he was engaged to you. He had never told me before, but yet I knew it. It all came out then. Lucy, though he is engaged to you, it is me that he loves." "I don't believe it," said Lucy. "You can't make me angry, Lucy, because my heart bleeds for you." "Nonsense! trash! I don't want your heart to bleed. I don't believe you've got a heart. You've got money; I know that." "And he has got none. If I did not love him, why should I wish to give him all that I have? Is not that disinterested?" "No. You are always thinking of yourself. You couldn't be disinterested." "And of whom are you thinking? Are you doing the best for him,--a man in his position, without money, ambitious, sure to succeed if want of money does not stop him,--in wishing him to marry a girl with nothing? Cannot I do more for him than you can?" "I could work for him on my knees, I love him so truly!" "Would that do him any service? He cannot marry you. Does he ever see you? Does he write to you as though you were to be his wife? Do you not know that it is all over?--that it must be over? It is impossible that he should marry you. But if you will give him back his word, he shall be my husband, and shall have all that I possess. Now, let us see who loves him best!" "I do!" said Lucy. "How will you show it?" "There is no need that I should show it. He knows it. The only one in the world to whom I wish it to be known, knows it already well enough. Did you send for me for this?" "Yes;--for this." "It is for him to tell me the tidings;--not for you. You are nothing to me;--nothing. And what you say to me now is all for yourself,--not for him. But it is true that he does not see me. It is true that he does not write to me. You may tell him from me,--for I cannot write to him myself,--that he may do whatever is best for him. But if you tell him that I do not love him better than all the world, you will lie to him. And if you say that he loves you better than he does me, that also will be a lie. I know his heart." "But Lucy--" "I will hear no more. He can do as he pleases. If money be more to him than love and honesty, let him marry you. I shall never trouble him; he may be sure of that. As for you, Lizzie, I hope that we may never meet again." She would not get into the Eustace-Carbuncle carriage, which was waiting for her at the door, but walked back to Bruton Street. She did not doubt but that it was all over with her now. That Lizzie Eustace was an inveterate liar, she knew well; but she did believe that the liar had on this occasion been speaking truth. Lady Fawn was not a liar, and Lady Fawn had told her the same. And, had she wanted more evidence, did not her lover's conduct give it? "It is because I am poor," she said to herself,--"for I know well that he loves me!" CHAPTER LXV Tribute Lizzie put off her journey to Scotland from day to day, though her cousin Frank continually urged upon her the expediency of going. There were various reasons, he said, why she should go. Her child was there, and it was proper that she should be with her child. She was living at present with people whose reputation did not stand high,--and as to whom all manner of evil reports were flying about the town. It was generally thought,--so said Frank,--that that Lord George de Bruce Carruthers had assisted Mr. Benjamin in stealing the diamonds, and Frank himself did not hesitate to express his belief in the accusation. "Oh no, that cannot be," said Lizzie, trembling. But, though she rejected the supposition, she did not reject it very firmly. "And then, you know," continued Lizzie, "I never see him. I have actually only set eyes on him once since the second robbery, and then just for a minute. Of course, I used to know him,--down at Portray,--but now we are strangers." Frank went on with his objections. He declared that the manner in which Mrs. Carbuncle had got up the match between Lucinda Roanoke and Sir Griffin was shameful,--all the world was declaring that it was shameful,--that she had not a penny, that the girl was an adventurer, and that Sir Griffin was an obstinate, pig-headed, ruined idiot. It was expedient on every account that Lizzie should take herself away from that "lot." The answer that Lizzie desired to make was very simple. Let me go as your betrothed bride, and I will start to-morrow,--to Scotland or elsewhere, as you may direct. Let that little affair be settled, and I shall be quite as willing to get out of London as you can be to send me. But I am in such a peck of troubles that something must be settled. And as it seems that after all the police are still astray about the necklace, perhaps I needn't run away from them for a little while even yet. She did not say this. She did not even in so many words make the first proposition. But she did endeavour to make Frank understand that she would obey his dictation if he would earn the right to dictate. He either did not or would not understand her, and then she became angry with him,--or pretended to be angry. "Really, Frank," she said, "you are hardly fair to me." "In what way am I unfair?" "You come here and abuse all my friends, and tell me to go here and go there, just as though I were a child. And--and--and--" "And what, Lizzie?" "You know what I mean. You are one thing one day, and one another. I hope Miss Lucy Morris was quite well when you last heard from her." "You have no right to speak to me of Lucy,--at least, not in disparagement." "You are treating her very badly;--you know that." "I am." "Then why don't you give it up? Why don't you let her have her chances,--to do what she can with them? You know very well that you can't marry her. You know that you ought not to have asked her. You talk of Miss Roanoke and Sir Griffin Tewett. There are people quite as bad as Sir Griffin,--or Mrs. Carbuncle either. Don't suppose I am speaking for myself. I've given up all that idle fancy long ago. I shall never marry a second time myself. I have made up my mind to that. I have suffered too much already." Then she burst into tears. He dried her tears and comforted her, and forgave all the injurious things she had said of him. It is almost impossible for a man,--a man under forty and unmarried, and who is not a philosopher,--to have familiar and affectionate intercourse with a beautiful young woman, and carry it on as he might do with a friend of the other sex. In his very heart Greystock despised this woman; he had told himself over and over again that were there no Lucy in the case he would not marry her; that she was affected, unreal,--and, in fact, a liar in every word and look and motion which came from her with premeditation. Judging, not from her own account, but from circumstances as he saw them and such evidence as had reached him, he did not condemn her in reference to the diamonds. He had never for a moment conceived that she had secreted them. He acquitted her altogether from those special charges which had been widely circulated against her; but, nevertheless, he knew her to be heartless and bad. He had told himself a dozen times that it would be well for him that she should be married and taken out of his hands. And yet he loved her after a fashion, and was prone to sit near her, and was fool enough to be flattered by her caresses. When she would lay her hand on his arm, a thrill of pleasure went through him. And yet he would willingly have seen any decent man take her and marry her, making a bargain that he should never see her again. Young or old, men are apt to become Merlins when they encounter Viviens. On this occasion he left her, disgusted indeed, but not having told her that he was disgusted. "Come again, Frank, to-morrow, won't you?" she said. He made her no promise as he went, nor had she expected it. He had left her quite abruptly the other day, and he now went away almost in the same fashion. But she was not surprised. She understood that the task she had in hand was one very difficult to be accomplished,--and she did perceive, in some dark way, that, good as her acting was, it was not quite good enough. Lucy held her ground because she was real. You may knock about a diamond, and not even scratch it; whereas paste in rough usage betrays itself. Lizzie, with all her self-assuring protestations, knew that she was paste, and knew that Lucy was real stone. Why could she not force herself to act a little better, so that the paste might be as good as the stone,--might at least seem to be as good? "If he despises me now, what will he say when he finds it all out?" she asked herself. As for Frank Greystock himself, though he had quite made up his mind about Lizzie Eustace, he was still in doubt about the other girl. At the present moment he was making over two thousand pounds a year, and yet was more in debt now than he had been a year ago. When he attempted to look at his affairs, he could not even remember what had become of his money. He did not gamble. He had no little yacht, costing him about six hundred a year. He kept one horse in London, and one only. He had no house. And when he could spare time from his work, he was generally entertained at the houses of his friends. And yet from day to day his condition seemed to become worse and worse. It was true that he never thought of half-a-sovereign; that in calling for wine at his club he was never influenced by the cost; that it seemed to him quite rational to keep a cab waiting for him half the day; that in going or coming he never calculated expense; that in giving an order to a tailor he never dreamed of anything beyond his own comfort. Nevertheless, when he recounted with pride his great economies, reminding himself that he, a successful man, with a large income and no family, kept neither hunters, nor yacht, nor moor, and that he did not gamble, he did think it very hard that he should be embarrassed. But he was embarrassed, and in that condition could it be right for him to marry a girl without a shilling? In these days Mrs. Carbuncle was very urgent with her friend not to leave London till after the marriage. Lizzie had given no promise,--had only been induced to promise that the loan of one hundred and fifty pounds should not be held to have any bearing on the wedding present to be made to Lucinda. That could be got on credit from Messrs. Harter and Benjamin; for though Mr. Benjamin was absent,--on a little tour through Europe in search of precious stones in the cheap markets, old Mr. Harter suggested,--the business went on the same as ever. There was a good deal of consultation about the present, and Mrs. Carbuncle at last decided, no doubt with the concurrence of Miss Roanoke, that it should consist simply of silver forks and spoons,--real silver as far as the money would go. Mrs. Carbuncle herself went with her friend to select the articles,--as to which, perhaps, we shall do her no injustice in saying that a ready sale, should such a lamentable occurrence ever become necessary, was one of the objects which she had in view. Mrs. Carbuncle's investigations as to the quality of the metal quite won Mr. Harter's respect; and it will probably be thought that she exacted no more than justice,--seeing that the thing had become a matter of bargain,--in demanding that the thirty-five pounds should be stretched to fifty, because the things were bought on long credit. "My dear Lizzie," Mrs. Carbuncle said, "the dear girl won't have an ounce more than she would have got, had you gone into another sort of shop with thirty-five sovereigns in your hand." Lizzie growled, but Mrs. Carbuncle's final argument was conclusive. "I'll tell you what we'll do," said she; "we'll take thirty pounds down in ready money." There was no answer to be made to so reasonable a proposition. The presents to be made to Lucinda were very much thought of in Hertford Street at this time, and Lizzie,--independently of any feeling that she might have as to her own contribution,--did all she could to assist the collection of tribute. It was quite understood that as a girl can only be married once,--for a widow's chance in such matters amounts to but little,--everything should be done to gather toll from the tax-payers of society. It was quite fair on such an occasion that men should be given to understand that something worth having was expected,--no trumpery thirty-shilling piece of crockery, no insignificant glass bottle, or fantastic paper-knife of no real value whatever, but got up just to put money into the tradesmen's hands. To one or two elderly gentlemen upon whom Mrs. Carbuncle had smiled, she ventured to suggest in plain words that a cheque was the most convenient cadeau. "What do you say to a couple of sovereigns?" one sarcastic old gentleman replied, upon whom probably Mrs. Carbuncle had not smiled enough. She laughed and congratulated her sarcastic friend upon his joke;--but the two sovereigns were left upon the table, and went to swell the spoil. "You must do something handsome for Lucinda," Lizzie said to her cousin. "What do you call handsome?" "You are a bachelor and a Member of Parliament. Say fifteen pounds." "I'll be ---- if I do!" said Frank, who was beginning to be very much disgusted with the house in Hertford Street. "There's a five-pound note, and you may do what you please with it." Lizzie gave over the five-pound note,--the identical bit of paper that had come from Frank; and Mrs. Carbuncle, no doubt, did do what she pleased with it. There was almost a quarrel because Lizzie, after much consideration, declared that she did not see her way to get a present from the Duke of Omnium. She had talked so much to Mrs. Carbuncle about the duke, that Mrs. Carbuncle was almost justified in making the demand. "It isn't the value, you know," said Mrs. Carbuncle; "neither I nor Lucinda would think of that; but it would look so well to have the dear duke's name on something." Lizzie declared that the duke was unapproachable on such subjects. "There you're wrong," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "I happen to know there is nothing his grace likes so much as giving wedding presents." This was the harder upon Lizzie as she actually did succeed in saying such kind things about Lucinda, that Lady Glencora sent Miss Roanoke the prettiest smelling-bottle in the world. "You don't mean to say you've given a present to the future Lady Tewett?" said Madame Max Goesler to her friend. "Why not? Sir Griffin can't hurt me. When one begins to be good-natured, why shouldn't one be good-natured all round?" Madame Max remarked that it might, perhaps, be preferable to put an end to good-nature altogether. "There I daresay you're right, my dear," said Lady Glencora. "I've long felt that making presents means nothing. Only if one has a lot of money and people like it, why shouldn't one? I've made so many to people I hardly ever saw that one more to Lady Tewett can't hurt." Perhaps the most wonderful affair in that campaign was the spirited attack which Mrs. Carbuncle made on a certain Mrs. Hanbury Smith, who for the last six or seven years had not been among Mrs. Carbuncle's more intimate friends. Mrs. Hanbury Smith lived with her husband in Paris, but before her marriage had known Mrs. Carbuncle in London. Her father, Mr. Bunbury Jones, had, from certain causes, chosen to show certain civilities to Mrs. Carbuncle just at the period of his daughter's marriage, and Mrs. Carbuncle being perhaps at that moment well supplied with ready money, had presented a marriage present. From that to this present day Mrs. Carbuncle had seen nothing of Mrs. Hanbury Smith, nor of Mr. Bunbury Jones, but she was not the woman to waste the return-value of such a transaction. A present so given was seed sown in the earth,--seed, indeed, that could not be expected to give back twenty-fold, or even ten-fold, but still seed from which a crop should be expected. So she wrote to Mrs. Hanbury Smith, explaining that her darling niece Lucinda was about to be married to Sir Griffin Tewett, and that, as she had no child of her own, Lucinda was the same to her as a daughter. And then, lest there might be any want of comprehension, she expressed her own assurance that her friend would be glad to have an opportunity of reciprocating the feelings which had been evinced on the occasion of her own marriage. "It is no good mincing matters now-a-days," Mrs. Carbuncle would have said, had any friend pointed out to her that she was taking strong measures in the exaction of toll. "People have come to understand that a spade is a spade, and £10, £10," she would have said. Had Mrs. Hanbury Smith not noticed the application, there might, perhaps, have been an end of it, but she was silly enough to send over from Paris a little trumpery bit of finery, bought in the Palais Royal for ten francs. Whereupon Mrs. Carbuncle wrote the following letter:-- MY DEAR MRS. HANBURY SMITH, Lucinda has received your little brooch, and is much obliged to you for thinking of her; but you must remember that when you were married, I sent you a bracelet which cost £10. If I had a daughter of my own, I should, of course, expect that she would reap the benefit of this on her marriage;--and my niece is the same to me as a daughter. I think that this is quite understood now among people in society. Lucinda will be disappointed much if you do not send her what she thinks she has a right to expect. Of course you can deduct the brooch if you please. Yours very sincerely, JANE CARBUNCLE. Mr. Hanbury Smith was something of a wag, and caused his wife to write back as follows:-- DEAR MRS. CARBUNCLE, I quite acknowledge the reciprocity system, but don't think it extends to descendants,--certainly not to nieces. I acknowledge, too, the present quoted at £10. I thought it had been £7 10s.--["The nasty, mean creature," said Mrs. Carbuncle, when showing the correspondence to Lizzie, "must have been to the tradesman to inquire! The price named was £10, but I got £2 l0s. off for ready money."]--At your second marriage I will do what is needful; but I can assure you I haven't recognised nieces with any of my friends. Yours very truly, CAROLINE HANBURY SMITH. The correspondence was carried no further, for not even can a Mrs. Carbuncle exact payment of such a debt in any established court; but she inveighed bitterly against the meanness of Mrs. Smith, telling the story openly, and never feeling that she told it against herself. In her set it was generally thought that she had done quite right. She managed better with old Mr. Cabob, who had certainly received many of Mrs. Carbuncle's smiles, and who was very rich. Mr. Cabob did as he was desired, and sent a cheque,--a cheque for £20; and added a message that he hoped Miss Roanoke would buy with it any little thing that she liked. Miss Roanoke,--or her aunt for her,--liked a thirty-guinea ring, and bought it, having the bill for the balance sent in to Mr. Cabob. Mr. Cabob, who probably knew that he must pay well for his smiles, never said anything about it. Lady Eustace went into all this work, absolutely liking it. She had felt nothing of anger even as regarded her own contribution,--much as she had struggled to reduce the amount. People, she felt, ought to be sharp;--and it was nice to look at pretty things, and to be cunning about them. She would have applied to the Duke of Omnium had she dared, and was very triumphant when she got the smelling-bottle from Lady Glencora. But Lucinda herself took no part whatever in all these things. Nothing that Mrs. Carbuncle could say would induce her to take any interest in them, or even in the trousseau, which, without reference to expense, was being supplied chiefly on the very indifferent credit of Sir Griffin. What Lucinda had to say about the matter was said solely to her aunt. Neither Lady Eustace, nor Lord George, nor even the maid who dressed her, heard any of her complaints. But complain she did, and that with terrible energy. "What is the use of it, Aunt Jane? I shall never have a house to put them into." "What nonsense, my dear! Why shouldn't you have a house as well as others?" "And if I had, I should never care for them. I hate them. What does Lady Glencora Palliser or Lord Fawn care for me?" Even Lord Fawn had been put under requisition, and had sent a little box full of stationery. "They are worth money, Lucinda; and when a girl marries she always gets them." "Yes;--and when they come from people who love her, and who pour them into her lap with kisses, because she has given herself to a man she loves, then it must be nice. Oh,--if I were marrying a poor man, and a poor friend had given me a gridiron to help me to cook my husband's dinner, how I could have valued it!" "I don't know that you like poor things and poor people better than anybody else," said Aunt Jane. "I don't like anything or anybody," said Lucinda. "You had better take the good things that come to you, then; and not grumble. How I have worked to get all this arranged for you, and now what thanks have I?" "You'll find you have worked for very little, Aunt Jane. I shall never marry the man yet." This, however, had been said so often that Aunt Jane thought nothing of the threat. CHAPTER LXVI The Aspirations of Mr. Emilius It was acknowledged by Mrs. Carbuncle very freely that in the matter of tribute no one behaved better than Mr. Emilius, the fashionable, foreign, ci-devant Jew preacher, who still drew great congregations in the neighbourhood of Mrs. Carbuncle's house. Mrs. Carbuncle, no doubt, attended regularly at Mr. Emilius's church, and had taken a sitting for thirteen Sundays at something like ten shillings a Sunday. But she had not as yet paid the money, and Mr. Emilius was well aware that if his tickets were not paid for in advance, there would be considerable defalcations in his income. He was, as a rule, very particular as to such payments, and would not allow a name to be put on a sitting till the money had reached his pockets; but with Mrs. Carbuncle he had descended to no such commercial accuracy. Mrs. Carbuncle had seats for three,--for one of which Lady Eustace paid her share in advance,--in the midst of the very best pews in the most conspicuous part of the house,--and hardly a word had been said to her about the money. And now there came to them from Mr. Emilius the prettiest little gold salver that ever was seen. "I send Messrs. Clerico's docket," wrote Mr. Emilius, "as Miss Roanoke may like to know the quality of the metal." "Ah," said Mrs. Carbuncle, inspecting the little dish, and putting two and two together; "he's got it cheap, no doubt,--at the place where they commissioned him to buy the plate and candlesticks for the church; but at £3 16s. 3d. the gold is worth nearly twenty pounds." Mr. Emilius no doubt had had his outing in the autumn through the instrumentality of Mrs. Carbuncle's kindness; but that was past and gone, and such lavish gratitude for a past favour could hardly be expected from Mr. Emilius. "I'll be hanged if he isn't after Portray Castle," said Mrs. Carbuncle to herself. Mr. Emilius was after Portray Castle, and had been after Portray Castle in a silent, not very confident, but yet not altogether hopeless manner ever since he had seen the glories of that place, and learned something of truth as to the widow's income. Mrs. Carbuncle was led to her conclusion not simply by the wedding present, but in part also by the diligence displayed by Mr. Emilius in removing the doubts which had got abroad respecting his condition in life. He assured Mrs. Carbuncle that he had never been married. Shortly after his ordination, which had been effected under the hands of that great and good man the late Bishop of Jerusalem, he had taken to live with him a lady who was-- Mrs. Carbuncle did not quite recollect who the lady was, but remembered that she was connected in some way with a step-mother of Mr. Emilius who lived in Bohemia. This lady had for awhile kept house for Mr. Emilius;--but ill-natured things had been said, and Mr. Emilius, having respect to his cloth, had sent the poor lady back to Bohemia. The consequence was that he now lived in a solitude which was absolute, and, as Mr. Emilius added, somewhat melancholy. All this Mr. Emilius explained very fully, not to Lizzie herself, but to Mrs. Carbuncle. If Lady Eustace chose to entertain such a suitor, why should he not come? It was nothing to Mrs. Carbuncle. Lizzie laughed when she was told that she might add the reverend gentleman to the list of her admirers. "Don't you remember," she said, "how we used to chaff Miss Macnulty about him?" "I knew better than that," replied Mrs. Carbuncle. "There is no saying what a man may be after," said Lizzie. "I didn't know but what he might have thought that Macnulty's connexions would increase his congregation." "He's after you, my dear, and your income. He can manage a congregation for himself." Lizzie was very civil to him, but it would be unjust to her to say that she gave him any encouragement. It is quite the proper thing for a lady to be on intimate, and even on affectionate, terms with her favourite clergyman, and Lizzie certainly had intercourse with no clergyman who was a greater favourite with her than Mr. Emilius. She had a dean for an uncle, and a bishop for an uncle-in-law; but she was at no pains to hide her contempt for these old fogies of the Church. "They preach now and then in the cathedral," she said to Mr. Emilius, "and everybody takes the opportunity of going to sleep." Mr. Emilius was very much amused at this description of the eloquence of the dignitaries. It was quite natural to him that people should go to sleep in church who take no trouble in seeking eloquent preachers. "Ah," he said, "the Church in England, which is my Church,--the Church which I love,--is beautiful. She is as a maiden, all glorious with fine raiment. But alas! she is mute. She does not sing. She has no melody. But the time cometh in which she shall sing. I, myself,--I am a poor singer in the great choir." In saying which Mr. Emilius no doubt intended to allude to his eloquence as a preacher. He was a man who could listen as well as sing, and he was very careful to hear well that which was being said in public about Lady Eustace and her diamonds. He had learned thoroughly what was her condition in reference to the Portray estate, and was rejoiced rather than otherwise to find that she enjoyed only a life-interest in the property. Had the thing been better than it was, it would have been the further removed from his reach. And in the same way, when rumours reached him prejudicial to Lizzie in respect of the diamonds, he perceived that such prejudice might work weal for him. A gentleman once, on ordering a mackerel for dinner, was told that a fresh mackerel would come to a shilling. He could have a stale mackerel for sixpence. "Then bring me a stale mackerel," said the gentleman. Mr. Emilius coveted fish, but was aware that his position did not justify him in expecting the best fish on the market. The Lord Fawns and the Frank Greystocks of the world would be less likely to covet Lizzie, should she, by any little indiscretion, have placed herself under a temporary cloud. Mr. Emilius had carefully observed the heavens, and knew how quickly such clouds will disperse themselves when they are tinged with gold. There was nothing which Lizzie had done, or would be likely to do, which could materially affect her income. It might indeed be possible that the Eustaces should make her pay for the necklace; but even in that case, there would be quite enough left for that modest, unambitious comfort which Mr. Emilius desired. It was by preaching, and not by wealth, that he must make himself known in the world!--but for a preacher to have a pretty wife with a title and a good income,--and a castle in Scotland,--what an Elysium it would be! In such a condition he would envy no dean, no bishop,--no archbishop! He thought a great deal about it, and saw no positive bar to his success. She told him that she was going to Scotland. "Not immediately!" he exclaimed. "My little boy is there," she said. "But why should not your little boy be here? Surely, for people who can choose, the great centre of the world offers attractions which cannot be found in secluded spots." "I love seclusion," said Lizzie, with rapture. "Ah, yes; I can believe that." Mr. Emilius had himself witnessed the seclusion of Portray Castle, and had heard, when there, many stories of the Ayrshire hunting. "It is your nature;--but, dear Lady Eustace, will you allow me to say that our nature is implanted in us in accordance with the Fall?" "Do you mean to say that it is wicked to like to be in Scotland better than in this giddy town?" "I say nothing about wicked, Lady Eustace; but this I do say, that nature alone will not lead us always aright. It is good to be at Portray part of the year, no doubt; but are there not blessings in such a congregation of humanity as this London which you cannot find at Portray?" "I can hear you preach, Mr. Emilius, certainly." "I hope that is something, too, Lady Eustace;--otherwise a great many people who kindly come to hear me must sadly waste their time. And your example to the world around;--is it not more serviceable amidst the crowds of London than in the solitudes of Scotland? There is more good to be done, Lady Eustace, by living among our fellow-creatures than by deserting them. Therefore I think you should not go to Scotland before August, but should have your little boy brought to you here." "The air of his native mountains is everything to my child," said Lizzie. The child had, in fact, been born at Bobsborough, but that probably would make no real difference. "You cannot wonder that I should plead for your stay," said Mr. Emilius, throwing all his soul into his eyes. "How dark would everything be to me if I missed you from your seat in the house of praise and prayer!" Lizzie Eustace, like some other ladies who ought to be more appreciative, was altogether deficient in what may perhaps be called good taste in reference to men. Though she was clever, and though, in spite of her ignorance, she at once knew an intelligent man from a fool, she did not know the difference between a gentleman and a--"cad." It was in her estimation something against Mr. Emilius that he was a clergyman, something against him that he had nothing but what he earned, something against him that he was supposed to be a renegade Jew, and that nobody knew whence he came nor who he was. These deficiencies or drawbacks Lizzie recognised. But it was nothing against him in her judgment that he was a greasy, fawning, pawing, creeping, black-browed rascal, who could not look her full in the face, and whose every word sounded like a lie. There was a twang in his voice which ought to have told her that he was utterly untrustworthy. There was an oily pretence at earnestness in his manner which ought to have told that he was not fit to associate with gentlemen. There was a foulness of demeanour about him which ought to have given to her, as a woman at any rate brought up among ladies, an abhorrence of his society. But all this Lizzie did not feel. She ridiculed to Mrs. Carbuncle the idea of the preacher's courtship. She still thought that in the teeth of all her misfortunes she could do better with herself than marry Mr. Emilius. She conceived that the man must be impertinent if Mrs. Carbuncle's assertions were true;--but she was neither angry nor disgusted, and she allowed him to talk to her, and even to make love to her, after his nasty pseudo-clerical fashion. She could surely still do better with herself than marry Mr. Emilius! It was now the twentieth of March, and a fortnight had gone since an intimation had been sent to her from the headquarters of the police that Patience Crabstick was in their hands. Nothing further had occurred, and it might be that Patience Crabstick had told no tale against her. She could not bring herself to believe that Patience had no tale to tell, but it might be that Patience, though she was in the hands of the police, would find it to her interest to tell no tale against her late mistress. At any rate, there was silence and quiet, and the affair of the diamonds seemed almost to be passing out of people's minds. Greystock had twice called in Scotland Yard, but had been able to learn nothing. It was feared, they said, that the people really engaged in the robbery had got away scot-free. Frank did not quite believe them, but he could learn nothing from them. Thus encouraged, Lizzie determined that she would remain in London till after Lucinda's marriage,--till after she should have received the promised letter from Lord Fawn, as to which, though it was so long in coming, she did not doubt that it would come at last. She could do nothing with Frank,--who was a fool! She could do nothing with Lord George,--who was a brute! Lord Fawn would still be within her reach, if only the secret about the diamonds could be kept a secret till after she should have become his wife. About this time Lucinda spoke to her respecting her proposed journey. "You were talking of going to Scotland a week ago, Lady Eustace." "And am still talking of it." "Aunt Jane says that you are waiting for my wedding. It is very kind of you;--but pray don't do that." "I shouldn't think of going now till after your marriage. It only wants ten or twelve days." "I count them. I know how many days it wants. It may want more than that." "You can't put it off now, I should think," said Lizzie; "and as I have ordered my dress for the occasion I shall certainly stay and wear it." "I am very sorry for your dress. I am very sorry for it all. Do you know;--I sometimes think I shall--murder him." "Lucinda,--how can you say anything so horrible! But I see you are only joking." There did come a ghastly smile over that beautiful face, which was so seldom lighted up by any expression of mirth or good humour. "But I wish you would not say such horrible things." "It would serve him right;--and if he were to murder me, that would serve me right. He knows that I detest him, and yet he goes on with it. I have told him so a score of times, but nothing will make him give it up. It is not that he loves me, but he thinks that that will be his triumph." "Why don't you give it up, if it makes you unhappy?" "It ought to come from him,--ought it not?" "I don't see why," said Lizzie. "He is not bound to anybody as I am bound to my aunt. No one can have exacted an oath from him. Lady Eustace, you don't quite understand how we are situated. I wonder whether you would take the trouble to be good to me?" Lucinda Roanoke had never asked a favour of her before;--had never, to Lizzie's knowledge, asked a favour of any one. "In what way can I be good to you?" she said. "Make him give it up. You may tell him what you like of me. Tell him that I shall only make him miserable, and more despicable than he is;--that I shall never be a good wife to him. Tell him that I am thoroughly bad, and that he will repent it to the last day of his life. Say whatever you like,--but make him give it up." "When everything has been prepared!" "What does all that signify compared to a life of misery? Lady Eustace, I really think that I should--kill him, if he really were--were my husband." Lizzie at last said that she would, at any rate, speak to Sir Griffin. And she did speak to Sir Griffin, having waited three or four days for an opportunity to do so. There had been some desperately sharp words between Sir Griffin and Mrs. Carbuncle with reference to money. Sir Griffin had been given to understand that Lucinda had, or would have, some few hundred pounds, and insisted that the money should be handed over to him on the day of his marriage. Mrs. Carbuncle had declared that the money was to come from property to be realised in New York, and had named a day which had seemed to Sir Griffin to be as the Greek Kalends. He expressed an opinion that he was swindled, and Mrs. Carbuncle, unable to restrain herself, had turned upon him full of wrath. He was caught by Lizzie as he was descending the stairs, and in the dining-room he poured out the tale of his wrongs. "That woman doesn't know what fair dealing means," said he. "That's a little hard, Sir Griffin, isn't it?" said Lizzie. "Not a bit. A trumpery six hundred pounds! And she hasn't a shilling of fortune, and never will have, beyond that! No fellow ever was more generous or more foolish than I have been." Lizzie, as she heard this, could not refrain from thinking of the poor departed Sir Florian. "I didn't look for fortune, or say a word about money, as almost every man does,--but just took her as she was. And now she tells me that I can't have just the bit of money that I wanted for our tour. It would serve them both right if I were to give it up." "Why don't you?" said Lizzie. He looked quickly, sharply, and closely into her face as she asked the question. "I would, if I thought as you do." "And lay myself in for all manner of damages," said Sir Griffin. "There wouldn't be anything of that kind, I'm sure. You see, the truth is, you and Miss Roanoke are always having--having little tiffs together. I sometimes think you don't really care a bit for her." "It's the old woman I'm complaining of," said Sir Griffin, "and I'm not going to marry her. I shall have seen the last of her when I get out of the church, Lady Eustace." "Do you think she wishes it?" "Who do you mean?" asked Sir Griffin. "Why;--Lucinda." "Of course she does. Where'd she be now if it wasn't to go on? I don't believe they've money enough between them to pay the rent of the house they're living in." "Of course, I don't want to make difficulties, Sir Griffin, and no doubt the affair has gone very far now. But I really think Lucinda would consent to break it off if you wish it. I have never thought that you were really in love with her." He again looked at her very sharply and very closely. "Has she sent you to say all this?" "Has who sent me? Mrs. Carbuncle didn't." "But Lucinda?" She paused for a moment before she replied;--but she could not bring herself to be absolutely honest in the matter. "No;--she didn't send me. But from what I see and hear, I am quite sure she does not wish to go on with it." "Then she shall go on with it," said Sir Griffin. "I'm not going to be made a fool of in that way. She shall go on with it; and the first thing I mean to tell her as my wife is, that she shall never see that woman again. If she thinks she's going to be master, she's very much mistaken." Sir Griffin, as he said this, showed his teeth, and declared his purpose to be masterful by his features as well as by his words;--but Lady Eustace was, nevertheless, of opinion that when the two came to an absolute struggle for mastery, the lady would get the better of it. Lizzie never told Miss Roanoke of her want of success, or even of the effort she had made; nor did the unhappy young woman come to her for any reply. The preparations went on, and it was quite understood that on this peculiar occasion Mrs. Carbuncle intended to treat her friends with profuse hospitality. She proposed to give a breakfast; and as the house in Hertford Street was very small, rooms had been taken at an hotel in Albemarle Street. Thither, as the day of the marriage drew near, all the presents were taken,--so that they might be viewed by the guests, with the names of the donors attached to them. As some of the money given had been very much wanted indeed, so that the actual cheques could not be conveniently spared just at the moment to pay for the presents which ought to have been bought,--a few very pretty things were hired, as to which, when the donors should see their names attached to them, they should surely think that the money given had been laid out to great advantage. CHAPTER LXVII The Eye of the Public It took Lord Fawn a long time to write his letter, but at last he wrote it. The delay must not be taken as throwing any slur on his character as a correspondent or a man of business, for many irritating causes sprang up sufficient to justify him in pleading that it arose from circumstances beyond his own control. It is, moreover, felt by us all that the time which may fairly be taken in the performance of any task depends, not on the amount of work, but on the performance of it when done. A man is not expected to write a cheque for a couple of thousand pounds as readily as he would one for five,--unless he be a man to whom a couple of thousand pounds is a mere nothing. To Lord Fawn the writing of this letter was everything. He had told Lizzie, with much exactness, what he would put into it. He would again offer his hand,--acknowledging himself bound to do so by his former offer,--but would give reasons why she should not accept it. If anything should occur in the meantime which would, in his opinion, justify him in again repudiating her, he would of course take advantage of such circumstance. If asked himself what was his prevailing motive in all that he did or intended to do, he would have declared that it was above all things necessary that he should "put himself right in the eye of the British public." But he was not able to do this without interference from the judgment of others. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway interfered; and he could not prevent himself from listening to them and believing them, though he would contradict all they said, and snub all their theories. Frank Greystock also continued to interfere, and Lady Glencora Palliser. Even John Eustace had been worked upon to write to Lord Fawn, stating his opinion, as trustee for his late brother's property, that the Eustace family did not think that there was ground of complaint against Lady Eustace in reference to the diamonds which had been stolen. This was a terrible blow to Lord Fawn, and had come, no doubt, from a general agreement among the Eustace faction,--including the bishop, John Eustace, and even Mr. Camperdown,--that it would be a good thing to get the widow married and placed under some decent control. Lady Glencora absolutely had the effrontery to ask him whether the marriage was not going to take place, and when a day would be fixed. He gathered up his courage to give her ladyship a rebuke. "My private affairs do seem to be uncommonly interesting," he said. "Why, yes, Lord Fawn," said Lady Glencora, whom nothing could abash;--"most interesting. You see, dear Lady Eustace is so very popular, that we all want to know what is to be her fate." "I regret to say that I cannot answer your ladyship's question with any precision," said Lord Fawn. But the Hittaway persecution was by far the worst. "You have seen her, Frederic?" said his sister. "Yes,--I have." "You have made her no promise?" "My dear Clara, this is a matter in which I must use my own judgment." "But the family, Frederic?" "I do not think that any member of our family has a just right to complain of my conduct since I have had the honour of being its head. I have endeavoured so to live that my actions should encounter no private or public censure. If I fail to meet with your approbation, I shall grieve; but I cannot on that account act otherwise than in accordance with my own judgment." Mrs. Hittaway knew her brother well, and was not afraid of him. "That's all very well; and I am sure you know, Frederic, how proud we all are of you. But this woman is a nasty, low, scheming, ill-conducted, dishonest little wretch; and if you make her your wife you'll be miserable all your life. Nothing would make me and Orlando so unhappy as to quarrel with you. But we know that it is so, and to the last minute I shall say so. Why don't you ask her to her face about that man down in Scotland?" "My dear Clara, perhaps I know what to ask her and what not to ask her better than you can tell me." And his brother-in-law was quite as bad. "Fawn," he said, "in this matter of Lady Eustace, don't you think you ought to put your conduct into the hands of some friend?" "What do you mean by that?" "I think it is an affair in which a man would have so much comfort in being able to say that he was guided by advice. Of course, her people want you to marry her. Now, if you could just tell them that the whole thing was in the hands of,--say me,--or any other friend, you would be relieved, you know, of so much responsibility. They might hammer away at me ever so long, and I shouldn't care twopence." "If there is to be any hammering, it cannot be borne vicariously," said Lord Fawn,--and as he said it, he was quite pleased by his own sharpness and wit. He had, indeed, put himself beyond protection by vicarious endurance of hammering when he promised to write to Lady Eustace, explaining his own conduct and giving reasons. Had anything turned up in Scotland Yard which would have justified him in saying,--or even in thinking,--that Lizzie had stolen her own diamonds, he would have sent word to her that he must abstain from any communication till that matter had been cleared up; but since the appearance of that mysterious paragraph in the newspapers, nothing had been heard of the robbery, and public opinion certainly seemed to be in favour of Lizzie's innocence. He did think that the Eustace faction was betraying him, as he could not but remember how eager Mr. Camperdown had been in asserting that the widow was keeping an enormous amount of property and claiming it as her own, whereas, in truth, she had not the slightest title to it. It was, in a great measure, in consequence of the assertions of the Eustace faction, almost in obedience to their advice, that he had resolved to break off the match; and now they turned upon him, and John Eustace absolutely went out of his way to write him a letter which was clearly meant to imply that he, Lord Fawn, was bound to marry the woman to whom he had once engaged himself! Lord Fawn felt that he was ill-used, and that a man might have to undergo a great deal of bad treatment who should strive to put himself right in the eye of the public. At last he wrote his letter,--on a Wednesday, which with him had something of the comfort of a half-holiday, as on that day he was not required to attend Parliament. India Office, 28th March, 18--. MY DEAR LADY EUSTACE, In accordance with the promise which I made to you when I did myself the honour of waiting upon you in Hertford Street, I take up my pen with the view of communicating to you the result of my deliberations respecting the engagement of marriage which, no doubt, did exist between us last summer. Since that time I have no doubt taken upon myself to say that that engagement was over; and I am free to admit that I did so without any assent or agreement on your part to that effect. Such conduct no doubt requires a valid and strong defence. My defence is as follows:-- I learned that you were in possession of a large amount of property, vested in diamonds, which was claimed by the executors under your late husband's will as belonging to his estate; and as to which they declared, in the most positive manner, that you had no right or title to it whatever. I consulted friends and I consulted lawyers, and I was led to the conviction that this property certainly did not belong to you. Had I married you in these circumstances, I could not but have become a participator in the lawsuit which I was assured would be commenced. I could not be a participator with you, because I believed you to be in the wrong. And I certainly could not participate with those who would in such case be attacking my own wife. In this condition of things I requested you,--as you must, I think, yourself own, with all deference and good feeling,--to give up the actual possession of the property, and to place the diamonds in neutral hands,--[Lord Fawn was often called upon to be neutral in reference to the condition of outlying Indian principalities]--till the law should have decided as to their ownership. As regards myself, I neither coveted nor rejected the possession of that wealth for my future wife. I desired simply to be free from an embarrassment which would have overwhelmed me. You declined my request,--not only positively, but perhaps I may add peremptorily; and then I was bound to adhere to the decision I had communicated to you. Since that time the property has been stolen and, as I believe, dissipated. The lawsuit against you has been withdrawn; and the bone of contention, so to say, is no longer existing. I am no longer justified in declining to keep my engagement because of the prejudice to which I should have been subjected by your possession of the diamonds;--and, therefore, as far as that goes, I withdraw my withdrawal. [This Lord Fawn thought was rather a happy phrase, and he read it aloud to himself more than once.] But now there arises the question whether, in both our interests, this marriage should go on, or whether it may not be more conducive to your happiness and to mine that it should be annulled for causes altogether irrespective of the diamonds. In a matter so serious as marriage, the happiness of the two parties is that which requires graver thought than any other consideration. There has no doubt sprung up between us a feeling of mutual distrust, which has led to recrimination, and which is hardly compatible with that perfect confidence which should exist between a man and his wife. This first arose, no doubt, from the different views which we took as to that property of which I have spoken,--and as to which your judgment may possibly have been better than mine. On that head I will add nothing to what I have already said; but the feeling has arisen; and I fear it cannot be so perfectly allayed as to admit of that reciprocal trust without which we could not live happily together. I confess that for my own part I do not now desire a union which was once the great object of my ambition,--and that I could not go to the altar with you without fear and trembling. As to your own feelings, you best know what they are. I bring no charge against you;--but if you have ceased to love me, I think you should cease to wish to be my wife, and that you should not insist upon a marriage simply because by doing so you would triumph over a former objection. Before he finished this paragraph, he thought much of Andy Gowran and of the scene among the rocks of which he had heard. But he could not speak of it. He had found himself unable to examine the witness who had been brought to him, and had honestly told himself that he could not take that charge as proved. Andy Gowran might have lied. In his heart he believed that Andy Gowran had lied. The matter was distasteful to him, and he would not touch it. And yet he knew that the woman did not love him, and he longed to tell her so. As to what we might each gain or each lose in a worldly point of view, either by marrying or not marrying, I will not say a word. You have rank and wealth, and therefore I can comfort myself by thinking that if I dissuade you from this marriage I shall rob you of neither. I acknowledge that I wish to dissuade you, as I believe that we should not make each other happy. As, however, I do consider that I am bound to keep my engagement to you if you demand that I shall do so, I leave the matter in your hands for decision. I am, and shall remain, Your sincere friend, FAWN. He read the letter and copied it, and gave himself great credit for the composition. He thought that it was impossible that any woman after reading it should express a wish to become the wife of the man who wrote it; and yet,--so he believed,--no man or woman could find fault with him for writing it. There certainly was one view of the case which was very distressing. How would it be with him if, after all, she should say that she would marry him? After having given her her choice,--having put it all in writing,--he could not again go back from it. He would be in her power, and of what use would his life be to him? Would Parliament, or the India Office, or the eye of the public be able to comfort him then in the midst of his many miseries? What could he do with a wife whom he married with a declaration that he disliked her? With such feelings as were his, how could he stand before a clergyman and take an oath that he would love her and cherish her? Would she not ever be as an adder to him,--as an adder whom it would be impossible that he should admit into his bosom? Could he live in the same house with her; and if so, could he ask his mother and sisters to visit her? He remembered well what Mrs. Hittaway had called her;--a nasty, low, scheming, ill-conducted, dishonest little wretch! And he believed that she was so! Yet he was once again offering to marry her, should she choose to accept him. Nevertheless, the letter was sent. There was, in truth, no alternative. He had promised that he would write such a letter, and all that had remained to him was the power of cramming into it every available argument against the marriage. This he had done, and, as he thought, had done well. It was impossible that she should desire to marry him after reading such a letter as that! Lizzie received it in her bedroom, where she breakfasted, and told of its arrival to her friend Mrs. Carbuncle as soon as they met each other. "My lord has come down from his high horse at last," she said, with the letter in her hand. "What,--Lord Fawn?" "Yes; Lord Fawn. What other lord? There is no other lord for me. He is my lord, my peer of Parliament, my Cabinet minister, my right honourable, my member of the Government,--my young man, too, as the maid-servants call them." "What does he say?" "Say;--what should he say?--just that he has behaved very badly, and that he hopes I shall forgive him." "Not quite that; does he?" "That's what it all means. Of course, there is ever so much of it,--pages of it. It wouldn't be Lord Fawn if he didn't spin it all out like an Act of Parliament, with 'whereas' and 'wherein,' and 'whereof.' It is full of all that; but the meaning of it is that he's at my feet again, and that I may pick him up if I choose to take him. I'd show you the letter, only perhaps it wouldn't be fair to the poor man." "What excuse does he make?" "Oh,--as to that he's rational enough. He calls the necklace the--bone of contention. That's rather good for Lord Fawn; isn't it? The bone of contention, he says, has been removed; and, therefore, there is no reason why we shouldn't marry if we like it. He shall hear enough about the bone of contention if we do 'marry.'" "And what shall you do now?" "Ah, yes; that's easily asked; is it not? The man's a good sort of man in his way, you know. He doesn't drink or gamble; and I don't think there is a bit of the King David about him,--that I don't." "Virtue personified, I should say." "And he isn't extravagant." "Then why not have him and have done with it?" asked Mrs. Carbuncle. "He is such a lumpy man," said Lizzie;--"such an ass; such a load of Government waste-paper." "Come, my dear;--you've had troubles." "I have, indeed," said Lizzie. "And there's no quite knowing yet how far they're over." "What do you mean by that, Mrs. Carbuncle?" "Nothing very much;--but still, you see, they may come again. As to Lord George, we all know that he has not got a penny-piece in the world that he can call his own." "If he had as many pennies as Judas, Lord George would be nothing to me," said Lizzie. "And your cousin really doesn't seem to mean anything." "I know very well what my cousin means. He and I understand each other thoroughly; but cousins can love one another very well without marrying." "Of course you know your own business, but if I were you I would take Lord Fawn. I speak in true kindness,--as one woman to another. After all, what does love signify? How much real love do we ever see among married people? Does Lady Glencora Palliser really love her husband, who thinks of nothing in the world but putting taxes on and off?" "Do you love your husband, Mrs. Carbuncle?" "No;--but that is a different kind of thing. Circumstances have caused me to live apart from him. The man is a good man, and there is no reason why you should not respect him, and treat him well. He will give you a fixed position,--which really you want badly, Lady Eustace." "Tooriloo, tooriloo, tooriloo, looriloo," said Lizzie, in contemptuous disdain of her friend's caution. "And then all this trouble about the diamonds and the robberies will be over," continued Mrs. Carbuncle. Lizzie looked at her very intently. What should make Mrs. Carbuncle suppose that there need be, or, indeed, could be, any further trouble about the diamonds? "So;--that's your advice," said Lizzie. "I'm half inclined to take it, and perhaps I shall. However, I have brought him round, and that's something, my dear. And either one way or the other, I shall let him know that I like my triumph. I was determined to have it, and I've got it." Then she read the letter again very seriously. Could she possibly marry a man who in so many words told her that he didn't want her? Well;--she thought she could. Was not everybody treating everybody else much in the same way? Had she not loved her Corsair truly,--and how had he treated her? Had she not been true, disinterested, and most affectionate to Frank Greystock; and what had she got from him? To manage her business wisely, and put herself upon firm ground;--that was her duty at present. Mrs. Carbuncle was right there. The very name of Lady Fawn would be a rock to her,--and she wanted a rock. She thought upon the whole that she could marry him;--unless Patience Crabstick and the police should again interfere with her prosperity. CHAPTER LXVIII The Major Lady Eustace did not intend to take as much time in answering Lord Fawn's letter as he had taken in writing it; but even she found that the subject was one which demanded a good deal of thought. Mrs. Carbuncle had very freely recommended her to take the man, supporting her advice by arguments which Lizzie felt to be valid; but then Mrs. Carbuncle did not know all the circumstances. Mrs. Carbuncle had not actually seen his lordship's letter; and though the great part of the letter, the formal repetition, namely, of the writer's offer of marriage, had been truly told to her, still, as the reader will have perceived, she had been kept in the dark as to some of the details. Lizzie did sit at her desk with the object of putting a few words together in order that she might see how they looked, and she found that there was a difficulty. "My dear Lord Fawn. As we have been engaged to marry each other, and as all our friends have been told, I think that the thing had better go on." That, after various attempts, was, she thought, the best letter that she could send,--if she should make up her mind to be Lady Fawn. But, on the morning of the 30th of March she had not sent her letter. She had told herself that she would take two days to think of her reply,--and, on the Friday morning the few words she had prepared were still lying in her desk. What was she to get by marrying a man she absolutely disliked? That he also absolutely disliked her was not a matter much in her thoughts. The man would not ill-treat her because he disliked her; or, it might perhaps be juster to say, that the ill-treatment which she might fairly anticipate would not be of a nature which would much affect her comfort grievously. He would not beat her, nor rob her, nor lock her up, nor starve her. He would either neglect her, or preach sermons to her. For the first she could console herself by the attention of others; and should he preach, perhaps she could preach too,--as sharply if not as lengthily as his lordship. At any rate, she was not afraid of him. But what would she gain? It is very well to have a rock, as Mrs. Carbuncle had said, but a rock is not everything. She did not know whether she cared much for living upon a rock. Even stability may be purchased at too high a price. There was not a grain of poetry in the whole composition of Lord Fawn, and poetry was what her very soul craved;--poetry, together with houses, champagne, jewels, and admiration. Her income was still her own, and she did not quite see that the rock was so absolutely necessary to her. Then she wrote another note to Lord Fawn, a specimen of a note, so that she might have the opportunity of comparing the two. This note took her much longer than the one first written. MY LORD,-- I do not know how to acknowledge with sufficient humility the condescension and great kindness of your lordship's letter. But perhaps its manly generosity is more conspicuous than either. The truth is, my lord, you want to escape from your engagement, but are too much afraid of the consequences to dare to do so by any act of your own;--therefore you throw it upon me. You are quite successful. I don't think you ever read poetry, but perhaps you may understand the two following lines:-- "I am constrained to say, your lordship's scullion Should sooner be my husband than yourself." I see through you, and despise you thoroughly. E. EUSTACE. She was comparing the two answers together, very much in doubt as to which should be sent, when there came a message to her by a man whom she knew to be a policeman, though he did not announce himself as such, and was dressed in plain clothes. Major Mackintosh sent his compliments to her, and would wait upon her that afternoon at three o'clock, if she would have the kindness to receive him. At the first moment of seeing the man she felt that after all the rock was what she wanted. Mrs. Carbuncle was right. She had had troubles and might have more, and the rock was the thing. But then the more certainly did she become convinced of this by the presence of the major's messenger, the more clearly did she see the difficulty of attaining the security which the rock offered. If this public exposure should fall upon her, Lord Fawn's renewed offer, as she knew well, would stand for nothing. If once it were known that she had kept the necklace,--her own necklace,--under her pillow at Carlisle, he would want no further justification in repudiating her, were it for the tenth time. She was very uncivil to the messenger, and the more so because she found that the man bore her rudeness without turning upon her and rending her. When she declared that the police had behaved very badly, and that Major Mackintosh was inexcusable in troubling her again, and that she had ceased to care twopence about the necklace,--the man made no remonstrance to her petulance. He owned that the trouble was very great, and the police very inefficient. He almost owned that the major was inexcusable. He did not care what he owned so that he achieved his object. But when Lizzie said that she could not see Major Mackintosh at three, and objected equally to two, four, or five; then the courteous messenger from Scotland Yard did say a word to make her understand that there must be a meeting,--and he hinted also that the major was doing a most unusually good-natured thing in coming to Hertford Street. Of course, Lizzie made the appointment. If the major chose to come, she would be at home at three. As soon as the policeman was gone, she sat alone, with a manner very much changed from that which she had worn since the arrival of Lord Fawn's letter,--with a fresh weight of care upon her, greater perhaps than she had ever hitherto borne. She had had bad moments,--when, for instance, she had been taken before the magistrates at Carlisle, when she found the police in her house on her return from the theatre, and when Lord George had forced her secret from her. But at each of these periods hope had come renewed before despair had crushed her. Now it seemed to her that the thing was done and that the game was over. This chief man of the London police no doubt knew the whole story. If she could only already have climbed upon some rock, so that there might be a man bound to defend her,--a man at any rate bound to put himself forward on her behalf and do whatever might be done in her defence,--she might have endured it! What should she do now,--at this minute? She looked at her watch and found that it was already past one. Mrs. Carbuncle, as she knew, was closeted up-stairs with Lucinda, whose wedding was fixed for the following Monday. It was now Friday. Were she to call upon Mrs. Carbuncle for aid, no aid would be forthcoming unless she were to tell the whole truth. She almost thought that she would do so. But then, how great would have been her indiscretion if, after all, when the major should come, she should discover that he did not know the truth himself! That Mrs. Carbuncle would keep her secret she did not for a moment think. She longed for the comfort of some friend's counsel, but she found at last that she could not purchase it by telling everything to a woman. Might it not be possible that she should still run away? She did not know much of the law, but she thought that they could not punish her for breaking an appointment even with a man so high in authority as Major Mackintosh. She could leave a note saying that pressing business called her out. But whither should she go? She thought of taking a cab to the House of Commons, finding her cousin, and telling him everything. It would be so much better that he should see the major. But then again, it might be that she should be mistaken as to the amount of the major's information. After a while she almost determined to fly off at once to Scotland, leaving word that she was obliged to go instantly to her child. But there was no direct train to Scotland before eight or nine in the evening, and during the intervening hours the police would have ample time to find her. What, indeed, could she do with herself during these intervening hours? Ah, if she had but a rock now, so that she need not be dependent altogether on the exercise of her own intellect! Gradually the minutes passed by, and she became aware that she must face the major. Well! What had she done? She had stolen nothing. She had taken no person's property. She had, indeed, been wickedly robbed, and the police had done nothing to get back for her her property, as they were bound to have done. She would take care to tell the major what she thought about the negligence of the police. The major should not have the talk all to himself. If it had not been for one word with which Lord George had stunned her ears, she could still have borne it well. She had told a lie;--perhaps two or three lies. She knew that she had lied. But then people lie every day. She would not have minded it much if she were simply to be called a liar. But he had told her that she would be accused of--perjury. There was something frightful to her in the name. And there were, she knew not what, dreadful penalties attached to it. Lord George had told her that she might be put in prison,--whether he had said for years or for months she had forgotten. And she thought she had heard of people's property being confiscated to the Crown when they had been made out to be guilty of certain great offences. Oh, how she wished that she had a rock! When three o'clock came she had not started for Scotland or elsewhere, and at last she received the major. Could she have thoroughly trusted the servant, she would have denied herself at the last moment, but she feared that she might be betrayed, and she thought that her position would be rendered even worse than it was at present by a futile attempt. She was sitting alone, pale, haggard, trembling, when Major Mackintosh was shown into her room. It may be as well explained at once that, at this moment, the major knew, or thought that he knew, every circumstance of the two robberies, and that his surmises were in every respect right. Miss Crabstick and Mr. Cann were in comfortable quarters, and were prepared to tell all that they could tell. Mr. Smiler was in durance, and Mr. Benjamin was at Vienna, in the hands of the Austrian police, who were prepared to give him up to those who desired his society in England, on the completion of certain legal formalities. That Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Smiler would be prosecuted, the latter for the robbery and the former for conspiracy to rob, and for receiving stolen goods, was a matter of course. But what was to be done with Lady Eustace? That, at the present moment, was the prevailing trouble with the police. During the last three weeks every precaution had been taken to keep the matter secret, and it is hardly too much to say that Lizzie's interests were handled not only with consideration but with tenderness. "Lady Eustace," said the major, "I am very sorry to trouble you. No doubt the man who called on you this morning explained to you who I am." "Oh yes, I know who you are,--quite well." Lizzie made a great effort to speak without betraying her consternation; but she was nearly prostrated. The major, however, hardly observed her, and was by no means at ease himself in his effort to save her from unnecessary annoyance. He was a tall, thin, gaunt man of about forty, with large, good-natured eyes;--but it was not till the interview was half over that Lizzie took courage to look even into his face. "Just so; I am come, you know, about the robbery which took place here,--and the other robbery at Carlisle." "I have been so troubled about these horrid robberies! Sometimes I think they'll be the death of me." "I think, Lady Eustace, we have found out the whole truth." "Oh, I daresay. I wonder why--you have been so long--finding it out." "We have had very clever people to deal with, Lady Eustace;--and I fear that, even now, we shall never get back the property." "I do not care about the property, sir;--although it was all my own. Nobody has lost anything but myself; and I really don't see why the thing should not die out, as I don't care about it. Whoever it is, they may have it now." "We were bound to get to the bottom of it all, if we could; and I think that we have,--at last. Perhaps, as you say, we ought to have done it sooner." "Oh,--I don't care." "We have two persons in custody, Lady Eustace, whom we shall use as witnesses, and I am afraid we shall have to call upon you also,--as a witness." It occurred to Lizzie that they could not lock her up in prison and make her a witness too, but she said nothing. Then the major continued his speech,--and asked her the question which was, in fact, alone material. "Of course, Lady Eustace, you are not bound to say anything to me unless you like it,--and you must understand that I by no means wish you to criminate yourself." "I don't know what that means." "If you yourself have done anything wrong, I don't want to ask you to confess it." "I have had all my diamonds stolen, if you mean that. Perhaps it was wrong to have diamonds." "But to come to my question,--I suppose we may take it for granted that the diamonds were in your desk when the thieves made their entrance into this house, and broke the desk open, and stole the money out of it?" Lizzie breathed so hardly, that she was quite unable to speak. The man's voice was very gentle and very kind,--but then how could she admit that one fact? All depended on that one fact. "The woman Crabstick," said the major, "has confessed, and will state on her oath that she saw the necklace in your hands in Hertford Street, and that she saw it placed in the desk. She then gave information of this to Benjamin,--as she had before given information as to your journey up from Scotland,--and she was introduced to the two men whom she let into the house. One of them, indeed, who will also give evidence for us, she had before met at Carlisle. She then was present when the necklace was taken out of the desk. The man who opened the desk and took it out, who also cut the door at Carlisle, will give evidence to the same effect. The man who carried the necklace out of the house, and who broke open the box at Carlisle, will be tried,--as will also Benjamin, who disposed of the diamonds. I have told you the whole story, as it has been told to me by the woman Crabstick. Of course, you will deny the truth of it, if it be untrue." Lizzie sat with her eyes fixed upon the floor, but said nothing. She could not speak. "If you will allow me, Lady Eustace, to give you advice,--really friendly advice--" "Oh, pray do." "You had better admit the truth of the story, if it is true." "They were my own," she whispered. "Or, at any rate, you believed that they were. There can be no doubt, I think, as to that. No one supposes that the robbery at Carlisle was arranged on your behalf." "Oh, no." "But you had taken them out of the box before you went to bed at the inn?" "Not then." "But you had taken them?" "I did it in the morning before I started from Scotland. They frightened me by saying the box would be stolen." "Exactly;--and then you put them into your desk here, in this house?" "Yes,--sir." "I should tell you, Lady Eustace, that I had not a doubt about this before I came here. For some time past I have thought that it must be so; and latterly the confessions of two of the accomplices have made it certain to me. One of the housebreakers and the jeweller will be tried for the felony, and I am afraid that you must undergo the annoyance of being one of the witnesses." "What will they do to me, Major Mackintosh?" Lizzie now for the first time looked up into his eyes, and felt that they were kind. Could he be her rock? He did not speak to her like an enemy;--and then, too, he would know better than any man alive how she might best escape from her trouble. "They will ask you to tell the truth." "Indeed I will do that," said Lizzie,--not aware that, after so many lies, it might be difficult to tell the truth. "And you will probably be asked to repeat it, this way and that, in a manner that will be troublesome to you. You see that here in London, and at Carlisle, you have--given incorrect versions." "I know I have. But the necklace was my own. There was nothing dishonest;--was there, Major Mackintosh? When they came to me at Carlisle I was so confused that I hardly knew what to tell them. And when I had once--given an incorrect version, you know, I didn't know how to go back." The major was not so well acquainted with Lizzie as is the reader, and he pitied her. "I can understand all that," he said. How much kinder he was than Lord George had been when she confessed the truth to him. Here would be a rock! And such a handsome man as he was, too,--not exactly a Corsair, as he was great in authority over the London police,--but a powerful, fine fellow, who would know what to do with swords and pistols as well as any Corsair;--and one, too, no doubt, who would understand poetry! Any such dream, however, was altogether unavailing, as the major had a wife at home and seven children. "If you will only tell me what to do, I will do it," she said, looking up into his face with entreaty, and pressing her hands together in supplication. Then at great length, and with much patience, he explained to her what he would have her do. He thought that, if she were summoned and used as a witness, there would be no attempt to prosecute her for the--incorrect versions--of which she had undoubtedly been guilty. The probability was, that she would receive assurance to this effect before she would be asked to give her evidence, preparatory to the committal of Benjamin and Smiler. He could not assure her that it would be so, but he had no doubt of it. In order, however, that things might be made to run as smooth as possible, he recommended her very strongly to go at once to Mr. Camperdown and make a clean breast of it to him. "The whole family should be told," said the major, "and it will be better for you that they should know it from yourself than from us." When she hesitated, he explained to her that the matter could no longer be kept as a secret, and that her evidence would certainly appear in the papers. He proposed that she should be summoned for that day week,--which would be the Friday after Lucinda's marriage, and he suggested that she should go to Mr. Camperdown's on the morrow. "What!--to-morrow?" exclaimed Lizzie, in dismay. "My dear Lady Eustace," said the major, "the sooner you get back into straight running, the sooner you will be comfortable." Then she promised that she would go on the Tuesday,--the day after the marriage. "If he learns it in the meantime, you must not be surprised," said the major. "Tell me one thing, Major Mackintosh," she said, as she gave him her hand at parting,--"they can't take away from me anything that is my own;--can they?" "I don't think they can," said the major, escaping rather quickly from the room. CHAPTER LXIX "I Cannot Do It" The Saturday and the Sunday Lizzie passed in outward tranquillity, though doubtless her mind was greatly disturbed. She said nothing of what had passed between her and Major Mackintosh, explaining that his visit had been made solely with the object of informing her that Mr. Benjamin was to be sent home from Vienna, but that the diamonds were gone for ever. She had, as she declared to herself, agreed with Major Mackintosh that she would not go to Mr. Camperdown till the Tuesday,--justifying her delay by her solicitude in reference to Miss Roanoke's marriage; and therefore these two days were her own. After them would come a totally altered phase of existence. All the world would know the history of the diamonds,--cousin Frank, and Lord Fawn, and John Eustace, and Mrs. Carbuncle, and the Bobsborough people, and Lady Glencora, and that old vulturess, her aunt, the Countess of Linlithgow. It must come now;--but she had two days in which she could be quiet and think of her position. She would, she thought, send one of her letters to Lord Fawn before she went to Mr. Camperdown;--but which should she send? Or should she write a third explaining the whole matter in sweetly piteous feminine terms, and swearing that the only remaining feeling in her bosom was a devoted affection to the man who had now twice promised to be her husband? In the meantime the preparations for the great marriage went on. Mrs. Carbuncle spent her time busily between Lucinda's bedchamber and the banqueting hall in Albemarle Street. In spite of pecuniary difficulties the trousseau was to be a wonder; and even Lizzie was astonished at the jewellery which that indefatigable woman had collected together for a preliminary show in Hertford Street. She had spent hours at Howell and James's, and had made marvellous bargains there and elsewhere. Things were sent for selection, of which the greater portion were to be returned, but all were kept for the show. The same things which were shown to separate friends in Hertford Street as part of the trousseau on Friday and Saturday were carried over to Albemarle Street on the Sunday, so as to add to the quasi-public exhibition of presents on the Monday. The money expended had gone very far. The most had been made of a failing credit. Every particle of friendly generosity had been so manipulated as to add to the external magnificence. And Mrs. Carbuncle had done all this without any help from Lucinda,--in the midst of most contemptuous indifference on Lucinda's part. She could hardly be got to allow the milliners to fit the dresses to her body, and positively refused to thrust her feet into certain golden-heeled boots with brightly-bronzed toes, which were a great feature among the raiment. Nobody knew it except Mrs. Carbuncle and the maid,--even Lizzie Eustace did not know it;--but once the bride absolutely ran amuck among the finery, scattering the laces here and there, pitching the glove-boxes under the bed, chucking the golden-heeled boots into the fire-place, and exhibiting quite a tempest of fury against one of the finest shows of petticoats ever arranged with a view to the admiration and envy of female friends. But all this Mrs. Carbuncle bore, and still persevered. The thing was so nearly done now that she could endure to persevere though the provocation to abandon it was so great. She had even ceased to find fault with her niece,--but went on in silence counting the hours till the trouble should be taken off her own shoulders and placed on those of Sir Griffin. It was a great thing to her, almost more than she had expected, that neither Lucinda nor Sir Griffin should have positively declined the marriage. It was impossible that either should retreat from it now. Luckily for Mrs. Carbuncle, Sir Griffin took delight in the show. He did this after a bearish fashion, putting his finger upon little flaws with an intelligence for which Mrs. Carbuncle had not hitherto given him credit. As to certain ornaments, he observed that the silver was plated and the gold ormolu. A "rope" of pearls he at once detected as being false,--and after fingering certain lace he turned up his nose and shook his head. Then, on the Sunday, in Albemarle Street, he pointed out to Mrs. Carbuncle sundry articles which he had seen in the bedroom on the Saturday. "But, my dear Sir Griffin,--that's of course," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Oh;--that's of course, is it?" said Sir Griffin, turning up his nose again. "Where did that Delph bowl come from?" "It is one of Mortlock's finest Etruscan vases," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Oh,--I thought that Etruscan vases came from--from somewhere in Greece or Italy," said Sir Griffin. "I declare that you are shocking," said Mrs. Carbuncle, struggling to maintain her good humour. He passed hours of the Sunday in Hertford Street, and Lord George also was there for some time. Lizzie, who could hardly devote her mind to the affairs of the wedding, remained alone in her own sitting-room during the greater part of the day;--but she did show herself while Lord George was there. "So I hear that Mackintosh has been here," said Lord George. "Yes,--he was here." "And what did he say?" Lizzie did not like the way in which the man looked at her, feeling it to be not only unfriendly, but absolutely cruel. It seemed to imply that he knew that her secret was about to be divulged. And what was he to her now that he should be impertinent to her? What he knew, all the world would know before the end of the week. And that other man who knew it already, had been kind to her, had said nothing about perjury, but had explained to her that what she would have to bear would be trouble, and not imprisonment and loss of money. Lord George, to whom she had been so civil, for whom she had spent money, to whom she had almost offered herself and all that she possessed,--Lord George, whom she had selected as the first repository of her secret, had spoken no word to comfort her, but had made things look worse for her than they were. Why should she submit to be questioned by Lord George? In a day or two the secret which he knew would be no secret. "Never mind what he said, Lord George," she replied. "Has he found it all out?" "You had better go and ask himself," said Lizzie. "I am sick of the subject, and I mean to have done with it." Lord George laughed, and Lizzie hated him for his laugh. "I declare," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "that you two who were such friends are always snapping at each other now." "The fickleness is all on her ladyship's part,--not on mine," said Lord George; whereupon Lady Eustace walked out of the room and was not seen again till dinner-time. Soon afterwards Lucinda also endeavoured to escape, but to this Sir Griffin objected. Sir Griffin was in a very good humour, and bore himself like a prosperous bridegroom. "Come, Luce," he said, "get off your high horse for a little. To-morrow, you know, you must come down altogether." "So much the more reason for my remaining up to-day." "I'll be shot if you shall," said Sir Griffin. "Luce, sit in my lap, and give me a kiss." At this moment Lord George and Mrs. Carbuncle were in the front drawing-room, and Lord George was telling her the true story as to the necklace. It must be explained on his behalf that in doing this he did not consider that he was betraying the trust reposed in him. "They know all about it in Scotland Yard," he said; "I got it from Gager. They were bound to tell me, as up to this week past every man in the police thought that I had been the master-mind among the thieves. When I think of it I hardly know whether to laugh or cry." "And she had them all the time?" exclaimed Mrs. Carbuncle. "Yes;--in this house! Did you ever hear of such a little cat? I could tell you more than that. She wanted me to take them and dispose of them." "No!" "She did though;--and now see the way she treats me! Never mind. Don't say a word to her about it till it comes out of itself. She'll have to be arrested, no doubt." "Arrested!" Mrs. Carbuncle's further exclamations were stopped by Lucinda's struggles in the other room. She had declined to sit upon the bridegroom's lap, but had acknowledged that she was bound to submit to be kissed. He had kissed her, and then had striven to drag her on to his knee. But she was strong, and had resisted violently, and, as he afterwards said, had struck him savagely. "Of course I struck him," said Lucinda. "By ----, you shall pay for it!" said Sir Griffin. This took place in the presence of Lord George and Mrs. Carbuncle, and yet they were to be married to-morrow. "The idea of complaining that a girl hit you,--and the girl who is to be your wife!" said Lord George, as they walked off together. "I know what to complain of, and what not," said Sir Griffin. "Are you going to let me have that money?" "No;--I am not," said Lord George,--"so there's an end of that." Nevertheless, they dined together at their club afterwards, and in the evening Sir Griffin was again in Hertford Street. This happened on the Sunday, on which day none of the ladies had gone to church. Mr. Emilius well understood the cause of their absence, and felt nothing of a parson's anger at it. He was to marry the couple on the Monday morning, and dined with the ladies on the Sunday. He was peculiarly gracious and smiling, and spoke of the Hymeneals as though they were even more than ordinarily joyful and happy in their promise. To Lizzie he was almost affectionate, and Mrs. Carbuncle he flattered to the top of her bent. The power of the man in being sprightly under such a load of trouble as oppressed the household, was wonderful. He had to do with three women who were worldly, hard, and given entirely to evil things. Even as regarded the bride, who felt the horror of her position, so much must be in truth admitted. Though from day to day and hour to hour she would openly declare her hatred of the things around her,--yet she went on. Since she had entered upon life she had known nothing but falsehood and scheming wickedness;--and, though she rebelled against the consequences, she had not rebelled against the wickedness. Now to this unfortunate young woman and her two companions, Mr. Emilius discoursed with an unctuous mixture of celestial and terrestrial glorification, which was proof, at any rate, of great ability on his part. He told them how a good wife was a crown, or rather a chaplet of aetherial roses to her husband, and how high rank and great station in the world made such a chaplet more beautiful and more valuable. His work in the vineyard, he said, had fallen lately among the wealthy and nobly born; and though he would not say that he was entitled to take glory on that account, still he gave thanks daily in that he had been enabled to give his humble assistance towards the running of a godly life to those who, by their example, were enabled to have so wide an effect upon their poorer fellow-creatures. He knew well how difficult it was for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. They had the highest possible authority for that. But Scripture never said that the camel,--which, as he explained it, was simply a thread larger than ordinary thread,--could not go through the needle's eye. The camel which succeeded, in spite of the difficulties attending its exalted position, would be peculiarly blessed. And he went on to suggest that the three ladies before him, one of whom was about to enter upon a new phase of life to-morrow, under auspices peculiarly propitious, were, all of them, camels of this description. Sir Griffin, when he came in, received for a while the peculiar attention of Mr. Emilius. "I think, Sir Griffin," he commenced, "that no period of a man's life is so blessed, as that upon which you will enter to-morrow." This he said in a whisper, but it was a whisper audible to the ladies. "Well;--yes; it's all right, I daresay," said Sir Griffin. "Well, after all, what is life till a man has met and obtained the partner of his soul? It is a blank,--and the blank becomes every day more and more intolerable to the miserable solitary." "I wonder you don't get married yourself," said Mrs. Carbuncle, who perceived that Sir Griffin was rather astray for an answer. "Ah!--if one could always be fortunate when one loved!" said Mr. Emilius, casting his eyes across to Lizzie Eustace. It was evident to them all that he did not wish to conceal his passion. It was the object of Mrs. Carbuncle that the lovers should not be left alone together, but that they should be made to think that they were passing the evening in affectionate intercourse. Lucinda hardly spoke, hardly had spoken since her disagreeable struggle with Sir Griffin. He said but little, but with Mrs. Carbuncle was better humoured than usual. Every now and then she made little whispered communications to him, telling that they would be sure to be at the church at eleven to the moment, explaining to him what would be the extent of Lucinda's boxes for the wedding tour, and assuring him that he would find Lucinda's new maid a treasure in regard to his own shirts and pocket-handkerchiefs. She toiled marvellously at little subjects, always making some allusion to Lucinda, and never hinting that aught short of Elysium was in store for him. The labour was great; the task was terrible; but now it was so nearly over! And to Lizzie she was very courteous, never hinting by a word or a look that there was any new trouble impending on the score of the diamonds. She, too, as she received the greasy compliments of Mr. Emilius with pretty smiles, had her mind full enough of care. At last Sir Griffin went, again kissing his bride as he left. Lucinda accepted his embrace without a word and almost without a shudder. "Eleven to the moment, Sir Griffin," said Mrs. Carbuncle, with her best good humour. "All right," said Sir Griffin as he passed out of the door. Lucinda walked across the room, and kept her eyes fixed on his retreating figure as he descended the stairs. Mr. Emilius had already departed, with many promises of punctuality, and Lizzie now withdrew for the night. "Dear Lizzie, good night," said Mrs. Carbuncle, kissing her. "Good night, Lady Eustace," said Lucinda. "I suppose I shall see you to-morrow?" "See me!--of course you will see me. I shall come into your room with the girls, after you have had your tea." The girls mentioned were the four bridesmaids, as to whom there had been some difficulty, as Lucinda had neither sister nor cousins, and had contracted no peculiarly tender friendships. But Mrs. Carbuncle had arranged it, and four properly-equipped young ladies were to be in attendance at ten on the morrow. Then Lucinda and Mrs. Carbuncle were alone. "Of one thing I feel sure," said Lucinda in a low voice. "What is that, dear?" "I shall never see Sir Griffin Tewett again." "You talk in that way on purpose to break me down at the last moment," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Dear Aunt Jane, I would not break you down if I could help it. I have struggled so hard,--simply that you might be freed from me. We have been very foolish, both of us; but I would bear all the punishment,--if I could." "You know that this is nonsense now." "Very well. I only tell you. I know that I shall never see him again. I will never trust myself alone in his presence. I could not do it. When he touches me my whole body is in agony. To be kissed by him is madness." "Lucinda, this is very wicked. You are working yourself up to a paroxysm of folly." "Wicked;--yes, I know that I am wicked. There has been enough of wickedness certainly. You don't suppose that I mean to excuse myself?" "Of course you will marry Sir Griffin to-morrow." "I shall never be married to him. How I shall escape from him,--by dying, or going mad,--or by destroying him, God only knows." Then she paused, and her aunt looking into her face almost began to fear that she was in earnest. But she would not take it as at all indicating any real result for the morrow. The girl had often said nearly the same thing before, and had still submitted. "Do you know, Aunt Jane, I don't think I could feel to any man as though I loved him. But for this man,-- Oh God, how I do detest him! I cannot do it." "You had better go to bed, Lucinda, and let me come to you in the morning." "Yes;--come to me in the morning;--early." "I will,--at eight." "I shall know then, perhaps." "My dear, will you come to my room to-night, and sleep with me?" "Oh, no. I have ever so many things to do. I have papers to burn, and things to put away. But come to me at eight. Good night, Aunt Jane." Mrs. Carbuncle went up to her room with her, kissed her affectionately, and then left her. She was now really frightened. What would be said of her if she should press the marriage forward to a completion, and if after that some terrible tragedy should take place between the bride and bridegroom? That Lucinda, in spite of all that had been said, would stand at the altar, and allow the ceremony to be performed, she still believed. Those last words about burning papers and putting things away, seemed to imply that the girl still thought that she would be taken away from her present home on the morrow. But what would come afterwards? The horror which the bride expressed was, as Mrs. Carbuncle well knew, no mock feeling, no pretence at antipathy. She tried to think of it, and to realise what might in truth be the girl's action and ultimate fate when she should find herself in the power of this man whom she so hated. But had not other girls done the same thing, and lived through it all, and become fat, indifferent, and fond of the world? It is only the first step that signifies. At any rate, the thing must go on now;--must go on, whatever might be the result to Lucinda or to Mrs. Carbuncle herself. Yes; it must go on. There was, no doubt, very much of bitterness in the world for such as them,--for persons doomed by the necessities of their position to a continual struggle. It always had been so, and always would be so. But each bitter cup must be drained in the hope that the next might be sweeter. Of course the marriage must go on; though, doubtless, this cup was very bitter. More than once in the night Mrs. Carbuncle crept up to the door of her niece's room, endeavouring to ascertain what might be going on within. At two o'clock, while she was on the landing-place, the candle was extinguished, and she could hear that Lucinda put herself to bed. At any rate, so far, things were safe. An indistinct, incompleted idea of some possible tragedy had flitted across the mind of the poor woman, causing her to shake and tremble, forbidding her, weary as she was, to lie down;--but now she told herself at last that this was an idle phantasy, and she went to bed. Of course Lucinda must go through with it. It had been her own doing, and Sir Griffin was not worse than other men. As she said this to herself, Mrs. Carbuncle hardened her heart by remembering that her own married life had not been peculiarly happy. Exactly at eight on the following morning she knocked at her niece's door, and was at once bidden to enter. "Come in, Aunt Jane." The words cheered her wonderfully. At any rate, there had been no tragedy as yet, and as she turned the handle of the door, she felt that, as a matter of course, the marriage would go on just like any other marriage. She found Lucinda up and dressed,--but so dressed as certainly to show no preparation for a wedding-toilet. She had on an ordinary stuff morning frock, and her hair was close tucked up and pinned, as it might have been had she already prepared herself for a journey. But what astonished Mrs. Carbuncle more than the dress was the girl's manner. She was sitting at a table with a book before her, which was afterwards found to be the Bible, and she never turned her head as her aunt entered the room. "What, up already," said Mrs. Carbuncle,--"and dressed?" "Yes; I am up,--and dressed. I have been up ever so long. How was I to lie in bed on such a morning as this? Aunt Jane, I wish you to know as soon as possible that no earthly consideration will induce me to leave this room to-day." "What nonsense, Lucinda!" "Very well;--all the same you might as well believe me. I want you to send to Mr. Emilius, and to those girls,--and to the man. And you had better get Lord George to let the other people know. I'm quite in earnest." And she was in earnest,--quite in earnest, though there was a flightiness about her manner which induced Mrs. Carbuncle for awhile to think that she was less so than she had been on the previous evening. The unfortunate woman remained with her niece for an hour and a half, imploring, threatening, scolding, and weeping. When the maids came to the door, first one maid and then another, they were refused entrance. It might still be possible, Mrs. Carbuncle thought, that she would prevail. But nothing now could shake Lucinda or induce her even to discuss the subject. She sat there looking steadfastly at the book,--hardly answering, never defending herself, but protesting that nothing should induce her to leave the room on that day. "Do you want to destroy me?" Mrs. Carbuncle said at last. "You have destroyed me," said Lucinda. At half-past nine Lizzie Eustace came to the room, and Mrs. Carbuncle, in her trouble, thought it better to take other counsel. Lizzie, therefore, was admitted. "Is anything wrong?" asked Lizzie. "Everything is wrong," said the aunt. "She says that--she won't be married." "Oh, Lucinda!" "Pray speak to her, Lady Eustace. You see it is getting so late, and she ought to be nearly dressed now. Of course she must allow herself to be dressed." "I am dressed," said Lucinda. "But, dear Lucinda,--everybody will be waiting for you," said Lizzie. "Let them wait,--till they're tired. If Aunt Jane doesn't choose to send, it is not my fault. I sha'n't go out of this room to-day unless I am carried out. Do you want to hear that I have murdered the man?" They brought her tea, and endeavoured to induce her to eat and drink. She would take the tea, she said, if they would promise to send to put the people off. Mrs. Carbuncle so far gave way as to undertake to do so, if she would name the next day or the day following for the wedding. But on hearing this she arose almost in a majesty of wrath. Neither on this day, or on the next, or on any following day, would she yield herself to the wretch whom they had endeavoured to force upon her. "She must do it, you know," said Mrs. Carbuncle, turning to Lizzie. "You'll see if I must," said Lucinda, sitting square at the table, with her eyes firmly fixed upon the book. Then came up the servant to say that the four bridesmaids were all assembled in the drawing-room. When she heard this, even Mrs. Carbuncle gave way, and threw herself upon the bed and wept. "Oh, Lady Eustace, what are we to do? Lucinda, you have destroyed me. You have destroyed me altogether, after all that I have done for you." "And what has been done to me, do you think?" said Lucinda. Something must be settled. All the servants in the house by this time knew that there would be no wedding, and no doubt some tidings as to the misadventure of the day had already reached the four ladies in the drawing-room. "What am I to do?" said Mrs. Carbuncle, starting up from the bed. "I really think you had better send to Mr. Emilius," said Lizzie;--"and to Lord George." "What am I to say? Who is there to go? Oh,--I wish that somebody would kill me this minute! Lady Eustace, would you mind going down and telling those ladies to go away?" "And had I not better send Richard to the church?" "Oh yes;--send anybody everywhere. I don't know what to do. Oh, Lucinda, this is the unkindest and the wickedest, and the most horrible thing that anybody ever did! I shall never, never be able to hold up my head again." Mrs. Carbuncle was completely prostrate, but Lucinda sat square at the table, firm as a rock, saying nothing, making no excuse for herself, with her eyes fixed upon the Bible. Lady Eustace carried her message to the astonished and indignant bridesmaids, and succeeded in sending them back to their respective homes. Richard, glorious in new livery, forgetting that his flowers were still on his breast,--ready dressed to attend the bride's carriage,--went with his sad message, first to the church and then to the banqueting-hall in Albemarle Street. "Not any wedding?" said the head-waiter at the hotel. "I knew they was folks as would have a screw loose somewheres. There's lots to stand for the bill, anyways," he added, as he remembered all the tribute. CHAPTER LXX Alas! No attempt was made to send other messages from Hertford Street than those which were taken to the church and to the hotel. Sir Griffin and Lord George went together to the church in a brougham, and, on the way, the best man rather ridiculed the change in life which he supposed that his friend was about to make. "I don't in the least know how you mean to get along," said Lord George. "Much as other men do, I suppose." "But you're always sparring, already." "It's that old woman that you're so fond of," said Sir Griffin. "I don't mean to have any ill-humour from my wife, I can tell you. I know who will have the worst of it if there is." "Upon my word, I think you'll have your hands full," said Lord George. They got out at a sort of private door attached to the chapel, and were there received by the clerk, who wore a very long face. The news had already come, and had been communicated to Mr. Emilius, who was in the vestry. "Are the ladies here yet?" asked Lord George. The woebegone clerk told them that the ladies were not yet there, and suggested that they should see Mr. Emilius. Into the presence of Mr. Emilius they were led, and then they heard the truth. "Sir Griffin," said Mr. Emilius, holding the baronet by the hand, "I'm sorry to have to tell you that there's something wrong in Hertford Street." "What's wrong?" asked Sir Griffin. "You don't mean to say that Miss Roanoke is not to be here?" demanded Lord George. "By George, I thought as much. I did indeed." "I can only tell you what I know, Lord George. Mrs. Carbuncle's servant was here ten minutes since, Sir Griffin,--before I came down, and he told the clerk that--that--" "What the d---- did he tell him?" asked Sir Griffin. "He said that Miss Roanoke had changed her mind, and didn't mean to be married at all. That's all that I can learn from what he says. Perhaps you will think it best to go up to Hertford Street?" "I'll be ---- if I do," said Sir Griffin. "I am not in the least surprised," repeated Lord George. "Tewett, my boy, we might as well go home to lunch, and the sooner you're out of town the better." "I knew that I should be taken in at last by that accursed woman," said Sir Griffin. "It wasn't Mrs. Carbuncle, if you mean that. She'd have given her left hand to have had it completed. I rather think you've had an escape, Griff; and if I were you, I'd make the best of it." Sir Griffin spoke not another word, but left the church with his friend in the brougham that had brought them, and so he disappears from our story. Mr. Emilius looked after him with wistful eyes, regretful for his fee. Had the baronet been less coarse and violent in his language he would have asked for it; but he feared that he might be cursed in his own church, before his clerk, and abstained. Late in the afternoon Lord George, when he had administered comfort to the disappointed bridegroom in the shape of a hot lunch, Curaçoa, and cigars, walked up to Hertford Street, calling at the hotel in Albemarle Street on the way. The waiter told him all that he knew. Some thirty or forty guests had come to the wedding-banquet, and had all been sent away with tidings that the marriage had been--postponed. "You might have told 'em a trifle more than that," said Lord George. "Postponed was pleasantest, my lord," said the waiter. "Anyways, that was said, and we supposes, my lord, as the things ain't wanted now." Lord George replied that, as far as he knew, the things were not wanted, and then continued his way up to Hertford Street. At first he saw Lizzie Eustace, upon whom the misfortune of the day had had a most depressing effect. The wedding was to have been the one morsel of pleasing excitement which would come before she underwent the humble penance to which she was doomed. That was frustrated and abandoned, and now she could think only of Mr. Camperdown, her cousin Frank, and Lady Glencora Palliser. "What's up now?" said Lord George, with that disrespect which had always accompanied his treatment of her since she had told him her secret. "What's the meaning of all this?" "I daresay that you know as well as I do, my lord." "I must know a good deal if I do. It seems that among you there is nothing but one trick upon another." "I suppose you are speaking of your own friends, Lord George. You doubtless know much more than I do of Miss Roanoke's affairs." "Does she mean to say that she doesn't mean to marry the man at all?" "So I understand;--but really you had better send for Mrs. Carbuncle." He did send for Mrs. Carbuncle, and after some words with her, was taken up into Lucinda's room. There sat the unfortunate girl, in the chair from which she had not moved since the morning. There had come over her face a look of fixed but almost idiotic resolution; her mouth was compressed, and her eyes were glazed, and she sat twiddling her book before her with her fingers. She had eaten nothing since she had got up, and had long ceased to be violent when questioned by her aunt. But, nevertheless, she was firm enough when her aunt begged to be allowed to write a letter to Sir Griffin, explaining that all this had arisen from temporary indisposition. "No; it isn't temporary. It isn't temporary at all. You can write to him; but I'll never come out of this room if I am told that I am to see him." "What is all this about, Lucinda?" said Lord George, speaking in his kindest voice. "Is he there?" said she, turning round suddenly. "Sir Griffin?--no indeed. He has left town." "You're sure he's not there? It's no good his coming. If he comes for ever and ever he shall never touch me again;--not alive; he shall never touch me again alive." As she spoke she moved across the room to the fire-place and grasped the poker in her hand. "Has she been like that all the morning?" whispered Lord George. "No;--not like. She has been quite quiet. Lucinda!" "Don't let him come here, then; that's all. What's the use? They can't make me marry him. And I won't marry him. Everybody has known that I hated him,--detested him. Oh, Lord George, it has been very, very cruel." "Has it been my fault, Lucinda?" "She wouldn't have done it if you had told her not. But you won't bring him again;--will you?" "Certainly not. He means to go abroad." "Ah,--yes; that will be best. Let him go abroad. He knew it all the time,--that I hated him. Why did he want me to be his wife? If he has gone abroad, I will go down-stairs. But I won't go out of the house. Nothing shall make me go out of the house. Are the bridesmaids gone?" "Long ago," said Mrs. Carbuncle, piteously. "Then I will go down." And, between them, they led her into the drawing-room. "It is my belief," said Lord George to Mrs. Carbuncle, some minutes afterwards, "that you have driven her mad." "Are you going to turn against me?" "It is true. How you have had the heart to go on pressing it upon her, I could never understand. I am about as hard as a milestone, but I'll be shot if I could have done it. From day to day I thought that you would have given way." "That is so like a man,--when it is all over, to turn upon a woman and say that she did it." "Didn't you do it? I thought you did, and that you took a great deal of pride in the doing of it. When you made him offer to her down in Scotland, and made her accept him, you were so proud that you could hardly hold yourself. What will you do now? Go on just as though nothing had happened?" "I don't know what we shall do. There will be so many things to be paid." "I should think there would,--and you can hardly expect Sir Griffin to pay for them. You'll have to take her away somewhere. You'll find that she can't remain here. And that other woman will be in prison before the week's over, I should say,--unless she runs away." There was not much of comfort to be obtained by any of them from Lord George, who was quite as harsh to Mrs. Carbuncle as he had been to Lizzie Eustace. He remained in Hertford Street for an hour, and then took his leave, saying that he thought that he also should go abroad. "I didn't think," he said, "that anything could have hurt my character much; but, upon my word, between you and Lady Eustace, I begin to find that in every deep there may be a lower depth. All the town has given me credit for stealing her ladyship's necklace, and now I shall be mixed up in this mock marriage. I shouldn't wonder if Rooper were to send his bill in to me,"--Mr. Rooper was the keeper of the hotel in Albemarle Street,--"I think I shall follow Sir Griffin abroad. You have made England too hot to hold me." And so he left them. The evening of that day was a terrible time to the three ladies in Hertford Street,--and the following day was almost worse. Nobody came to see them, and not one of them dared to speak of the future. For the third day, the Wednesday, Lady Eustace had made her appointment with Mr. Camperdown, having written to the attorney, in compliance with the pressing advice of Major Mackintosh, to name an hour. Mr. Camperdown had written again, sending his compliments, and saying that he would receive Lady Eustace at the time fixed by her. The prospect of this interview was very bad, but even this was hardly so oppressive as the actual existing wretchedness of that house. Mrs. Carbuncle, whom Lizzie had always known as high-spirited, bold, and almost domineering, was altogether prostrated by her misfortunes. She was querulous, lachrymose, and utterly despondent. From what Lizzie now learned, her hostess was enveloped in a mass of debt which would have been hopeless, even had Lucinda gone off as a bride; but she had been willing to face all that with the object of establishing her niece. She could have expected nothing from the marriage for herself. She well knew that Sir Griffin would neither pay her debts nor give her a home nor lend her money. But to have married the girl who was in her charge would have been in itself a success, and would have in some sort repaid her for her trouble. There would have been something left to show for her expenditure of time and money. But now there was nothing around her but failure and dismay. The very servants in the house seemed to know that ordinary respect was hardly demanded from them. As to Lucinda, Lizzie felt, from the very hour in which she first saw her on the morning of the intended wedding, that her mind was astray. She insisted on passing the time up in her own room, and always sat with the Bible before her. At every knock at the door, or ring at the bell, she would look round suspiciously, and once she whispered into Lizzie's ear that if ever "he" should come there again she would "give him a kiss with a vengeance." On the Tuesday, Lizzie recommended Mrs. Carbuncle to get medical advice,--and at last they sent for Mr. Emilius that they might ask counsel of him. Mr. Emilius was full of smiles and consolation, and still allowed his golden hopes as to some Elysian future to crop out;--but he did acknowledge at last, in a whispered conference with Lady Eustace, that somebody ought to see Miss Roanoke. Somebody did see Miss Roanoke,--and the doctor who was thus appealed to shook his head. Perhaps Miss Roanoke had better be taken into the country for a little while. "Dear Lady Eustace," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "now you can be a friend indeed,"--meaning, of course, that an invitation to Portray Castle would do more than could anything else towards making straight the crooked things of the hour. Mrs. Carbuncle, when she made the request, of course knew of Lizzie's coming troubles;--but let them do what they could to Lizzie, they could not take away her house. But Lizzie felt at once that this would not suit. "Ah, Mrs. Carbuncle," she said. "You do not know the condition which I am in myself!" CHAPTER LXXI Lizzie Is Threatened with the Treadmill Early on the Wednesday morning, two or three hours before the time fixed for Lizzie's visit to Mr. Camperdown, her cousin Frank came to call upon her. She presumed him to be altogether ignorant of all that Major Mackintosh had known, and therefore endeavoured to receive him as though her heart were light. "Oh, Frank," she said, "you have heard of our terrible misfortune here?" "I have heard so much," said he gravely, "that I hardly know what to believe and what not to believe." "I mean about Miss Roanoke's marriage?" "Oh, yes;--I have been told that it is broken off." Then Lizzie, with affected eagerness, gave him a description of the whole affair, declaring how horrible, how tragic, the thing had been from its very commencement. "Don't you remember, Frank, down at Portray, they never really cared for each other? They became engaged the very time you were there." "I have not forgotten it." "The truth is, Lucinda Roanoke did not understand what real love means. She had never taught herself to comprehend what is the very essence of love;--and as for Sir Griffin Tewett, though he was anxious to marry her, he never had any idea of love at all. Did not you always feel that, Frank?" "I'm sorry you have had so much to do with them, Lizzie." "There's no help for spilt milk, Frank; and, as for that, I don't suppose that Mrs. Carbuncle can do me any harm. The man is a baronet, and the marriage would have been respectable. Miss Roanoke has been eccentric, and that has been the long and the short of it. What will be done, Frank, with all the presents that were bought?" "I haven't an idea. They'd better be sold to pay the bills. But I came to you, Lizzie, about another piece of business." "What piece of business?" she asked, looking him in the face for a moment, trying to be bold, but trembling as she did so. She had believed him to be ignorant of her story, but she had soon perceived, from his manner to her, that he knew it all,--or, at least, that he knew so much that she would have to tell him all the rest. There could be no longer any secret with him. Indeed there could be no longer any secret with anybody. She must be prepared to encounter a world accurately informed as to every detail of the business which, for the last three months, had been to her a burden so oppressive that, at some periods, she had sunk altogether under the weight. She had already endeavoured to realise her position, and to make clear to herself the condition of her future life. Lord George had talked to her of perjury and prison, and had tried to frighten her by making the very worst of her faults. According to him she would certainly be made to pay for the diamonds, and would be enabled to do so by saving her income during a long term of incarceration. This was a terrible prospect of things;--and she had almost believed in it. Then the major had come to her. The major, she thought, was the truest gentleman she had ever seen, and her best friend. Ah;--if it had not been for the wife and seven children, there might still have been comfort! That which had been perjury with Lord George, had by the major been so simply, and yet so correctly, called an incorrect version of facts! And so it was,--and no more than that. Lizzie, in defending herself to herself, felt that, though cruel magistrates and hard-hearted lawyers and pig-headed jurymen might call her little fault by the name of perjury, it could not be real, wicked perjury, because the diamonds had been her own. She had defrauded nobody,--had wished to defraud nobody,--if only the people would have left her alone. It had suited her to give--an incorrect version of facts, because people had troubled themselves about her affairs; and now all this had come upon her! The major had comforted her very greatly; but still,--what would the world say? Even he, kind and comfortable as he had been, had made her understand that she must go into court and confess the incorrectness of her own version. She believed every word the major said. Ah, there was a man worthy to be believed;--a man of men! They could not take away her income or her castle. They could not make her pay for the diamonds. But still,--what would the world say? And what would her lovers say? What one of her lovers thought proper to say, she had already heard. Lord George had spoken out, and had made himself very disagreeable. Lord Fawn, she knew, would withdraw the renewal of his offer, let her answer to him be what it might. But what would Frank say? And now Frank was with her, looking into her face with severe eyes. She was more than ever convinced that the life of a widow was not suited for her, and that, among her several lovers, she must settle her wealth and her heart upon some special lover. Neither her wealth nor her heart would be in any way injured by the confession which she was prepared to make. But then men are so timid, so false, and so blind! In regard to Frank, whom she now believed that she had loved with all the warmth of her young affections from the first moment in which she had seen him after Sir Florian's death,--she had been at great trouble to clear the way for him. She knew of his silly engagement to Lucy Morris, and was willing to forgive him that offence. She knew that he could not marry Lucy, because of her pennilessness and his indebtedness; and therefore she had taken the trouble to see Lucy with the view of making things straight on that side. Lucy had, of course, been rough with her, and ill-mannered, but Lizzie thought that, upon the whole, she had succeeded. Lucy was rough and ill-mannered, but was, at the same time, what the world calls good, and would hardly persevere after what had been said to her. Lizzie was sure that, a month since, her cousin would have yielded himself to her willingly, if he could only have freed himself from Lucy Morris. But now, just in this very nick of time, which was so momentous to her, the police had succeeded in unravelling her secret, and there sat Frank, looking at her with stern, ill-natured eyes, like an enemy rather than a lover. "What piece of business?" she asked, in answer to his question. She must be bold,--if she could. She must brazen it out with him, if only she could be strong enough to put on her brass in his presence. He had been so stupidly chivalrous in believing all her stories about the robbery when nobody else had quite believed them, that she felt that she had before her a task that was very disagreeable and very difficult. She looked up at him, struggling to be bold, and then her glance sank before his gaze and fell upon the floor. "I do not at all wish to pry into your secrets," he said. Secrets from him! Some such exclamation was on her lips, when she remembered that her special business, at the present moment, was to acknowledge a secret which had been kept from him. "It is unkind of you to speak to me in that way," she said. "I am quite in earnest. I do not wish to pry into your secrets. But I hear rumours which seem to be substantiated; and though, of course, I could stay away from you--" "Oh,--whatever happens, pray, pray do not stay away from me. Where am I to look for advice if you stay away from me?" "That is all very well, Lizzie." "Ah, Frank! if you desert me, I am undone." "It is, of course, true that some of the police have been with you lately?" "Major Mackintosh was here, about the end of last week,--a most kind man, altogether a gentleman, and I was so glad to see him." "What made him come?" "What made him come?" How should she tell her story? "Oh, he came, of course, about the robbery. They have found out everything. It was the jeweller, Benjamin, who concocted it all. That horrid sly girl I had, Patience Crabstick, put him up to it. And there were two regular housebreakers. They have found it all out at last." "So I hear." "And Major Mackintosh came to tell me about it." "But the diamonds are gone?" "Oh yes;--those weary, weary diamonds. Do you know, Frank, that, though they were my own, as much as the coat you wear is your own, I am glad they are gone. I am glad that the police have not found them. They tormented me so that I hated them. Don't you remember that I told you how I longed to throw them into the sea, and to be rid of them for ever?" "That, of course, was a joke." "It was no joke, Frank. It was solemn, serious truth." "What I want to know is,--where were they stolen?" That, of course, was the question which hitherto Lizzie Eustace had answered by an incorrect version of facts, and now she must give the true version. She tried to put a bold face upon it, but it was very difficult. A face bold with brass she could not assume. Perhaps a little bit of acting might serve her turn, and a face that should be tender rather than bold. "Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed, bursting out into tears. "I always supposed that they were taken at Carlisle," said Frank. Lizzie fell on her knees, at his feet, with her hands clasped together, and her one long lock of hair hanging down so as to touch his arm. Her eyes were bright with tears, but were not, as yet, wet and red with weeping. Was not this confession enough? Was he so hard-hearted as to make her tell her own disgrace in spoken words? Of course he knew, well enough, now, when the diamonds had been stolen. If he were possessed of any tenderness, any tact, any manliness, he would go on, presuming that question to have been answered. "I don't quite understand it all," he said, laying his hand softly upon her shoulder. "I have been led to make so many statements to other people, which now seem to have been--incorrect! It was only the box that was taken at Carlisle?" "Only the box." She could answer that question. "But the thieves thought that the diamonds were in the box?" "I suppose so. But, oh, Frank! don't cross-question me about it. If you could know what I have suffered, you would not punish me any more. I have got to go to Mr. Camperdown's this very day. I offered to do that at once, and I sha'n't have strength to go through it if you are not kind to me now. Dear, dear Frank,--do be kind to me." And he was kind to her. He lifted her up to the sofa and did not ask her another question about the necklace. Of course she had lied to him and to all the world. From the very commencement of his intimacy with her, he had known that she was a liar, and what else could he have expected but lies? As it happened, this particular lie had been very big, very efficacious, and the cause of boundless troubles. It had been wholly unnecessary, and, from the first, though injurious to many, more injurious to her than to any other. He himself had been injured, but it seemed to him now that she had absolutely ruined herself. And all this had been done for nothing,--had been done, as he thought, that Mr. Camperdown might be kept in the dark, whereas all the light in the world would have assisted Mr. Camperdown nothing. He brought to mind, as he stood over her, all those scenes which she had so successfully performed in his presence since she had come to London,--scenes in which the robbery in Carlisle had been discussed between them. She had on these occasions freely expressed her opinion about the necklace, saying, in a low whisper, with a pretty little shrug of her shoulders, that she presumed it to be impossible that Lord George should have been concerned in the robbery. Frank had felt, as she said so, that some suspicion was intended by her to be attached to Lord George. She had wondered whether Mr. Camperdown had known anything about it. She had hoped that Lord Fawn would now be satisfied. She had been quite convinced that Mr. Benjamin had the diamonds. She had been indignant that the police had not traced the property. She had asked in another whisper,--a very low whisper indeed,--whether it was possible that Mrs. Carbuncle should know more about it than she was pleased to tell? And all the while the necklace had been lying in her own desk, and she had put it there with her own hands! It was marvellous to him that the woman could have been so false and have sustained her falsehood so well. And this was his cousin, his well-beloved,--as a cousin, certainly well-beloved; and there had, doubtless, been times in which he had thought that he would make her his wife! He could not but smile as he stood looking at her, contemplating all the confusion which she had caused, and thinking how very little the disclosure of her iniquity seemed to confound herself. "Oh, Frank, do not laugh at me," she said. "I am not laughing, Lizzie; I am only wondering." "And now, Frank, what had I better do?" "Ah;--that is difficult; is it not? You see I hardly know all the truth yet. I do not want to know more,--but how can I advise you?" "I thought you knew everything." "I don't suppose anybody can do anything to you." "Major Mackintosh says that nobody can. He quite understands that they were my own property, and that I had a right to keep them in my desk if I pleased. Why was I to tell everybody where they were? Of course I was foolish, and now they are lost. It is I that have suffered. Major Mackintosh quite understands that, and says that nobody can do anything to me;--only I must go to Mr. Camperdown." "You will have to be examined again before a magistrate." "Yes;--I suppose I must be examined. You will go with me, Frank,--won't you?" He winced, and made no immediate reply. "I don't mean to Mr. Camperdown, but before the magistrate. Will it be in a court?" "I suppose so." "The gentleman came here before. Couldn't he come here again?" Then he explained to her the difference of her present position, and in doing so he did say something of her iniquity. He made her understand that the magistrate had gone out of his way at the last inquiry, believing her to be a lady who had been grievously wronged, and one, therefore, to whom much consideration was due. "And I have been grievously wronged," said Lizzie. But now she would be required to tell the truth in opposition to the false evidence which she had formerly given; and she would herself be exempted from prosecution for perjury only on the ground that she would be called on to criminate herself in giving evidence against criminals whose crimes had been deeper than her own. "I suppose they can't quite eat me," she said, smiling through her tears. "No;--they won't eat you," he replied gravely. "And you will go with me?" "Yes;--I suppose I had better do so." "Ah;--that will be so nice." The idea of the scene at the police-court was not at all "nice" to Frank Greystock. "I shall not mind what they say to me as long as you are by my side. Everybody will know that they were my own,--won't they?" "And there will be the trial afterwards." "Another trial?" Then he explained to her the course of affairs,--that the men might not improbably be tried at Carlisle for stealing the box, and again in London for stealing the diamonds,--that two distinct acts of burglary had been committed, and that her evidence would be required on both occasions. He told her also that her attendance before the magistrate on Friday would only be a preliminary ceremony, and that, before the thing was over she would, doubtless, be doomed to bear a great deal of annoyance, and to answer very many disagreeable questions. "I shall care for nothing if you will only be at my side," she exclaimed. He was very urgent with her to go to Scotland as soon as her examination before the magistrates should be over, and was much astonished at the excuse she made for not doing so. Mrs. Carbuncle had borrowed all her ready money; but as she was now in Mrs. Carbuncle's house, she could repay herself a portion of the loan by remaining there and eating it out. She did not exactly say how much Mrs. Carbuncle had borrowed, but she left an impression on Frank's mind that it was about ten times the actual sum. With this excuse he was not satisfied, and told her that she must go to Scotland, if only for the sake of escaping from the Carbuncle connexion. She promised to obey him if he would be her convoy. The Easter holidays were just now at hand, and he could not refuse on the plea of time. "Oh, Frank, do not refuse me this;--only think how terribly forlorn is my position!" He did not refuse, but he did not quite promise. He was still tender-hearted towards her in spite of her enormities. One iniquity,--perhaps her worst iniquity, he did not yet know. He had not as yet heard of her disinterested appeal to Lucy Morris. When he left her she was almost joyous for a few minutes;--till the thought of her coming interview with Mr. Camperdown again overshadowed her. She had dreaded two things chiefly,--her first interview with her cousin Frank after he should have learned the truth, and those perils in regard to perjury with which Lord George had threatened her. Both these bugbears had now vanished. That dear man, the major, had told her that there would be no such perils, and her cousin Frank had not seemed to think so very much of her lies and treachery! He had still been affectionate with her; he would support her before the magistrate, and would travel with her to Scotland. And after that who could tell what might come next? How foolish she had been to trouble herself as she had done,--almost to choke herself with an agony of fear, because she had feared detection. Now she was detected;--and what had come of it? That great officer of justice, Major Mackintosh, had been almost more than civil to her; and her dear cousin Frank was still a cousin,--dear as ever. People, after all, did not think so very much of perjury,--of perjury such as hers, committed in regard to one's own property. It was that odious Lord George who had frightened her, instead of comforting, as he would have done had there been a spark of the true Corsair poetry about him. She did not feel comfortably confident as to what might be said of her by Lady Glencora and the Duke of Omnium, but she was almost inclined to think that Lady Glencora would support her. Lady Glencora was no poor, mealy-mouthed thing, but a woman of the world who understood what was what. Lizzie no doubt wished that the trials and examinations were over;--but her money was safe. They could not take away Portray, nor could they rob her of four thousand a year. As for the rest, she could live it down. She had ordered the carriage to take her to Mr. Camperdown's chambers, and now she dressed herself for the occasion. He should not be made to think, at any rate by her outside appearance, that she was ashamed of herself. But before she started she had just a word with Mrs. Carbuncle. "I think I shall go down to Scotland on Saturday," she said, proclaiming her news not in the most gracious manner. "That is if they let you go," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "What do you mean? Who is to prevent me?" "The police. I know all about it, Lady Eustace, and you need not look like that. Lord George informs me that you will probably--be locked up to-day or to-morrow." "Lord George is a story-teller. I don't believe he ever said so. And if he did, he knows nothing about it." "He ought to know, considering all that you have made him suffer. That you should have gone on, with the necklace in your own box all the time, letting people think that he had taken it, and accepting his attentions all the while, is what I cannot understand! And however you were able to look those people at Carlisle in the face, passes me! Of course, Lady Eustace, you can't stay here after what has occurred." "I shall stay just as long as I like, Mrs. Carbuncle." "Poor dear Lucinda! I do not wonder that she should be driven beyond herself by so horrible a story. The feeling that she has been living all this time in the same house with a woman who had deceived all the police,--all the police,--has been too much for her. I know it has been almost too much for me." And yet, as Lizzie at once understood, Mrs. Carbuncle knew nothing now which she had not known when she made her petition to be taken to Portray. And this was the woman, too, who had borrowed her money last week, whom she had entertained for months at Portray, and who had pretended to be her bosom-friend. "You are quite right in getting off to Scotland as soon as possible,--if they will let you go," continued Mrs. Carbuncle. "Of course you could not stay here. Up to Friday night it can be permitted; but the servants had better wait upon you in your own rooms." "How dare you talk to me in that way?" screamed Lizzie. "When a woman has committed perjury," said Mrs. Carbuncle, holding up both her hands in awe and grief, "nothing too bad can possibly be said to her. You are amenable to the outraged laws of the country, and it is my belief that they can keep you upon the treadmill and bread and water for months and months,--if not for years." Having pronounced this terrible sentence, Mrs. Carbuncle stalked out of the room. "That they can sequester your property for your creditors, I know," she said, returning for a moment and putting her head within the door. The carriage was ready, and it was time for Lizzie to start if she intended to keep her appointment with Mr. Camperdown. She was much flustered and weakened by Mrs. Carbuncle's ill-usage, and had difficulty in restraining herself from tears. And yet what the woman had said was false from beginning to end. The maid, who was the successor of Patience Crabstick, was to accompany her; and, as she passed through the hall, she so far recovered herself as to be able to conceal her dismay from the servants. CHAPTER LXXII Lizzie Triumphs Reports had, of course, reached Mr. Camperdown of the true story of the Eustace diamonds. He had learned that the Jew jeweller had made a determined set at them, having in the first place hired housebreakers to steal them at Carlisle, and having again hired the same housebreakers to steal them from the house in Hertford Street, as soon as he knew that Lady Eustace had herself secreted them. By degrees this information had reached him,--but not in a manner to induce him to declare himself satisfied with the truth. But now Lady Eustace was coming to him,--as he presumed, to confess everything. When he first heard that the diamonds had been stolen at Carlisle, he was eager with Mr. Eustace in contending that the widow's liability in regard to the property was not at all the less because she had managed to lose it through her own pig-headed obstinacy. He consulted his trusted friend, Mr. Dove, on the occasion, making out another case for the barrister, and Mr. Dove had opined that, if it could be first proved that the diamonds were the property of the estate and not of Lady Eustace, and afterwards proved that they had been stolen through her laches,--then could the Eustace estate recover the value from her estate. As she had carried the diamonds about with her in an absurd manner, her responsibility might probably be established;--but the non-existence of ownership by her must be first declared by a Vice-Chancellor,--with probability of appeal to the Lords Justices and to the House of Lords. A bill in Chancery must be filed, in the first place, to have the question of ownership settled; and then, should the estate be at length declared the owner, restitution of the property which had been lost through the lady's fault must be sought at Common Law. That had been the opinion of the Turtle Dove, and Mr. Camperdown had at once submitted to the law of his great legal mentor. But John Eustace had positively declared when he heard it that no more money should be thrown away in looking after property which would require two lawsuits to establish, and which, when established, might not be recovered. "How can we make her pay ten thousand pounds? She might die first," said John Eustace;--and Mr. Camperdown had been forced to yield. Then came the second robbery, and gradually there was spread about a report that the diamonds had been in Hertford Street all the time;--that they had not been taken at Carlisle, but certainly had been stolen at last. Mr. Camperdown was again in a fever, and again had recourse to Mr. Dove and to John Eustace. He learned from the police all that they would tell him, and now the whole truth was to be divulged to him by the chief culprit herself. For, to the mind of Mr. Camperdown the two housebreakers, and Patience Crabstick,--and even Mr. Benjamin himself, were white as snow compared with the blackness of Lady Eustace. In his estimation no punishment could be too great for her,--and yet he began to understand that she would escape scot-free! Her evidence would be needed to convict the thieves, and she could not be prosecuted for perjury when once she had been asked for her evidence. "After all, she has only told a fib about her own property," said the Turtle Dove. "About property not her own," replied Mr. Camperdown stoutly. "Her own,--till the contrary shall have been proved; her own, for all purposes of defence before a jury, if she were prosecuted now. Were she tried for the perjury, your attempt to obtain possession of the diamonds would be all so much in her favour." With infinite regrets, Mr. Camperdown began to perceive that nothing could be done to her. But she was to come to him and let him know, from her own lips, facts of which nothing more than rumour had yet reached him. He had commenced his bill in Chancery, and had hitherto stayed proceedings simply because it had been reported,--falsely, as it now appeared,--that the diamonds had been stolen at Carlisle. Major Mackintosh, in his desire to use Lizzie's evidence against the thieves, had recommended her to tell the whole truth openly to those who claimed the property on behalf of her husband's estate; and now, for the first time in her life, this odious woman was to visit him in his own chambers. He did not think it expedient to receive her alone. He consulted his mentor, Mr. Dove, and his client, John Eustace, and the latter consented to be present. It was suggested to Mr. Dove that he might, on so peculiar an occasion as this, venture to depart from the established rule, and visit the attorney on his own quarter-deck; but he smiled, and explained that, though he was altogether superior to any such prejudice as that, and would not object at all to call on his friend, Mr. Camperdown, could any good effect arise from his doing so, he considered that, were he to be present on this occasion, he would simply assist in embarrassing the poor lady. On this very morning, while Mrs. Carbuncle was abusing Lizzie in Hertford Street, John Eustace and Mr. Camperdown were in Mr. Dove's chambers, whither they had gone to tell him of the coming interview. The Turtle Dove was sitting back in his chair, with his head leaning forward as though it were going to drop from his neck, and the two visitors were listening to his words. "Be merciful, I should say," suggested the barrister. John Eustace was clearly of opinion that they ought to be merciful. Mr. Camperdown did not look merciful. "What can you get by harassing the poor, weak, ignorant creature?" continued Mr. Dove. "She has hankered after her bauble, and has told falsehoods in her efforts to keep it. Have you never heard of older persons, and more learned persons, and persons nearer to ourselves, who have done the same?" At that moment there was presumed to be great rivalry, not unaccompanied by intrigue, among certain leaders of the learned profession with reference to various positions of high honour and emolument, vacant or expected to be vacant. A Lord Chancellor was about to resign, and a Lord Justice had died. Whether a somewhat unpopular Attorney-General should be forced to satisfy himself with the one place, or allowed to wait for the other, had been debated in all the newspapers. It was agreed that there was a middle course in reference to a certain second-class Chief-Justiceship,--only that the present second-class Chief-Justice objected to shelving himself. There existed considerable jealousy, and some statements had been made which were not, perhaps, strictly founded on fact. It was understood, both by the attorney and by the Member of Parliament, that the Turtle Dove was referring to these circumstances when he spoke of baubles and falsehoods, and of learned persons near to themselves. He himself had hankered after no bauble,--but, as is the case with many men and women who are free from such hankerings, he was hardly free from that dash of malice which the possession of such things in the hands of others is so prone to excite. "Spare her," said Mr. Dove. "There is no longer any material question as to the property, which seems to be gone irrecoverably. It is, upon the whole, well for the world, that property so fictitious as diamonds should be subject to the risk of such annihilation. As far as we are concerned, the property is annihilated, and I would not harass the poor, ignorant young creature." As Eustace and the attorney walked across from the Old to the New Square, the former declared that he quite agreed with Mr. Dove. "In the first place, Mr. Camperdown, she is my brother's widow." Mr. Camperdown with sorrow admitted the fact. "And she is the mother of the head of our family. It should not be for us to degrade her;--but rather to protect her from degradation, if that be possible." "I heartily wish she had got her merits before your poor brother ever saw her," said Mr. Camperdown. Lizzie, in her fears, had been very punctual; and when the two gentlemen reached the door leading up to Mr. Camperdown's chambers, the carriage was already standing there. Lizzie had come up the stairs, and had been delighted at hearing that Mr. Camperdown was out, and would be back in a moment. She instantly resolved that it did not become her to wait. She had kept her appointment, had not found Mr. Camperdown at home, and would be off as fast as her carriage-wheels could take her. But, unfortunately, while with a gentle murmur she was explaining to the clerk how impossible it was that she should wait for a lawyer who did not keep his own appointment, John Eustace and Mr. Camperdown appeared upon the landing, and she was at once convoyed into the attorney's particular room. Lizzie, who always dressed well, was now attired as became a lady of rank, who had four thousand a year, and was the intimate friend of Lady Glencora Palliser. When last she saw Mr. Camperdown she had been arrayed for a long, dusty summer journey down to Scotland, and neither by her outside garniture nor by her manner had she then been able to exact much admiration. She had been taken by surprise in the street, and was frightened. Now, in difficulty though she was, she resolved that she would hold up her head and be very brave. She was a little taken aback when she saw her brother-in-law, but she strove hard to carry herself with confidence. "Ah, John," she said, "I did not expect to find you with Mr. Camperdown." "I thought it best that I should be here,--as a friend," he said. "It makes it much pleasanter for me, of course," said Lizzie. "I am not quite sure that Mr. Camperdown will allow me to regard him as a friend." "You have never had any reason to regard me as your enemy, Lady Eustace," said Mr. Camperdown. "Will you take a seat? I understand that you wish to state the circumstances under which the Eustace family diamonds were stolen while they were in your hands." "My own diamonds, Mr. Camperdown." "I cannot admit that for a moment, my lady." "What does it signify?" said Eustace. "The wretched stones are gone for ever; and whether they were of right the property of my sister-in-law, or of her son, cannot matter now." Mr. Camperdown was irritated, and shook his head. It cut him to the heart that everybody should take the part of the wicked, fraudulent woman who had caused him such infinite trouble. Lizzie saw her opportunity and was bolder than ever. "You will never get me to acknowledge that they were not my own," she said. "My husband gave them to me, and I know that they were my own." "They have been stolen, at any rate," said the lawyer. "Yes;--they have been stolen." "And now will you tell us how?" Lizzie looked round upon her brother-in-law and sighed. She had never yet told the story in all its nakedness, although it had been three or four times extracted from her by admission. She paused, hoping that questions might be asked her which she could answer by easy monosyllables, but not a word was uttered to help her. "I suppose you know all about it," she said at last. "I know nothing about it," said Mr. Camperdown. "We heard that your jewel-case was taken out of your room at Carlisle and broken open," said Eustace. "So it was. They broke into my room in the dead of night, when I was in bed, fast asleep, and took the case away. When the morning came, everybody rushed into my room, and I was so frightened that I did not know what I was doing. How would your daughter bear it, if two men cut away the locks and got into her bedroom when she was asleep? You don't think about that at all." "And where was the necklace?" asked Eustace. Lizzie remembered that her friend the major had specially advised her to tell the whole truth to Mr. Camperdown,--suggesting that by doing so she would go far towards saving herself from any prosecution. "It was under my pillow," she whispered. "And why did you not tell the magistrate that it had been under your pillow?" Mr. Camperdown's voice, as he put to her this vital question, was severe, and almost justified the little burst of sobs which came forth as a prelude to Lizzie's answer. "I did not know what I was doing. I don't know what you expect from me. You had been persecuting me ever since Sir Florian's death about the diamonds, and I didn't know what I was to do. They were my own, and I thought I was not obliged to tell everybody where I kept them. There are things which nobody tells. If I were to ask you all your secrets, would you tell them? When Sir Walter Scott was asked whether he wrote the novels, he didn't tell." "He was not upon his oath, Lady Eustace." "He did take his oath,--ever so many times. I don't know what difference an oath makes. People ain't obliged to tell their secrets, and I wouldn't tell mine." "The difference is this, Lady Eustace;--that if you give false evidence upon oath, you commit perjury." "How was I to think of that, when I was so frightened and confused that I didn't know where I was or what I was doing? There;--now I have told you everything." "Not quite everything. The diamonds were not stolen at Carlisle, but they were stolen afterwards. Did you tell the police what you had lost,--or the magistrate,--after the robbery in Hertford Street?" "Yes; I did. There was some money taken, and rings, and other jewellery." "Did you tell them that the diamonds had been really stolen on that occasion?" "They never asked me, Mr. Camperdown." "It is all as clear as a pike-staff, John," said the lawyer. "Quite clear, I should say," replied Mr. Eustace. "And I suppose I may go," said Lizzie, rising from her chair. There was no reason why she should not go; and, indeed, now that the interview was over, there did not seem to be any reason why she should have come. Though they had heard so much from her own mouth, they knew no more than they had known before. The great mystery had been elucidated, and Lizzie Eustace had been found to be the intriguing villain; but it was quite clear, even to Mr. Camperdown, that nothing could be done to her. He had never really thought that it would be expedient that she should be prosecuted for perjury, and he now found that she must go utterly scatheless, although, by her obstinacy and dishonesty, she had inflicted so great a loss on the distinguished family which had taken her to its bosom. "I have no reason for wishing to detain you, Lady Eustace," he said. "If I were to talk for ever, I should not, probably, make you understand the extent of the injury you have done, or teach you to look in a proper light at the position in which you have placed yourself and all those who belong to you. When your husband died, good advice was given you, and given, I think, in a very kind way. You would not listen to it, and you see the result." "I ain't a bit ashamed of anything," said Lizzie. "I suppose not," rejoined Mr. Camperdown. "Good-bye, John." And Lizzie put out her hand to her brother-in-law. "Good-bye, Lizzie." "Mr. Camperdown, I have the honour to wish you good morning." And Lizzie made a low curtsey to the lawyer, and was then attended to her carriage by the lawyer's clerk. She had certainly come forth from the interview without fresh wounds. "The barrister who will have the cross-examining of her at the Central Criminal Court," said Mr. Camperdown, as soon as the door was closed behind her, "will have a job of work on his hands. There's nothing a pretty woman can't do when she has got rid of all sense of shame." "She is a very great woman," said John Eustace,--"a very great woman; and, if the sex could have its rights, would make an excellent lawyer." In the meantime Lizzie Eustace returned home to Hertford Street in triumph. CHAPTER LXXIII Lizzie's Last Lover Lizzie's interview with the lawyer took place on the Wednesday afternoon, and, on her return to Hertford Street she found a note from Mrs. Carbuncle. "I have made arrangements for dining out to-day, and shall not return till after ten. I will do the same to-morrow, and on every day till you leave town, and you can breakfast in your own room. Of course you will carry out your plan for leaving this house on Monday. After what has passed, I shall prefer not to meet you again.--J.C." And this was written by a woman who, but a few days since, had borrowed £150 from her, and who at this moment had in her hands fifty pounds' worth of silver-plate, supposed to have been given to Lucinda, and which clearly ought to have been returned to the donor when Lucinda's marriage was--postponed, as the newspapers had said! Lucinda at this time had left the house in Hertford Street, but Lizzie had not been informed whither she had been taken. She could not apply to Lucinda for restitution of the silver,--which was, in fact, held at the moment by the Albemarle Street hotel-keeper as part security for his debt,--and she was quite sure that any application to Mrs. Carbuncle for either the silver or the debt would be unavailing. But she might, perhaps, cause annoyance by a letter, and could, at any rate, return insult for insult. She therefore wrote to her late friend. MADAM, I certainly am not desirous of continuing an acquaintance into which I was led by false representations, and in the course of which I have been almost absurdly hospitable to persons altogether unworthy of my kindness. You, and your niece, and your especial friend Lord George Carruthers, and that unfortunate young man your niece's lover, were entertained at my country-house as my guests for some months. I am here, in my own right, by arrangement; and as I pay more than a proper share of the expense of the establishment, I shall stay as long as I please, and go when I please. In the meantime, as we are about to part, certainly for ever, I must beg you at once to repay me the sum of £150,--which you have borrowed from me; and I must also insist on your letting me have back the present of silver which was prepared for your niece's marriage. That you should retain it as a perquisite for yourself cannot for a moment be thought of, however convenient it might be to yourself. Yours, &c., E. EUSTACE. As far as the application for restitution went, or indeed in regard to the insult, she might as well have written to a milestone. Mrs. Carbuncle was much too strong, and had fought her battle with the world much too long, to regard such word-pelting as that. She paid no attention to the note, and as she had come to terms with the agent of the house by which she was to evacuate it on the following Monday,--a fact which was communicated to Lizzie by the servant,--she did not much regard Lizzie's threat to remain there. She knew, moreover, that arrangements were already being made for the journey to Scotland. Lizzie had come back from the attorney's chambers in triumph, and had been triumphant when she wrote her note to Mrs. Carbuncle; but her elation was considerably repressed by a short notice which she read in the fashionable evening paper of the day. She always took the fashionable evening paper, and had taught herself to think that life without it was impossible. But on this afternoon she quarrelled with that fashionable evening paper for ever. The popular and well-informed organ of intelligence in question informed its readers, that the Eustace diamonds--&c., &c. In fact, it told the whole story; and then expressed a hope that, as the matter had from the commencement been one of great interest to the public, who had sympathised with Lady Eustace deeply as to the loss of her diamonds, Lady Eustace would be able to explain that part of her conduct which certainly, at present, was quite unintelligible. Lizzie threw the paper from her with indignation, asking what right newspaper scribblers could have to interfere with the private affairs of such persons as herself! But on this evening the question of her answer to Lord Fawn was the one which most interested her. Lord Fawn had taken long in the writing of his letter, and she was justified in taking what time she pleased in answering it;--but, for her own sake, it had better be answered quickly. She had tried her hand at two different replies, and did not at all doubt but what she would send the affirmative answer, if she were sure that these latter discoveries would not alter Lord Fawn's decision. Lord Fawn had distinctly told her that, if she pleased, he would marry her. She would please;--having been much troubled by the circumstances of the past six months. But then, was it not almost a certainty that Lord Fawn would retreat from his offer on learning the facts which were now so well known as to have been related in the public papers? She thought that she would take one more night to think of it. Alas! she took one night too many. On the next morning, while she was still in bed, a letter was brought to her from Lord Fawn, dated from his club the preceding evening. "Lord Fawn presents his compliments to Lady Eustace. Lady Eustace will be kind enough to understand that Lord Fawn recedes altogether from the proposition made by him in his letter to Lady Eustace dated March 28th last. Should Lady Eustace think proper to call in question the propriety of this decision on the part of Lord Fawn, she had better refer the question to some friend, and Lord Fawn will do the same. Lord Fawn thinks it best to express his determination, under no circumstances, to communicate again personally with Lady Eustace on this subject,--or, as far as he can see at present, on any other." The letter was a blow to her, although she had felt quite certain that Lord Fawn would have no difficulty in escaping from her hands as soon as the story of the diamonds should be made public. It was a blow to her, although she had assured herself a dozen times that a marriage with such a one as Lord Fawn, a man who had not a grain of poetry in his composition, would make her unutterably wretched. What escape would her heart have had from itself in such a union? This question she had asked herself over and over again, and there had been no answer to it. But then why had she not been beforehand with Lord Fawn? Why had she not rejected his second offer with the scorn which such an offer had deserved? Ah,--there was her misfortune; there was her fault! But, with Lizzie Eustace, when she could not do a thing which it was desirable that she should be known to have done, the next consideration was whether she could not so arrange as to seem to have done it. The arrival of Lord Fawn's note just as she was about to write to him, was unfortunate. But she would still write to him, and date her letter before the time that his was dated. He probably would not believe her date. She hardly ever expected to be really believed by anybody. But he would have to read what she wrote; and writing on this pretence, she would avoid the necessity of alluding to his last letter. Neither of the notes which she had by her quite suited the occasion,--so she wrote a third. The former letter in which she declined his offer was, she thought, very charmingly insolent, and the allusion to his lordship's scullion would have been successful, had it been sent on the moment, but now a graver letter was required,--and the graver letter was as follows:-- Hertford Street, Wednesday, April 3. --The date, it will be observed, was the day previous to the morning on which she had received Lord Fawn's last very conclusive note.-- MY LORD, I have taken a week to answer the letter which your lordship has done me the honour of writing to me, because I have thought it best to have time for consideration in a matter of such importance. In this I have copied your lordship's official caution. I think I never read a letter so false, so unmanly, and so cowardly, as that which you have found yourself capable of sending to me. You became engaged to me when, as I admit with shame, I did not know your character. You have since repudiated me and vilified my name, simply because, having found that I had enemies, and being afraid to face them, you wished to escape from your engagement. It has been cowardice from the beginning to the end. Your whole conduct to me has been one long, unprovoked insult, studiously concocted, because you have feared that there might possibly be some trouble for you to encounter. Nobody ever heard of anything so mean, either in novels or in real life. And now you again offer to marry me,--because you are again afraid. You think you will be thrashed, I suppose, if you decline to keep your engagement; and feel that if you offer to go on with it, my friends cannot beat you. You need not be afraid. No earthly consideration would induce me to be your wife. And if any friend of mine should look at you as though he meant to punish you, you can show him this letter and make him understand that it is I who have refused to be your wife, and not you who have refused to be my husband. E. EUSTACE. This epistle Lizzie did send, believing that she could add nothing to its insolence, let her study it as she might. And, she thought, as she read it for the fifth time, that it sounded as though it had been written before her receipt of the final note from himself, and that it would, therefore, irritate him the more. This was to be the last week of her sojourn in town, and then she was to go down and bury herself at Portray, with no other companionship than that of the faithful Macnulty, who had been left in Scotland for the last three months as nurse-in-chief to the little heir. She must go and give her evidence before the magistrate on Friday, as to which she had already received an odious slip of paper;--but Frank would accompany her. Other misfortunes had passed off so lightly that she hardly dreaded this. She did not quite understand why she was to be so banished, and thought much on the subject. She had submitted herself to Frank's advice when first she had begun to fear that her troubles would be insuperable. Her troubles were now disappearing; and, as for Frank,--what was Frank to her, that she should obey him? Nevertheless, her trunks were being already packed, and she knew that she must go. He was to accompany her on her journey, and she would still have one more chance with him. As she was thinking of all this, Mr. Emilius, the clergyman, was announced. In her loneliness she was delighted to receive any visitor, and she knew that Mr. Emilius would be at least courteous to her. When he had seated himself, he at once began to talk about the misfortune of the unaccomplished marriage, and in a very low voice hinted that from the beginning to end there had been something wrong. He had always feared that an alliance based on a footing that was so openly "pecuniary,"--he declared that the word pecuniary expressed his meaning better than any other epithet,--could not lead to matrimonial happiness. "We all know," said he, "that our dear friend, Mrs. Carbuncle, had views of her own quite distinct from her niece's happiness. I have the greatest possible respect for Mrs. Carbuncle,--and I may say esteem; but it is impossible to live long in any degree of intimacy with Mrs. Carbuncle without seeing that she is--mercenary." "Mercenary;--indeed she is," said Lizzie. "You have observed it? Oh, yes; it is so, and it casts a shadow over a character which otherwise has so much to charm." "She is the most insolent and the most ungrateful woman that I ever heard of!" exclaimed Lizzie, with energy. Mr. Emilius opened his eyes, but did not contradict her assertion. "As you have mentioned her name, Mr. Emilius, I must tell you. I have done everything for that woman. You know how I treated her down in Scotland." "With a splendid hospitality," said Mr. Emilius. "Of course she did not pay for anything there." "Oh, no." The idea of any one being called upon to pay for what one ate and drank at a friend's house, was peculiarly painful to Mr. Emilius. "And I have paid for everything here. That is to say, we have made an arrangement, very much in her favour. And she has borrowed large sums of money from me." "I am not at all surprised at that," said Mr. Emilius. "And when that unfortunate girl, her niece, was to be married to poor Sir Griffin Tewett, I gave her a whole service of plate." "What unparalleled generosity!" "Would you believe she has taken the whole for her own base purposes? And then what do you think she has done?" "My dear Lady Eustace, hardly anything would astonish me." Lizzie suddenly found a difficulty in describing to her friend the fact that Mrs. Carbuncle was endeavouring to turn her out of the house, without also alluding to her own troubles about the robbery. "She has actually told me," she continued, "that I must leave the house without a day's warning. But I believe the truth is, that she has run so much into debt that she cannot remain." "I know that she is very much in debt, Lady Eustace." "But she owed me some civility. Instead of that, she has treated me with nothing but insolence. And why, do you think? It is all because I would not allow her to take that poor, insane young woman to Portray Castle." "You don't mean that she asked to go there?" "She did, though." "I never heard such impertinence in my life,--never," said Mr. Emilius, again opening his eyes and shaking his head. "She proposed that I should ask them both down to Portray, for--for--of course it would have been almost for ever. I don't know how I should have got rid of them. And that poor young woman is mad, you know;--quite mad. She never recovered herself after that morning. Oh,--what I have suffered about that unhappy marriage, and the cruel, cruel way in which Mrs. Carbuncle urged it on. Mr. Emilius, you can't conceive the scenes which have been acted in this house during the last month. It has been dreadful. I wouldn't go through such a time again for anything that could be offered to me. It has made me so ill that I am obliged to go down to Scotland to recruit my health." "I heard that you were going to Scotland, and I wished to have an opportunity of saying--just a word to you, in private, before you go." Mr. Emilius had thought a good deal about this interview, and had prepared himself for it with considerable care. He knew, with tolerable accuracy, the whole story of the necklace, having discussed it with Mrs. Carbuncle, who, as the reader will remember, had been told the tale by Lord George. He was aware of the engagement with Lord Fawn, and of the growing intimacy which had existed between Lord George and Lizzie. He had been watchful, diligent, patient, and had at last become hopeful. When he learned that his beloved was about to start for Scotland, he felt that it would be well that he should strike a blow before she went. As to a journey down to Ayrshire, that would be nothing to one so enamoured as was Mr. Emilius; and he would not scruple to show himself at the castle-door without invitation. Whatever may have been his deficiencies, Mr. Emilius did not lack the courage needed to carry such an enterprise as this to a happy conclusion. As far as pluck and courage might serve a man, he was well served by his own gifts. He could, without a blush, or a quiver in his voice, have asked a duchess to marry him, with ten times Lizzie's income. He had now considered deeply whether, with the view of prevailing, it would be better that he should allude to the lady's trespasses in regard to the diamonds, or that he should pretend to be in ignorance; and he had determined that ultimate success might, with most probability, be achieved by a bold declaration of the truth. "I know how desperately you must be in want of some one to help you through your troubles, and I know also that your grand lovers will avoid you because of what you have done, and therefore you had better take me at once. Take me, and I'll bring you through everything. Refuse me, and I'll help to crush you." Such were the arguments which Mr. Emilius had determined to use, and such the language,--of course, with some modifications. He was now commencing his work, and was quite resolved to leave no stone unturned in carrying it to a successful issue. He drew his chair nearer to Lizzie as he announced his desire for a private interview, and leaned over towards her with his two hands closed together between his knees. He was a dark, hookey-nosed, well-made man, with an exuberance of greasy hair, who would have been considered handsome by many women, had there not been something, almost amounting to a squint, amiss with one of his eyes. When he was preaching, it could hardly be seen, but in the closeness of private conversation it was disagreeable. "Oh,--indeed!" said Lizzie, with a look of astonishment, perfectly well assumed. She had already begun to consider whether, after all, Mr. Emilius--would do. "Yes;--Lady Eustace; it is so. You and I have known each other now for many months, and I have received the most unaffected pleasure from the acquaintance,--may I not say from the intimacy which has sprung up between us?" Lizzie did not forbid the use of the pleasant word, but merely bowed. "I think that, as a devoted friend and a clergyman, I shall not be thought to be intruding on private ground in saying that circumstances have made me aware of the details of the robberies by which you have been so cruelly persecuted." So the man had come about the diamonds, and not to make an offer! Lizzie raised her eyebrows and bowed her head with the slightest possible motion. "I do not know how far your friends or the public may condemn you, but--" "My friends don't condemn me at all, sir." "I am so glad to hear it!" "Nobody has dared to condemn me, except this impudent woman here, who wants an excuse for not paying me what she owes me." "I am delighted. I was going to explain that although I am aware you have infringed the letter of the law, and made yourself liable to proceedings which may, perhaps, be unpleasant--" "I ain't liable to anything unpleasant at all, Mr. Emilius." "Then my mind is greatly relieved. I was about to remark, having heard in the outer world that there were those who ventured to accuse you of--of perjury--" "Nobody has dared to accuse me of anything. What makes you come here and say such things?" "Ah,--Lady Eustace. It is because these calumnies are spoken so openly behind your back." "Who speaks them? Mrs. Carbuncle, and Lord George Carruthers;--my enemies." Mr. Emilius was beginning to feel that he was not making progress. "I was on the point of observing to you that according to the view of the matter which I, as a clergyman, have taken, you were altogether justified in the steps which you took for the protection of property which was your own, but which had been attacked by designing persons." "Of course I was justified," said Lizzie. "You know best, Lady Eustace, whether any assistance I can offer will avail you anything." "I don't want any assistance, Mr. Emilius,--thank you." "I certainly have been given to understand that they who ought to stand by you with the closest devotion have, in this period of what I may, perhaps, call--tribulation, deserted your side with cold selfishness." "But there isn't any tribulation, and nobody has deserted my side." "I was told that Lord Fawn--" "Lord Fawn is an idiot." "Quite so;--no doubt." "And I have deserted him. I wrote to him this very morning, in answer to a pressing letter from him to renew our engagement, to tell him that that was out of the question. I despise Lord Fawn, and my heart never can be given where my respect does not accompany it." "A noble sentiment, Lady Eustace, which I reciprocate completely. And now, to come to what I may call the inner purport of my visit to you this morning, the sweet cause of my attendance on you, let me assure you that I should not now offer you my heart, unless with my heart went the most perfect respect and esteem which any man ever felt for a woman." Mr. Emilius had found the necessity of coming to the point by some direct road, as the lady had refused to allow him to lead up to it in the manner he had proposed to himself. He still thought that what he had said might be efficacious, as he did not for a moment believe her assertions as to her own friends, and the non-existence of any trouble as to the oaths which she had falsely sworn. But she carried the matter with a better courage than he had expected to find, and drove him out of his intended line of approach. He had, however, seized his opportunity without losing much time. "What on earth do you mean, Mr. Emilius?" she said. "I mean to lay my heart, my hand, my fortunes, my profession, my career at your feet. I make bold to say of myself that I have, by my own unaided eloquence and intelligence, won for myself a great position in this swarming metropolis. Lady Eustace, I know your great rank. I feel your transcendent beauty,--ah, too acutely. I have been told that you are rich. But I, myself, who venture to approach you as a suitor for your hand, am also somebody in the world. The blood that runs in my veins is as illustrious as your own, having descended to me from the great and ancient nobles of my native country. The profession which I have adopted is the grandest which ever filled the heart of man with aspirations. I have barely turned my thirty-second year, and I am known as the greatest preacher of my day, though I preach in a language which is not my own. Your House of Lords would be open to me as a spiritual peer, would I condescend to come to terms with those who crave the assistance which I could give them. I can move the masses. I can touch the hearts of men. And in this great assemblage of mankind which you call London, I can choose my own society among the highest of the land. Lady Eustace, will you share with me my career and my fortunes? I ask you, because you are the only woman whom my heart has stooped to love." The man was a nasty, greasy, lying, squinting Jew preacher; an impostor, over forty years of age, whose greatest social success had been achieved when, through the agency of Mrs. Carbuncle, he made his way into Portray Castle. He was about as near an English mitre as had been that great man of a past generation, the Deputy Shepherd. He was a creature to loathe,--because he was greasy, and a liar, and an impostor. But there was a certain manliness in him. He was not afraid of the woman; and in pleading his cause with her he could stand up for himself courageously. He had studied his speech, and having studied it, he knew how to utter the words. He did not blush, nor stammer, nor cringe. Of grandfather or grandmother belonging to himself he had probably never heard, but he could so speak of his noble ancestors as to produce belief in Lizzie's mind. And he almost succeeded in convincing her that he was, by the consent of mankind, the greatest preacher of the day. While he was making his speech she almost liked his squint. She certainly liked the grease and nastiness. Presuming, as she naturally did, that something of what he said was false, she liked the lies. There was a dash of poetry about him; and poetry, as she thought, was not compatible with humdrum truth. A man, to be a man in her eyes, should be able to swear that all his geese are swans;--should be able to reckon his swans by the dozen, though he have not a feather belonging to him, even from a goose's wing. She liked his audacity; and then, when he was making love, he was not afraid of talking out boldly about his heart. Nevertheless he was only Mr. Emilius, the clergyman; and she had means of knowing that his income was not generous. Though she admired his manner and his language, she was quite aware that he was in pursuit of her money. And from the moment in which she first understood his object, she was resolved that she would never become the wife of Mr. Emilius as long as there was a hope as to Frank Greystock. "I was told, Mr. Emilius," she said, "that some time since you used to have a wife." "It was a falsehood, Lady Eustace. From motives of pure charity I gave a home to a distant cousin. I was then in a land of strangers, and my life was misinterpreted. I made no complaint, but sent the lady back to her native country. My compassion could supply her wants there as well as here." "Then you still support her?" Mr. Emilius bethought himself for a moment. There might be danger in asserting that he was subject to such an encumbrance. "I did do so," he answered, "till she found a congenial home as the wife of an honest man." "Oh, indeed. I'm quite glad to hear that." "And now, Lady Eustace, may I venture to hope for a favourable answer?" Upon this, Lizzie made him a speech as long and almost as well-turned as his own. Her heart had of late been subject to many vicissitudes. She had lost the dearest husband that a woman had ever worshipped. She had ventured, for purposes with reference to her child which she could not now explain, to think once again of matrimony with a man of high rank, but who had turned out to be unworthy of her. She had receded;--Lizzie, as she said this, acted the part of receding with a fine expression of scornful face;--and after that she was unwilling to entertain any further idea of marriage. Upon hearing this, Mr. Emilius bowed low, and before the street-door was closed against him had begun to calculate how much a journey to Scotland would cost him. CHAPTER LXXIV Lizzie at the Police-Court On the Wednesday and Thursday Lizzie had been triumphant; for she had certainly come out unscathed from Mr. Camperdown's chambers, and a lady may surely be said to triumph when a gentleman lays his hand, his heart, his fortunes, and all that he has got, at her feet. But when the Friday came, though she was determined to be brave, her heart did sink within her bosom. She understood well that she would be called upon to admit in public the falseness of the oaths she had sworn upon two occasions; and that, though she would not be made amenable to any absolute punishment for her perjury, she would be subject to very damaging remarks from the magistrate, and probably also from some lawyers employed to defend the prisoners. She went to bed in fairly good spirits, but in the morning she was cowed and unhappy. She dressed herself from head to foot in black, and prepared for herself a heavy black veil. She had ordered from the livery stable a brougham for the occasion, thinking it wise to avoid the display of her own carriage. She breakfasted early, and then took a large glass of wine to support her. When Frank called for her at a quarter to ten, she was quite ready, and grasped his hand almost without a word. But she looked into his face with her eyes filled with tears. "It will soon be over," he said. She pressed his hand, and made him a sign to show that she was ready to follow him to the door. "The case will come on at once," he said, "so that you will not be kept waiting." "Oh, you are so good;--so good to me." She pressed his arm, and did not speak another word on their way to the police-court. There was a great crowd about the office, which was in a little by-street, and so circumstanced that Lizzie's brougham could hardly make its way up to the door. But way was at once made for her when Frank handed her out of it, and the policemen about the place were as courteous to her as though she had been the Lord Chancellor's wife. Evil-doing will be spoken of with bated breath and soft words even by policemen, when the evil-doer comes in a carriage, and with a title. Lizzie was led at once into a private room, and told that she would be kept there only a very few minutes. Frank made his way into the court and found that two magistrates had just seated themselves on the bench. One would have sufficed for the occasion; but this was a case of great interest, and even police-magistrates are human in their interests. Greystock was allowed to get round to the bench, and to whisper a word or two to the gentleman who was to preside. The magistrate nodded his head, and then the case began. The unfortunate Mr. Benjamin had been sent back in durance vile from Vienna, and was present in the court. With him, as joint malefactor, stood Mr. Smiler, the great housebreaker, a huge, ugly, resolute-looking scoundrel, possessed of enormous strength, who was very intimately known to the police, with whom he had had various dealings since he had been turned out upon the town to earn his bread some fifteen years before. Indeed, long before that he had known the police. As far as his memory went back he had always known them. But the sportive industry of his boyish years was not now counted up against him. In the last fifteen years his biography had been written with all the accuracy due to the achievements of a great man; and during those hundred and eighty months he had spent over one hundred in prison, and had been convicted twenty-three times. He was now growing old,--as a thief; and it was thought by his friends that he would be settled for life in some quiet retreat. Mr. Benjamin was a very respectable-looking man of about fifty, with slightly grizzled hair, with excellent black clothes, showing, by a surprised air, his great astonishment at finding himself in such a position. He spoke constantly, both to his attorney and to the barrister who was to show cause why he should not be committed, and throughout the whole morning was very busy. Smiler, who was quite at home, and who understood his position, never said a word to any one. He stood, perfectly straight, looking at the magistrate, and never for a moment leaning on the rail before him during the four hours that the case consumed. Once, when his friend, Billy Cann, was brought into court to give evidence against him, dressed up to the eyes, serene and sleek as when we saw him once before at the "Rising Sun," in Meek Street, Smiler turned a glance upon him which, to the eyes of all present, contained a threat of most bloody revenge. But Billy knew the advantages of his situation, and nodded at his old comrade, and smiled. His old comrade was very much stronger than he, and possessed of many natural advantages; but, perhaps, upon the whole, his old comrade had been the less intelligent thief of the two. It was thus that the bystanders read the meaning of Billy's smile. The case was opened very shortly and very clearly by the gentleman who was employed for the prosecution. It would all, he said, have laid in a nutshell, had it not been complicated by a previous robbery at Carlisle. Were it necessary, he said, there would be no difficulty in convicting the prisoners for that offence also, but it had been thought advisable to confine the prosecution to the act of burglary committed in Hertford Street. He stated the facts of what had happened at Carlisle, merely for explanation, but would state nothing that could not be proved. Then he told all that the reader knows about the iron box. But the diamonds were not then in the box,--and he told that story also, treating Lizzie with great tenderness as he did so. Lizzie, all this time, was sitting behind her veil in the private room, and did not hear a word of what was going on. Then he came to the robbery in Hertford Street. He would prove by Lady Eustace that the diamonds were left by her in a locked desk,--were so deposited, though all her friends believed them to have been taken at Carlisle; and he would, moreover, prove by accomplices that they were stolen by two men,--the younger prisoner at the bar being one of them, and the witness who would be adduced, the other,--that they were given up by these men to the elder prisoner, and that a certain sum had been paid by him for the execution of the two robberies. There was much more of it;--but to the reader, who knows it all, it would be but a thrice-told tale. He then said that he first proposed to take the evidence of Lady Eustace, the lady who had been in possession of the diamonds when they were stolen. Then Frank Greystock left the court, and returned with poor Lizzie on his arm. She was handed to a chair, and, after she was sworn, was told that she might sit down. But she was requested to remove her veil, which she had replaced as soon as she had kissed the book. The first question asked her was very easy. Did she remember the night at Carlisle? Would she tell the history of what occurred on that night? When the box was stolen, were the diamonds in it? No; she had taken the diamonds out for security, and had kept them under her pillow. Then came a bitter moment, in which she had to confess her perjury before the Carlisle bench;--but even that seemed to pass off smoothly. The magistrate asked one severe question. "Do you mean to say, Lady Eustace, that you gave false evidence on that occasion,--knowing it to be false?" "I was in such a state, sir, from fear, that I did not know what I was saying," exclaimed Lizzie, bursting into tears and stretching forth towards the bench her two clasped hands with the air of a suppliant. From that moment the magistrate was altogether on her side,--and so were the public. Poor ignorant, ill-used young creature;--and then so lovely! That was the general feeling. But she had not as yet come beneath the harrow of the learned gentleman on the other side, whose best talents were due to Mr. Benjamin. Then she told all she knew about the other robbery. She certainly had not said, when examined on that occasion, that the diamonds had then been taken. She had omitted to name the diamonds in her catalogue of the things stolen; but she was sure that she had never said that they were not then taken. She had said nothing about the diamonds, knowing them to be her own, and preferring to lose them to the trouble of again referring to the night at Carlisle. Such was her evidence for the prosecution, and then she was turned over to the very learned and very acute gentleman whom Mr. Benjamin had hired for his defence,--or rather, to show cause why he should not be sent for trial. It must be owned that poor Lizzie did receive from his hands some of that punishment which she certainly deserved. This acute and learned gentleman seemed to possess for the occasion the blandest and most dulcet voice that ever was bestowed upon an English barrister. He addressed Lady Eustace with the softest words, as though he hardly dared to speak to a woman so eminent for wealth, rank, and beauty; but nevertheless he asked her some very disagreeable questions. "Was he to understand that she went of her own will before the bench of magistrates at Carlisle, with the view of enabling the police to capture certain persons for stealing certain jewels, while she knew that the jewels were actually in her own possession?" Lizzie, confounded by the softness of his voice as joined to the harshness of the question, could hardly understand him, and he repeated it thrice, becoming every time more and more mellifluous. "Yes," said Lizzie at last. "Yes?" he asked. "Yes," said Lizzie. "Your ladyship did send the Cumberland police after men for stealing jewels which were in your ladyship's own hands when you swore the information?" "Yes," said Lizzie. "And your ladyship knew that the information was untrue?" "Yes," said Lizzie. "And the police were pursuing the men for many weeks?" "Yes," said Lizzie. "On your information?" "Yes," said Lizzie, through her tears. "And your ladyship knew all the time that the poor men were altogether innocent of taking the jewels?" "But they took the box," said Lizzie, through her tears. "Yes," said the acute and learned gentleman, "somebody took your ladyship's iron box out of the room, and you swore that the diamonds had been taken. Was it not the fact that legal proceedings were being taken against you for recovery of the diamonds by persons who claimed the property?" "Yes," said Lizzie. "And these persons withdrew their proceedings as soon as they heard that the diamonds had been stolen?" Soft as he was in his manner, he nearly reduced Lizzie Eustace to fainting. It seemed to her that the questions would never end. It was in vain that the magistrate pointed out to the learned gentleman that Lady Eustace had confessed her own false swearing, both at Carlisle and in London, a dozen times. He continued his questions over and over again, harping chiefly on the affair at Carlisle, and saying very little as to the second robbery in Hertford Street. His idea was to make it appear that Lizzie had arranged the robbery with the view of defrauding Mr. Camperdown, and that Lord George Carruthers was her accomplice. He even asked her, almost in a whisper, and with the sweetest smile, whether she was not engaged to marry Lord George. When Lizzie denied this, he still suggested that some such alliance might be in contemplation. Upon this, Frank Greystock called upon the magistrate to defend Lady Eustace from such unnecessary vulgarity, and there was a scene in the court. Lizzie did not like the scene, but it helped to protect her from the contemplation of the public, who of course were much gratified by high words between two barristers. Lady Eustace was forced to remain in the private room during the examination of Patience Crabstick and Mr. Cann; and she did not hear it. Patience was a most obdurate and difficult witness,--extremely averse to say evil of herself, and on that account unworthy of the good things which she had received. But Billy Cann was charming,--graceful, communicative, and absolutely accurate. There was no shaking him. The learned and acute gentleman who tried to tear him in pieces could do nothing with him. He was asked whether he had not been a professional thief for ten years. "Ten or twelve," he said. Did he expect that any juryman would believe him on his oath? "Not unless I am fully corroborated." "Can you look that man in the face,--that man who is at any rate so much honester than yourself?" asked the learned gentleman with pathos. Billy said that he thought he could, and the way in which he smiled upon Smiler caused a roar through the whole court. The two men were, as a matter of course, committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court, and Lizzie Eustace was bound by certain penalties to come forward when called upon, and give her evidence again. "I am glad that it is over," said Frank, as he left her at Mrs. Carbuncle's hall-door. "Oh, Frank, dearest Frank, where should I be if it were not for you?" CHAPTER LXXV Lord George Gives His Reasons Lady Eustace did not leave the house during the Saturday and Sunday, and engaged herself exclusively with preparing for her journey. She had no further interview with Mrs. Carbuncle, but there were messages between them, and even notes were written. They resulted in nothing. Lizzie was desirous of getting back the spoons and forks, and, if possible, some of her money. The spoons and forks were out of Mrs. Carbuncle's power,--in Albemarle Street; and the money had of course been spent. Lizzie might have saved herself the trouble, had it not been that it was a pleasure to her to insult her late friend, even though in doing so new insults were heaped upon her own head. As for the trumpery spoons, they,--so said Mrs. Carbuncle,--were the property of Miss Roanoke, having been made over to her unconditionally long before the wedding, as a part of a separate pecuniary transaction. Mrs. Carbuncle had no power of disposing of Miss Roanoke's property. As to the money which Lady Eustace claimed, Mrs. Carbuncle asserted that, when the final accounts should be made up between them, it would be found that there was a considerable balance due to Mrs. Carbuncle. But even were there anything due to Lady Eustace, Mrs. Carbuncle would decline to pay it, as she was informed that all moneys possessed by Lady Eustace were now confiscated to the Crown by reason of the PERJURIES,--the word was doubly scored in Mrs. Carbuncle's note,--which Lady Eustace had committed. This, of course, was unpleasant; but Mrs. Carbuncle did not have the honours of the battle all to herself. Lizzie also said some unpleasant things,--which, perhaps, were the more unpleasant because they were true. Mrs. Carbuncle had come pretty nearly to the end of her career, whereas Lizzie's income, in spite of her perjuries, was comparatively untouched. The undoubted mistress of Portray Castle, and mother of the Sir Florian Eustace of the day, could still despise and look down upon Mrs. Carbuncle, although she were known to have told fibs about the family diamonds. Lord George always came to Hertford Street on a Sunday, and Lady Eustace left word for him with the servant that she would be glad to see him before her journey into Scotland. "Goes to-morrow, does she?" said Lord George to the servant. "Well; I'll see her." And he was shown up to her room before he went to Mrs. Carbuncle. Lizzie, in sending to him, had some half-formed idea of a romantic farewell. The man, she thought, had behaved very badly to her,--had accepted very much from her hands, and had refused to give her anything in return; had become the first depository of her great secret, and had placed no mutual confidence in her. He had been harsh to her, and unjust; and then, too, he had declined to be in love with her! She was full of spite against Lord George, and would have been glad to injure him. But, nevertheless, there would be some excitement in a farewell in which some mock affection might be displayed, and she would have an opportunity of abusing Mrs. Carbuncle. "So you are off to-morrow?" said Lord George, taking his place on the rug before her fire, and looking down at her with his head a little on one side. Lizzie's anger against the man chiefly arose from a feeling that he treated her with all a Corsair's freedom without any of a Corsair's tenderness. She could have forgiven the want of deferential manner, had there been any devotion;--but Lord George was both impudent and indifferent. "Yes," she said. "Thank goodness, I shall get out of this frightful place to-morrow, and soon have once more a roof of my own over my head. What an experience I have had since I have been here!" "We have all had an experience," said Lord George, still looking at her with that half-comic turn of his face,--almost as though he were investigating some curious animal of which so remarkable a specimen had never before come under his notice. "No woman ever intended to show a more disinterested friendship than I have done; and what has been my return?" "You mean to me?--disinterested friendship to me?" And Lord George tapped his breast lightly with his fingers. His head was still a little on one side, and there was still the smile upon his face. "I was alluding particularly to Mrs. Carbuncle." "Lady Eustace, I cannot take charge of Mrs. Carbuncle's friendships. I have enough to do to look after my own. If you have any complaint to make against me,--I will at least listen to it." "God knows I do not want to make complaints," said Lizzie, covering her face with her hands. "They don't do much good;--do they? It's better to take people as you find 'em, and then make the best of 'em. They're a queer lot;--ain't they,--the sort of people one meets about in the world?" "I don't know what you mean by that, Lord George." "Just what you were saying, when you talked of your experiences. These experiences do surprise one. I have knocked about the world a great deal, and would have almost said that nothing would surprise me. You are no more than a child to me, but you have surprised me." "I hope I have not injured you, Lord George." "Do you remember how you rode to hounds the day your cousin took that other man's horse? That surprised me." "Oh, Lord George, that was the happiest day of my life. How little happiness there is for people!" "And when Tewett got that girl to say she'd marry him, the coolness with which you bore all the abomination of it in your house,--for people who were nothing to you;--that surprised me!" "I meant to be so kind to you all." "And when I found that you always travelled with ten thousand pounds' worth of diamonds in a box, that surprised me very much. I thought that you were a very dangerous companion." "Pray don't talk about the horrid necklace." "Then came the robbery, and you seemed to lose your diamonds without being at all unhappy about them. Of course, we understand that now." On hearing this, Lizzie smiled, but did not say a word. "Then I perceived that I--I was supposed to be the thief. You--you yourself couldn't have suspected me of taking the diamonds, because--because you'd got them, you know, all safe in your pocket. But you might as well own the truth now. Didn't you think that it was I who stole the box?" "I wish it had been you," said Lizzie laughing. "All that surprised me. The police were watching me every day as a cat watches a mouse, and thought that they surely had got the thief when they found that I had dealings with Benjamin. Well; you--you were laughing at me in your sleeve all the time." "Not laughing, Lord George." "Yes, you were. You had got the kernel yourself, and thought that I had taken all the trouble to crack the nut and had found myself with nothing but the shell. Then, when you found you couldn't eat the kernel, that you couldn't get rid of the swag without assistance, you came to me to help you. I began to think then that you were too many for all of us. By Jove, I did! Then I heard of the second robbery, and, of course, I thought you had managed that too." "Oh, no," said Lizzie "Unfortunately you didn't; but I thought you did. And you thought that I had done it! Mr. Benjamin was too clever for us both, and now he is going to have penal servitude for the rest of his life. I wonder who will be the better of it all. Who'll have the diamonds at last?" "I do not in the least care. I hate the diamonds. Of course I would not give them up, because they were my own." "The end of it seems to be that you have lost your property, and sworn ever so many false oaths, and have brought all your friends into trouble, and have got nothing by it. What was the good of being so clever?" "You need not come here to tease me, Lord George." "I came here because you sent for me. There's my poor friend, Mrs. Carbuncle, declares that all her credit is destroyed, and her niece unable to marry, and her house taken away from her,--all because of her connexion with you." "Mrs. Carbuncle is--is--is-- Oh, Lord George, don't you know what she is?" "I know that Mrs. Carbuncle is in a very bad way, and that that girl has gone crazy, and that poor Griff has taken himself off to Japan, and that I am so knocked about that I don't know where to go; and somehow it seems all to have come from your little manoeuvres. You see, we have, all of us, been made remarkable; haven't we?" "You are always remarkable, Lord George." "And it is all your doing. To be sure you have lost your diamonds for your pains. I wouldn't mind it so much if anybody were the better for it. I shouldn't have begrudged even Benjamin the pull, if he'd got it." He stood there, still looking down upon her, speaking with a sarcastic subrisive tone, and, as she felt, intending to be severe to her. She had sent for him, and now she didn't know what to say to him. Though she believed that she hated him, she would have liked to get up some show of an affectionate farewell, some scene in which there might have been tears, and tenderness, and poetry,--and, perhaps, a parting caress. But with his jeering words, and sneering face, he was as hard to her as a rock. He was now silent, but still looking down upon her as he stood motionless upon the rug,--so that she was compelled to speak again. "I sent for you, Lord George, because I did not like the idea of parting with you for ever, without one word of adieu." "You are going to tear yourself away;--are you?" "I am going to Portray on Monday." "And never coming back any more? You'll be up here before the season is over, with fifty more wonderful schemes in your little head. So Lord Fawn is done with, is he?" "I have told Lord Fawn that nothing shall induce me ever to see him again." "And cousin Frank?" "My cousin attends me down to Scotland." "Oh-h. That makes it altogether another thing. He attends you down to Scotland;--does he? Does Mr. Emilius go too?" "I believe you are trying to insult me, sir." "You can't expect but what a man should be a little jealous, when he has been so completely cut out himself. There was a time, you know, when even cousin Frank wasn't a better fellow than myself." "Much you thought about it, Lord George." "Well;--I did. I thought about it a good deal, my lady. And I liked the idea of it very much." Lizzie pricked up her ears. In spite of all his harshness, could it be that he should be the Corsair still? "I am a rambling, uneasy, ill-to-do sort of man; but still I thought about it. You are pretty, you know,--uncommonly pretty." "Don't, Lord George." "And I'll acknowledge that the income goes for much. I suppose that's real at any rate?" "Well;--I hope so. Of course it's real. And so is the prettiness, Lord George;--if there is any." "I never doubted that, Lady Eustace. But when it came to my thinking that you had stolen the diamonds, and you thinking that I had stolen the box--! I'm not a man to stand on trifles, but, by George, it wouldn't do then." "Who wanted it to do?" said Lizzie. "Go away. You are very unkind to me. I hope I may never see you again. I believe you care more for that odious vulgar woman down-stairs than you do for anybody else in the world." "Ah, dear! I have known her for many years, Lizzie, and that both covers and discovers many faults. One learns to know how bad one's old friends are, but then one forgives them, because they are old friends." "You can't forgive me,--because I'm bad, and only a new friend." "Yes, I will. I forgive you all, and hope you may do well yet. If I may give you one bit of advice at parting, it is to caution you against being clever when there is nothing to get by it." "I ain't clever at all," said Lizzie, beginning to whimper. "Good-bye, my dear." "Good-bye," said Lizzie. He took her hand in one of his; patted her on the head with the other, as though she had been a child, and then he left her. CHAPTER LXXVI Lizzie Returns to Scotland Frank Greystock, the writer fears, will not have recommended himself to those readers of this tale who think the part of lover to the heroine should be always filled by a young man with heroic attributes. And yet the young member for Bobsborough was by no means deficient in fine qualities, and perhaps was quite as capable of heroism as the majority of barristers and members of Parliament among whom he consorted, and who were to him--the world. A man born to great wealth may,--without injury to himself or friends,--do pretty nearly what he likes in regard to marriage, always presuming that the wife he selects be of his own rank. He need not marry for money, nor need he abstain from marriage because he can't support a wife without money. And the very poor man, who has no pretension to rank or standing, other than that which honesty may give him, can do the same. His wife's fortune will consist in the labour of her hands, and in her ability to assist him in his home. But between these there is a middle class of men, who, by reason of their education, are peculiarly susceptible to the charms of womanhood, but who literally cannot marry for love, because their earnings will do no more than support themselves. As to this special young man, it must be confessed that his earnings should have done much more than that; but not the less did he find himself in a position in which marriage with a penniless girl seemed to threaten him and her with ruin. All his friends told Frank Greystock that he would be ruined were he to marry Lucy Morris;--and his friends were people supposed to be very good and wise. The dean, and the dean's wife, his father and mother, were very clear that it would be so. Old Lady Linlithgow had spoken of such a marriage as quite out of the question. The Bishop of Bobsborough, when it was mentioned in his hearing, had declared that such a marriage would be a thousand pities. And even dear old Lady Fawn, though she wished it for Lucy's sake, had many times prophesied that such a thing was quite impossible. When the rumour of the marriage reached Lady Glencora, Lady Glencora told her friend, Madame Max Goesler, that that young man was going to blow his brains out. To her thinking, the two actions were equivalent. It is only when we read of such men that we feel that truth to his sweetheart is the first duty of man. I am afraid that it is not the advice which we give to our sons. But it was the advice which Frank Greystock had most persistently given to himself since he had first known Lucy Morris. Doubtless he had vacillated, but, on the balance of his convictions as to his own future conduct, he had been much nobler than his friends. He had never hesitated for a moment as to the value of Lucy Morris. She was not beautiful. She had no wonderful gifts of nature. There was nothing of a goddess about her. She was absolutely penniless. She had never been what the world calls well-dressed. And yet she had been everything to him. There had grown up a sympathy between them quite as strong on his part as on hers, and he had acknowledged it to himself. He had never doubted his own love,--and when he had been most near to convincing himself that in his peculiar position he ought to marry his rich cousin, because of her wealth, then, at those moments, he had most strongly felt that to have Lucy Morris close to him was the greatest charm in existence. Hitherto his cousin's money, joined to flatteries and caresses,--which, if a young man can resist, he is almost more than a young man,--had tempted him; but he had combated the temptation. On one memorable evening his love for Lucy had tempted him. To that temptation he had yielded, and the letter by which he became engaged to her had been written. He had never meant to evade it;--had always told himself that it should not be evaded; but, gradually, days had been added to days, and months to months, and he had allowed her to languish without seeing him, and almost without hearing from him. She, too, had heard from all sides that she was deserted by him, and she had written to him to give him back his troth; but she had not sent her letters. She did not doubt that the thing was over,--she hardly doubted. And yet she would not send any letter. Perhaps it would be better that the matter should be allowed to drop without any letter-writing. She would never reproach him,--though she would ever think him to be a traitor. Would not she have starved herself for him, could she so have served him? And yet he could bear for her sake no touch of delay in his prosperity! Would she not have been content to wait, and always to wait,--so that he with some word of love would have told her that he waited also? But he would not only desert her,--but would give himself to that false, infamous woman, who was so wholly unfitted to be his wife. For Lucy, though to herself she would call him a traitor,--and would think him to be a traitor, still regarded him as the best of mankind, as one who, in marrying such a one as Lizzie Eustace, would destroy all his excellence, as a man might mar his strength and beauty by falling into a pit. For Lizzie Eustace Lucy Morris had now no forgiveness. Lucy had almost forgotten Lizzie's lies, and her proffered bribe, and all her meanness, when she made that visit to Hertford Street. Then, when Lizzie claimed this man as her lover, a full remembrance of all the woman's iniquities came back on Lucy's mind. The statement that Lizzie then made, Lucy did believe. She did think that Frank, her Frank, the man whom she worshipped, was to take this harpy to his bosom as his wife. And if it were to be so, was it not better that she should be so told? But, from that moment, poor Lizzie's sins were ranker to Lucy Morris than even to Mr. Camperdown or Mrs. Hittaway. She could not refrain from saying a word even to old Lady Linlithgow. The countess had called her niece a little liar. "Liar!" said Lucy. "I do not think Satan himself can lie as she does." "Heighty-tighty," said the countess. "I suppose, then, there's to be a match between Lady Satan and her cousin Frank?" "They can do as they like about that," said Lucy, walking out of the room. Then came the paragraph in the fashionable evening newspaper; after that, the report of the examination before the magistrate, and then certain information that Lady Eustace was about to proceed to Scotland together with her cousin Mr. Greystock, the Member for Bobsborough. "It is a large income," said the countess; "but, upon my word, she's dear at the money." Lucy did not speak, but she bit her lip till the blood ran into her mouth. She was going down to Fawn Court almost immediately, to stay there with her old friends till she should be able to find some permanent home for herself. Once, and once only, would she endure discussion, and then the matter should be banished for ever from her tongue. Early on the appointed morning Frank Greystock, with a couple of cabs, was at Mrs. Carbuncle's door in Hertford Street. Lizzie had agreed to start by a very early train,--at eight a.m.,--so that she might get through to Portray in one day. It had been thought expedient, both by herself and by her cousin, that for the present there should be no more sleeping at the Carlisle hotel. The robbery was probably still talked about in that establishment; and the report of the proceedings at the police-court had, no doubt, travelled as far north as the border city. It was to be a long day, and could hardly be other than sad. Lizzie, understanding this, feeling that though she had been in a great measure triumphant over her difficulties before the magistrate, she ought still to consider herself, for a short while, as being under a cloud, crept down into the cab and seated herself beside her cousin almost without a word. She was again dressed in black, and again wore the thick veil. Her maid, with the luggage, followed them, and they were driven to Euston Square almost without a word. On this occasion no tall footman accompanied them. "Oh, Frank; dear Frank," she had said, and that was all. He had been active about the luggage and useful in giving orders;--but beyond his directions and inquiries as to the journey, he spoke not a word. Had she breakfasted? Would she have a cup of tea at the station? Should he take any luncheon for her? At every question she only looked into his face and shook her head. All thoughts as to creature-comforts were over with her now for ever. Tranquillity, a little poetry, and her darling boy, were all that she needed for the short remainder of her sojourn upon earth. These were the sentiments which she intended to convey when she shook her head and looked up into his eyes. The world was over for her. She had had her day of pleasure, and found how vain it was. Now she would devote herself to her child. "I shall see my boy again to-night," she said, as she took her seat in the carriage. Such was the state of mind, or such, rather, the resolutions, with which she commenced her journey. Should he become bright, communicative, and pleasant, or even tenderly silent, or, perhaps, now at length affectionate and demonstrative, she, no doubt, might be able to change as he changed. He had been cousinly, but gloomy, at the police-court; in the same mood when he brought her home; and, as she saw with the first glance of her eye, in the same mood again when she met him in the hall this morning. Of course she must play his tunes. Is it not the fate of women to play the tunes which men dictate,--except in some rare case in which the woman can make herself the dictator? Lizzie loved to be a dictator; but at the present moment she knew that circumstances were against her. She watched him,--so closely. At first he slept a good deal. He was never in bed very early, and on this morning had been up at six. At Rugby he got out and ate what he said was his breakfast. Would not she have a cup of tea? Again she shook her head and smiled. She smiled as some women smile when you offer them a third glass of champagne. "You are joking with me, I know. You cannot think that I would take it." That was the meaning of Lizzie's smile. He went into the refreshment-room, growled at the heat of the tea and the abominable nastiness of the food provided, and then, after the allotted five minutes, took himself to a smoking-carriage. He did not rejoin his cousin till they were at Crewe. When he went back to his old seat, she only smiled again. He asked her whether she had slept, and again she shook her head. She had been repeating to herself the address to Ianthe's soul, and her whole being was pervaded with poetry. It was absolutely necessary, as he thought, that she should eat something, and he insisted that she should dine upon the road, somewhere. He, of course, was not aware that she had been nibbling biscuits and chocolate while he had been smoking, and had had recourse even to the comfort of a sherry-flask which she carried in her dressing-bag. When he talked of dinner she did more than smile and refuse. She expostulated. For she well knew that the twenty minutes for dinner were allowed at the Carlisle station; and even if there had been no chocolate and no sherry, she would have endured on, even up to absolute inanition, rather than step out upon this well-remembered platform. "You must eat, or you'll be starved," he said. "I'll fetch you something." So he bribed a special waiter, and she was supplied with cold chicken and more sherry. After this Frank smoked again, and did not reappear till they had reached Dumfries. Hitherto there had been no tenderness,--nothing but the coldest cousinship. He clearly meant her to understand that he had submitted to the task of accompanying her back to Portray Castle as a duty, but that he had nothing to say to one who had so misbehaved herself. This was very irritating. She could have taken herself home to Portray without his company, and have made the journey more endurable without him than with him, if this were to be his conduct throughout. They had had the carriage to themselves all the way from Crewe to Carlisle, and he had hardly spoken a word to her. If he would have rated her soundly for her wickednesses, she could have made something of that. She could have thrown herself on her knees, and implored his pardon; or, if hard pressed, have suggested the propriety of throwing herself out of the carriage-window. She could have brought him round if he would only have talked to her, but there is no doing anything with a silent man. He was not her master. He had no power over her. She was the lady of Portray, and he could not interfere with her. If he intended to be sullen with her to the end, and to show his contempt for her, she would turn against him. "The worm will turn," she said to herself. And yet she did not think herself a worm. A few stations beyond Dumfries they were again alone. It was now quite dark, and they had already been travelling over ten hours. They would not reach their own station till eight, and then again there would be the journey to Portray. At last he spoke to her. "Are you tired, Lizzie?" "Oh, so tired!" "You have slept, I think." "No, not once; not a wink. You have slept." This she said in a tone of reproach. "Indeed I have." "I have endeavoured to read, but one cannot command one's mind at all times. Oh, I am so weary. Is it much further? I have lost all reckoning as to time and place." "We change at the next station but one. It will soon be over now. Will you have a glass of sherry? I have some in my flask." Again she shook her head. "It is a long way down to Portray, I must own." "Oh, I am so sorry that I have given you the trouble to accompany me." "I was not thinking of myself. I don't mind it. It was better that you should have somebody with you,--just for this journey." "I don't know why this journey should be different from any other," said Lizzie crossly. She had not done anything that made it necessary that she should be taken care of,--like a naughty girl. "I'll see you to the end of it now, anyway." "And you'll stay a few days with me, Frank? You won't go away at once? Say you'll stay a week. Dear, dear Frank; say you'll stay a week. I know that the House doesn't meet for ever so long. Oh, Frank, I do so wish you'd be more like yourself." There was no reason why she should not make one other effort, and as she made it every sign of fatigue passed away from her. "I'll stay over to-morrow certainly," he replied. "Only one day!" "Days with me mean money, Lizzie, and money is a thing which is at present very necessary to me." "I hate money." "That's very well for you, because you have plenty of it." "I hate money. It is the only thing that one has that one cannot give to those one loves. I could give you anything else;--though it cost a thousand pounds." "Pray don't. Most people like presents, but they only bore me." "Because you are so indifferent, Frank;--so cold. Do you remember giving me a little ring?" "Very well indeed. It cost eight and sixpence." "I never thought what it cost;--but there it is." This she said, drawing off her glove and showing him her finger. "And when I am dead, there it will be. You say you want money, Frank. May I not give it you? Are not we brother and sister?" "My dear Lizzie, you say you hate money. Don't talk about it." "It is you that talk about it. I only talk about it because I want to give it you;--yes, all that I have. When I first knew what was the real meaning of my husband's will, my only thought was to be of assistance to you." In real truth Frank was becoming very sick of her. It seemed to him now to have been almost impossible that he should ever soberly have thought of making her his wife. The charm was all gone, and even her prettiness had in his eyes lost its value. He looked at her, asking himself whether in truth she was pretty. She had been travelling all day, and perhaps the scrutiny was not fair. But he thought that even after the longest day's journey Lucy would not have been soiled, haggard, dishevelled, and unclean, as was this woman. Travellers again entered the carriage, and they went on with a crowd of persons till they reached the platform at which they changed the carriage for Troon. Then they were again alone, for a few minutes, and Lizzie with infinite courage determined that she would make her last attempt. "Frank," she said, "you know what it is that I mean. You cannot feel that I am ungenerous. You have made me love you. Will you have all that I have to give?" She was leaning over, close to him, and he was observing that her long lock of hair was out of curl and untidy,--a thing that ought not to have been there during such a journey as this. "Do you not know," he said, "that I am engaged to marry Lucy Morris?" "No;--I do not know it." "I have told you so more than once." "You cannot afford to marry her." "Then I shall do it without affording." Lizzie was about to speak,--had already pronounced her rival's name in that tone of contempt which she so well knew how to use, when he stopped her. "Do not say anything against her, Lizzie, in my hearing, for I will not bear it. It would force me to leave you at the Troon station, and I had better see you now to the end of the journey." Lizzie flung herself back into the corner of her carriage, and did not utter another word till she reached Portray Castle. He handed her out of the railway carriage, and into her own vehicle which was waiting for them, attended to the maid, and got the luggage; but still she did not speak. It would be better that she should quarrel with him. That little snake, Lucy, would of course now tell him of the meeting between them in Hertford Street, after which anything but quarrelling would be impossible. What a fool the man must be, what an idiot, what a soft-hearted, mean-spirited fellow! Lucy, by her sly, quiet little stratagems, had got him once to speak the word, and now he had not courage enough to go back from it! He had less strength of will even than Lord Fawn! What she offered to him would be the making of him. With his position, his seat in Parliament, such a country house as Portray Castle, and the income which she would give him, there was nothing that he might not reach! And he was so infirm of purpose, that though he had hankered after it all, he would not open his hand to take it,--because he was afraid of such a little thing as Lucy Morris! It was thus that she thought of him as she leaned back in the carriage without speaking. In giving her all that is due to her, we must acknowledge that she had less feeling of the injury done to her charms as a woman than might have been expected. That she hated Lucy was a matter of course;--and equally so that she should be very angry with Frank Greystock. But the anger arose from general disappointment, rather than from any sense of her own despised beauty. "Ah, now I shall see my child," she said, as the carriage stopped at the castle-gate. When Frank Greystock went to his supper, Miss Macnulty brought to him his cousin's compliments with a message saying that she was too weary to see him again that night. The message had been intended to be curt and uncourteous, but Miss Macnulty had softened it,--so that no harm was done. "She must be very weary," said Frank. "I suppose though that nothing would ever really tire Lady Eustace," said Miss Macnulty. "When she is excited nothing will tire her. Perhaps the journey has been dull." "Exceedingly dull," said Frank, as he helped himself to the collops which the Portray cook had prepared for his supper. Miss Macnulty was very attentive to him, and had many questions to ask. About the necklace she hardly dared to speak, merely observing how sad it was that all those precious diamonds should have been lost for ever. "Very sad indeed," said Frank with his mouth full. She then went on to the marriage,--the marriage that was no marriage. Was not that very dreadful? Was it true that Miss Roanoke was really--out of her mind? Frank acknowledged that it was dreadful, but thought that the marriage had it been completed would have been more so. As for the young lady, he only knew that she had been taken somewhere out of the way. Sir Griffin, he had been told, had gone to Japan. "To Japan!" said Miss Macnulty, really interested. Had Sir Griffin gone no further than Boulogne, her pleasure in the news would certainly have been much less. Then she asked some single question about Lord George, and from that came to the real marrow of her anxiety. Had Mr. Greystock lately seen the--the Rev. Mr. Emilius? Frank had not seen the clergyman, and could only say of him that had Lucinda Roanoke and Sir Griffin Tewett been made one, the knot would have been tied by Mr. Emilius. "Would it indeed? Did you not think Mr. Emilius very clever when you met him down here?" "I don't doubt but what he is a sharp sort of fellow." "Oh, Mr. Greystock, I don't think that that's the word for him at all. He did promise me when he was here that he would write to me occasionally, but I suppose that the increasing duties of his position have rendered that impossible." Frank, who had no idea of the extent of the preacher's ambition, assured Miss Macnulty that among his multifarious clerical labours it was out of the question that Mr. Emilius should find time to write letters. Frank had consented to stay one day at Portray, and did not now like to run away without again seeing his cousin. Though much tempted to go at once, he did stay the day, and had an opportunity of speaking a few words to Mr. Gowran. Mr. Gowran was very gracious, but said nothing of his journey up to London. He asked various questions concerning her "leddyship's" appearance at the police-court, as to which tidings had already reached Ayrshire, and pretended to be greatly shocked at the loss of the diamonds. "When they talk o' ten thoosand poond, that's a lee, nae doobt?" asked Andy. "No lie at all, I believe," said Greystock. "And her leddyship wad tak' aboot wi' her ten thoosand poond--in a box?" Andy still showed much doubt by the angry glance of his eye and the close compression of his lips, and the great severity of his demeanour as he asked the question. "I know nothing about diamonds myself, but that is what they say they were worth." "Her leddyship's her ain sell seems nae to ha' been in ain story aboot the box, Muster Greystock?" But Frank could not stand to be cross-questioned on this delicate matter, and walked off, saying that as the thieves had not yet been tried for the robbery, the less said about it the better. At four o'clock on that afternoon he had not seen Lizzie, and then he received a message from her to the effect that she was still so unwell from the fatigue of her journey that she could bear no one with her but her child. She hoped that her cousin was quite comfortable, and that she might be able to see him after breakfast on the following day. But Frank was determined to leave Portray very early on the following day, and therefore wrote a note to his cousin. He begged that she would not disturb herself, that he would leave the castle the next morning before she could be up, and that he had only further to remind her that she must come up to London at once as soon as she should be summoned for the trial of Mr. Benjamin and his comrade. It had seemed to Frank that she had almost concluded that her labours connected with that disagreeable matter were at an end. "The examination may be long, and I will attend you if you wish it," said her cousin. Upon receiving this she thought it expedient to come down to him, and there was an interview for about a quarter of an hour in her own little sitting-room looking out upon the sea. She had formed a project, and at once suggested it to him. If she found herself ill when the day of the trial came, could they make her go up and give her evidence? Frank told her that they could, and that they would. She was very clever about it. "They couldn't go back to what I said at Carlisle, you know; because they already have made me tell all that myself." As she had been called upon to criminate herself, she could not now be tried for the crime. Frank, however, would not listen to this, and told her that she must come. "Very well, Frank. I know you like to have your own way. You always did. And you think so little of my feelings! I shall make inquiry, and if I must,--why I suppose I must." "You'd better make up your mind to come." "Very well. And now, Frank, as I am so very tired, if you please I'll say good-bye to you. I am very much obliged to you for coming with me. Good-bye." And so they parted. CHAPTER LXXVII The Story of Lucy Morris Is Concluded On the day appointed, Lucy Morris went back from the house of the old countess to Fawn Court. "My dear," said Lady Linlithgow, "I am sorry that you are going. Perhaps you'll think I haven't been very kind to you, but I never am kind. People have always been hard to me, and I'm hard. But I do like you." "I'm glad you like me, as we have lived together so long." "You may go on staying here, if you choose, and I'll try to make it better." "It hasn't been bad at all,--only that there's nothing particular to do. But I must go. I shall get another place as a governess somewhere, and that will suit me best." "Because of the money, you mean." "Well;--that in part." "I mean to pay you something," said the countess, opening her pocket-book, and fumbling for two bank-notes which she had deposited there. "Oh, dear, no. I haven't earned anything." "I always gave Macnulty something, and she was not near so nice as you." And then the countess produced two ten-pound notes. But Lucy would have none of her money, and when she was pressed, became proud and almost indignant in her denial. She had earned nothing, and she would take nothing; and it was in vain that the old lady spread the clean bits of paper before her. "And so you'll go and be a governess again; will you?" "When I can get a place." "I'll tell you what, my dear. If I were Frank Greystock, I'd stick to my bargain." Lucy at once fell a-crying, but she smiled upon the old woman through her tears. "Of course he's going to marry that little limb of the devil." "Oh, Lady Linlithgow,--if you can, prevent that!" "How am I to prevent it, my dear? I've nothing to say to either of them." "It isn't for myself I'm speaking. If I can't--if I can't--can't have things go as I thought they would by myself, I will never ask any one to help me. It is not that I mean. I have given all that up." "You have given it up?" "Yes;--I have. But nevertheless I think of him. She is bad, and he will never be happy if he marries her. When he asked me to be his wife, he was mistaken as to what would be good for him. He ought not to have made such a mistake. For my sake he ought not." "That's quite true, my dear." "But I do not wish him to be unhappy all his life. He is not bad, but she is very bad. I would not for worlds that anybody should tell him that he owed me anything; but if he could be saved from her,--oh, I should be so-glad." "You won't have my money, then?" "No,--Lady Linlithgow." "You'd better. It is honestly your own." "I will not take it, thank you." "Then I may as well put it up again." And the countess replaced the notes in her pocket-book. When this conversation took place, Frank Greystock was travelling back alone from Portray to London. On the same day the Fawn carriage came to fetch Lucy away. As Lucy was in peculiar distress, Lady Fawn would not allow her to come by any other conveyance. She did not exactly think that the carriage would console her poor favourite; but she did it as she would have ordered something specially nice to eat for any one who had broken his leg. Her soft heart had compassion for misery, though she would sometimes show her sympathy by strange expressions. Lady Linlithgow was almost angry about the carriage. "How many carriages and how many horses does Lady Fawn keep?" she asked. "One carriage and two horses." "She's very fond of sending them up into the streets of London, I think." Lucy said nothing more, knowing that it would be impossible to soften the heart of this dowager in regard to the other. But she kissed the old woman at parting, and then was taken down to Richmond in state. She had made up her mind to have one discussion with Lady Fawn about her engagement,--the engagement which was no longer an engagement,--and then to have done with it. She would ask Lady Fawn to ask the girls never to mention Mr. Greystock's name in her hearing. Lady Fawn had also made up her mind to the same effect. She felt that the subject should be mentioned once,--and once only. Of course Lucy must have another place, but there need be no hurry about that. She fully recognised her young friend's feeling of independence, and was herself aware that she would be wrong to offer to the girl a permanent home among her own daughters, and therefore she could not abandon the idea of a future place; but Lucy would, of course, remain till a situation should have been found for her that would be in every sense unexceptionable. There need, however, be no haste,--and, in the meantime, the few words about Frank Greystock must be spoken. They need not, however, be spoken quite immediately. Let there be smiles, and joy, and a merry ring of laughter on this the first day of the return of their old friend. As Lucy had the same feelings on that afternoon, they did talk pleasantly and were merry. The girls asked questions about the Vulturess,--as they had heard her called by Lizzie Eustace,--and laughed at Lucy to her face when she swore that, after a fashion, she liked the old woman. "You'd like anybody, then," said Nina. "Indeed I don't," said Lucy, thinking at once of Lizzie Eustace. Lady Fawn planned out the next day with great precision. After breakfast, Lucy and the girls were to spend the morning in the old school-room, so that there might be a general explanation as to the doings of the last six months. They were to dine at three, and after dinner there should be the discussion. "Will you come up to my room at four o'clock, my dear?" said Lady Fawn, patting Lucy's shoulder, in the breakfast-parlour. Lucy knew well why her presence was required. Of course she would come. It would be wise to get it over and have done with it. At noon Lady Fawn, with her three eldest daughters, went out in the carriage, and Lucy was busy among the others with books and maps and sheets of scribbled music. Nothing was done on that day in the way of instruction; but there was much of half-jocose acknowledgement of past idleness, and a profusion of resolutions of future diligence. One or two of the girls were going to commence a course of reading that would have broken the back of any professor, and suggestions were made as to very rigid rules as to the talking of French and German. "But as we can't talk German," said Nina, "we should simply be dumb." "You'd talk High Dutch, Nina, sooner than submit to that," said one of the sisters. The conclave was still sitting in full deliberation, when one of the maids entered the room with a very long face. There was a gentleman in the drawing-room asking for Miss Morris! Lucy, who at the moment was standing at a table on which were spread an infinity of books, became at once as white as a sheet. Her fast friend, Lydia Fawn, who was standing by her, immediately took hold of her hand quite tightly. The face of the maid was fit for a funeral. She knew that Miss Morris had had a "follower,"--that the follower had come,--and that then Miss Morris had gone away. Miss Morris had been allowed to come back; and now, on the very first day, just when my lady's back was turned, here was the follower again! Before she had come up with her message, there had been an unanimous expression of opinion in the kitchen that the fat would all be in the fire. Lucy was as white as marble, and felt such a sudden shock at her heart, that she could not speak. And yet she never doubted for a moment that Frank Greystock was the man. And with what purpose but one could he have come there? She had on the old, old frock in which, before her visit to Lady Linlithgow, she used to pass the morning amidst her labours with the girls,--a pale, grey, well-worn frock, to which must have been imparted some attraction from the milliner's art, because everybody liked it so well,--but which she had put on this very morning as a testimony, to all the world around her, that she had abandoned the idea of being anything except a governess. Lady Fawn had understood the frock well. "Here is the dear little old woman just the same as ever," Lydia had said, embracing her. "She looks as if she'd gone to bed before the winter, and had a long sleep, like a dormouse," said Cecilia. Lucy had liked it all, and thoroughly appreciated the loving-kindness; but she had known what it all meant. She had left them as the engaged bride of Mr. Greystock, the member for Bobsborough; and now she had come back as Lucy Morris, the governess, again. "Just the same as ever," Lucy had said, with the sweetest smile. They all understood that, in so saying, she renounced her lover. And now there stood the maid, inside the room, who, having announced that there was a gentleman asking for Miss Morris, was waiting for an answer. Was the follower to be sent about his business, with a flea in his ear, having come, slyly, craftily, and wickedly, in Lady Fawn's absence; or would Miss Morris brazen it out, and go and see him? "Who is the gentleman?" asked Diana, who was the eldest of the Fawn girls present. "It's he as used to come after Miss Morris before," said the maid. "It is Mr. Greystock," said Lucy, recovering herself with an effort. "I had better go down to him. Will you tell him, Mary, that I'll be with him almost immediately?" "You ought to have put on the other frock, after all," said Nina, whispering into her ear. "He has not lost much time in coming to see you," said Lydia. "I suppose it was all because he didn't like Lady Linlithgow," said Cecilia. Lucy had not a word to say. She stood for a minute among them, trying to think, and then she slowly left the room. She would not condescend to alter her dress by the aid of a single pin, or by the adjustment of a ribbon. It might well be that, after the mingled work and play of the morning, her hair should not be smooth; but she was too proud to look at her hair. The man whom she had loved, who had loved her but had neglected her, was in the house. He would surely not have followed her thither did he not intend to make reparation for his neglect. But she would use no art with him;--nor would she make any entreaty. It might be that, after all, he had the courage to come and tell her, in a manly, straightforward way, that the thing must be all over,--that he had made a mistake, and would beg her pardon. If it were so, there should be no word of reproach. She would be quite quiet with him; but there should be no word of reproach. But if-- In that other case she could not be sure of her behaviour, but she knew well that he would not have to ask long for forgiveness. As for her dress,--he had chosen to love her in that frock before, and she did not think that he would pay much attention to her dress on the present occasion. She opened the door very quietly and very slowly, intending to approach him in the same way. But in a moment, before she could remember that she was in the room, he had seized her in his arms, and was showering kisses upon her forehead, her eyes, and her lips. When she thought of it afterwards, she could not call to mind a single word that he had spoken before he held her in his embrace. It was she, surely, who had spoken first, when she begged to be released from his pressure. But she well remembered the first words that struck her ear. "Dearest Lucy, will you forgive me?" She could only answer them through her tears by taking up his hand and kissing it. When Lady Fawn came back with the carriage, she herself saw the figures of two persons, walking very close together, in the shrubberies. "Is that Lucy?" she asked. "Yes," said Augusta, with a tone of horror. "Indeed it is, and--Mr. Greystock." Lady Fawn was neither shocked nor displeased; nor was she disappointed; but a certain faint feeling of being ill-used by circumstances came over her. "Dear me;--the very first day!" she said. "It's because he wouldn't go to Lady Linlithgow's," said Amelia. "He has only waited, mamma." "But the very first day!" exclaimed Lady Fawn. "I hope Lucy will be happy;--that's all." There was a great meeting of all the Fawns, as soon as Lady Fawn and the eldest girls were in the house. Mr. Greystock had been walking about the grounds with Lucy for the last hour and a half. Lucy had come in once to beg that Lady Fawn might be told directly she came in. "She said you were to send for her, mamma," said Lydia. "But it's dinner-time, my dear. What are we to do with Mr. Greystock?" "Ask him to lunch, of course," said Amelia. "I suppose it's all right," said Lady Fawn. "I'm quite sure it's all right," said Nina. "What did she say to you, Lydia?" asked the mother. "She was as happy as ever she could be," said Lydia. "There's no doubt about its being all right, mamma. She looked just as she did when she got the letter from him before." "I hope she managed to change her frock," said Augusta. "She didn't then," said Cecilia. "I don't suppose he cares one halfpenny about her frock," said Nina. "I should never think about a man's coat if I was in love." "Nina, you shouldn't talk in that way," said Augusta. Whereupon Nina made a face behind one of her sisters' backs. Poor Augusta was never allowed to be a prophetess among them. The consultation was ended by a decision in accordance with which Nina went as an ambassador to the lovers. Lady Fawn sent her compliments to Mr. Greystock, and hoped he would come in to lunch. Lucy must come in to dinner, because dinner was ready. "And mamma wants to see you just for a minute," added Nina, in a pretended whisper. "Oh, Nina, you darling girl!" said Lucy, kissing her young friend in an ecstasy of joy. "It's all right?" asked Nina in a whisper which was really intended for privacy. Lucy did not answer the question otherwise than by another kiss. Frank Greystock was, of course, obliged to take his seat at the table, and was entertained with a profusion of civility. Everybody knew that he had behaved badly to Lucy,--everybody, except Lucy herself, who, from this time forward, altogether forgot that she had for some time looked upon him as a traitor, and had made up her mind that she had been deceived and ill-used. All the Fawns had spoken of him, in Lucy's absence, in the hardest terms of reproach, and declared that he was not fit to be spoken to by any decent person. Lady Fawn had known from the first that such a one as he was not to be trusted. Augusta had never liked him. Amelia had feared that poor Lucy Morris had been unwise, and too ambitious. Georgina had seen that, of course, it would never do. Diana had sworn that it was a great shame. Lydia was sure that Lucy was a great deal too good for him. Cecilia had wondered where he would go to;--a form of anathema which had brought down a rebuke from her mother. And Nina had always hated him like poison. But now nothing was too good for him. An unmarried man who is willing to sacrifice himself is, in feminine eyes, always worthy of ribbons and a chaplet. Among all these Fawns there was as little selfishness as can be found,--even among women. The lover was not the lover of one of themselves, but of their governess. And yet, though he desired neither to eat nor drink at that hour, something special had been cooked for him, and a special bottle of wine had been brought out of the cellar. All his sins were forgiven him. No single question was asked as to his gross misconduct during the last six months. No pledge or guarantee was demanded for the future. There he was, in the guise of a declared lover, and the fatted calf was killed. After this early dinner it was necessary that he should return to town, and Lucy obtained leave to walk with him to the station. To her thinking now, there was no sin to be forgiven. Everything was, and had been, just as it ought to be. Had any human being hinted that he had sinned, she would have defended him to the death. Something was said between them about Lizzie, but nothing that arose from jealousy. Not till many months had passed did she tell him of Lizzie's message to herself, and of her visit to Hertford Street. But they spoke of the necklace, and poor Lucy shuddered as she was told the truth about those false oaths. "I really do think that, after that, Lord Fawn is right," she said, looking round at her lover. "Yes; but what he did, he did before that," said Frank. "But are they not good and kind?" she said, pleading for her friends. "Was ever anybody so well treated as they have treated me? I'll tell you what, sir, you mustn't quarrel with Lord Fawn any more. I won't allow it." Then she walked back from the station alone, almost bewildered by her own happiness. That evening something like an explanation was demanded by Lady Fawn, but no explanation was forthcoming. When questions were asked about his silence, Lucy, half in joke and half in earnest, fired up and declared that everything had been as natural as possible. He could not have come to Lady Linlithgow's house. Lady Linlithgow would not receive him. No doubt she had been impatient, but then that had been her fault. Had he not come to her the very first day after her return to Richmond? When Augusta said something as to letters which might have been written, Lucy snubbed her. "Who says he didn't write? He did write. If I am contented, why should you complain?" "Oh, I don't complain," said Augusta. Then questions were asked as to the future,--questions to which Lady Fawn had a right to demand an answer. What did Mr. Greystock propose to do now? Then Lucy broke down, sobbing, crying, triumphing, with mingled love and happiness. She was to go to the deanery. Frank had brought with him a little note to her from his mother, in which she was invited to make the deanery at Bobsborough her home for the present. "And you are to go away just when you've come?" asked Nina. "Stay with us a month, my dear," said Lady Fawn, "just to let people know that we are friends, and after that the deanery will be the best home for you." And so it was arranged. * * * * * It need only be further said, in completing the history of Lucy Morris as far as it can be completed in these pages, that she did go to the deanery, and that there she was received with all the affection which Mrs. Greystock could show to an adopted daughter. Her quarrel had never been with Lucy personally,--but with the untoward fact that her son would not marry money. At the deanery she remained for fifteen happy months, and then became Mrs. Greystock, with a bevy of Fawn bridesmaids around her. As the personages of a chronicle such as this should all be made to operate backwards and forwards on each other from the beginning to the end, it would have been desirable that the chronicler should have been able to report that the ceremony was celebrated by Mr. Emilius. But as the wedding did not take place till the end of the summer, and as Mr. Emilius at that time never remained in town, after the season was over, this was impossible. It was the Dean of Bobsborough, assisted by one of the minor canons, who performed the service. CHAPTER LXXVIII The Trial Having told the tale of Lucy Morris to the end, the chronicler must now go back to the more important persons of this history. It was still early in April when Lizzie Eustace was taken down to Scotland by her cousin, and the trial of Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Smiler was fixed to take place at the Central Criminal Court about the middle of May. Early in May the attorneys for the prosecution applied to Greystock, asking him whether he would make arrangements for his cousin's appearance on the occasion, informing him that she had already been formally summoned. Whereupon he wrote to Lizzie, telling her what she had better do, in the kindest manner,--as though there had been no cessation of their friendly intercourse, offering to go with her into court,--and naming an hotel at which he would advise her to stay during the very short time that she need remain in London. She answered this letter at once. She was sorry to say that she was much too ill to travel, or even to think of travelling. Such was her present condition that she doubted greatly whether she would ever again be able to leave the two rooms to which she was at present confined. All that remained to her in life was to watch her own blue waves from the casement of her dear husband's castle,--that casement at which he had loved to sit, and to make herself happy in the smiles of her child. A few months would see the last of it all, and then, perhaps, they who had trampled her to death would feel some pangs of remorse as they thought of her early fate. She had given her evidence once and had told all the truth,--though she was now aware that she need not have done so, as she had been defrauded of a vast amount of property through the gross negligence of the police. She was advised now by persons who seemed really to understand the law, that she could recover the value of the diamonds which her dear, dear husband had given her, from the freeholders of the parish in which the robbery had taken place. She feared that her health did not admit of the necessary exertion. Were it otherwise she would leave no stone unturned to recover the value of her property,--not on account of its value, but because she had been so ill-treated by Mr. Camperdown and the police. Then she added a postscript to say that it was quite out of the question that she should take any journey for the next six months. The reader need hardly be told that Greystock did not believe a word of what she said. He felt sure that she was not ill. There was an energy in the letter hardly compatible with illness. But he could not make her come. He certainly did not intend to go down again to Scotland to fetch her,--and even had he done so he could not have forced her to accompany him. He could only go to the attorneys concerned, and read to them so much of the letter as he thought fit to communicate to them. "That won't do at all," said an old gentleman at the head of the firm. "She has been very leniently treated, and she must come." "You must manage it, then," said Frank. "I hope she won't give us trouble, because if she does we must expose her," said the second member. "She has not even sent a medical certificate," said the tyro of the firm, who was not quite so sharp as he will probably become when he has been a member of it for ten or twelve years. You should never ask the ostler whether he greases his oats. In this case Frank Greystock was not exactly in the position of the ostler; but he did inform his cousin by letter that she would lay herself open to all manner of pains and penalties if she disobeyed such a summons as she had received, unless she did so by a very strong medical advice, backed by a medical certificate. Lizzie, when she received this, had two strings to her bow. A writer from Ayr had told her that the summons sent to her was not worth the paper on which it was printed in regard to a resident in Scotland;--and she had also got a doctor from the neighbourhood who was satisfied that she was far too ill to travel up to London. Pulmonary debilitation was the complaint from which she was suffering, which, with depressed vitality in all the organs, and undue languor in all the bodily functions, would be enough to bring her to a speedy end if she so much as thought of making a journey up to London. A certificate to this effect was got in triplicate. One copy she sent to the attorneys, one to Frank, and one she kept herself. The matter was very pressing indeed. It was considered that the trial could not be postponed till the next sitting at the Criminal Court, because certain witnesses in respect to the diamonds had been procured from Hamburg and Vienna, at a very great cost; they were actually on their way to London when Lizzie's second letter was received. Mr. Camperdown had resolved to have the diamonds, still with a hope that they might be restored to the keeping of Messrs. Garnett, there to lie hidden and unused at any rate for the next twenty years. The diamonds had been traced first to Hamburg, and then to Vienna;--and it was to be proved that they were now adorning the bosom of a certain enormously rich Russian princess. From the grasp of the Russian princess it was found impossible to rescue them; but the witnesses who, as it was hoped, might have aided Mr. Camperdown in his efforts, were to be examined at the trial. A confidential clerk was sent down to Portray, but the confidential clerk altogether failed in making his way into Lizzie's presence. Word was brought to him that nothing but force could take Lady Eustace from her bed-chamber; and that force used to that effect might take her out dead, but certainly not alive. He made inquiry, however, about the doctor, and found that he certainly was a doctor. If a doctor will certify that a lady is dying, what can any judge do, or any jury? There are certain statements which, though they are false as hell, must be treated as though they were true as gospel. The clerk reported, when he got back to London, that, to his belief, Lady Eustace was enjoying an excellent state of health;--but that he was perfectly certain that she would not appear as a witness at the trial. The anger felt by many persons as to Lizzie's fraudulent obstinacy was intense. Mr. Camperdown thought that she ought to be dragged up to London by cart ropes. The attorneys engaged for the prosecution were almost beside themselves. They did send down a doctor of their own, but Lizzie would not see the doctor,--would not see the doctor though threats of most frightful consequences were conveyed to her. She would be exposed, fined thousands of pounds, committed to gaol for contempt of court, and prosecuted for perjury into the bargain. But she was firm. She wrote one scrap of a note to the doctor who came from London, "I shall not live to satisfy their rabid vengeance." Even Frank Greystock felt almost more annoyed than gratified that she should be able thus to escape. People who had heard of the inquiry before the magistrate, had postponed their excitement and interest on the occasion, because they knew that the day of the trial would be the great day; and when they heard that they were to be robbed of the pleasure of Lady Eustace's cross-examination, there arose almost a public feeling of wrath that justice should be thus outraged. The doctor who had given the certificate was vilified in the newspapers, and long articles were written as to the impotence of the law. But Lizzie was successful, and the trial went on without her. It appeared that though her evidence was very desirable it was not absolutely essential, as, in consequence of her certified illness, the statement which she had made at the police-court could be brought up and used against the prisoners. All the facts of the robbery were, moreover, proved by Patience Crabstick and Billy Cann; and the transfer of the diamonds by Mr. Benjamin to the man who recut them at Hamburg was also proved. Many other morsels of collateral evidence had also been picked up by the police,--so that there was no possible doubt as to any detail of the affair in Hertford Street. There was a rumour that Mr. Benjamin intended to plead guilty. He might, perhaps, have done so had it not been for the absence of Lady Eustace; but as that was thought to give him a possible chance of escape, he stood his ground. Lizzie's absence was a great disappointment to the sight-seers of London, but nevertheless the court was crowded. It was understood that the learned serjeant who was retained on this occasion to defend Mr. Benjamin, and who was assisted by the acute gentleman who had appeared before the magistrate, would be rather severe upon Lady Eustace, even in her absence; and that he would ground his demand for an acquittal on the combined facts of her retention of the diamonds, her perjury, and of her obstinate refusal to come forward on the present occasion. As it was known that he could be very severe, many came to hear him,--and they were not disappointed. The reader shall see a portion of his address to the jury,--which we hope may have had some salutary effect on Lizzie, as she read it in her retreat at Portray, looking out upon her own blue waves. "And now, gentlemen of the jury, let me recapitulate to you the history of this lady as far as it relates to the diamonds as to which my client is now in jeopardy. You have heard on the testimony of Mr. Camperdown that they were not hers at all,--that, at any rate, they were not supposed to be hers by those in whose hands was left the administration of her husband's estate, and that when they were first supposed to have been stolen at the inn at Carlisle, he had already commenced legal steps for the recovery of them from her clutches. A bill in Chancery had been filed because she had obstinately refused to allow them to pass out of her hands. It has been proved to you by Lord Fawn that though he was engaged to marry her, he broke his engagement because he supposed her possession of these diamonds to be fraudulent and dishonest." This examination had been terrible to the unfortunate Under-Secretary;--and had absolutely driven him away from the India Board and from Parliament for a month. "It has been proved to you that when the diamonds were supposed to have vanished at Carlisle, she there committed perjury. That she did so she herself stated on oath in that evidence which she gave before the magistrate when my client was committed, and which has, as I maintain, improperly and illegally been used against my client at this trial." Here the judge looked over his spectacles and admonished the learned serjeant, that his argument on that subject had already been heard, and the matter decided. "True, my lord; but my conviction of my duty to my client compels me to revert to it. Lady Eustace committed perjury at Carlisle, having the diamonds in her pocket at the very moment in which she swore that they had been stolen from her. And if justice had really been done in this case, gentlemen, it is Lady Eustace who should now be on her trial before you, and not my unfortunate client. Well,--what is the next that we hear of it? It seems that she brought the diamonds up to London; but how long she kept them there, nobody knows. It was, however, necessary to account for them. A robbery is got up between a young woman who seems to have been the confidential friend rather than the maid of Lady Eustace, and that other witness whom you have heard testifying against himself, and who is, of all the informers that ever came into my hands, the most flippant, the most hardened, the least conscientious, and the least credible. That they two were engaged in a conspiracy I cannot doubt. That Lady Eustace was engaged with them, I will not say. But I will ask you to consider whether such may not probably have been the case. At any rate, she then perjures herself again. She gives a list of the articles stolen from her, and omits the diamonds. She either perjures herself a second time,--or else the diamonds, in regard to which my client is in jeopardy, were not in the house at all, and could not then have been stolen. It may very probably have been so. Nothing more probable. Mr. Camperdown and the managers of the Eustace estate had gradually come to a belief that the Carlisle robbery was a hoax,--and, therefore, another robbery is necessary to account for the diamonds. Another robbery is arranged, and this young and beautiful widow, as bold as brass, again goes before the magistrate and swears. Either the diamonds were not stolen, or else again she commits a second perjury. "And now, gentlemen, she is not here. She is sick forsooth at her own castle in Scotland, and sends to us a medical certificate. But the gentlemen who are carrying on the prosecution know their witness, and don't believe a word of her sickness. Had she the feelings of woman in her bosom she ought indeed to be sick unto death. But they know her better, and send down a doctor of their own. You have heard his evidence,--and yet this wonderful lady is not before us. I say again that she ought to be here in that dock,--in that dock in spite of her fortune, in that dock in spite of her title, in that dock in spite of her castle, her riches, her beauty, and her great relatives. A most wonderful woman, indeed, is the widow Eustace. It is she whom public opinion will convict as the guilty one in this marvellous mass of conspiracy and intrigue. In her absence, and after what she has done herself, can you convict any man either of stealing or of disposing of these diamonds?" The vigour, the attitude, and the indignant tone of the man were more even than his words;--but, nevertheless, the jury did find both Benjamin and Smiler guilty, and the judge did sentence them to penal servitude for fifteen years. And this was the end of the Eustace diamonds as far as anything was ever known of them in England. Mr. Camperdown altogether failed, even in his attempt to buy them back at something less than their value, and was ashamed himself to look at the figures when he found how much money he had wasted for his clients in their pursuit. In discussing the matter afterwards with Mr. Dove, he excused himself by asserting his inability to see so gross a robbery perpetrated by a little minx under his very eyes without interfering with the plunder. "I knew what she was," he said, "from the moment of Sir Florian's unfortunate marriage. He had brought a little harpy into the family, and I was obliged to declare war against her." Mr. Dove seemed to be of opinion that the ultimate loss of the diamonds was upon the whole desirable, as regarded the whole community. "I should like to have had the case settled as to right of possession," he said, "because there were in it one or two points of interest. We none of us know, for instance, what a man can, or what a man cannot, give away by a mere word." "No such word was ever spoken," said Mr. Camperdown in wrath. "Such evidence as there is would have gone to show that it had been spoken. But the very existence of such property so to be disposed of, or so not to be disposed of, is in itself an evil. Thus, we have had to fight for six months about a lot of stones hardly so useful as the flags in the street, and then they vanish from us, leaving us nothing to repay us for our labour." All which Mr. Camperdown did not quite understand. Mr. Dove would be paid for his labour,--as to which, however, Mr. Camperdown knew well that no human being was more indifferent than Mr. Dove. There was much sorrow, too, among the police. They had no doubt succeeded in sending two scoundrels out of the social world, probably for life, and had succeeded in avoiding the reproach which a great robbery, unaccounted for, always entails upon them. But it was sad to them that the property should altogether have been lost, and sad also that they should have been constrained to allow Billy Cann to escape out of their hands. Perhaps the sadness may have been lessened to a certain degree in the breast of the great Mr. Gager by the charms and graces of Patience Crabstick, to whom he kept his word by making her his wife. This fact,--or rather the prospect of this fact, as it then was,--had also come to the knowledge of the learned serjeant, and, in his hands, had served to add another interest to the trial. Mr. Gager, when examined on the subject, did not attempt to deny the impeachment, and expressed a strong opinion that, though Miss Crabstick had given way to temptation under the wiles of the Jew, she would make an honest and an excellent wife. In which expectation let us trust that he may not be deceived. Amusement had, indeed, been expected from other sources which failed. Mrs. Carbuncle had been summoned, and Lord George; but both of them had left town before the summons could reach them. It was rumoured that Mrs. Carbuncle, with her niece, had gone to join her husband at New York. At any rate, she disappeared altogether from London, leaving behind her an amount of debts which showed how extremely liberal in their dealings the great tradesmen of London will occasionally be. There were milliners' bills which had been running for three years, and horse-dealers had given her credit year after year, though they had scarcely ever seen the colour of her money. One account, however, she had honestly settled. The hotel-keeper in Albemarle Street had been paid, and all the tribute had been packed and carried off from the scene of the proposed wedding banquet. What became of Lord George for the next six months, nobody ever knew; but he appeared at Melton in the following November, and I do not know that any one dared to ask him questions about the Eustace diamonds. Of Lizzie, and her future career, something further must be said in the concluding chapters of this work. She has been our heroine, and we must see her through her immediate troubles before we can leave her; but it may be as well to mention here, that although many threats had been uttered against her, not only by Mr. Camperdown and the other attorneys, but even by the judge himself, no punishment at all was inflicted upon her in regard to her recusancy, nor was any attempt made to punish her. The affair was over, and men were glad to avoid the necessity of troubling themselves further with the business. It was said that a case would be got up with the view of proving that she had not been ill at all, and that the Scotch doctor would be subjected to the loss of his degree, or whatever privileges in the healing art belonged to him;--but nothing was done, and Lizzie triumphed in her success. CHAPTER LXXIX Once More at Portray On the very day of the trial Mr. Emilius travelled from London to Kilmarnock. The trial took place on a Monday, so that he had at his command an entire week before he would be required to appear again in his church. He had watched the case against Benjamin and Smiler very closely, and had known beforehand, almost with accuracy, what witnesses would appear and what would not at the great coming event at the Old Bailey. When he first heard of Lady Eustace's illness, he wrote to her a most affectionately pastoral letter, strongly adjuring her to think of her health before all things, and assuring her that in his opinion, and in that of all his friends, she was quite right not to come up to London. She wrote him a very short but a very gracious answer, thanking him for his solicitude, and explaining to him that her condition made it quite impossible that she should leave Portray. "I don't suppose anybody knows how ill I am; but it does not matter. When I am gone, they will know what they have done." Then Mr. Emilius resolved that he would go down to Scotland. Perhaps Lady Eustace was not as ill as she thought; but it might be that the trial, and the hard things lately said of her, and her loneliness, and the feeling that she needed protection, might, at such a moment as this, soften her heart. She should know at least that one tender friend did not desert her because of the evil things which men said of her. He went to Kilmarnock, thinking it better to make his approaches by degrees. Were he to present himself at once at the castle and be refused admittance, he would hardly know how to repeat his application or to force himself upon her presence. From Kilmarnock he wrote to her, saying that business connected with his ministrations during the coming autumn had brought him into her beautiful neighbourhood, and that he could not leave it without paying his respects to her in person. With her permission he would call upon her on the Thursday at about noon. He trusted that the state of her health would not prevent her from seeing him, and reminded her that a clergyman was often as welcome a visitor at the bedside of the invalid, as the doctor or the nurse. He gave her no address, as he rather wished to hinder her from answering him, but at the appointed hour he knocked at the castle-door. Need it be said that Lizzie's state of health was not such as to preclude her from seeing so intimate a friend as Mr. Emilius? That she was right to avoid by any effort the castigation which was to have fallen upon her from the tongue of the learned serjeant, the reader who is not straight-laced will be disposed to admit. A lone woman, very young, and delicately organised! How could she have stood up against such treatment as was in store for her? And is it not the case that false pretexts against public demands are always held to be justifiable by the female mind? What lady will ever scruple to avoid her taxes? What woman ever understood her duty to the State? And this duty which was required of her was so terrible, that it might well have reduced to falsehood a stouter heart than her own. It can hardly be reckoned among Lizzie's great sins that she did not make that journey up to London. An appearance of sickness she did maintain, even with her own domestics. To do as much as that was due even to the doctor whom she had cajoled out of the certificate, and who was afterwards frightened into maintaining it. But Mr. Emilius was her clergyman,--her own clergyman, as she took care to say to her maid,--her own clergyman, who had come all the way from London to be present with her in her sickness; and of course she would see him. Lizzie did not think much of the coming autumnal ministration at Kilmarnock. She knew very well why Mr. Emilius had undertaken the expense of a journey into Scotland in the middle of the London season. She had been maimed fearfully in her late contests with the world, and was now lame and soiled and impotent. The boy with none of the equipments of the skilled sportsman can make himself master of a wounded bird. Mr. Emilius was seeking her in the moment of her weakness, fearing that all chance of success might be over for him should she ever again recover the full use of her wings. All this Lizzie understood, and was able to measure Mr. Emilius at his own value of himself. But then, again, she was forced to ask herself what was her value. She had been terribly mauled by the fowlers. She had been hit, so to say, on both wings, and hardly knew whether she would ever again be able to attempt a flight in public. She could not live alone in Portray Castle for the rest of her days. Ianthe's soul and the Corsair were not, in truth, able to console her for the loss of society. She must have somebody to depend upon;--ah, some one whom, if it were possible, she might love. She saw no reason why she should not love Mr. Emilius. She had been shockingly ill-treated by Lord Fawn, and the Corsair, and Frank Greystock. No woman had ever been so knocked about in her affections. She pitied herself with an exceeding pity when she thought of all the hardships which she had endured. Left an early widow, persecuted by her husband's family, twice robbed, spied upon by her own servants, unappreciated by the world at large, ill-used by three lovers, victimised by her selected friend, Mrs. Carbuncle, and now driven out of society because she had lost her diamonds, was she not more cruelly treated than any woman of whom she had ever read or heard? But she was not going to give up the battle, even now. She still had her income, and she had great faith in income. And though she knew that she had been grievously wounded by the fowlers, she believed that time would heal her wounds. The world would not continue to turn its back altogether upon a woman with four thousand pounds a year, because she had told a fib about her necklace. She weighed all this; but the conviction strongest upon her mind was the necessity that she should have a husband. She felt that a woman by herself in the world can do nothing, and that an unmarried woman's strength lies only in the expectation that she may soon be married. To her it was essentially necessary that she should have the protection of a husband who might endure on her behalf some portion of those buffetings to which she seemed to be especially doomed. Could she do better with herself than take Mr. Emilius? Might she have chosen from all the world, Mr. Emilius was not, perhaps, the man whom she would have selected. There were, indeed, attributes in the man, very objectionable in the sight of some people, which to her were not specially disagreeable. She thought him rather good-looking than otherwise, in spite of a slight defect in his left eye. His coal-black, glossy hair commanded and obtained her admiration, and she found his hooky nose to be handsome. She did not think much of the ancestral blood of which he had boasted, and hardly believed that he would ever become a bishop. But he was popular, and with a rich, titled wife, might become more so. Mr. Emilius and Lady Eustace would, she thought, sound very well, and would surely make their way in society. The man had a grasping ambition about him, and a capacity, too, which, combined, would enable him to preach himself into notoriety. And then in marrying Mr. Emilius, should she determine to do so, she might be sure, almost sure, of dictating her own terms as to settlement. With Lord Fawn, with Lord George, or even with her cousin Frank, there would have been much difficulty. She thought that with Mr. Emilius she might obtain the undisputed command of her own income. But she did not quite make up her mind. She would see him and hear what he had to say. Her income was her own, and should she refuse Mr. Emilius, other suitors would no doubt come. She dressed herself with considerable care,--having first thought of receiving him in bed. But as the trial had now gone on without her, it would be convenient that her recovery should be commenced. So she had herself dressed in a white morning wrapper with pink bows, and allowed the curl to be made fit to hang over her shoulder. And she put on a pair of pretty slippers, with gilt bindings, and took a laced handkerchief and a volume of Shelley,--and so she prepared herself to receive Mr. Emilius. Lizzie, since the reader first knew her, had begun to use a little colouring in the arrangement of her face, and now, in honour of her sickness, she was very pale indeed. But still, through the paleness, there was the faintest possible tinge of pink colour shining through the translucent pearl powder. Any one who knew Lizzie would be sure that, when she did paint, she would paint well. The conversation was at first, of course, confined to the lady's health. She thought that she was, perhaps, getting better, though, as the doctor had told her, the reassuring symptoms might too probably only be too fallacious. She could eat nothing,--literally nothing. A few grapes out of the hothouse had supported her for the last week. This statement was foolish on Lizzie's part, as Mr. Emilius was a man of an inquiring nature, and there was not a grape in the garden. Her only delight was in reading and in her child's society. Sometimes she thought that she would pass away with the boy in her arms and her favourite volume of Shelley in her hand. Mr. Emilius expressed a hope that she would not pass away yet, for ever so many years. "Oh, my friend," said Lizzie, "what is life, that one should desire it?" Mr. Emilius of course reminded her that, though her life might be nothing to herself, it was very much indeed to those who loved her. "Yes;--to my boy," said Lizzie. Mr. Emilius informed her, with confidence, that it was not only her boy that loved her. There were others;--or, at any rate, one other. She might be sure of one faithful heart, if she cared for that. Lizzie only smiled, and threw from her taper fingers a little paper pellet into the middle of the room,--probably with the view of showing at what value she priced the heart of which Mr. Emilius was speaking. The trial had occupied two days, Monday and Tuesday, and this was now the Wednesday. The result had been telegraphed to Mr. Emilius,--of course without any record of the serjeant's bitter speech,--and the suitor now gave the news to his lady-love. Those two horrid men had at last been found guilty, and punished with all the severity of the law. "Poor fellows," said Lady Eustace,--"poor Mr. Benjamin! Those ill-starred jewels have been almost as unkind to him as to me." "He'll never come back alive, of course," said Mr. Emilius. "It'll kill him." "And it will kill me too," said Lizzie. "I have a something here which tells me that I shall never recover. Nobody will ever believe what I have suffered about those paltry diamonds. But he coveted them. I never coveted them, Mr. Emilius; though I clung to them because they were my darling husband's last gift to me." Mr. Emilius assured her that he quite understood the facts, and appreciated all her feelings. And now, as he thought, had come the time for pressing his suit. With widows, he had been told, the wooing should be brisk. He had already once asked her to be his wife, and of course she knew the motive of his journey to Scotland. "Dearest Lady Eustace," he said suddenly, "may I be allowed to renew the petition which I was once bold enough to make to you in London?" "Petition!" exclaimed Lizzie. "Ah yes; I can well understand that your indifference should enable you to forget it. Lady Eustace, I did venture to tell you--that--I loved you." "Mr. Emilius, so many men have told me that." "I can well believe it. Some have told you so, perhaps, from base, mercenary motives." "You are very complimentary, sir." "I shall never pay you any compliments, Lady Eustace. Whatever may be our future intercourse in life, you will only hear words of truth from my lips. Some have told you so from mercenary motives."--Mr. Emilius repeated the words with severity, and then paused to hear whether she would dare to argue with him. As she was silent, he changed his voice, and went on with that sweet, oily tone which had made his fortune for him.--"Some, no doubt, have spoken from the inner depths of their hearts. But none, Lady Eustace, have spoken with such adamantine truth, with so intense an anxiety, with so personal a solicitude for your welfare in this world and the next, as that,--or I should rather say those,--which glow within this bosom." Lizzie was certainly pleased by the manner in which he addressed her. She thought that a man ought to dare to speak out, and that on such an occasion as this he should venture to do so with some enthusiasm and some poetry. She considered that men generally were afraid of expressing themselves, and were as dumb as dogs from the want of becoming spirit. Mr. Emilius gesticulated, and struck his breast, and brought out his words as though he meant them. "It is easy to say all that, Mr. Emilius," she replied. "The saying of it is hard enough, Lady Eustace. You can never know how hard it is to speak from a full heart. But to feel it, I will not say is easy;--only to me, not to feel it is impossible. Lady Eustace, my heart is devoted to your heart, and seeks its comrade. It is sick with love and will not be stayed. It forces from me words,--words which will return upon me with all the bitterness of gall, if they be not accepted by you as faithful, ay and of great value." "I know well the value of such a heart as yours, Mr. Emilius." "Accept it then, dearest one." "Love will not always go by command, Mr. Emilius." "No indeed;--nor at command will it stay away. Do you think I have not tried that? Do you believe that for a man it can be pleasant to be rebuffed;--that for one who up to this day has always walked on, triumphant over every obstacle, who has conquered every nay that has obstructed his path, it can have less of bitterness than the bitterness of death to encounter a no from the lips of a woman?" "A poor woman's no should be nothing to you, Mr. Emilius." "It is everything to me,--death, destruction, annihilation,--unless I can overcome it. Darling of my heart, queen of my soul, empress presiding over the very spirit of my being, say,--shall I overcome it now?" She had never been made love to after this fashion before. She knew, or half knew, that the man was a scheming hypocrite, craving her money, and following her in the hour of her troubles, because he might then have the best chance of success. She had no belief whatever in his love; and yet she liked it, and approved his proceedings. She liked lies, thinking them to be more beautiful than truth. To lie readily and cleverly, recklessly and yet successfully, was, according to the lessons which she had learned, a necessity in woman and an added grace in man. There was that wretched Macnulty, who would never lie; and what was the result? She was unfit even for the poor condition of life which she pretended to fill. When poor Macnulty had heard that Mr. Emilius was coming to the castle, and had not even mentioned her name, and again, when he had been announced on this very morning, the unfortunate woman had been unable to control her absurd disappointment. "Mr. Emilius," Lizzie said, throwing herself back upon her couch, "you press me very hard." "I would press you harder still to gain the glory I covet." And he made a motion with his arms as though he had already got her tight within his grasp. "You take advantage of my illness." "In attacking a fortress do not the besiegers take all advantages? Dear Lady Eustace, allow me to return to London with the right of protecting your name at this moment, in which the false and the thoughtless are attacking it. You need a defender now." "I can defend myself, sir, from all attacks. I do not know that any one can hurt me." "God forbid that you should be hurt. Heaven forbid that even the winds of heaven should blow too harshly on my beloved. But my beloved is subject to the malice of the world. My beloved is a flower all beautiful within and without, but one whose stalk is weak, whose petals are too delicate, whose soft bloom is evanescent. Let me be the strong staff against which my beloved may blow in safety." A vague idea came across Lizzie's mind that this glowing language had a taste of the Bible about it, and that, therefore, it was in some degree impersonal, and intended to be pious. She did not relish piety at such a crisis as this, and was, therefore, for a moment inclined to be cold. But she liked being called a flower, and was not quite sure whether she remembered her Bible rightly. The words which struck her ear as familiar might have come from Juan and Haidee, and if so, nothing could be more opportune. "Do you expect me to give you answer now, Mr. Emilius?" "Yes,--now." And he stood before her in calm dignity, with his arms crossed upon his breast. She did give him his answer then and there, but first she turned her face to the wall,--or rather to the back of the sofa, and burst into a flood of tears. It was a delicious moment to her, that in which she was weeping. She sobbed forth something about her child, something about her sorrows, something as to the wretchedness of her lot in life, something of her widowed heart,--something also of that duty to others which would compel her to keep her income in her own hands; and then she yielded herself to his entreaties. * * * * * That evening she thought it proper to tell Miss Macnulty what had occurred. "He is a great preacher of the gospel," she said, "and I know no position in the world more worthy of a woman's fondest admiration." Miss Macnulty was unable to answer a word. She could not congratulate her successful rival, even though her bread depended on it. She crept slowly out of the room, and went up-stairs, and wept. Early in the month of June, Lady Eustace was led to the hymeneal altar by her clerical bridegroom. The wedding took place at the Episcopal church at Ayr, far from the eyes of curious Londoners. It need only be further said that Mr. Emilius could be persuaded to agree to no settlements prejudicial to that marital supremacy which should be attached to the husband; and that Lizzie, when the moment came, knowing that her betrothal had been made public to all the world, did not dare to recede from another engagement. It may be that Mr. Emilius will suit her as well as any husband that she could find,--unless it shall be found that his previous career has been too adventurous. After a certain fashion he will, perhaps, be tender to her; but he will have his own way in everything, and be no whit afraid when she is about to die in an agony of tears before his eyes. The writer of the present story may, however, declare that the future fate of this lady shall not be left altogether in obscurity. CHAPTER LXXX What Was Said About It All at Matching The Whitsuntide holidays were late this year, not taking place till the beginning of June, and were protracted till the 9th of that month. On the 8th Lizzie and Mr. Emilius became man and wife, and on that same day Lady Glencora Palliser entertained a large company of guests at Matching Priory. That the Duke of Omnium was there was quite a matter of course. Indeed, in these days Lady Glencora seldom separated herself far, or for any long time, from her husband's uncle,--doing her duty to the head of her husband's family in the most exemplary manner. People indeed said that she watched him narrowly, but of persons in high station common people will say anything. It was at any rate certain that she made the declining years of that great nobleman's life comfortable and decorous. Madame Max Goesler was also at Matching, a lady whose society always gave gratification to the duke. And Mr. Palliser was also there, taking the rest that was so needful to him;--by which it must be understood that after having worked all day, he was able to eat his dinner, and then only write a few letters before going to bed, instead of attending the House of Commons till two or three o'clock in the morning. But his mind was still deep in quints and semitenths. His great measure was even now in committee. His hundred and second clause had been carried, with only nine divisions against him of any consequence. Seven of the most material clauses had, no doubt, been postponed, and the great bone of contention as to the two superfluous farthings still remained before him. Nevertheless he fondly hoped that he would be able to send his bill complete to the House of Lords before the end of July. What might be done in the way of amendments there he had hitherto refused to consider. "If the peers choose to put themselves in opposition to the whole nation on a purely commercial question, the responsibility of all evils that may follow must be at their doors." This he had said as a commoner. A year or two at the farthest,--or more probably a few months,--would make him a peer; and then, no doubt, he would look at the matter in a wholly different light. But he worked at his great measure with a diligence which at any rate deserved success; and he now had with him a whole bevy of secretaries, private secretaries, chief clerks, and accountants, all of whom Lady Glencora captivated by her flattering ways, and laughed at behind their backs. Mr. Bonteen was there with his wife, repeatedly declaring to all his friends that England would achieve the glories of decimal coinage by his blood and over his grave,--and Barrington Erle, who took things much more easily, and Lord Chiltern, with his wife, who would occasionally ask her if she could explain to him the value of a quint, and many others whom it may not be necessary to name. Lord Fawn was not there. Lord Fawn, whose health had temporarily given way beneath the pressing labours of the India Board, was visiting his estates in Tipperary. "She is married to-day, duke, down in Scotland,"--said Lady Glencora, sitting close to the duke's ear, for the duke was a little deaf. They were in the duke's small morning sitting-room, and no one else was present excepting Madame Max Goesler. "Married to-morrow,--down in Scotland. Dear, dear! what is he?" The profession to which Mr. Emilius belonged had been mentioned to the duke more than once before. "He's some sort of a clergyman, duke. You went and heard him preach, Madame Max. You can tell us what he's like." "Oh, yes; he's a clergyman of our church," said Madame Goesler. "A clergyman of our church;--dear, dear. And married in Scotland! That makes it stranger. I wonder what made a clergyman marry her?" "Money, duke," said Lady Glencora, speaking very loud. "Oh, ah, yes; money. So he'd got money; had he?" "Not a penny, duke; but she had." "Oh, ah, yes. I forgot. She was very well left; wasn't she? And so she has married a clergyman without a penny. Dear, dear! Did not you say she was very beautiful?" "Lovely!" "Let me see,--you went and saw her, didn't you?" "I went to her twice,--and got quite scolded about it. Plantagenet said that if I wanted horrors I'd better go to Madame Tussaud. Didn't he, Madame Max?" Madame Max smiled and nodded her head. "And what's the clergyman like?" asked the duke. "Now, my dear, you must take up the running," said Lady Glencora, dropping her voice. "I ran after the lady, but it was you who ran after the gentleman." Then she raised her voice. "Madame Max will tell you all about it, duke. She knows him very well." "You know him very well; do you? Dear, dear, dear!" "I don't know him at all, duke, but I once went to hear him preach. He's one of those men who string words together, and do a good deal of work with a cambric pocket-handkerchief." "A gentleman?" asked the duke. "About as like a gentleman as you're like an archbishop," said Lady Glencora. This tickled the duke amazingly. "He, he, he;--I don't see why I shouldn't be like an archbishop. If I hadn't happened to be a duke, I should have liked to be an archbishop. Both the archbishops take rank of me. I never quite understood why that was, but they do. And these things never can be altered when they're once settled. It's quite absurd, now-a-days, since they've cut the archbishops down so terribly. They were princes once, I suppose, and had great power. But it's quite absurd now, and so they must feel it. I have often thought about that a good deal, Glencora." "And I think about poor Mrs. Arch, who hasn't got any rank at all." "A great prelate having a wife does seem to be an absurdity," said Madame Max, who had passed some years of her life in a Catholic country. "And the man is a cad;--is he?" asked the duke. "A Bohemian Jew, duke,--an impostor who has come over here to make a fortune. We hear that he has a wife in Prague, and probably two or three elsewhere. But he has got poor little Lizzie Eustace and all her money into his grasp, and they who know him say that he's likely to keep it." "Dear, dear, dear!" "Barrington says that the best spec he knows out, for a younger son, would be to go to Prague for the former wife, and bring her back with evidence of the marriage. The poor little woman could not fail of being grateful to the hero who would liberate her." "Dear, dear, dear!" said the duke. "And the diamonds never turned up after all. I think that was a pity, because I knew the late man's father very well. We used to be together a good deal at one time. He had a fine property, and we used to live--but I can't just tell you how we used to live. He, he, he!" "You had better tell us nothing about it, duke," said Madame Max. The affairs of our heroine were again discussed that evening in another part of the Priory. They were in the billiard-room in the evening, and Mr. Bonteen was inveighing against the inadequacy of the law as it had been brought to bear against the sinners who, between them, had succeeded in making away with the Eustace diamonds. "It was a most unworthy conclusion to such a plot," he said. "It always happens that they catch the small fry, and let the large fish escape." "Whom did you specially want to catch?" asked Lady Glencora. "Lady Eustace, and Lord George de Bruce Carruthers,--as he calls himself." "I quite agree with you, Mr. Bonteen, that it would be very nice to send the brother of a marquis to Botany Bay, or wherever they go now; and that it would do a deal of good to have the widow of a baronet locked up in the Penitentiary; but you see, if they didn't happen to be guilty, it would be almost a shame to punish them for the sake of the example." "They ought to have been guilty," said Barrington Erle. "They were guilty," protested Mr. Bonteen. Mr. Palliser was enjoying ten minutes of recreation before he went back to his letters. "I can't say that I attended to the case very closely," he observed, "and perhaps, therefore, I am not entitled to speak about it." "If people only spoke about what they attended to, how very little there would be to say,--eh, Mr. Bonteen?" This observation came, of course, from Lady Glencora. "But as far as I could hear," continued Mr. Palliser, "Lord George Carruthers cannot possibly have had anything to do with it. It was a stupid mistake on the part of the police." "I'm not quite so sure, Mr. Palliser," said Bonteen. "I know Coldfoot told me so." Now Sir Harry Coldfoot was at this time Secretary of State for the Home affairs, and in a matter of such importance of course had an opinion of his own. "We all know that he had money dealings with Benjamin, the Jew," said Mrs. Bonteen. "Why didn't he come forward as a witness when he was summoned?" asked Mr. Bonteen triumphantly. "And as for the woman, does anybody mean to say that she should not have been indicted for perjury?" "The woman, as you are pleased to call her, is my particular friend," said Lady Glencora. When Lady Glencora made any such statement as this,--and she often did make such statements,--no one dared to answer her. It was understood that Lady Glencora was not to be snubbed, though she was very much given to snubbing others. She had attained this position for herself by a mixture of beauty, rank, wealth, and courage;--but the courage had, of the four, been her greatest mainstay. Then Lord Chiltern, who was playing billiards with Barrington Erle, rapped his cue down on the floor, and made a speech. "I never was so sick of anything in my life as I am of Lady Eustace. People have talked about her now for the last six months." "Only three months, Lord Chiltern," said Lady Glencora, in a tone of rebuke. "And all that I can hear of her is, that she has told a lot of lies and lost a necklace." "When Lady Chiltern loses a necklace worth ten thousand pounds there will be talk of her," said Lady Glencora. At that moment Madame Max Goesler entered the room and whispered a word to the hostess. She had just come from the duke, who could not bear the racket of the billiard-room. "Wants to go to bed, does he? Very well. I'll go to him." "He seems to be quite fatigued with his fascination about Lady Eustace." "I call that woman a perfect God-send. What should we have done without her?" This Lady Glencora said almost to herself as she prepared to join the duke. The duke had only one more observation to make before he retired for the night. "I'm afraid, you know, that your friend hasn't what I call a good time before her, Glencora." In this opinion of the Duke of Omnium, the readers of this story will perhaps agree.