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Steck ate s AS 7 Ss : att en hm Heh Seis) Bit ie tS Coat eatin et High ie Hae £45 . a LS ee _ ae ano pec viae Be : tA BE ey) Lae Pao agh tei te ag $, oe f eo se ie oD Taos 4 is _ ae ese y | Be F gan eg Ee fee EG BEES ae seta Hh Hes At eg Wide Lee eg sey Pein b BEKO Ag ie A Oe ies sh a oe OM La tye GEES ie is te a = asyeae ite me i ‘ ei oe Le : ae ee Mts Bi ee feiphes Be Be ye 7 Hosanna eae Les ete Na wae as! a Sn ee Cm eee Sa yah S ‘ aie SEAS pA i. > ~ ow TSS ae Sich ht ea a EP ey NN So NSC eS SES —< =< SSeS Hl eu ae tj ip ae of 4 $ Be op Ane < fa AnD J i Are — Sietechaacaeer one Rei) ‘as is; irs pene Ain fs, Apyee Saath 7}, | Yas te ier 4 pas a, sai Bs ee a oes Layee he , i Ma *) | oo ae Lo MOANTE TeeGate cee ¢ ; crivcie a. ns = * COMMON PLACE, AND OTHER SHORT STORIES. io ‘ . - “ y e ' » : ’ ' 7 f ¥ Oe - ; ‘ { : aks? nn oe | of *, ee 4 Ms ‘ i - , 3 ’ e : Pata lee : . £ aGe : ' %) ‘ wy : .* hs J oe * 7 ¥ A y oe ; mt . i he ‘ a 7 s,m . . a ‘ . bas ey) . #.* 4 r a4 Lae Pe » 7 + é ; é ~ § COMMONPLACE, A Tae or To-pay; Woaoeorre Kh SrLORITES. BY Sion GROSSE TTI, AUTHOR OF ‘GOBLIN MARKET,’ AND THE PRINCE’S PROGRESS.’ ‘From sea to sea.’ BOSTON : ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1870. PREFATORY NOTE. THE earliest of these tales dates back to 1852, the latest was finished in 1870: a lapse of years sufficient to account for modifications of fone and style. ‘Pros and Cons,’ and ‘The Waves of this Troublesome World,’ were written each with a special object; which special object will, I hope, ‘be accepted as my apology if the latter tale is judged too childish. Not one of the stories is founded on fact. This might not seem worth stating, had I not reason to fear that one or two of my kindest friends have viewed ‘The Lost Titian’ Vi PREFATORY NOTE. somewhat in the light of an imposture. I therefore take this opportunity of putting on record that IJ am not conversant with any tradition which points to the existence of a lost picture by that great master with whose name I have made free. C. ae April 1870. Per LEN TS. Pace COMMONPLACE. ‘ 3 THE LOST TITIAN . : : : : ; 145 NICK . : : : : : 167 HERO . : 5 : 4 ; : : 3 183 VANNA’S TWINS. : : : : ; 215 A SAFE INVESTMENT. : ; , 241 PROS AND CONS . : eee ek 257 THE WAVES OF THIS TROUBLESOME WORLD : 271 COMMONPLACE, COMMONPLACE. Oren t ERT: BROMPTON-ON-SEA—any name not in ‘Brad- shaw’ will do—Brompton-on-Sea in April. The air keen and sunny; the sea blue and rippling, not rolling ; everything green, in sight and out of sight, coming on merrily. Birds active over straws and fluff; a hardy butterfly abroad for a change; a second hardy butterfly dancing through mid-air, in and out, and round about the first. A row of houses all alike stands facing the sea—all alike so far as stucco fronts and symmetrical doors and windows could make them so: but one house in the monotonous row was worth looking at, for the sake of more nu- 4 COMMONPLACE. merous hyacinths and early roses in its slip of front garden, and on several of its window-sills. Judging by appearances, and for once judging rightly, this must be a private residence on an esplanade full of lodging-houses. A pretty house inside too, snug in winter, fresh in summer; now in mid-spring sunny enough for an open window, and cool enough for a bright fire in the breakfast-room. Three ladies sat at the breakfast-table, three maiden ladies, obviously sisters by strong family likeness, yet with individual differences strong also. The eldest, Catherine, Miss Charlmont, having entered her thirty-third year, had taken on all occasions to appearing in some sort of cap. She began the custom at thirty, when also she gave up dancing, and adopted lace over her neck and arms in evening dress. Her manner was formal and kindly, savouring of the pro- vinces rather than of the capital; but of the provinces in their towns, not in their old country seats. Yet she was a well-bred gentlewoman in all essentials, tall and fair, a handsome member of a handsome family. She presided over the COMMONPLACE. 5 tea and coffee, and, despite modern usage, re- tained a tea-tray. Opposite her sat Lucy, less striking in fea- tures and complexion, but with an expression of quicker sensibility. Rather pretty and very sweet-looking, not turned thirty as yet, and on some points treated by Catherine as still a young thing. She had charge of the loaf and ham, and, like her elder sister, never indulged in opening letters till every one at table had been served. The third, Jane, free of meat-and-drink re- sponsibilities, opened letters or turned over the newspaper as she pleased. She was youngest by many years, and came near to being very beautiful. Her profile was almost Grecian, her eyes were large, and her fair hair grew in wavy abundance. At first sight she threw Catherine and Lucy completely into the shade; after- wards, in spite of their additional years, they sometimes were preferred, for her face only of the three could be thought insipid. Pleasure and displeasure readily showed themselves in it, but the pleasure would be frivolous and the 6 COMMONPLACE. displeasure often unreasonable. A man might fall in love with Jane, but no one could make a friend of her; Catherine and Lucy were sure to have friends, however they might lack lovers. On the morning when our story commences the elders were busied with their respective charges, whilst Jane already sipped her tea and glanced up and down the Births, Marriages, and Deaths, in the ‘Times’ Supplement. There she sat, with one elbow on the table and her long lashes showing to advantage over downcast eyes. Dress was with her a matter for deep study, and her pink-and-white breakfast suit looked as fresh and blooming as April’s self. Her hair fell long and loose over her shoulders, in becoming freedom; and Catherine gazing at her felt a motherly pride in the pretty creature to whom, for years, she had performed a mother’s duty ; and Lucy felt how young and fresh Jane was, and remembered that she herself was turned twenty-nine: but if the thought implied regret it was untinctured by envy. Jane read aloud: ‘ “ Halberteto silanes aa: COMMONPLACE, 7 wish I were Jane. And here, positively, are two more Janes, and not me. “ Catherine ”— that’s a death. Lucy, I don’t see you anywhere. Catherine was eighty-nine, and much respected. “Mrs. Anstruther of a son and heir.” I wonder if those are the Anstruthers I met in Scotland: she was very ugly, and short. “ Everilda Stella,” —how can anybody be Everilda? Then, with a sudden accession of interest, ‘Why, Lucy, Everilda Stella has actually married your Mr. Hartley !’ Lucy started, but no one noticed her. Ca- therine said, ‘Don’t say “your” Mr. Hartley, Jane: that is not a proper way of speaking about a married gentleman to an unmarried lady. Say “the Mr. Hartley you know,’ or, “the Mr. Hartley you have met in London.” Besides, I am acquainted with him also; and very likely it is a different person. Hartley is not an uncommon name.’ ‘Oh, but it is that Mr. Hartley, sister,’ re- torted Jane, and she read: ““On Monday the 13th, at the parish-church, Fenton, by the Rev. James Durham, uncle of 8 ~ COMMONPLACE. the bride, Alan Hartley, Esq. of the Woodlands, Gloucestershire, to Everilda Stella, only child and presumptive heiress of George Durham, Esq. of ee J Orpingham Place, in the same county. CHAPTER: II. FORTY years before the commencement of this story, William Charlmont, an Indian army- surgeon, penniless, except for his pay, had come unexpectedly into some hundreds a- year, left him by a maiden great-aunt, who had seen him but once, and that when he was five years old, on’ which occasion she boxed his ears for misspelling ‘elephant.’ His stoicism under punishment, for he neither roared nor whined, may have won her heart; at any rate, from whatever motive, she, years afterwards, disappointed three nephews and a female first cousin by leaving every penny she was worth to him. This moderate accession of fortune justified him in consulting both health and inclination by exchanging regimental practice in India for general practice in England: and a combination of apparently trifling circum- IO COMMONPLACE. stances led him, soon after his return home, to settle at the then infant watering-place of Brompton-on-Sea, of which the reputation had just been made by a royal duke’s visit; and the tide of fashion was setting to its shore. The house in which our story opens then stood alone, and belonged to a clergyman’s widow. As she possessed, besides, an only daughter, and but a small life annuity—nothing more—she sought for a lodger, and was glad to find one in the new medical practitioner. The widow, Mrs. Turner, was, and felt herself to be, no less a gentlewoman when she let lodgings than when with her husband and child she had occupied the same house alone; no less so when after breakfast she donned a holland apron and helped Martha, the maid, to make Mr. Charlmont’s bed, than when in old days she had devoted her mornings to visiting and relieving her poorer neighbours, Her daughter, Kate, felt their altered for- tunes more painfully ; and showed, sometimes by uncomfortable bashfulness, sometimes by anxious self-assertion, how much importance COMMONPLACE. II she attached to the verdict of Mrs. Grundy. Her mother’s holland apron was to her a daily humiliation, and single-handed Martha an irri- tating shortcoming. She chilled old friends by declining invitations, because her wardrobe lacked variety, and shunned new acquaintances lest they should call at some moment when herself or her mother might have to answer the door. A continual aim at false appearances made her constrained and affected ; and persons who would never have dwelt upon the fact that Mrs. Turner let lodgings, were certain to have it recalled to mind by Miss Turner’s un- easiness. But Kate owned a pretty face, adorned by a pink-and-white complexion, most refreshing to eyes that had ached under an Indian sun. At first Mr. Charlmont set her down as merely affected and silly; then he began to dwell on the fact that, however silly and affected, she was indisputably pretty; next he reflected that reverses of fortune deserve pity and demand every gentleman’s most courteous consideration. In himself such consideration at once took the 12 COMMONPLACE, form of books lent from his library ; of flowers for the drawing-room, and fruit for dessert. Kate, to do her justice, was no flirt, and saw without seeing his attentions; but her more experienced mother seeing, pondered, and seized, or made, an opportunity for checking her lodger’s intimacy. Mr. Charlmont, however, was not to be rebuffed; opposition made him earnest, whilst the necessity of expressing his feelings gave them definiteness: and not many months later Kate, with the house for her dowry, became Mrs. William Charlmont, the obnoxious lodger developed into an attached and dear husband, and Mrs. Turner retired on the life annuity to finish her days in inde- pendence. A few years passed in hopes and disappoint- ments. When hope had dwindled to despond- ency a little girl came—Catherine; after another few years a second girl, named Lucy in memory of her grandmother Turner, who had not lived to see her namesake. Then more years passed without a baby; and in due course the sisters were sent to Miss Drum’s school as day- COMMONPLACE. 13 boarders, their mother having become ailing and indolent. Time went on, and the girls grew wiser and prettier—Catherine very pretty. When she was nearly twelve years old, Mr. Charlmont said one evening to his wife, ‘I have made my will, Kate, and left everything to you in the first instance, and between the children after you. And she answered, blushing—she was still comely, and a blush became her:—‘O William, but ‘suppose another baby should come?’ ‘Well, I should make my will over again, he replied: but he did not guess why his wife blushed and spoke eagerly; he had quite given up such hopes. Mr. Charlmont was fond of boating, and one day, when the girls were at home for the Easter holidays, he offered to take them both for a row; but Catherine had a bad cold, and as Lucy was not a good sailor, he did not care to take charge of her without her sister. His wife never had liked boating. Thus it was that he went alone. The morning was dull and chilly; but there was no wind, and the 14 COMMONPLACE. sea was almost smooth. He took dinner and fishing tackle in the boat with him, and gave notice that he should not be at home till the evening. No wind, no sun; the day grew duller and duller, dimmer and dimmer. A _ smoke-like fog, beginning on land, spread from the cliffs to the beach, from the beach over the water’s edge; further and further it spread, beyond sight ; it might be for miles over the sea. No wind blew to shift the dense fog which hid seamarks and landmarks alike. As day waned towards evening, and darkness deepened, all the fisher-folk gathered on the beach in pain and fear for those at sea. They lit a bonfire, they shouted, they fired off an old gun or two, such as they could get together, and still they watched, and feared, and hoped. Now one boat came in, now another; some guided by the glare, some by the sound of the firing: at last, by midnight, every boat had come in safe, except Mr. Charlmont’s. As concerned him, that night was only like all nights and all days afterwards; for neither COMMONPLACE. 15 man, nor boat, nor waif, nor stray from either, ever drifted ashore. Mrs. Charlmont took the news of her hus- band’s disappearance very quietly indeed. She did not cry or fret, or propose any measures for finding him; but she bade Catherine be sure to have tea ready when he came in. This she repeated every day, and often in the day; and would herself sit by a window looking out towards the sea, smiling and cheerful. If any one spoke to her she would answer at random, but quite cheerfully. She rose or went to bed when her old nurse called her, she ate and drank when food was set before her; but she originated nothing, and seemed indifferent to everything except the one anxiety, that tea should be ready for her husband on his return. The holidays over, Lucy went back to Miss Drum’s, trudging to and fro daily; but Cathe- rine stayed at home to keep house and sit with her poor dazed mother. A few months and the end came. One night nurse insisted with unusual determination on the girls going to bed early; but before 16 COMMONPLACE. daybreak Catherine was roused out of her sleep to see a new little sister and her dying mother. Life was almost gone, and with the approach of death a sort of consciousness had returned. Mrs. Charlmont looked hard at Catherine, who was crying bitterly, and taking her hand said distinctly : ‘Catherine, promise to stay here ready for your father when he comes on shore —promise some of you to stay here: don't let him come on shore and find me gone and no one—don’t let the body come on shore and find us all gone and no one—promise me, Catherine !’ And Catherine promised. Mr. Charlmont died a wealthy man. He had enjoyed a large lucrative practice, and had invested his savings profitably: by his will, and on their mother’s death, an ample provision re- mained for his daughters. Strictly speaking, it remained for Catherine and Lucy: the baby, Jane, was unavoidably left dependent on her sisters; but on sisters who, in after-life, never felt COMMONPLACE. 17 that their own right to their father’s property was more obvious or more valid than hers. Mr. Charlmont had appointed but one trustee for his daughters—Mr. Drum, only brother of their schoolmistress, a thoroughly honest lawyer, practising and thriving in Brompton-on-Sea; a man somewhat younger than himself, who had speculated adroitly both with him and for him. On Mrs. Charlmont’s death, Mr. Drum proposed sending the two elder girls to a fashionable boarding-school near London, and Jetting nurse, with a wet-nurse under her, keep house in the old home with baby: but Catherine set her face against this plan, urging her promise to her dying mother as a reason for not going away ; and so held to her point that Mr. Drum yielded, and agreed that the girls, who could not bear to be parted, should continue on the same terms as before at his sister's school. Miss Drum, an intimate friend of their mother’s, engaged to take them into such suitable society as might offer until Catherine should come of age; and as she resided within two minutes’ walk of their house, this presented no difficulty. At twenty- C 18 COMMONPLACE. one, under their peculiar circumstances, Catherine was to be considered old enough to chaperone her sisters. Nurse, a respectable elderly woman, was to remain as housekeeper and personal at- tendant on the children; and a wet-nurse, to be succeeded by a nursery-girl, with two other maids, completed the household. Catherine, though only in her thirteenth year, already looked grave, staid, and tall enough for a girl of sixteen, when these arrangements were entered into. The sense of responsibility waxed strong within her, and with the motherly position came something of the motherly instinct of self- postponement to her children. 19 CHAPTER If THE last chapter was parenthetical, this takes up the broken thread of the story. Breakfast over, and her sisters gone their several ways, Lucy Charlmont seized the ‘Times’ Supplement and read the Hartley- Durham paragraph over to herself:—‘On Mon- day the 13th, at the parish church, Fenton, by the Rev. James Durham, uncle of the bride, Alan Hartley, Esq., of the Woodlands, Gloucester- shire, to Everilda Stella, only child and pre- sumptive heiress of George Durham, Esq., of Orpingham Place, in the same county.’ There remained no lurking-place for doubt. Mr. Hartley,—‘ her’ Mr. Hartley, as Jane dubbed him,—had married Everilda Stella, a presumptive heiress. Thus concluded Lucy’s one romance. Poor Lucy! the romance had been no fault of hers, perhaps not even a folly: it had arisen 20 COMMONPLACE. thus. When Miss Charlmont was twenty-one Lucy was eighteen, and had formally come out under her sister’s wing; thenceforward going with her to balls and parties from time to time, and staying with her at friends’ houses in town or country. This paying visits had entailed the necessity of Jane’s having a gover- ness. Miss Drum had by that time ‘relinquished tuition, as she herself phrased it, and retired on a conrfortable competence earned by her own exertions; therefore, to Miss Drum’s school Jane could not go. Lucy, when the subject was started, declared, with affectionate impul- siveness, that she would not pay visits at all, or else that she and Catherine might pay them separately ; but Catherine, who considered her- self in the place of mother to both her sisters, and whose standard of justice to both alike was inflexible, answered, ‘My dear’—when Miss Charlmont said ‘my dear’ it ended a discussion —‘My dear, Jane must have a governess. She shall always be with us in the holidays, and shall leave the schoolroom for good when she is eighteen, and old enough to enter society; COMMONPLACE. 21 but at present I must think of you and your prospects.’ So Jane had a fashionable gover- ness; fresh from a titled family, and versed in accomplishments and the art of dress, whilst Catherine commenced her duties as chaperone. Lucy thought that her sister, handsomer than herself and not much older, might have pros- pects too, and tried hard to discover chances for her; but Catherine nursed no such fancies on her own account. Her promise to her dying mother, that some one of them should always be on the spot at Brompton-on-Sea, literally meant at the moment, she resolved as literally to fulfil, even whilst she felt that only by one not fully in her right mind could such a pro- mise have been exacted. Grave and formal in manner, dignified in person, and in disposi- tion reserved, though amiable, she never seemed to notice, or to return, attentions paid her by any man of her acquaintance; and if one of these ever committed himself so far as to hazard an offer, she kept his secret and her own. | Lucy, meanwhile, indulged on her own ac- count the usual hopes and fears of a young 22 COMMONPLACE. woman. At first all parties and visits were delightful, one not much less so than another then a difference made itself felt between them ; some parties turned out dull, and some visits tedious. The last year of Lucy’s going every- where with Catherine, before, that is, she began dividing engagements with Jane,—for until Lucy should be turned thirty, self-chaperoning was an inadmissible enormity in Miss Charlmont’s eyes, in spite of what she had herself done; as she said, her own had been an exceptional case,—in that last year the two sisters had together spent a month with Dr. Tyke, whose wife had been before marriage ‘another Lucy Charlmont, and a favourite cousin of their father’s : concerning her, tradition even hinted that, in bygone years, she had refused the penniless army surgeon. Be this as it may, at Mrs. Tyke’s house in London, the sisters spent one certain June, and then and there Lucy ‘met her fate, as with a touch of sentiment, bordering on sentimentality, she recorded in her diary one momentous first meeting. Alan Hartley was a nephew of Dr. COMMONPLACE. 23 Tyke’s—handsome, and clever on the surface, if not deep within. He had just succeeded his father at the Woodlands, had plenty of money, no profession, and no hindrance to idling away any amount of time with any pretty woman who was pleasant company. Such a woman was Lucy Charlmont. He harboured no present thoughts of marriage, but she did; he really did pay just as much attention to a dozen girls elsewhere, but she judged by his manner to herself, and drew from it a false conclusion. That delightful June came to an end, and he had not spoken; but two years later occurred a second visit, as pleasant and as full of misunder- standing as the first. Meanwhile, she had re- fused more than one offer. Poor Lucy Charlmont: her folly, even if it was folly, had not been very blameable. The disenchantment came no less painfully than unexpectedly: and Lucy, ready to cry, but ashamed of crying for such a cause, thrust the Supplement out of sight, and sitting down, forced herself to face the inevitable future. One thing was certain, she could not meet 24 COMMONPLACE. Alan—in her thoughts he had long been Alan, and now it cost her an effort of recollection to stiffen him back into Mr. Hartley—she must not meet Mr. Hartley till she could reckon on seeing him and his wife with friendly compo- sure. Oh! why—why—why had she all along misunderstood him, and he never understood her? Not to meet him, it would be necessary to decline the invitation from Mrs. Tyke, which she had looked forward to and longed for during weeks past, and which, in the impartial judgment of Miss Charlmont, it was her turn, not Jane’s, to accept; which, moreover, might arrive by any post. Jane she knew would be ready enough to pay a visit out of turn, but Catherine would want a reason ; and what reason could she give? On one point, however, she - was determined, that, with or without her reasons being accepted as reasonable, go she would not. Then came the recollection of a cracker she had pulled with him, and kept in her pocket- book ever since; and of a card he had left for her and her sister, or, as she had fondly fancied, mainly for herself, before the last return from COMMONPLACE. 25 Mrs. Tyke’s to Brompton-on-Sea. Treasures no longer to be treasured, despoiled treasures,— she denied herself the luxury of a sigh, as she thrust them between the bars of the grate and watched them burn. 26 CHAPTER IV. ‘Lucy, Jane, said Miss Charlmont, some days afterwards, addressing her sisters, and holding up an open letter,—‘ Mrs. Tyke has sent a very kind invitation, asking me, with one of you, to stay a month at her house, and to fix the day. It is your turn, Lucy; so, if you have no ob- jection, I shall write, naming next Thursday for our journey to London. Jane, I shall ask Miss Drum to stay with you during our absence; I think she will be all the better for a change, and there is no. person more fit to have the charge of you. So don’t be dull, dear, till we come back.’ A But Jane pouted, and said in a cross tone, ‘Really, sister, you need not settle everything now for me, as if I were a baby. I don’t want Miss Drum, who is as old as the hills and as COMMONPLACE. 27] solemn. Can’t you write to Mrs. Tyke and say, that I cannot be left alone here? What difference could it make in her large house?’ For once Catherine answered her favourite sister with severity, ‘Jane, you know why it is impossible for us all to leave home together. This is the last year you will be called upon to remain behind, for after Lucy’s next birthday it is agreed between us that she will take turns with me in chaperoning you. Do not make what may be our last excursion together un- pleasant by your unkindness.’ Still Jane was not silenced. ‘At any rate, it need not be Miss Drum. I will stay here alone, or I will have somebody more amusing than Miss Drum.’ Before Catherine could reply, Lucy with an effort struck into the dispute. ‘Jane, don't speak like that to our sister; I should be ashamed to speak to her so. Still, Catherine,’ she continued, without noticing a muttered retort from the other, ‘after all, 1 am going to side with Jane on the main point, and ask you to take her to Notting Hill, and leave me 28 COMMON PLACE. at home to keep house with dear old Miss Drum. This really was my own wish before Jane spoke, so pray let us not say another word on the subject.’ But Catherine saw how pale and languid she looked, and stood firm. ‘No, Lucy, that would be unreasonable; Jane ought not to have made any difficulty. You have lost your colour. lately and your appetite, and need a change more than either of us. I shall write to Mrs. Tyke, promising her and the doctor your company next Thursday; Jane will make up her mind like a good girl, and I am sure you, my dear, will oblige me by not withholding your assent.’ For the first time ‘my dear’ did not close the debate. ‘Catherine,’ said Lucy, earnestly, whilst, do what she would, tears gathered in her eyes, ‘I am certain you will not press me further, when I assure you that I do not feel equal to paying this visit. I have felt weak lately,’ she went on hurriedly, ‘and I cannot tell you how much I long for the quiet of a month at home rather than in that perpetual bustle. Merely for my own sake, Jane must go.’ COMMONPLACE. 29 Catherine said no more just then; but later, alone with Lucy, resumed the subject so far as to ask whether she continued in the same mind, and answered her flurried ‘yes’ by no word of remonstrance, but by an affectionate kiss. This was all which passed between them ; neither then nor afterwards did the younger sister feel certain whether Catherine had or had not guessed her secret. Miss Drum was invited to stay with Lucy in her solitude, and gladly accepted the in- vitation. Lucy was her favourite, and when they were together, they petted each other very tenderly. Jane, having gained her point, recovered her good humour, and lost no time in exposing the deficiencies of her wardrobe. ‘Sister,’ she said, smiling her prettiest and most coaxing smile, ‘you can’t think how poor I am, and how few clothes I’ve got.’ | Catherine, trying to appear serenely un- conscious of the drift of this speech, replied, ‘Let us look over your wardrobe, dear, and we will bring it into order. Lucy will help, 30 COMMONPLACE. I know, and we can have Miss Smith to work here too, if necessary.’ ‘Oh dear, no!’ cried Janes e* theres no looking over what does not exist. If it comes to furbishing up old tags and rags, here I stay. Why, you’re as rich as Jews, you and Lucy, and could give me five pounds a-piece without ever missing it; and not so much of a gift either, for I’m sure poor papa would never have left me such a beggar if he had known about me.’ This argument had been used more than once before. Catherine looked hurt, Lucy said, ‘You should remember that you have exactly the same allowance for dress and pocket- money that we have ourselves, and we both make it do.’ ‘Of course,’ retorted Jane, with latent spite- fulness; ‘and when I’m as old and wise as you two, I may manage as well; but at present it is different. Besides, if I spend most on dress, you spend most on books and music, and dress is a great deal more amusing. And if I dressed like an old fright, I should like to know COMMONPLACE. 31 who’d look at me. You don’t want me to be another old maid, I suppose.’ Lucy flushed up, and tried to keep her tem- per in silence: her sore point had been touched. Catherine, accustomed in such cases to protest first and yield afterwards, but half ashamed that Lucy’s eye should mark the process from beginning to end, drew Jane out of the room, and with scarcely a word more wrote her a cheque for ten pounds, and dropped the subject of looking over her wardrobe. An ‘hour after the sisters had started for London, Miss Drum arrived to take their place. Miss Drum was tall in figure, rather slim and well preserved, with pale complexion, hair, and eyes, and an unvarying tone of voice. She was mainly describable by negatives. She was neither unladylike, nor clever, nor deficient in education. She was old, but not very infirm; and neither an altogether obsolete nor a youth- ful dresser, though with some tendency towards the former style. Propriety was the most sa- lient of her attributes, and was just too salient to be perfect. She was not at all amusing; in 32 COMMONPLACE. fact, rather tiresome, with an unflagging in- tention of being agreeable. From her Catherine acquired a somewhat old-fashioned formality ; from her, also, high principles, and the instinct of self-denial. And because unselfishness, itself a negative, was Miss Drum’s characteristic virtue, and because her sympathy, however prosy in expression, was sterling in quality, therefore Lucy, sore with unavowed heart-sorrow, could bear her companionship, and run down to welcome her at the door with affectionate cordiality. 33 CHAPTER V. LONDON-BRIDGE STATION, with its whirl of traffic, seems no bad emblem of London itself: vast, confused, busy, orderly, more or less dirty; implying enormous wealth in some quarter or other ; providing luxuries for the rich, neces- saries for the poor; thronged by rich and poor alike, idle and’ industrious, young and old, men and women: London-Bridge Station at its cleanest is soiled by thousands of feet passing to and fro: on a drizzling day each foot deposits mud in its passage, takes and gives mud, leaves its impress in mud; on such a day the Station is not attractive to persons fresh from the unfailing cleanliness of sea coast and inland country ; and on such a day, when, by the late afternoon, the drizzle had done, and the platform had suffered D 34 COMMONPLACE. each its worst,—on such a day Miss Charlmont and her pretty sister, fresh and fastidious from sea salt and country sweetness, arrived at the Station. Dr. Tyke’s carriage was there to meet the train. Dr. Tyke’s coachman, footman, and horses were fat, as befitted a fat master, whose circumstances and whose temperament might be defined as fat also; for ease, good-nature, and fat have an obvious affinity. ‘Should the hood be up or down?’ The rain had ceased, and Miss Charlmont, who always described London as stifling, answered, ‘Up... Jane, leaning back with an elegant ease, which nature had given and art perfected, felt secretly ashamed of Catherine, who sat bolt upright, according to her wont, and would no more have lolled in an open carriage than on the high-backed, scant-seated chair of her school- days. | | The City looked’ at once dingy and glaring ; dingy with unconsumed smoke, and glaring here and there with early-lighted gas. When Waterloo Bridge had been crossed matters COMMONPLACE. 35 brightened somewhat, and Oxford Street showed not amiss. Along the Edgware Road dirt and dinginess re-asserted their sway ; but when the carriage finally turned into Notting Hill, and drove amongst the Crescents, Roads, and Gar- dens of that cleanly suburb, a winding-up shower, brisk and brief, not drizzly, cleared the way for the sun, and finished off the afternoon with a rainbow. | Dr. Tyke’s abode was named Appletrees House, though the orchard whence the name was derived had disappeared before the memory of the oldest inhabitant. The carriage drew up, the door swung open: down the staircase came flying a little, slim woman, with outstretched hands and words of welcome; auburn-haired, though she had outlived the last of the fifties, and cheerful, though the want of children had not ceased to be felt as a hopeless disappointment : a pale-complexioned, high-voiced, little woman, all that remained of that fair cousin Lucy of bygone years and William Charlmont. Behind her, and more deliberately, descended her husband, elastic of step, rotund of figure, 36 COMMONPLACE. bright-eyed, rosy, white-headed, not altogether unlike a robin redbreast that had been caught in the snow. Mrs. Tyke had a habit of running on with long-winded, perfectly harmless common- places; but notwithstanding her garrulity, she never uttered an ill-natured word or a false one. Dr. Tyke, burdened with an insatiable love of fun, and a ready, if not a witty, wit, was addicted to venting jokes, repartees, and so-called anec- dotes; the last not always unimpeachably authentic. Such were the hosts. The house was large and light, with a laboratory for the Doctor, who dabbled: in chemistry, and an aviary for his wife, who doted on pets. The walls of the sitting- rooms were hung with engravings, not with family portraits, real or sham: in fact, no sham was admitted within ‘doors, unless imaginary anecdotes and quotations must be stigmatized as shams; and as to these, when taxed with invention, the Doctor would only reply by his favourite Italian phrase: ‘Se zon 2 vero & ben trovato.’ COMMONPLACE. 37 ‘Jane, said Mrs. Tyke, as the three ladies sat over a late breakfast, the Doctor having already retreated to the laboratory and his newspaper :—‘ Jane, I think you have made a ~ conquest.’ | Jane looked down in silence, with a conscious simper. Catherine spoke rather anxiously: ‘Indeed, Cousin Lucy, I have noticed what you allude to, and I have spoken to Jane about not encouraging Mr. Durham. He is not at all a man she can really like, and she ought to be most careful not to let herself be misunderstood. Jane, you ought indeed.’ But Jane struck merrily in: ‘Mr. Durham is old enough and—ahem !—handsome enough to take care of himself, sister. And, besides,’ with a touch of mimicry, which recalled his pompous manner, ‘Orpingham Place, my dear madam, Orpingham Place is a very fine place, a very fine place indeed. Our pineapples can really hardly be got rid of, and our prize pigs can’t see out of their eyes; they can’t indeed, my dear young lady, though it’s not pretty talk for a pretty young lady to listen to.—Very 38 COMMONPLACE. well, if the pines and the pigs are smitten, why shouldn’t I marry the pigs and the pines ?’ ‘Why not?’ cried Mrs. Tyke with a laugh ; but Miss Charlmont, looking disturbed, rejoined : ‘Why not, certainly, if you like Mr. Durham; but do you like Mr. Durham? And, whether or not, you ought not to laugh at him,’ Jane pouted: ‘Really one would think I was a child still! As to Mr. Durham, when he knows his own mind and speaks, you may be quite sure I shall know my own mind and give him his answer.— Orpingham Place, my dear Miss Catherine, the finest place in the county ; the finest place in three counties, whatever my friend the Duke may say. A charming neigh- bourhood, Miss Catherine; her Grace the Duchess, the most affable woman you can imagine, and my lady the Marchioness, a fine woman—a very > fine woman. But they can’t raise such pines as my pines; they can’t do it, you know; they haven’t the means, you know.— Come now, sister, don’t look cross; when I’m Mrs. Durham you shall have your slice off the pigs and the pines.’ 39 Cree LER VI. EVERILDA STELLA, poor Lucy’s unconscious rival, had married out of the schoolroom. Pretty she was not, but with much piquancy of face and manner, and a talent for private theatricals. These advantages, gilded, perhaps, by her re- putation as presumptive heiress, attracted to her a suitor, to whose twenty years’ seniority she felt no objection. Mr. Hartley wooed and won her in the brief space of an Easter holiday ; and bore her, nothing loth, to London, to enjoy the gaieties of the season. Somewhat to the bridegroom’s annoyance, Mr. Durham accompanied the newly-married couple to town, and shared their pretty house at Kensington. Alan Hartley, a favourite nephew of Dr. Tyke, had, as we know, been very intimate 40 COMMONPLACE. at his house in old days. Now he was proud to present his little wife of sixteen to his uncle and aunt, though somewhat mortified at having also to introduce his father-in-law, whose pom- pous manners, and habit of dragging titled personages into his discourse, put him to the blush. Alan had dropped Everilda, and called his wife simply Stella; her father dubbed her — Pug; Everilda she was named, in accordance with the taste of her peerage-studious mother. This lady was accustomed to describe herself as of a north-country family—a Leigh of the Leazes ; which conveyed an old-manorial notion to persons unacquainted with Newcastle-on- Tyne. But this by the way: Mrs. Durham had died before the opening of our tale. At their first visit they were shown into the drawing-room by a smiling maid-servant, and requested to wait, as Dr. and Mrs. Tyke were expected home every moment. Stella looked very winning in her smart hat and feather and jaunty jacket, and Alan would have abandoned | himself to all the genial glow of a bridegroom, but for Mr. Durham’s behaviour. That gentle- COMMONPLACE. AI man began by placing his hat on the floor between his feet, and flicking his boots with a crimson silk pocket-handkerchief. This done, he commenced a survey of the apartment, ac- companied by an apt running comment,— ‘Hem, no pictures—cheap engravings; a four- and-sixpenny Brussels carpet ;'a smallish mirror, wants regilding. Pug, my pet, that’s a neat antimacassar: see if you can’t carry off the stitch in your eye. A piano—a harp; fiddle- stick !’ When Dr. and Mrs. Tyke entered, they found the Hartleys looking uncomfortable, and Mr. Durham red and pompous after his wont; also, in opening the door, they caught the sound of ‘fiddlestick!’ All these symptoms, with the tact of kindness, they ignored. The bride was kissed, the father-in-law taken for granted, and Alan welcomed as if no one in the room had looked guilty. ‘Come to lunch and take a hunch,’ said the Doctor, offering his arm to Stella. ‘Mother Bunch is rhyme, but not reason; you shall munch and I will scrunch—that’s both. “Ah! 42 COMMONPLACE. you may well look surprised,” as the foreign ambassador admitted when the ancient Britons noticed that he had no tail. But you won't mind when you know us better; I’m no worse than a barrel-organ.’ Yet with all Dr. Tyke’s endeavour to be funny, and this time it cost him an effort, and with all his wife’s facile commonplaces, two of the guests seemed ill at ease. Alan felt, as it were with every nerve, the impression his father-in-law must produce, while Stella, less sensitive for herself, was out of countenance for her husband’s sake. Mr. Durham, indeed, was pompous and unabashed as ever; but whilst he answered commonplace remarks by remarks no less commonplace, he appeared to be, as in fact he was, occupied in scrutinizing, and mentally valuing, the plate and china. ‘Charming weather, said Mrs. Tyke, wit an air of intelligent originality. ‘Yes, ma’am; fine weather, indeed; billing and cooing weather; ha! ha!’ with a glance across the table. ‘Now I dare say your young ladies know what to do in this weather.’ COMMONPLACE. 43 “We have no children, and Mrs. Tyke . whispered, lest her husband should hear. Then, after a pause, ‘I dare say Orpingham Place was just coming into beauty when you left.’ , Mr. Durham thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat-pockets, and leaned back for conver- sation. ‘Well, I don’t know what to say to that,—I don’t indeed; I don’t know which the season is when Orpingham Place is of in beauty. Its conservatories were quite a local lion last winter—quite a local lion, as my friend the Duke remarked to me; and he said he must bring the Duchess over to see them, and he did bring her Grace over; and I gave them a luncheon in the largest con- servatory, such as I don’t suppose they sit down to every day. For the nobility have blood, if you please, and the literary beggars are wel- come to all the brains they ’ve got’ (the Doctor smiled, Alan winced visibly); ‘but you’ll find it’s us city men who’ve got backbone, and backbone’s the best to wear, as I observed to the Duke that very day when I gave him such a glass of port as he hasn’t got in his 44 COMMONPLACE. cellar. I said it to him, just as T say it to you, ma’am, and he didn’t contradict me; in fact, you know, he couldn't.’ After this it might have been difficult to start conversation afresh, when, happily, Jane entered, late for luncheon, and with an apology » for her sister, who was detained elsewhere. She went through the necessary introductions, and took her seat between Dr. Tyke and Mr, Durham, thus commanding an advantageous view of the bride, whom she mentally set down as nothing particular in any way. Alan had never met Jane before. He asked her after Miss Charlmont and Lucy, after Lucy especially, who was ‘a very charming old friend’ of his, as he explained to Stella. For some minutes Mr. Durham sat silent, much im- pressed by Jane’s beauty and grace; this gave people breathing-time for the recovery of ease and good humour; and it was not till Dr. Tyke had uttered three successive jokes, and every one, except Mr. Durham, had laughed at them, that the master of Orpingham Place could think of any remark worthy of his attractive neighbour ; COMMONPLACE. 46 and then, with much originality, he too ob- served,—‘ Charming weather, Miss Jane.’ And Jane answered with a smile; for was not this the widower of Orpingham Place? That Mr. Durham’s conversation on sub- sequent occasions gained in range of subject, ‘is clear from Jane’s quotations in the last chapter. And that Mr. Durham was alive to Jane’s fascinations appeared pretty evident, as he not only called frequently at Appletrees House, but made up parties, to which Dr. and Mrs. Tyke, and the Miss Charlmonts, were in- variably asked. 46 CHAPTER VII. GAIETY in London, sadness by the sea. Lucy did her very best to entertain Miss Drum with the cheerfulness of former visits ; in none of which had she shown herself more considerate of the old lady’s tastes than now. She made breakfast half-an-hour earlier than usual; she culled for her interesting scraps from the newspaper; she gave her an arm up and down the Esplanade: on sunny days; she re- claimed the most unpromising strayed stitches in her knitting; she sang her old-fashioned favourite ballads for an hour or so before tea- time, and after tea till bed-time played energeti- cally at backgammon: yet Miss Drum was sensible of a change. All Lucy’s efforts could not make her cheeks rosy and plump, and her laugh spontaneous; could not make her step elastic or her eyes bright. COMMONPLACE. 47 It is easy to ridicule a woman nearly thirty years old for fancying herself beloved without a word said, and suffering deeply under disappoint- ment: yet Lucy Charlmont was no contemptible person. However at one time deluded, she had never let a hint of her false hopes reach Mr. Hartley’s observation; and however now dis- appointed, she fought bravely against a betrayal of her plight. Alone in her own room she might suffer visibly and keenly, but with any eye upon her she would not give way. Some- times it felt as if the next moment the strain on her nerves might wax unendurable; but such a next moment never came, and she endured still. Only, who is there strong enough, day after day, to strain strength to the utmost, and yet give no sign? ‘My dear, said Miss Drum, contemplating Lucy over her spectacles and across the back- gammon-board one evening when the eyes looked more sunken than ever, and the whole face more haggard, ‘I am sure you do not take exercise enough. You really must do more than give me an arm on the Esplanade; all 48 COMMONPLACE. your bloom is gone, and you are much too thin. Promise me that you will take at least one long walk in the day whenever the weather is not unfavourable.’ Lucy stroked her old friend’s hand fondly: ‘I will take walks when my sisters are at home again; but I have not you here al- ways.’ Miss Drum insisted: ‘Do not say so, my dear, or I shall feel bound to go home again; and that I should not like at all, as we both know. Pray oblige me by promising.’ Thus urged, Lucy promised, and in secret rejoiced that for at least an hour or two of the day she should thenceforward be alone, relieved from the scrutiny of those dim, affec- tionate eyes. And truly she needed some relief. By day she could forbid her thoughts to shape themselves, even mentally, into words, although no effort could banish the vague, dull sorrow which was all that might now remain to her of remembrance. But by night, when sleep paralysed self-restraint, then her dreams were haunted by distorted spectres of the past; COMMONPLACE. 49 never alluring or endearing—for this she was thankful—but sometimes monstrous, and always impossible to escape from. Night after night she would awake from such dreams, struggling and sobbing, with less and less conscious strength to resume daily warfare. Soon she allowed no weather to keep her indoors at the hour for walking, and Miss Drum, who was a hardy disciple of the old school, encouraged her activity. She always sought the sea, not the smooth, civilised esplanade, but the rough, irreclaimable shingle ;—to stray to and fro till the last moment of her freedom ; to and fro, to and fro, at once listless and un- resting, with wide, absent eyes fixed on the monotonous waves, which they did not see. Gradually a morbid fancy grew upon her that one day she should behold her father’s body washed ashore, and that she should know the face: from a waking fancy, this began to haunt her dreams with images unutterably loathsome. Then she walked no more on the shingle, but took to wandering along green lanes and country roads. E 50 COMMONPLACE. But no one struggling persistently against weakness fails to overcome: also, however pro- saic the statement may sound, air and exercise will take effect on persons of sound constitution. Something of Lucy’s lost colour showed itself, by fits and starts at first, next steadily ; her appetite came back, however vexed she might feel at its return; at last fatigue brought sounder sleep, and the hollow eyes grew less sunken. This refresh- ing sleep was the turning-point in her case ; it supplied strength for the day, whilst each day in its turn brought with it fewer and fewer demands upon her strength. Seven weeks after Miss Drum exacted the promise, Lucy, though graver of aspect, and at heart sadder than before Alan Hartley’s wedding, had recovered in a measure her look of health and her interest in the details of daily life. She no longer greatly dreaded meeting her sisters when at length their much-prolonged absence should terminate ; and in spite of some nervousness in the antici- pation, felt confident that even a sight of Mr. and Mrs. Hartley would not upset the outward composure of her decorum. COMMONPLACE. 51 Miss Drum triumphed in the success of her prescription, and brought forward parallel in- stances within her own experience. ‘That is right,’ she would say, ‘my dear; take another slice of the mutton where it is not overdone. There is nothing like exercise for giving an appetite, only the mutton should not be over- done. You cannot remember Sarah Smith, who was with me before your dear mother entrusted you to my care; but I assure you three doctors had given her over as a confirmed invalid when I prescribed for her ;’ and the old lady laughed gently at her own wit. ‘I made her take a walk every day, let the weather be what it might; and gave her nice, juicy mutton to eat, with a change to beef, or a chicken, now and then for variety; and very soon you would not have known her for the same girl ; and Dr. Grey remarked, in his funny way, that I ought to be an M.D. myself. Or, again: ‘Lucy, my dear, you recollect my French assistant, Mademoiselle Leclerc, what a fine, strong young woman she was when you knew her. Now when she first Re COMMONPLACE. came to me she was pale and peaking, afraid of wet feet or an open window; afraid of this, that, and the other, always tired, and with no appetite except for sweets. Mutton and exer- cise made her what you remember; and before she went home to France to marry an old admirer, she thanked me with tears in her eyes for having made her love mutton. She said “love” when she should have said “like ;” but I was too proud and pleased to correct her English then, I only answered, “Ah, dear Mademoiselle, always love your husband and love your mutton.’ Lucy had a sweet, plaintive voice, to which her own secret sorrow now added a certain simple pathos; and when in the twilight she sang ‘Alice Grey,’ or ‘She wore a wreath of roses, or some other old favourite, good Miss Drum would sit and listen till the tears gathered behind her spectacles. Were tears in the singer’s eyes also? She thought now with more tender- ness than ever before of the suitors she had rejected in her hopeful, happy youth, especially COMMONPLACE. 53 of a certain Mr. Tresham, who had wished her all happiness as he turned to leave her in his dignified regret. She had always had a great liking for Mr. Tresham, and now she could feel for him. 54 CHAPTER VIII. ON the 28th of June, four letters came to Lucy by the first delivery :— Jb. My dear Lucy, Pray do not think me thoughtless if I once more ask whether you will sanction an extension of our holiday. Mrs. Tyke presses us to remain with her through July, and Dr. Tyke is no less urgent. When I hinted that their hospitality had already been trespassed upon, the Doctor quoted Hone (as he said: I doubt if it is there) :— ‘In July No good-bye ; In August Part we must.’ COMMONPLACE. 55 I then suggested that you may be feeling moped at home, and in want of change; but, of course, the Doctor had still an answer ready :— Tell Lucy from me, that if she takes you away I shall take it very ill, as the homceopath said when his learned brother substituted cocoa-nibs for champagne. And all the time Cousin Lucy was begging us to stay, and Jane was looking at me so earnestly: in short, dear Lucy, if ‘No’ must be said, pray will you say it; for I have been well-nigh talked over. And, indeed, we must make allowances for Jane, if she seems a little selfish ; for, to let you into a secret, I believe she means to accept Mr. Durham if he makes her the offer we all are expecting from him. At first I was much dis- pleased at her giving him any encouragement, for it appeared to me impossible that she could view his attentions with serious approbation : but I have since become convinced that she knows her own mind, and is not trifling with him. How it is possible for her to contemplate union with one so unrefined and ostentatious I cannot conceive, but I have no power to restrain 56 - COMMONPLACE. her ; and when I endeavoured to exert my in- fluence against him, she told me in the plainest terms that she preferred luxury with Mr. Durham to dependence without him. Oh, Lucy, Lucy! have we ever given her cause to resent her po- sition so bitterly? Were she my own child, I do not think I could love. her more or care for her more anxiously: but she has never under- stood me, never done me justice. I speak of myself only, not of you also, because I shall never marry, and all I have has been held simply in trust for her: with you it is, and ought to be, different. But you must not suffer for Jane’s wilfulness. If you are weary of our absence I really must leave her under Cousin Lucy’s care—for she positively declines to accompany me home at present—and return to every-day duties. I am sick enough of pleasuring, I do assure you, as it is; though, were Mr. Durham a different man, I should only rejoice, as you may suppose. Well, as to news, there is not much worth transmitting. Jane has been to the Opera three , times, and tothe English play once. Mr. Durham COMMONPLACE. Ae sends the boxes, and Dr. and Mrs. Tyke never tire of the theatre. The last time they went to the Opera they brought home with them to supper Mr. Tresham, whom you may recollect our meeting here more than once, and who has lately returned to England from the East. Through some misunderstanding he expected to see you instead of me, and looked out of countenance for a moment: then he asked after you, and begged me to remember him to you when I wrote. He appeared much interested in hearing our home news, and concerned when I mentioned that you have seemed less strong lately. Pray send compliments for him when next you write, in case we should see him again. Mr. Hartley I always liked, and now I like his wife also: she is an engaging little thing, and gets us all to call her Stella. You, I am sure, will be fond of her when you know her. How I wish her father resembled her! She is as simple and as merry as a bird, and witnesses Mr. Durham’s attentions to Jane with perfect equanimity. As to Mr. Hartley, he seems as 58 COMMONPLACE. much amused as if the bulk of his wife’s enor- mous fortune were not at stake; yet any one must see the other man is in earnest. Stella is reckoned a clever actress, and private theatricals of some sort are impending. I say ‘of some sort,’ because Jane, who is indisputably the beauty of our circle, would prefer zableaux vivants ; and I know not which will carry her point. My love to Miss Drum. Don’t think me selfish for proposing to remain longer away from you; but, indeed, I am being drawn in two opposite directions by two dear sisters, of whom I only wish that one had as much good sense and good taste as the other. Your affectionate sister, CATHERINE CHARLMONT. IT. My dear Lucy, I know Catherine is writing, and will make the worst of everything, just as if I was cut out to be an old maid. COMMONPLACE. 59 Surely at my age one may know one’s own mind; and, though I’m not going to say before I am asked whether I like Mr. Durham, we are all very well aware, my dear Lucy, that I like money and comforts. It’s one thing for Catherine and you, who have enough and to spare, to split hairs as to likes and dis- likes; but it’s quite another for me who have not a penny of my own, thanks to poor dear papa’s blindness. Now do be a dear, and tell sister she is welcome to stay this one month more; for, to confess the truth, if I remain here alone I may find myself at my wit’s end for a pound or two one of these days. Dress is so dear, and I had rather never go out again than be seen a dowdy; and if we are to have tableaux I shall want all sorts of things. I don’t hold at all with charades and such nonsense, in which people are supposed to be witty; give me a piece in which one’s arms are of some use; but of course, Stella, who has no more arm than a pump-handle, votes for theatricals. The Hartleys are coming to-day, and, of 60 COMMONPLACE. course, Mr. Durham, to take us after luncheon to the Crystal Palace. There is a grand con- cert coming off, and a flower-show, which would all be yawny enough but for the toilettes. I dare say I shall see something to set me raving ; just as last time I was at the Botanic Gardens, I pointed out the loveliest suit of Brussels lace over white silk; but I might as well ask Catherine for wings to fly with. : Good-bye, my dear Lucy. Don’t be cross this once, and when I have a house of my own, I’ll do you a good turn. Your affectionate sister, JANE. P.S. I enclose Mr. Durham’s photograph, which he fished and fished to make me ask for, so at last I begged it to gratify the poor man. Don’t you see all Orpingham Place in his speaking countenance? COMMONPLACE. 61 ITT. My dearest Lucy, You owe me a kindness to balance my disappointment at missing your visit. So please let Catherine know that she and Jane may give us a month more. Dr. Tyke wishes it no less than I do, and Mr. Durham perhaps more than either of us; but a word to the wise. Your affectionate cousin, Lucy C. TYKE: P.S. The Doctor wont send regards, because he means to write to you himself. * IV. Dear Lucy, If you agree with the snail, you find your house just the size for one ; and lest bestial example should possess less force than human, I further remind you of what Realmah the 62 COMMONPLACE. Great affirms,—‘I met two blockheads, but the one sage kept himself to himself’ All which sets forth to you the charms of solitude, which, as you are such a proper young lady, is, of course, the only anybody you can be in love with, and of whose society I am bent on afford- ing you prolonged enjoyment. This can be effected, if your sisters stay here another month, and indeed you must not say us nay; for on your ‘yes’ hangs a tale which your ‘no’ may for ever forbid to wag. Miss Catherine looks glummish, but Jenny is all sparkle and roses, like this same month of June; and never is shé more sparkling or rosier than when the master of Orpingham Place hails her with that ever fresh remark, ‘Fine day, Miss Jane.’ Don’t nip the summer crops of Orpingham Place in the bud, or, rather, don’t retard them by unseasonable frost; for I can’t fancy my friend will be put off with anything less than a distinct ‘no; and when it comes to that, I think Miss Jane, in her trepidation, will say ‘yes. And if you are a good girl, and let the little one play out her play, when COMMONPLACE. 63 she has come into the sugar and spice and all that’s nice, you shall come to Notting Hill this very next May, and while the sun shines make your hay. Your venerable cousin’s husband (by which I merely mean), Your cousin’s venerable husband, FRANCIS TYKE, M.D. N.B. I append M.D. to remind you of my professional status, and so quell you by the weight of my advice. Lucy examined the photograph of Mr. Durham with a double curiosity, for he was Mr. Hartley’s father-in-law as well as Jane’s presumptive suitor. She looked, and saw a face not badly featured, but vulgar in expression ; Befeute- not amiss, but ill at. ease in) its studied attitude and superfine clothes. As- suredly it was not George Durham, but the 64 COMMONPLACE. master of Orpingham Place who possessed at- tractions for Jane; and Lucy felt, for a sister who could be thus attracted, the sting of a humiliation such as her own baseless hopes had never cost her. Each of her correspondents was answered with judicious variation in the turn of the sentences. To Jane she wrote dryly, return- ing Mr. Durham’s portrait wrapped in a. ten- pound note; an arrangement which, in her eyes, showed a symbolic appropriateness, lost for the moment on her sister. Catherine she answered far more affectionately, begging her on no account to curtail a visit which might be of importance to Jane’s prospects; and on the flap of the envelope, she added compli- ments to Mr. Tresham. 65 CHAPTER: IX. Mr. TRESHAM had loved Lucy Charlmont sincerely, and until she refused him had entertained a good hope of success. Even at the moment of refusal she avowed the liking for him which all through their acquaintance had been obvious; and then, and not till then, it dawned upon him that her indifference towards himself had its root in preference for another. But he was far too honourable a man either to betray or to aim at verifying his suspicion; and though he continued to visit at Dr. Tyke’s, where Alan Hartley was so often to be seen idling away time under the comfortable conviction that he was doing no harm to him- self or to any one else, it was neither at once, nor of set purpose, that Arthur Tresham pene- trated Lucy’s secret. Alan and himself had been F 66 COMMONPLACE. College friends ; he understood him thoroughly ; his ready good-nature, which seemed to make every one a principal person in his regard ; his open hand that liked spending; his want of deep or definite purpose; his unconcern as to possible consequences. Then Lucy,—in whom Mr. Tresham had been on one point wofully mistaken,—she was so composed and so cordial to all her friends; there was about her such womanly sweetness, such unpretentious, dignified reserve towards all: her face would light up so brightly when he, or any other, spoke what interested her, not seldom, certainly, when fe spoke:—even after a sort of clue had come into his hands, it was some time before he felt sure of any difference between her manner to Alan and to others. When the conviction forced itself upon him, he grieved more for her than for himself; he knew his friend too intimately to mistake his pleasure in being amused for any anxiety to make himself beloved; he knew about Alan much that Lucy did not and could not guess, and from the beginning inferred the end. COMMONPLACE. ° 67 In the middle of that London season Catherine and Lucy returned to Brompton-on- Sea; and before August had started the main stream of tourists from England to the con- tinent, Mr. Tresham packed up his knapsack, and, staff in hand, set off on a solitary ex- pedition, of undetermined length, to the East. He was neither a rich nor a poor man; had been called to the bar, but without pursuing his profession, and was not tied to any given spot; he went away to recruit his spirits, and, having recovered them, stayed on out of sheer enjoyment. Yet, when one morning his eye lighted on the Hartley-Durham marriage in the ‘Times’ Supplement, home feeling stirred within him; and he who, twenty-four hours earlier, knew not whether he might not end his days beside the blue Bosphorus, on the evening of that same day had started west- ward. He felt curious, he would not own to him- self that he felt specially interested, to know Powetuey faced; and he» felt: curious; ine a minor degree, to inspect her successful rival. 68 COMMONPLACE. With himself Lucy had not yet had a rival; not yet, perhaps she might one day, he re- peated to himself, only it had not happened yet. And then the sweet, dignified face rose before him kind and cheerful; cheerful still in his memory, though he guessed that now it must look saddened. He had never yet seen it with a settled expression of sadness, and he knew not how to picture it so. Mr. Drum—or Mr. Gawkins Drum, as he scrupulously called himself, on account of a certain Mr. Drum, who lived somewhere and went nowhere, and was held by all outsiders to be in his dotage— Miss Drum’s brother, Mr. Gawkins Drum, had for several years stood as a gay young bachelor of sixty. Not that, strictly speaking, any man (or, alas! any woman) can settle down at sixty and there remain; but at the last of a long series of avowed birthday parties, Mr. Drum had drunk his own health as being sixty that very day; COMMONPLACE. 69 this was now some years ago, and still, in neighbourly parlance, Mr. Drum was no more than sixty. At sixty-something-indefinite Gaw- kins brought home a bride, who confessed to sixty; and all Brompton-on-Sea indulged in a laugh at their expense, till it oozed out that the kindly old couple had gone through all the hopes and disappointments of a many years’ engagement, begun at a reasonable age for such matters, and now terminated only because the bedridden brother, to whom the bride had devoted herself during an ordinary lifetime, had at last ended his days in peace. “Mr. and Mrs. Gawkins Drum forestalled their neigh- bours’ laugh by their own, and soon the laugh against them died out, and every one accepted their house as amongst the pleasantest resorts in Brompton-on-Sea. Miss Drum, however, felt less leniently to- wards her brother and sister-in-law, and de- liberately regarded them from a shocked point of view. The wedding took place at Richmond, where the bride resided; and the honeymoon came to an end whilst Lucy entertained her 70 COMMONPLACE.’ old friend, during that long visit at Notting Hill, which promised to colour all Jane’s future. ‘My dear,’ said Miss Drum to her deferential listener; ‘My dear, Sarah,—and Lucy felt that that offending Sarah could only be the bride,— ‘Sarah shall not suffer for Gawkins’ folly and her own. I will not fail to visit her in her new home, and to notice her on all proper occasions, but I cannot save her from being ridiculous. I did not wait till I was sixty to make up my mind against wedlock, though perhaps’—and the old lady bridled—‘I also may have endured the preference of some in- fatuated man. Lucy, my dear, take an old woman’s advice: marry, if you mean to marry, before you are sixty, or else’ “remain? dike myself; otherwise, you make yourself simply ridiculous.’ And Lucy, smiling, assured her that she would either marry before sixty or not at all; and added, with some earnestness, that she did not think she should ever marry. To which Miss Drum answered with stateliness: COMMONPLACE. 71 ‘Very well; do one thing or do the other, only do not become ridiculous.’ Yet the old lady softened that evening, when she found herself, as it were, within the radius of the contemned bride. Despite her sixty years, and in truth she looked less than her age, Mrs. Gawkins Drum was a personable little woman, with plump red cheeks, gentle eyes, and hair of which the soft brown was threaded, but not overpowered, by grey. There was no affectation of youthfulness in her gown, which was of slate-coloured silk; nor in her cap, which came well on her head; nor in her manner to her guests, which was cordial; nor in her manner to her husband, which was affectionate, with the undemonstrative affection- ateness that might now have been appropriate | had they married forty years earlier. Her kiss of welcome was returned frostily by Miss Drum, warmly by Lucy. Mr. Drum at first looked a little sheepish under his sister’s severe salutation. Soon all were seated at tea. ‘Do you take cream and sugar?’ asked the bride, looking at her new sister. 72 COMMONPLACE. ‘No sugar, I thank you, was the formal reply. ‘And it will be better, Sarah, that you should call me Elizabeth. Though I am an old woman your years do not render it unsuitable, and I wish to be sisterly.’ ‘Thank you, dear Elizabeth,’ answered Mrs. Gawkins, cheerily; ‘I hope, indeed, we shall be sisterly. It would be sad times with me if I found I had brought coldness into my new home.’ | But Miss Drum would not thaw yet. ‘Yes, I have always maintained, and I maintain still, that there must be faults on both sides if a marriage, if any marriage whatever, in- troduces dissension into a family circle. And I will do my part, Sarah.’ . ‘Yes, indeed; but Sarah knew not what more to Say. Mr. Drum struck in,—‘Lucy, my dear’— she had been .a little girl, perched sion. knee when her father asked him years before to be trustee,—‘Lucy, my dear, you’re not in full bloom. Look at my old lady, and guess: what’s a recipe for roses ?’ COMMONPLACE. 73 ‘For shame, Gawkins!’ cried both old ladies; one with a smile, the other with a frown. Still, as the evening wore on, Miss Drum slowly thawed. Having, as it were once for all, placed her hosts in the position of culprits at the moral bar, having sat in judgment on them, and convicted them in the ears of all men (represented by Lucy), she admitted them to mercy, and dismissed them with a qualified pardon. What most softened her towards the offending couple’ was their unequivocal pro- fession of rheumatism. When she unbendingly declined to remain seated at the supper-table one minute beyond half-past ten, she alleged rheumatism as her impelling motive; and Gaw- kins and Sarah immediately proclaimed their own rheumatic experience and sympathies. As Miss Drum observed to Lucy on their way home, ‘Old people don’t confess to rheumatism if they wish to appear young.’ Thus the feud subsided, though Miss Drum to the end of her life occasionally spoke of her sister-in-law as ‘that poor silly thing,’ and 74 COMMONPLACE. of her brother as of one who should have known better. Whilst, on her side, Mrs. Gawkins Drum remarked to her husband, ‘What a very old- looking woman that Miss Charlmont is, if she’s not thirty, as you say. I never saw such an old, faded-looking woman of her age.’ 75 CHADTER X, PARTIES ran high at Kensington and Notting Hill. Stella stood up for charades, Jane for tableaux. Mr. Hartley naturally sided with his wife, Miss Charlmont held back from vol- unteering any opinion, Mrs. Tyke voted for the last speaker, Dr. Tyke ridiculed each al- ternative ; at last Mr. Durham ingeniously threw his weight into both scales, and won for both parties a partial triumph. ‘Why not, asked he,—‘ why not let Pug speak, and Miss Jane be silent ?’ This pacific suggestion once adopted, Dr. Tyke proposed that a charade word should be fixed upon, and performed by speech or spectacle, as might suit the rival stars; for instance, Love-apple. But who was to be Love? 76 COMMONPLACE. Everybody agreed in rejecting little boys; and Jane, when directly appealed to, refused to represent the Mother of love and laughter ; ‘for,’ as she truly observed, ‘that would not be Love, after all” Mr. Durham, looking laboriously gallant, aimed at saying something neat and pointed; he failed, yet Jane beamed a smile upon his failure. Then Dr. Tyke proposed a plaster Cupid; this, after some disputing, was adopted, with vague accessories of processional Greek girls, to be definitely worked out after- wards. For ‘Apple’ Alan suggested Paris and the rival goddesses, volunteering himself as Paris: Jane should be Venus, and Catherine would make a capital Juno. Jane accepted her own part as a matter of course, but doubted about her sister. ‘Yes,’ put in Miss Charlmont, decisively, ‘I will be Juno, or any- thing else which will help us forward a little.’ So that was settled; but who should be Minerva? Stella declined to figure as the patroness of wisdom, and Jane drily observed, that they ought all to be tall, or all to be short, in her idea. At last a handsome, not COMMONPLACE. Tf too handsome, friend, Lady Everett, was thought of to take the part. The last scene Dr. Tyke protested he should settle himself with Stella, and not be worried any more about it. So those two went into committee together, and Alan edged in ere long for consultation; finally, Miss Charlmont was appealed to, and the matter was arranged amongst them without being divulged to the rest. But all was peace and plenty, smiles and wax-candles, at Kensington, when at last the evening came for the performance. Mrs. Hart- ley’s drawing-rooms being much more spacious than Mrs. Tyke’s, had been chosen for con- venience, and about two hundred guests as- sembled to hear Stella declaim and see Jane attitudinize, as either faction expressed it. Good- natured Mrs. Tyke played the hostess, whilst Mrs. Hartley remained occult in the green- room. Dr. Tyke was manager and prompter. Mr. Durham, vice Paris- Hartley, welcomed people in a cordial, fussy manner, apologising for the smallness of London rooms, and re- eretfully alluding to the vast scale of Orpingham 78 COMMONPLACE. Place, ‘where a man can be civil to his friends without treading on their toes or their tails— ha! ha!’ But there is a limit to all things, even fussiness has an end. At last every one worth waiting for had arrived, been received, been refreshed. Orpingham Place died out of the conversation. People exchanged common- places, and took their seats; having taken their seats they exchanged more common- places. ‘What’s the word ?’—‘ It’s such a bore guessing: I never guess anything.‘ People ought to tell the word beforehand.’—‘ What a horrible man! Is that Mr. Hartley ?}—‘No, old Durham ; backbone Durham.’—‘ Why back- bone ?’—‘ Don’t know; hear him called so.’— ‘Isn't there a Beauty somewhere ?’—‘ Don't know; there’s the Beast,—and the hackneyed joke received the tribute of a hackneyed laugh. The manager’s bell rang, the curtain drew up. A plaster cast of Cupid, with fillet, bow, and quiver, on an upholstery pedestal, stood revealed. Music, commencing behind the scenes, approached; a file of English-Grecian maidens, COMMONPLACE. 79 singing and carrying garlands, passed across the stage towards a pasteboard temple, pre- sumably their desired goal, although they glanced at their audience, and seemed very independent of Cupid on his pedestal. There were only six young ladies; but they moved slowly, with a tolerable space interposed between each and each, thus producing a _ processional effect. They sang, in time and in tune, words by Dr. Tyke; music (not in harmony, but in uni- son, to ensure correct execution) by Arthur Tresham :— ‘Love hath a name of Death: He gives a breath And takes away. Lo we, beneath his sway, Grow like a flower ; To bloom an hour, To droop a day, And fade away.’ The first Anglo-Greek had been chosen for her straight nose, the last for her elegant foot; the intermediate four, possessing good voices, bore the burden of the singing. They 80 COMMONPLACE. all moved and sang with self-complacent ease, but without much dramatic sentiment, except the plainest of the six, who assumed an air of languishment. Some one suggested ‘cupid-ditty,’ but with- out universal acceptance. Some one else, on no obvious grounds, hazarded ‘Bore, Wild Boar: a remark which stung Dr. Tyke, as playwright, into retorting, ‘Boreas,’ The second scene was dumb show. Alan Hartley as Paris, looking very handsome in a tunic and sandals, and flanked by the largest- sized, woolly toy lambs, sat, apple in hand, awaiting the rival goddesses. A flourish of trumpets announced the entrance of Miss Charl- mont, a stately crowned Juno, robed in amber- coloured cashmere, and leading in a leash a peacock, with train displayed, and ingeniously mounted on noiseless wheels. She swept grandly in, and held out one arm, with a studied gesture, for the apple; which, doubtless, would have been handed to her then and there, had not warning notes on a harp ushered in Lady Everett: a modest, sensible-looking Minerva, COMMONPLACE. SI robed and stockinged in blue, with a funny Athenian owl perched on her shoulder, and a becoming helmet on her head. Paris hesi- tated visibly, and seemed debating whether or not to split the apple and the difference to- gether, when a hubbub, as of birds singing, chirping, calling, cleverly imitated by Dr. Tyke and Stella on water-whistles, heralded the ap- proach of Venus. In she came, beautiful Jane Charlmont, with a steady, gliding step, her eyes kindling with victory, both her small hands outstretched for the apple so indisputably hers, her lips parted in a triumphant smile. Her long, white robe flowed classically to the floor; two doves, seeming to nestle in her hair, billed and almost cooed; but her face eclipsed all beside it; and when Paris, on one knee, deposited the apple within her slim, white fingers, Juno forgot to look indignant and Minerva scornful. After this the final scene fell dead and flat. In vain did Stella whisk about as the most coquettish of market-girls of an undefined epoch and country, balancing a fruit~basket on her G 82 COMMONPLACE. head, and crying, ‘Grapes, melons, peaches, love-apples,’ with the most natural inflections. In vain did Arthur Tresham beat down the price of peaches, and Alan Hartley bid for love-apples:—Jane had attained one of her objects, and eclipsed her little friend for that evening. The corps dramatique was to sit down to supper in costume; a point arranged ostensibly for convenience, secretly it may be for vanity’s sake: only Stella laid her fruit-basket aside, and Miss Charlmont released her peacock. Lady Everett continued to wear the helmet, which did not conceal her magnificent black hair (she had been a Miss Moss before marriage, Clara Lyon Moss), and Jane retained her pair of doves. But during the winding up of the charade, more of moment had occurred off the stage than upon it. Jane, her part over, left the other performers to their own devices, and quietly made her way into a conservatory which opened out of the room devoted for that evening to cloaks and hoods. If she expected to be fol- COMMONPLACE. 83 lowed she was not disappointed. = -Janesinter= rupted him: ‘Pray give me your arm, Mr. Durham ;’ she rose: ‘let us go back to the company. I don’t know what you are talking about, unless you mean to be rude and very unkind :’ the voice broke, the large, clear eyes 84. COMMONPLACE. softened to tears; she drew back as he drew nearer. Then Mr. Durham, ill-bred, but neither scheming nor cold-hearted, pompous and fussy, but a not ungenerous man for all that,—then Mr. Durham spoke: ‘Don’t draw back from me, Miss Jane, but take my arm for once to lead you back to the company, and take my hand for good. For I love and admire you, Miss Jane; and if you will take an oldish man for your husband, you shall never want for money or for pleasure while my name is good in the City.’ Thus in one evening Jane Charlmont attained both her objects. Supper was a very gay meal, as brilliant as lights, glass, and plate could make it. People were pleased with the night’s entertainment, with themselves, and with each other. Mr. Durham, with an obtrusive air of festivity, sat down beside Jane, and begged his neighbours not to inconvenience themselves, as they did not mind squeezing. Jane coloured, but judged it too early to frown. Mr. Durham, being some- COMMONPLACE. 85 what old-fashioned, proposed healths: the fair actresses were toasted, the Anglo-Greeks in a bevy, the distinguished stars one by one. Mr. Tresham returned thanks for the processional six; Dr. Tyke for Miss Charlmont, Sir James Everett and Mr. Hartley for their respective wives. Then Jane’s health was drunk: who would rise to return thanks? Mr. Durham rose: ‘Hem—haw—’ said he: ‘haw—hem—ladies and gentlemen, allow me to return thanks for the Venus of the evening—I mean for the Venus altogether, whose health you have done me the honour to drink’—knowing smiles circled round the table. ‘Done us, I should say: not that I unsay what I said; quite the contrary, and I’m not ashamed to have said it. I will only say one word more in thanking you for the honour you have done her and all of us: the cham- pagne corks pop, and suggest popping ; but after popping mum ’s the word. Ladies and gentle-_ men, my very good friends, I drink your very good health.’ And the master of Orpingham Place sat down. 86 CHAPTER XI. Lucy received the news of Jane’s engagement with genuine vexation, and then grew vexed with herself for feeling vexed. Conscience took alarm, and pronounced that envy and pride had a share in her vexation. Self retorted: It is not envy to see that Jane is mercenary, nor pride to dislike vulgarity. Conscience insisted : -It is envy to be annoyed by Jane’s getting married before you, and it is pride to brand Mr. Durham as vulgar, and then taboo him as beyond the pale. Self pleaded: No one likes growing old and being made to feel it; and who would not deprecate a connection who will put one out of countenance at every turn ? But Conscience secured the last word: If you were younger than Jane, you would make more allowances for her; and if Mr. Durham were COMMONPLACE. 87 engaged to any one except your sister, you would think it fair not to condemn him as destitute of every virtue because he is under- bred. Thus did Conscience get the better of Self. And Lucy gulped down dignity and disappoint- ment together when, in reply to Miss Drum’s, ‘My dear, I hope your sisters are well, and enjoying their little gaieties,’ she said, cheer- fully : ‘Now, really, you should give me some- thing for such wonderful news: Jane is engaged to be married.’ There was nothing Miss Drum relished more than a wedding ‘ between persons suited to each other, and not ridiculous on the score of age and appearance, as she would herself pointedly have defined it. Now Jane was obviously young enough and pretty enough to become a bride; so Miss Drum was delighted, and full of interest and of inquiries, which Lucy found it rather difficult to answer satisfactorily. ‘And who is the favoured gentleman, my dear ?’ ‘Mr. Durham, of Orpingham Place, in Glou- 88 COMMONPLACE. cestershire. Very rich it seems, and a widower. His only daughter, Lucy hurried on with an imperceptible effort, ‘married that Mr. Hartley Catherine and I used to meet so often at Notting / Hill. She was thought to be a great heiress; but I suppose this will make some difference.’ ‘Then he is rather old for Jane ?’ ‘He is not yet fifty it seems, though of course that is full old. By what he says, Orpingham Place must be a very fine country-seat; and Jane appears cut out for wealth and pleasure, she has such a power of enjoying herself;’ and Lucy paused. Miss Drum, dropping the point of age, re- sumed: ‘Now what Durham will this be, my dear? I used to know a Sir Marcus Durham— a gay, hunting Baronet. He was of a north- country family; but this may be a branch of the same stock. He married an Earl’s daughter, Lady Mary; and she used to take precedence, let who would be in the room, which was not thought to be in very good taste when the dowager Lady Durham was present. Still an Earl’s daughter ought to understand good breed- COMMONPLACE. 89 ing, and that was how she acted ; I do not wish to express any opinion. Perhaps Mr. Durham may have a. chance of the Baronetcy, for Sir Marcus left no children, but was succeeded by a bachelor brother; and then Jane will be “my lady” some day.’ eo, feplied) Lucy; ‘I don't think’ that likely. Mr. Durham is enormously wealthy, by what I hear; but not of a county family. He made his fortune in the City.’ Miss Drum persisted: ‘The cadets of even noble families have made money by commerce over and over again. It is no disgrace to make a fortune; and I see no reason why Mr. Durham should not be a baronet some day. Many a City man has been as fine a gentleman as any idler at court. Very likely Mr. Durham is an elegant man of talent, and well connected; if so, a fortune is no drawback, and the question of age may be left to the lady’s decision.’ Lucy said no more: only she foresaw and shrank from that approaching day of undeceiving which should bring Mr. Durham to Brompton- on-Sea. go COMMONPLACE. Once set off on the subject of family, there was no stopping Miss Drum, who, having had no proveable great-grandfather, was sensitive on the score of pedigree. ‘You might not suppose it now, Lucy, but it is well known that our family name of Drum, though less euphonious than that of Durham, is in fact the same. I made the observation once to Sir Marcus, and he laughed with plea- sure, and often afterwards addressed me as cousin. Lady Mary did not like the suggestion ; but no one’s fancies can alter a fact:’ and the old lady looked stately, and as if the Drum- Durham theory had been adopted and em- blazoned by the College of Heralds; whereas, in truth, no one besides herself, not even the easy-tempered Gawkins, held it. Meanwhile, all went merrily and smoothly at Notting Hill. As Jane had said, she was old enough to know her own mind, and appar- ently she knew it. When Mr. Durham presented her with a set of fine diamonds, she dropped naturally into calling him George; and when COMMONPLACE. OI he pressed her to name the day, she answered, with an assumption of girlishness, that he must talk over all those dreadful things with Catherine. To Miss Charlmont he had already opened his mind on the subject of settlements: Jane should have everything handsome and ample, but Pug must not lose her fortune either. This Catherine, deeming it right and reasonable, undertook to explain to Jane. Jane sulked a little to her sister, but displayed only a smiling aspect to her lover, feeling in her secret heart that her own nest was being particularly well feathered: for not only were Mr. Durham’s new marriage settlements most liberal, in spite of Stella’s prospective twenty thousand pounds on coming of age, and twenty thousand at her father’s demise; but Catherine, of her own accord, provided that at her death all her share of their father’s property should descend to Jane, for her own separate use, and at her own absolute disposal. The younger sister, indeed, observed with safe generosity: ‘Suppose you should marry, too, some day?’ But Catherine, grateful for any gleam of unselfishness in her 92 _ COMMONPLACE. favourite sister, answered warmly and decisively : ‘I never meant to marry, and I always meant- what fortune I had to be yours at last: only, dear, do not again think hardly of our poor father’s oversight.’ Mr. Durham was urgent to have the wedding- day fixed, and Jane reluctant merely and barely for form’s sake. A day in August was named, and the honeymoon pre-devoted to Paris and Switzerland. Then Miss Charlmont pronounced it time to return home; and was resolute that the wedding should take place at Brompton- on-Sea, not at Notting Hill as the hospitable Tykes proposed. Jane was now nothing loth to quit town ; Mr. Durham unwilling to lose her, yet willing as recognising the step for an unavoidable pre- liminary. Nevertheless, he felt hurt at Jane’s indifference to the short separation; whilst Jane, in her turn, felt worried at his expecting any show of sentiment from her, though, having once fathomed his feelings, she kept the worry to herself and produced the sentiment. He looked genuinely concerned when they parted at London- COMMONPLACE. 93 Bridge Station ; but Jane never in her life had experienced a greater relief than now, when the starting train left him behind on the platform. A few more days, and it would be too late to leave him behind: but she consoled herself by reflecting that without him she might despair of ever seeing Paris; Switzerland was secondary in her eyes. Miss Drum had often set as a copy, ‘ Manners make the Man,’ and explained to her deferential pupils how in that particular phrase ‘ Man’ in- cludes ‘Woman. Catherine in later life reflected that ‘Morals make the Man’ (including Woman) conveys a not inferior truth. Jane might have modified the sentence a trifle further, in employ- ing it as an M copy, and have written, ‘Money makes the Man.’ 94 CHAPTERGATE Lucy welcomed her sisters home, after an absence of unprecedented duration, with warm- hearted pleasure, but Jane went far to ex- tinguish the feeling. In the heyday of her blooming youth and satisfaction, she was not likely to acquire any tender tact lacking at other times; and an elder sister, mentally set down in her catalogue of old maids, was fair game. ‘Why, Lucy,’ she cried, as they sat together the first evening, herself the only idler of the three, ‘you look as old as George, and about as lively: Miss Drum must be catching.’ ‘Do leave Miss Drum alone,’ Lucy an- swered, speaking hastily from a double annoy- ance. ‘And if,—she forced a laugh,—‘surely if my looks recall George to your mind they ought to please you.’ COMMONPLACE. 95 But Jane was incorrigible. ‘My dear, George is Orpingham Place, and Orpingham Place is George ; but your looks suggest some distinction between the two. Only think, he expected me to grow dismal at leaving him _ behind, and I did positively see his red pockethandker- chief fluttering in the breeze as we screamed out of the station. And he actually flattered himself I should not go out much till the wedding is over; catch me staying at home if I can help it! By-the-bye, did you mean a joke by wrapping his photograph up in the ten- pound note? it struck me afterwards as really neat in its way.’ ow lane! @ put in Catherine, and more she might have added in reproof; but at that instant the door opened, and Mr. Ballantyne was announced. Mr. Ballantyne was a solicitor, related to Mrs. Gawkins Drum, and taken into partner- ship by that lady’s husband shortly before their marriage. Judging by looks, Mr. Bal- lantyne might have been own nephew to Miss Drum rather than to her sister-in-law, so neutral 96 COMMONPLACE. was he in aspect and manner; if ever any one liked him at first sight, it was because there was nothing on the surface to stir a contrary feeling; and if any one volunteered a confidence to him, it was justified by his habitual taciturnity, which suggested a me- chanical aptitude at keeping a secret; yet, however appearances were against him, he was a shrewd man of business, and not deficient in determination of character. He arrived by appointment to show Miss Charlmont the draft of her settlement on her sister, and take, if need be, further instructions. She was one to see with her own eyes rather than merely to hear with her own ears, and, therefore, retired with the papers to the so- litude of her own room, leaving her sisters to entertain the visitor. Thus left, Mr. Ballantyne took a respectful look at Jane, whose good luck in securing the master of Orpingham Place he considered rare indeed. - Looking ‘at her ‘he “arrived ate. conclusion that Mr. Durham also had _ been lucky. Jane just glanced at Mr. Ballantyne, COMMONPLACE. 97 mentally appraising him as a nonentity; but in that glance she saw his admiration; ad- miration always propitiated her, and she deigned to be gracious. Various maiden ladies in Brompton-on-Sea would have been gracious to Mr. Ballantyne from a different motive. Though still a youngish man he was a widower, already in easy cir- cumstances, and with a prospect of growing rich. His regard for his late wife’s memory was most decorous, but not such as to keep him inconsolable; and his only child, Frank, being no more than five years old and healthy, need scarcely be viewed as a domestic draw- back ; indeed, certain spinsters treated’ the boy with a somewhat demonstrative affection, but these ladies were obviously not in their teens. Mr. Ballantyne meanwhile, though mildly courteous to all, had not singled out any one for avowed preference. Possibly he liked Miss Edith Sims, a doctor’s daughter, a bold equestrian, a first-rate croquet player; she hoped so sin- cerely, for she had unbecoming carroty hair H 98 COMMONPLACE. and freckles ; possibly he liked Lucy Charlmont, but she had never given the chance a thought. Of Miss Charlmont, whom he had seen twice, and both times exclusively on business, he stood in perceptible awe. ; Catherine, finding nothing to object to in the draft, returned it to Mr. Ballantyne with her full assent. Then tea was brought in, and Mr. Ballantyne was asked to stay. His aptitude for carrying cups and plates, recog- nised and admired in other circles, here re- mained in abeyance; Miss Charlmont adhering to the old fashion of people sitting round the tea-table at tea no less formally than round the dining-table at dinner. A plan for a picnic having been set on foot by the Gawkins Drums, Lucy had been invited, and had accepted before Jane’s en- gagement was announced. So now Mr. Bal- lantyne mentioned the picnic, taking for granted that Lucy would join, and empowered by the projectors to ask her sisters also; Jane brightened at the proposal, being secretly charmed at a prospect of appearing amongst her familiar COMMONPLACE. 99 associates as mistress elect of Orpingham Place ; but Catherine demurred,— ‘Thank you, Mr. Ballantyne; I will call myself and thank Mrs. Drum, but Mr. Durham might object, and I will stay at home with my sister. No doubt we shall find future opportunities of all meeting.’ ‘Dear me!’ cried Jane; ‘Mr. Durham isn’t Bluebeard; or, if he is, I had better get a little fun first. My compliments, please, and I shall be too glad to come.’ ‘Oh, Jane!’ remonstrated Miss Charlmont ; but it was a hopeless remonstrance. Jane, once bent on amusement, was not to be deterred by doubtful questions of propriety; and the elder sister, mortified, but more anxious for the offender’s credit than for her own dignity, changed her mind perforce, and, with a sigh, accepted the invitation. If Jane was deter- mined to go, she had better go under a middle- aged sister’s eye; but the party promised to be a large one, including various strange gentlemen, and Catherine honestly judged it objectionable. 100 COMMONPLACE. Jane, however, was overflowing with glee, and questioned Mr. Ballantyne energetically as to who were coming. When he was gone she held forth to her sisters,— ‘That hideous Edith Sims, of course she will ride over on Brunette, to show her figure and her bridle hand. I shall wear pink, and sit next her to bring out her freckles. I’ve not forgotten her telling people I had no fortune. Don’t you see she’s trying to hook Mr. Ballantyne? you heard him say she has been consulting him about something or other. Let’s drive Mr. Ballantyne over in our carriage, and the baby can perch on the box.’ Lucy said, ‘ Nonsense, Jane; Mr. Ballantyne | has his own dog-cart, and he is tiresome enough without keeping him all to ourselves.’ And Catherine added, this time peremp- torily, ‘My dear, that is not to be thought of; I could not justify it to Mr. Durham. Either you will drive over with Lucy and me, and any other person I may select, or you must find a carriage for yourself, as I shall not go to the picnic.’ IOI CHAPTER XII THE environs of Brompton-on-Sea were rich in spots adapted to picnics, and the Gawkins Drums had chosen the very prettiest of these eligible spots. Rocky Drumble, a green glen of the floweriest, but with fragments of rock showing here and there, possessed an echo point and a dripping well: it was, moreover, accredited by popular tradition with a love-legend, and, on the same authority, with a ghost for moonlight nights. Rocky Drumble was threaded from end to end by a stream which nourished water- cresses ; at one season its banks produced wild strawberries, at another nuts, sometimes mush- rooms. All the year round the glen was fre- quented by song-birds; not seldom a squirrel ~would scamper up a tree, or a rabbit sit upright on the turf, winking his nose. Rocky Drumble on 102 COMMONPLACE. a sunny summer-day was a bower of cool shade, and of a silence heightened, not broken, by sounds of birds and of water, the stream at hand, the sea not far off; a bower of sun-chequered shade, breaths of wind every moment shifting the shadows, and the sun making its way in, now here, now there, with an endless, monoto- nous changeableness. On such a day the Charlmonts drove to their rendezvous in Rocky Drumble. The carriage held four inside; Miss Drum and Catherine sitting forward, with Lucy and Jane opposite. On the box beside the driver perched little Frank Ballantyne, very chatty and merry at first; but to be taken inside and let fall asleep when, as was foreseen, he should grow tired. The child had set his heart on going to the pic- nic, and good Miss Drum had promised to take care of him—Miss Drum nominally, Lucy by secret understanding, for the relief of her old friend. Miss Drum wore a drawn silk bonnet, which had much in common with the awning of a bathing-machine. Catherine surmounted her COMMONPLACE. 103 inevitable cap by a broad-brimmed brown straw hat. Lucy wore a similar hat without any cap under it, but looked, in fact, the elder of the two. Jane, who never sacrificed complexion to fashion, also appeared in a shady hat, dove- coloured, trimmed with green leaves, under which she produced a sort of apple-blossom effect, in a cloud of pink muslin over white, and white appliquée again over the pink. Catherine had wished her to dress soberly, but Jane had no notion of obscuring her beauties. She had bar- gained with Mr. Durham that he was not to come down to Brompton-on-Sea till the after- noon before the wedding; and when he looked hurt at her urgency, had assumed an air at once affectionate and reserved, assuring him that this course seemed to her due to the delicacy of their mutual relations. Five days were still wanting to the wedding-day, George was not yet inalien- ably at her elbow, and no moment could appear more favourable for enjoyment. Surely if a skeleton promised to preside at the next ban- quet, this present feast was all the more to be relished : for though, according to Jane’s defini- 104 COMMONPLACE. tion, George was Orpingham Place, she would - certainly have entered upon Orpingham Place with added zest had it not entailed George. Miss Charlmont had delayed starting till the very last moment, not wishing to make more of the picnic than could be helped ; and when she with her party reached the Drumble, they found their friends already on the spot. The last- comers were welcomed with a good deal of friendly bustle, and half-a-dozen gentlemen, in scarcely more than as many minutes, were pre- sented to Jane by genial little Mrs. Drum, who had never seen her before, and was charmed at first sight. Jane, happily for Catherine’s peace of mind, assumed an air of dignity in unison with her distinguished prospects: she was gra- cious rather than coquettish—gracious to all, but flattering to none; a change from former days, when her manner used to savour of coaxing. Edith Sims had ridden over on Brunette, and Jane, keeping her word as to sitting next her, produced the desired effect. The Charlmonts coming late, every one was ready for luncheon on their arrival, and no COMMONPLACE. 105 strolling was permitted before the meal. As to the luncheon, it included everything usual and nothing unusual, and most of the company consuming it displayed fine, healthy appetites. Great attention was paid to Jane, who was be- yond all comparison the best-looking woman present ; whilst two or three individuals made mistakes between Catherine and Lucy, as to which was Miss Charlmont. Poor Lucy! she had seldom felt more heavy- hearted than now, as she sat talking and laugh- ing. She felt. herself getting more and more worn-looking as she talked and laughed on, getting visibly older and more faded. How she wished that Frank, who had fallen asleep on a plaid after stuffing unknown sweets into his system—how she wished that Frank would wake and become troublesome, to give her some occupation less intolerable than ‘grinning and bearing !’ Luncheon over, the party broke up, splitting into twos and threes, and scattering themselves here and there through the Drumble. Miss Charlmont attaching herself doggedly to Jane, 106 COMMONPLACE. found herself clambering up and down banks and stony excrescences in company with a very young Viscount and his tutor: as she clambered exas- peration waxed within her at the futility of the young men’s conversation and the complacency | of Jane’s rejoinders ; certainly, had any one been studying Catherine’s face (which nobody was), he would have beheld an unwonted aspect at a picnic. Miss Drum, ostentatiously aged because in company with her brother and his bride, had chosen before luncheon was well over to wrap herself up very warmly, and ensconce herself for an avowed nap inside one of the flys. ‘You can call me for tea,’ she observed to Lucy ; ‘and when Frank tires you, you can leave him in the carriage with me.’ But Frank was Lucy’s one resource : minding him served as an excuse for not joining Mr. Drum, who joked, or Mr. Ballan- tyne, who covertly stared at her, or Edith Sims, who lingering near Mr. Ballantyne talked of horses, or any other person whose conversation was more tedious than silence. When Frank woke, he recollected that nurse had told him strawberries grew in the Drumble; COMMONPLACE. 107 a fact grasped by him without the drawback of any particular season. Off he started in quest of strawberries, and Lucy zealously started in his wake, not deeming it necessary to undeceive him. The little fellow’ wandered and peered about diligently awhile after imaginary straw- berries ; failing these, he suddenly clamoured for a game at hide-and-seek: he would hide, and Lucy must not look. They were now among the main fragments of rock found in the Drumble, out of sight of their companions. Lucy had scarcely shut her eyes as desired, when a shout of delight made her open them still more quickly, in time to see Frank scampering, as fast as his short legs would carry him, after a scampering rabbit. He was running—she recollected it in an instant— headlong towards the stream, and was already some yards from her. She called after him, but he did not turn, only cried out some unintelli- gible answer in his babyish treble. Fear lent her speed ; she bounded after him, clearing huge stones and brushwood with instinctive accuracy. She caught at his frock—missed it—caught at 108 COMMONPLACE. it again—barely grasped it—and fell, throwing him also down in her fall. She fell on stones and brambles, bruising and scratching herself severely: but the child was safe, and she knew it, before she fainted away, whilst even in fainting her hand remained tightly clenched on his frock. Frank’s frightened cries soon brought friends to their assistance. Lucy, still insensible, was lifted on to smooth turf, and then sprinkled with water till she came to herself. In few words, for she felt giddy and hysterical but was resolute not to give way, she accounted for the accident, blaming herself for having carelessly let the child run into danger. It was impossible for any car- riage to drive so far along the Drumble, so she had to take some one’s arm to steady her in walking to meet the fly. Mr. Ballantyne, as pale as a sheet, offered his arm ; but she preferred Mr. Drum’s, and leaned heavily on it for support. Lucy was soon safe in the fly by Miss Drum’s side, whose nap was brought to a sudden end, and who, waking scared and fidgety, was dis- posed to lay blame on every one impartially, beginning with herself, and ending, in a tempered COMMONPLACE. 109 form, with Lucy. The sufferer thus disposed of, and packed for transmission home, the remaining picnickers, influenced by Mrs. Drum’s obvious bias, declined to linger for rustic tea or other pleasures, and elected then and there to return to their several destinations. The party mus- tered round the carriages ready to take their seats: but where were Catherine and Jane, Viscount and_ tutor ? Shouting was tried, whistling was tried, ‘Cooee’ was tried by amateur Australians for the nonce: all in vain. At last Dr. Sims stepped into the fly with Lucy, promising to see her safe home; Miss Drum, smelling-bottle in hand, sat sternly beside her; Frank, after undergoing a paternal box on the ear, was degraded from the coachman’s box to the back seat, opposite the old lady, who turned towards him the aspect as of an ogress: and thus the first carriage started, with Edith rein- ing in Brunette beside it. The others followed without much delay, one carriage being left for the truants; and its driver charged to explain, if possible without alarming the sisters, what had happened to cut short the picnic. IIO CHAPTER. iM THE day before the wedding Lucy announced that she still felt too much bruised and shaken to make one of the party, either at church or at - breakfast. . Neither sister contradicted her: Catherine, because she thought the excuse valid ; Jane, because Lucy, not having yet lost the traces of her accident, must have made but a sorry bridesmaid: and, as Jane truly observed, there were enough without her, for her defection still left a bevy of eight bridesmaids in capital working order. ie Brompton-on-Sea possessed only one hotel of any pretensions,—‘ The Duke’s Head,’ so designated in memory of that solitary Royal Duke who had once made brief sojourn beneath its roof. He found it a simple inn, bearing the name and sign of ‘The Three Mermaids ;’ the COMMONPLACE. tit mermaids appearing in paint as young persons, with yellow hair and combs, and faces of a type which failed to account for their uninterrupted self-ogling in hand-mirrors ; tails were shadowily indicated beneath waves of deepest blue. After the august visit this signboard was superseded by one representing the Duke as a gentleman of inane aspect, pointing towards nothing dis- coverable; and this work of art, in its turn, gave place to a simple inscription, ‘The Duke’s Head Hotel.’ Call it by what name you would, it was as snug a house of entertainment as rational man or reasonable beast need desire,.with odd little rooms opening out of larger rooms and off stair- cases ; the only trace now visible of the Royal Duke’s sojourn (beyond the bare inscription of his title) being Royal Sentries in coloured paste- board effigy, the size of life, posted on certain landings and at certain entrances. All the windowsills bore green boxes of flowering plants, whence a sweet smell, mostly of mignonette, made its way within doors. The best apart- ments looked into a square courtyard, turfed 112 COMMONPLACE. along three sides, and frequented by pigeons ; and the pigeon-house, standing in a turfy corner, was topped by a bright silvered ball. The landlord of the ‘Duke’s Head, a thin, tallowy-complexioned man, with a manner which might also be described as unpleasantly oily or tallowy, was in a bustle that same day, and all his household was bustling around him: for not merely had the ‘Duke’s Head’ undertaken to furnish the Durham-Charlmont wedding-break- fast with richness and elegance, but the bride- groom elect, whom report endowed with a pocketful of plums, the great Mr. Durham him- self, with sundry fashionable friends, was coming down to Brompton-on-Sea by the 5.30 train, and would put up for one night at the ‘ Duke’s Head.’ The waiters donned their whitest neck- cloths, the waitresses their pinkest caps; the landlady, in crimson gown and gold chain, loomed like a local Mayor; the landlord shone, as it were, snuffed and trimmed: never, since the era of that actual Royal Duke, had the ‘Duke’s Head’ smiled such a welcome. Mr. Durham, stepping out of the carriage on COMMONPLACE. 113 to the railway platform, and followed by Alan Hartley, Stella, and Arthur Tresham, indulged hopes that Jane might be there to meet him, and was disappointed. Not that the matter had undergone no discussion. Miss Charlmont, that unavoidable drive home from the picnic with a young Viscount and a tutor for vwzs-d-vis still rankling in her mind, had said, ‘ My dear, there would be no impropriety in our meeting George at the Station, and he would certainly be gratified. But Jane had answered, ‘ Dear me, sister! George will keep, and I’ve not a moment ° to spare; only don’t stay at home for me.’ So no one met Mr. Durham. But when he presented himself at the private house on the Esplanade, Jane showed herself all smiling wel- come, and made him quite happy by her pretty ways. True, she insisted on his not spending the evening with her; but she hinted so tenderly at such restrictions vanishing on the morrow, and so modestly at remarks people might make if he did stay, that he was compelled to yield the point and depart in great admiration of her reserve, though he could not help recollecting I 114 COMMONPLACE. that his first wooing had progressed and pros- pered without any such amazing proprieties. But then the mother of Everilda Stella had seen the light in a second-floor back room at Gates- head, and had married out of a circle where polite forms were not in the ascendant ; whereas Jane Charlmont looked like a Duchess, or an Angel, or Queen Venus herself, and was alto- gether a different person. So Mr. Durham, discomfited, but acquiescent, retreated to the ‘Duke’s Head,’ and there consoled himself with more turtle-soup and crusty old port jthan Dr. Tyke would have sanctioned. Unfortunately Dr. and Mrs. Tyke were not coming down till the latest train that night from London, so Mr. Durham gorged unrebuked. He had seen Lucy, and taken rather a fancy to her, in spite of her blemished face, and had pressed her to visit Orpingham Place as soon as ever he and Jane should have returned from the Continent. He preferred Lucy to Catherine, with whom he never felt quite at ease; she was so decided and self-possessed, and so much better bred than himself. Not that Backbone Durham admitted COMMONPLACE. I15 this last point of superiority ; he did not acknow- ledge, but he winced under it. Lucy on her side had found him better than his photograph; and that was something. After tea she was lying alone on the drawing- room sofa in the pleasant summer twilight; alone, because her sisters were busy over Jane’s matters upstairs; alone with her own thoughts. She was thinking of very old days, and of days not so old and much more full of interest. She tried to think of Jane and her prospects; but against her will Alan Hartley’s image intruded itself on her reverie, and she could not banish it. She knew from Mr. Durham that he had come down for the wedding; she foresaw that they must meet, and shrank from the ordeal, even whilst she wondered how he would behave and how she herself should behave. Alone, and in the half darkness, she burned with shame- faced dread of her own possible weakness, and mortified self-love wrung tears from her eyes as she inwardly prayed for help. The door opened, the maid announced Mr. and Mrs. Hartley. 116 COMMONPLACE. Lucy, startled, would have risen to receive them, but Stella was too quick for her, and seizing both her hands, pressed her gently backwards on the sofa. ‘Dear Miss Charl- mont, you must not make a stranger of me, and my husband is an old friend. Mayn't I call you Lucy?’ So this was Alan’s wife, this little, winning woman, still almost a child; this winning woman, who had won the only man Lucy ever cared for. It cost Lucy an effort to answer, and to make her welcome by her name of Stella. _ Then Alan came forward and shook hands, looking cordial and handsome, with that kind tone of voice and tenderness of manner which had deceived poor Lucy once, but must never deceive her again. He began talking of their pleasant acquaintanceship in days of yore, of amusements they had shared, of things done together, and things spoken and not forgotten ; it required the proof positive of Stella seated there smiling in her hat and scarlet feather, and with the wedding-ring on her small hand, to show even now that Alan only meant friend- COMMONPLACE, 117 liness, when he might seem to mean so much more. Lucy revolted under the fascination of his manner; feeling angry with herself that he still could wield power over her fancy, and anery a little with him for having made him- self so much to her and no more. She insisted on leaving the sofa, rang the bell for a second edition of tea, and sent up the visitors’ names to her sisters. When they came down she turned as much shoulder as good breeding tolerated towards Alan, and devoted all the attention she could command to Stella. Soon the two were laughing together over some feminine little bit of fun; then Lucy brought out an intricate piece of tatting, which, when completed, was to find its way to Notting Hill—the antimacassar of Mr. Durham’s first visit there being, in fact, her handiwork; and, — lastly, Lucy, once more for the moment with pretty pink cheeks and brightened eyes, con- voyed her new friend upstairs to inspect Jane’s ‘ bridal dress, white satin, under Honiton lace. When the visit was over, and Lucy safe 118 COMMONPLACE. in the privacy of her own room, a sigh of relief escaped her, followed by a sentiment of deep thankfulness; she had met Alan again, and he had disappointed her. Yes, the spectre which had haunted her for weeks past had, at length, been brought face to face and had vanished. Perhaps surprise at his marriage had magnified her apparent disappointment, perhaps dread of continuing to love another woman’s husband had imparted a morbid and unreal sensitiveness to her feelings; be this as it might, she had now seen Alan again, and had felt irritated by the very manner that used to charm. In the revulsion of her feelings she was almost ready to deem herself fortunate and Stella pitiable. She felt excited, exalted, triumphant rather than happy; a little pained, and, withal, very glad. Life seemed to glow within her, her blood to course faster and fuller, her heart to throb, lightened of a load. Recollections which she had not dared face alone, Mr. Hartley, by recalling, had stripped of their dangerous charm ; had stripped of the tenderness she had COMMONPLACE. IIg dreaded, and the sting under which she had writhed; for he was the same, yet not the same. Now, for the first time, she suspected him not indeed of hollowness, but of shallow- ness. She threw open her window to the glorious August moon and stars, and, leaning out, drank deep of the cool night air. She ceased to think of persons, of events, of feelings; her whole heart swelled, and became uplifted with a thankfulness altogether new to her, profound, transporting. When at length she slept, it was with moist eyes and smiling lips. I20 CHAPTI-ARGAw THE wedding was over. Jane might have looked still prettier but for an unmistakable expression of gratified vanity; Mr. Durham might have borne himself still more pompously but for a deep-seated, wordless conviction, that his bride and her family looked down upon him. Months of scheming and weeks of fuss had ended in a marriage, to which the,one party brought neither refinement nor tact, and the other neither respect nor affection. Wedding guests, however, do not assemble to witness exhibitions of respect or affection, and may well dispense with tact and refine- ment when delicacies not in season are pro- vided; therefore, the party on the Esplanade waxed gay as befitted the occasion, and ex- pressed itself in toasts of highly improbable import. COMMONPLACE. 12a The going off was, perhaps, the least suc- cessful point of the show. Catherine viewed flinging shoes as superstitious, Jane as vulgar; therefore no shoes were to be flung. Mr. Durham might have made head against ‘ super- stitious, but dared not brave ‘vulgar; so he kept to himself the fact that he should hardly feel thoroughly married without a tributary shoe, and meanly echoed Jane’s scorn. But Stella, who knew her father’s genuine sentiment, chose to ignore ‘superstition’ and ‘vulgarity’ alike; so, at the last moment, she snatched off her own slipper, and dexterously hurled it over the carriage, to Jane’s disgust (no love was lost between the two young ladies), and to Mr. Durham’s inward satisfaction. Lucy had not joined the wedding party, not caring overmuch to see Jane marry the man who served her as a butt; but she peeped wistfully at the going off, with forebodings in her heart, which turned naturally into prayers, for the ill-matched couple. In the evening, however, when many of the party had re- turned to London, the few real friends and I22 COMMONPLACE. familiar acquaintances who reassembled as Miss Charlmont’s guests found Lucy in the drawing- room, wrapped up in something gauzily be- coming to indicate that she had been ill, and looking thin under her wraps. In Miss Charlmont’s idea a wedding-party should be at once mirthful and grave, neither dull nor frivolous. Dancing and cards were frivolous, conversation might prove dull; games were all frivolous except chess, which, being exclusive, favoured general dulness. These points she had impressed several times on Lucy, who was suspected of an inopportune hankering after bagatelle; and who now sat in the snuggest corner of the sofa, feeling shy, and at a loss what topic to start that should appear neither dull nor frivolous. Dr. Tyke relieved her by turning her em- barrassment into a fresh channel: what had she been doing to make herself ‘look like a turnip-ghost before its candle is lighted ?? ‘My dear Lucy!’ cried Mrs. Tyke, loud enough for everybody to hear her, ‘you really do look dreadful, as if you were moped to COMMONPLACE. 124 death. You had much better come with the Doctor and me to the Lakes. Now I beg you to say yes, and come.’ Alan heard with good-natured concern; Arthur Tresham heard as if he heard not. But the first greeting had been very cordial between him and Lucy, and he had not seemed to remark her faded face. ‘Yes, resumed Dr. Tyke. ‘Now that’s settled. You pack up to-night and start with us to-morrow, and you shall be doctored with the cream of drugs for nothing.’ But Lucy said the plan was preposterous, and she felt old and lazy. Mrs. Tyke caught her up: ‘Old? my dear child! and I feeling young to this day !’ And the Doctor added: ‘Why not be pre- posterous and happy? “ Quel che piace giova,” as our sunny neighbours say. Besides, your © excuses are incredible: “ Not at home,” as the snail answered to the woodpecker’s rap.’ Lucy laughed, but stood firm; Catherine protesting that she should please herself. At last a compromise was struck: Lucy, on her 124 COMMONPLACE. cousins’ return from their tour, should go to Notting Hill, and winter there if the change did her good. ° ‘If. not,” saic@eaieweweari: ‘I shall come home again, to be nursed by Catherine.’ ‘If not,’ said Dr. Tyke, gravely for once, ‘we may think about our all seeing Naples together.’ Edith Sims, her hair and complexion toned down by candlelight, sat wishing Mr. Ballantyne would come and talk to her; and Mr. Ballan- tyne, unmindful of Edith at the other end of the room, sat making up his mind. Before the accident in the Drumble he had thought of Lucy with a certain distinction, since that accident he had felt uncomfortably in her debt, and now he sat reflecting that, once gone for the winter, she might be gone for good so far as himself was concerned. She was nice-looking and amiable; she was tender towards little mother- less Frank; her fortune stood above rather than below what he had proposed to himself in a second wife:—if Edith could have read his thoughts, she would have smiled less compla- : COMMONPLACE. 125 cently when at last he crossed over to talk to her of Brunette and investments, and when later still he handed her in to supper. As it was, candlelight and content became her, and she looked her best. Mrs. Gawkins Drum, beaming with good will, and harmonious in silver-grey moire under old point lace, contrasted favourably with her angular sister-in-law, whose strict truthfulness forbade her looking congratulatory: for now that she had seen the ‘elegant man of talent’ of her pre- visions, she could not but think that Jane had married his money-bags rather than himself: therefore Miss Drum looked severe, and when viewed in the light of a wedding guest, ominous. Catherine, no less conscientious than her old friend, took an opposite line, and laboured her very utmost to hide mortification and mis- givings, and to show forth that cheerful hospi- tality which befitted the occasion when con- templated from an ideal point of view; but ease was not amongst her natural gifts, and she failed to acquire it on the spur of an uneasy moment. 126 COMMONPLACE. Warners make the Man,’ ‘Morals make the Man,’ kept running obstinately in her head, and she could not fit Mr. Durham to either sentence. In all Brompton-on-Sea there was no heavier heart that night than Catherine Charlmont’s. CHAPTER XVI. NOVEMBER had come, the Tykes were settled at home again, and Lucy Charlmont sat in a railway-carriage on her way from Brompton-on- Sea to Notting Hill. Wrapped up in furs, and with a novel open on her lap, she looked very snug in her corner; she looked, moreover, plumper and brighter than at Jane’s wedding- party. But her expression of unmistakable amusement was not derived from the novel lying unread in her lap: it had its source in recollections of Mr. Ballantyne, who had made her an offer the day before, and who had ob- viously been taken aback when she rejected his suit. All her proneness to bring herself in in the wrong could not make her fear that she had even for one moment said or done, looked or thought, what ought to have misled him: 128 COMMONPLACE. therefore conscience felt at ease, and the comic side of his demeanour remained to amuse her, despite a decorous wish to feel sorry for him. He had looked so particularly unimpulsive in the act of proposing, and then had appeared so much more disconcerted than grieved at her positive ‘No,’ and had ‘hinted so broadly that he hoped she would not talk about his offer, that she could not imagine the matter very serious to him: and if not to him assuredly to nobody else. ‘I dare say it will be Edith Sims at last,’ mused she, and wished them both well. A year earlier his offer might have been a matter of mere indifference to her, but not now; for her birthday was just over, and it was eratifying to find herself not obsolete even at thirty. This birthday had loomed before her threateningly for months past, but now it was over; and it became a sensible relief to feel and look at thirty very much as she had felt and looked at twenty-nine. Her mirror bore witness to no glaring accession of age having come upon her in a single night. ‘After all, she mused, ‘life isn’t over at thirty. Her COMMONPLACE. 129 thoughts flew before her to Notting Hill; if they dwelt on any one in especial, it was not on Alan Hartley. Not on Alan Hartley, though she foresaw that they must meet frequently; for he and Stella were at Kensington again, planning to stay there over Christmas. Stella she rather _ liked than disliked; and as she no longer deemed her lot enviable, to see more of her would be no grievance. Mr. Tresham also was in London, and likely to remain there; for since his return from the East he had taken himself to task for idleness, and had joined a band of good men in an effort to visit and relieve the East-end poor in their squalid homes. His hobby happened to be emigration, but he did not ride his hobby rough-shod over his destitute neighbours. He was in London hard at work, and by no means faring sumptuously every day; but glad sometimes to get a mouthful of pure night air and of something more substan- tial at Notting Hill. He and Lucy had not merely renewed acquaintance at the wedding- party, but had met more than once afterwards K 130 COMMONPLACE. during a week’s holiday he gave himself at the seaside; had met on the beach, or in country lanes, or down in some of the many drumbles. They had botanised in company; and one day had captured a cuttle-fish together, which Lucy insisted on putting safe back into the sea before they turned homewards. ‘They. had talked of what grew at their feet or lay before their eyes; but neither of them had alluded to those old days when first they had known and liked each other, though they obviously liked each other still. Lucy, her thoughts running on some one who was not Alan, would have made a very pretty picture. success to-morrow: may it be greater than the past, and less than the future!’ ‘Not so,’ answered Titian, suddenly; ‘not so: I feel my star culminate.’ He said it gravely, pushing back his seat, and rising from table. His spirits seemed in a moment to flag, and he looked pale in the moonlight. It was as though the blight of the evil eye had fallen upon him. Gianni saw his disquiet, and laboured to re- move it. He took a lute from the floor, and tuning it, exerted his skill in music. He wrung from the strings cries of passion, desolate sobs, a wail as’ of one abandoned, plaintive, most tender tones as of the solitario passero. The charm worked: vague uneasiness was melting into delicious melancholy. He redoubled his efforts; he drew out tinkling notes joyful as the feet of dancers; he struck notes like fire, and, THE LOST TITIAN. I51 uniting his voice to the instrument, sang the glories of Venice and of Titian. His voice, full, mellow, exultant, vibrated through the room ; and, when it ceased, the bravos of his friends rang out an enthusiastic chorus. Then, more stirring than the snap of cas- tanets on dexterous fingers; more fascinating, more ominous, than a snake’s rattle, sounded the music of the dice-box. The stakes were high, waxing higher, and higher ; the tide of fortune set steadily towards Titian. Giannuccione laughed and _ played, played and laughed with reckless good-nature, doubling and redoubling his bets apparently quite at random. At length, however, he paused, yawned, laid down the dice. observing that it would cost him a good six months’ toil to pay off his losses—a remark which elicited a peculiar smile of intelligence from his com- panions—and, lounging back upon the cushions, fell fast asleep. Gianni also had been a loser: Gianni the imperturbable, who won and lost alike with steady hand and unvarying colour. Rumour 152 THE LOST TITIAN: stated that one evening he lost, won back, lost once more, and finally regained his whole pro- perty unmoved: at last only relinquishing the game, which fascinated, but could not excite him, for lack of an adversary. In like manner he now threw his possessions, as coolly as if they been another’s, piecemeal into the gulph. First his money went, then his collection of choice sketches ; his gondola fol- lowed, his plate, his jewelry. These gone, for the first time he laughed. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘amico mio, let us throw the crowning cast. I stake thereon myself; if you win, you may sell me to the Moor to- morrow, with the remnant of my patrimony ; to wit, one house, containing various articles of furniture and apparel; yea, if aught else remains to me, that also do I stake: against these set you your newborn beauty, and let us throw for the last time; lest it be said cogged dice are used in Venice, and I be taunted with the true proverb,—* Save me from my friends, and I will take care of my enemies.’ ‘So be it, mused Titian, “eGvenweonssa san THE LOST TITIAN. 153 gain, my friend shall not suffer; if I lose, I can but buy back my treasure with this night’s winnings. His whole fortune will stand Gianni in more stead than my picture; moreover, luck favours me. Besides, it can only be that my friend jests, and would try my confidence.’ So argued Titian, heated by success, by wine and play. But for these, he would freely have restored his adversary’s fortune, though it had been multiplied tenfold, and again tenfold, rather than have risked his life’s labour on the hazard of the dice. They threw. Luck had turned, and Gianni was successful. Titian, nothing doubting, laughed as he looked up from the table into his companion’s face; but no shadow of jesting lingered there. Their eyes met, and read each other's heart at a glance. One, discerned the gnawing envy of a life satiated : a thousand mortifications, a thousand inferiorities, compensated in a moment. The other, read an indignation that even yet scarcely realised the treachery which kindled 154 THE LOST TITIAN, it; a noble indignation, that more upbraided the false friend than the destroyer of a life’s hope. It was a nine-days’ wonder in Venice what had become of Titian’s masterpiece ; who had spirited it away,—why, when, and where. Some explained the mystery by hinting that Cle-— mentina Beneplacida, having gained secret access to the great master’s studio, had there, by dint of scissors, avenged her slighted beauty, and in effigy defaced her nut-brown rival. Others said that Giannuccione, paying tipsy homage to his friend’s performance, had marred its yet moist surface. Others again averred, that in a moment of impatience, Titian’s own sponge flung against the canvas, had irremediably blurred the principal figure. None knew, none guessed the truth. Wonder fulfilled its little day, and then, subsiding, was forgotten: having, it may be, after all, as truly amused Venice the volatile as any work of art could have done, though it had robbed sunset of its glow, its glory, and its fire. THE LOST TITIAN. 155 But why was the infamy of that night kept secret? By Titian, because in blazoning abroad his companion’s treachery, he would subject him- self to the pity of those from whom he scarcely accepted homage; and, in branding Gianni as a traitor, he would expose himself as a dupe. . By Gianni, because had the truth got wind, his iniquitous prize might have been wrested from him, and his malice frustrated in the moment of triumph; not to mention that ven- geance had a subtler relish when it kept back a successful rival from the pinnacle of fame, than when it merely exposed a friend to hu- miliation. As artists, they might possibly have been accounted rivals; as astute men of the world, never. Giannuccione had not witnessed all the trans- actions of that night. Thanks to his drunken sleep, he knew little; and what he guessed, Titian’s urgency induced him to suppress. It was, indeed, noticed how, from that time for- ward, two of the three inseparables appeared 156 THE LOST TITIAN. in a measure, estranged from the third; yet all outward observances of courtesy were con- tinued, and, if embraces had ceased, bows and doffings never failed. For weeks, even for months, Gianni restrained his love for play, and, painting diligently, la- boured to rebuild his shattered fortune. All prospered in his hands. His sketches sold with unprecedented readiness, his epigrams charmed the noblest dinner-givers, his verses and piquant little airs won him admission into the most exclusive circles. Withal, he seemed to be steadying. His name no more pointed stories of drunken frolics in the purlieus of the city, of mad wagers in the meanest com- pany, of reckless duels with nameless adversaries. If now he committed follies, they were com- mitted in the best society; if he sinned, it was, at any rate, in a patrician casa; and, though his morals might not yet be flawless, his taste was unimpeachable. His boon companions grumbled, yet could not afford to dispense with him; his warmest friends revived hopes which long ago had died away into despair. It was THE LOST TITIAN. 157 the heyday of his life: fortune and Venice alike courted him; he had but to sun himself in their smiles, and accept their favours. So, nothing loth, he did, and for a while prospered. But, as the extraordinary stimulus flagged, the extraordinary energy flagged with it. Leisure returned, and with leisure the al- lurements of old pursuits. In proportion as his expenditure increased, his gains lessened; and, just when all his property, in fact, be- longed to his creditors, he put the finishing stroke to his obvious ruin, by staking and losing at the gambling-table what was no longer his own. That night beheld Gianni grave, dignified, imperturbable, and a beggar. Next day, his creditors, princely and plebeian, would be upon him: everything must go; not a scrap, not a fragment, could be held back. Even Titian’s masterpiece would be claimed; that prize for which he had played away his soul, by which, it may be, he had hoped to acquire a world- wide fame, when its mighty author should be silenced for ever in the dust. 158 THE LOST TITIAN. Yet to-morrow, not to-night, would be the day of reckoning; to-night, therefore, was his own. With a cool head he conceived, with a steady hand he executed, his purpose. Taking coarse pigments, such as, when he pleased, might easily be removed, he daubed over those figures which seemed to live, and that won- derful background, which not Titian himself could reproduce; then, on the blank surface, he painted a dragon, flaming, clawed, prepos- terous. One day he would recover his dragon, recover his Titian under the dragon, and the world should see. Next morning the crisis came. After all, Gianni’s effects were worth more than had been supposed. They included Gian- nuccione’s Venus whipping Cupid—how obtained, who knows ?—a curiously wrought cup, by a Florentine goldsmith, just then rising into notice ; within the hollow of the foot was engraved Benvenuto Cellini, surmounted by an outstretched hand, symbolic of welcome, and quaintly al- lusive to the name; a dab by Giorgione, a scribble of the brush by Titian, and two feet THE LOST TITIAN. I59 square of genuine Tintoret. The creditors brightened ; there was not enough for honesty, but there was ample for the production of a most decorous bankrupt. His wardrobe was a study of colour; his trinkets, few but choice, were of priceless good taste. Moreover, his demeanour was unimpeach- able and his delinquencies came to light with the best grace imaginable. Some called him a defaulter, but all admitted he was a thorough gentleman. Foremost in the hostile ranks stood Titian; Titian, who now, for the first time since that fatal evening, crossed his rival’s threshold. His eye searched eagerly among the heap of name- less canvasses for one unforgotten beauty, who had occasioned him such sore heartache; but he sought in vain; only in the forefront sprawled a dragon, flaming, clawed, preposterous ; grinned, twinkled, erected his tail, and flouted him. ‘Yes,’ said Gianni, answering his looks, not words, yet seeming to address the whole circle, ‘Signort miei, these compose all my gallery. An immortal sketch, by Messer Tiziano’—here 160 THE LOST TITIAN. a complimentary bow—‘a veritable Giorgione ; your own work, Messer Robusti, which needs no comment of mine to fix its value. A few productions by feebler hands, yet not devoid of merit. These are all. The most precious part of my collection was destroyed (I need not state, accidentally), three days ago by fire. That dragon, yet moist, was designed for mine host, Bevilacqua Mangiaruva; but this morning, I hear, with deep concern, of his sudden demise.’ Here Lupo Vorace of the Ovco decapitato stepped forward. He,as he explained at length, was a man of few words (this, doubtless, in theory); but to make a long story short, so charmed was he by the scaly monster that he would change his sign, accept the ownerless dragon, and thereby wipe out a voluminous score which stood against his debtor. Gianni, with courteous thanks, explained that the dragon, still moist, was unfit for immediate transport ; that it should remain in the studio for a short time longer; and that, as soon as its safety permitted, he would himself convey it to the inn of his liberal creditor. But on this THE LOST TITIAN. 161 point Lupo was inflexible. In diffuse but un- varying terms he claimed instant possession of Gianni’s masterstroke. He seized it, reared it face upwards on to his head, and by his exit broke up the conclave of creditors. What remains can be briefly told. _ Titian, his last hope in this direction wrecked, returned to achieve, indeed, fresh greatnesses : but not the less returned to the tedium of straining after an ideal once achieved, but now lost for ever. Giannuccione, half amused, half mortified, at the slighting mention made of his performances, revenged himself in an epigram, of which the following is a free translation :— ‘Gianni my friend and I both strove to excel, But, missing better, settled down in well. Both fail, indeed ; but not alike we fail— My forte being Venus’ face, and his a dragon’s tail,’ Gianni, in his ruin, took refuge with a former friend ; and there, treated almost on the footing of a friend, employed his superabundant leisure in concocting a dragon superior in all points to its predecessor ; but, when this was almost com- M 162 THE LOST TITIAN. pleted, this which was to ransom his unsuspected treasure from the clutches of Lupo, the more relentless clutches of death fastened upon himself.’ | His secret died with him. An oral tradition of a somewhere extant lost Titian having survived all historical accu- racy, and so descended to another age, misled the learned Dr. Landau into purchasing a spurious work for the Gallery of Lunenberg ; and even more recently induced Dr. Dreieck to expend a large sum on a nominal Titian, which he afterwards bequeathed to the National Museum of Saxe Eulenstein. The subject of this latter painting is a Vintage of red grapes, full of life and vigour, exhibiting marked talent, but clearly assignable to the commencement of a later century. There remains, however, a hope that some happy accident may yet restore to the world the masterpiece of one of her most brilliant sons. Reader, should you chance to discern over wayside inn or metropolitan hotel a dragon THE LOST TITIAN. 163 pendent, or should you find such an effigy amid the lumber of a broker’s shop, whether it be red, green, or piebald, demand it importunately, pay for it liberally, and in the privacy of home scrub ee at may be that from behind the dragon will emerge a fair one, fairer than Andromeda, and that to you will appertain the honour of yet further exalting Titian’s greatness in the eyes of a world. NICK. IN DGC.K. THERE dwelt in a small village, not a thousand miles from Fairyland, a poor man, who had no family to labour for or friend to assist. When I call him poor, you must not suppose he was a homeless wanderer, trusting to charity for a night’s lodging; on the contrary, his ‘stone house, with its green verandah and _ flower- garden, was the prettiest and snuggest in all the place, the doctor’s only excepted. Neither was his store of provisions running low: his farm supplied him with milk, eggs, mutton, butter, poultry, and cheese in abundance; his fields with hops and barley for beer, and wheat for bread ; his orchard with fruit and cider; and his kitchen-garden with vegetables and whole- some herbs. He had, moreover, health, an 168 NICK. appetite to enjoy all these good things, and strength to walk about his possessions. No, I call him poor because, with all these, he was discontented and envious. It was in vain that his apples were the largest for miles around, if his neighbour’s vines were the most productive by a single bunch; it was in vain that his lambs were fat and thriving, if some one else’s sheep bore twins: so, instead of enjoying his own prosperity, and being glad when his neighbours prospered too, he would sit grumbling and be- moaning himself as if every other man’s riches were his poverty. And thus it was that one day our friend Nick leaned over Giles Hodge’s gate, counting his cherries. ‘Yes, he muttered, ‘I wish I were sparrows to eat them up, or a blight to kill your fine trees altogether.’ The words were scarcely uttered when he felt a tap on his shoulder, and looking round, perceived a little rosy woman, no bigger than a butterfly, who held her tiny fist clenched in a menacing attitude. She looked scornfully at him, and said: ‘Now listen, you churl, you! NICK. 169 henceforward you shall straightway become everything you wish; only mind, you must re- main under one form for at least an hour.’ Then she gave him a slap in the face, which made his cheek tingle as if a bee had stung him, and dis- appeared with just so much sound as a dewdrop makes in falling. Nick rubbed his cheek in a pet, pulling wry faces and showing his teeth. He was boiling over with vexation, but dared not vent it in words lest some unlucky wish should escape him. Just then the sun seemed to shine brighter than ever, the wind blew spicy from the south; all Giles’s roses looked redder and larger than before, while his cherries seemed to multiply, swell, ripen. He could refrain no longer, but, heedless of the fairy-gift he had just received, bf exclaimed, ‘I wish I were sparrows eating No sooner said than done: in a moment he found himself a whole flight of hungry birds, pecking, devouring, and bidding fair to devas- tate the envied cherry-trees. But honest Giles was on the watch hard by; for that very morning it had struck him he must make nets for the 170 NICK. protection of his fine fruit. Forthwith he ran home, and speedily returned with a revolver fur- nished with quite a marvellous array of barrels. Pop, bang—pop, bang! he made short work of the sparrows, and soon reduced the enemy to one crestfallen biped with broken leg and wing, who limped to hide himself under a holly-bush. But though the fun was over, the hour was not; so Nick must needs sit out his allotted time. Next a pelting shower came down, which soaked him through his torn, ruffled feathers ; and then, exactly as the last drops fell and the sun came out with a beautiful rainbow, a tabby cat pounced upon him. Giving himself up for lost, he chirped in desperation, ‘O, I wish I were a dog to worry you! Instantly—for the hour was just passed —in the grip of his horrified adversary, he turned at bay, a savage bull-dog. A shake, a deep bite, and poor puss was out of her pain. Nick, with immense satisfaction, tore her fur to bits, wishing he could in like manner exterminate all her progeny. At last, glutted with vengeance, he lay down beside his victim, relaxed his ears and tail, and fell asleep. NICK. 171 Now that tabby-cat was the property and special pet of no less a personage than the doc- tor’s lady; so when dinner-time came, and not the cat, a general consternation pervaded the household. The kitchens were searched, the cellars, the attics; every apartment was ran- sacked; even the watch-dog’s kennel was vi- sited. Next the stable was rummaged, then the hay-loft ; lastly, the bereaved lady wandered disconsolately through her own private garden into the shrubbery, calling ‘Puss, puss,’ and looking so intently up the trees as not to per- ceive what lay close before her feet. Thus it was that, unawares, she stumbled over Nick, and trod upon his tail. Up jumped our hero, snarling, biting, and rushing at her with such blind fury as to miss. his aim. She ran, he ran. Gathering up his strength, he took a flying-leap after his victim ; her foot caught in the spreading root of an oak- tree, she fell, and he went over her head, clear over, into a bed of stinging-nettles. Then she found breath to raise that fatal cry, ‘Mad dog!’ Nick’s blood curdled in his veins; he would 172 NICK. have slunk away if he could; but already a stout labouring-man, to whom he had done many an ill turn in the time of his humanity, had spied him, and, bludgeon in hand, was pre- paring to give chase. However, Nick had the start of him, and used it too; while the lady, far behind, went on vociferating, ‘Mad dog, mad dog!’ inciting doctor, servants, and vaga- bonds to the pursuit. Finally, the whole village came pouring out to swell the hue and cry. The dog kept ahead gallantly, distancing more and more the asthmatic doctor, fat Giles, and, in fact, all his pursuers except the bludgeon- bearing labourer, who was just near enough to persecute his tail. Nick knew the magic hour must be almost over, and so kept forming wish after wish as he ran,—that he were a viper only to get trodden on, a thorn to run into some one’s foot, a man-trap in the path, even the detested bludgeon to miss its aim and break. This wish crossed his mind at the propitious - moment ; the bull-dog vanished, and the labourer, overreaching himself, fell flat on his face, while NICK. 173 his weapon struck deep into the earth, and snapped. A strict search was instituted after the miss- ing dog, but without success. During two whole days the village children were exhorted to keep indoors and beware of dogs; on the third an inoffensive bull pup was hanged, and the panic subsided. Meanwhile the labourer, with his shattered stick, walked home in silent wonder, pondering on the mysterious disappearance. But the puzzle was beyond his solution; so he only made up his mind not to tell his wife the whole story till after tea. He found her preparing for that meal, the bread and cheese set out, and the kettle singing softly on the fire. ‘Here’s something to make the kettle boil, mother,’ said he, thrusting our hero between the bars and seating himself; ‘for I’m mortal tired and thirsty.’ Nick crackled and blazed away cheerfully, throwing out bright sparks, and lighting up every corner of the little room. He toasted the cheese to a nicety, made the kettle boil 174 NICK. without spilling a drop, set the cat purring with comfort, and illuminated the pots and pans into splendour. It was provocation enough to be burned; but to contribute by his misfortune to the well-being of his tormentors was still more ageravating. He heard, too, all their remarks and wonderment about the supposed mad-dog, and saw the doctor’s lady’s own maid bring the labourer five shillings as a reward for his exer- tions. Then followed a discussion as to what should be purchased with the gift, till at last it was resolved to have their best window glazed with real glass. The prospect of their grandeur put the finishing-stroke to Nick’s indignation. Sending up a sudden flare, he wished with all his might that he were fire to burn the cottage. Forthwith the flame leaped higher than ever flame leaped before. It played for a moment about a ham, and smoked it to a nicety; then, fastening on the woodwork above the chimney- corner, flashed full into a blaze. The labourer ran for help, while his wife, a timid woman, with three small children, overturned two pails of water on the floor, and set the beer-tap running. NICK, 175 This done, she hurried, wringing her hands, to the door, and threw it wide open. The sudden draught of air did more mischief than all Nick’s malice, and fanned him into quite a conflagra- tion. He danced upon the rafters, melted a pewter-pot and a pat of butter, licked up the beer, and was just making his way towards the ~ bedroom, when through the thatch and down the chimney came a rush of water. This ar- rested his progress for the moment; and before he could recover himself, a second and a third discharge from the enemy completed his dis- comfiture. Reduced ere long to one blue flame, and entirely surrounded by a wall of wet ashes, Nick sat and smouldered; while the good- natured neighbours did their best to remedy the mishap,—saved a small remnant of beer, assured the labourer that his landlord was certain to do the repairs, and observed that the ham would eat ‘ beautiful.’ Our hero now had leisure for reflection. His situation precluded all hope of doing further mischief ; and the disagreeable conviction kept forcing itself upon his mind that, after all, 176 NICK, he had caused more injury to himself than to any of his neighbours. Remembering, too, how contemptuously the fairy woman had looked and spoken, he began to wonder how he could ever have expected to enjoy her gift. Then it occurred to him, that if he merely studied his own advantage without trying to annoy other people, perhaps his persecutor might be pro- pitiated ; so he fell to thinking over all his © acquaintances, their fortunes and misfortunes ; and, having weighed well their several claims on his preference, ended by wishing himself the rich old man who lived in a handsome house just beyond the turnpike. In this wish he burned out. - The last glimmer had scarcely died away, when Nick found himself in a bed hung round with faded curtains, and occupying the centre of a large room. A night-lamp, burning on the chimney-piece, just enabled him to discern a few shabby old articles of furniture, a scanty carpet, and some writing materials on a table. These objects looked somewhat dreary; but for his comfort he felt an inward consciousness of a NICK. 17% goodly money-chest stowed away under his bed, and of sundry precious documents hidden in a secret cupboard in the wall. So he lay very cosily, and listened to the clock ticking, the mice squeaking, and the house- dog barking down below. This was, however, but a drowsy occupation ; and he soon bore witness to its somniferous influence by sinking into a fantastic dream about his money-chest. First, it was broken open, then shipwrecked, then burned; lastly, some men in masks, whom he knew instinctively to be his own servants, began dragging it away. Nick started up, clutched hold of something in the dark, found his last dream true, and the next moment was stretched on the floor—lifeless, yet not insen- sible—by a heavy blow from a crowbar. The men now proceeded to secure their booty, leaving our hero where he fell. They carried off the chest, broke open and ransacked the secret closet, overturned the furniture, to make sure that no hiding-place of treasure escaped them, and at length, whispering to- gether, left the room. Nick felt quite dis- N 178 NICK. couraged by his ill success, and now entertained only one wish—that he were himself again. Yet even this wish gave him some anxiety ; for he feared that if the servants returned and found him in his original shape they might take him for a spy, and murder him in down- right earnest. While he lay thus cogitating two of the men reappeared, bearing a shutter and some tools. They lifted him up, laid him on the shutter, and carried him out of the room, down the back-stairs, through a long vaulted passage, into the open air. No word was spoken; but Nick knew they were going to bury him. | An utter horror seized him, while, at the same time, he felt a strange consciousness that his hair would not stand on end because he was dead. The men set him down, and began in silence to dig his grave. It was soon ready to receive him; they threw the body roughly in, and cast upon it the first shovelful of earth. But the moment of deliverance had arrived. His wish suddenly found vent in a prolonged unearthly yell. Damp with night dew, pale NICK. 179 as death, and shivering from head to foot, he sat bolt upright, with starting, staring eyes and chattering teeth. The murderers, in mortal fear, cast down their tools, plunged deep into a wood hard by, and were never heard of more. Under cover of night Nick made the best of his way home, silent and pondering. Next morning he gave Giles Hodge a rare tulip- root, with full directions for rearing it; he sent the doctor’s wife a Persian cat twice the size of her lost pet; the labourer’s cottage was repaired, his window glazed, and his beer- barrel replaced by unknown agency; and when a vague rumour reached the village that the miser was dead, that his ghost had been heard bemoaning itself, and that all his treasures had been carried off, our hero was one of the few persons who did not say, ‘And served him right, too.’ Finally, Nick was never again heard to utter a wish. HERO.) Pee AMOR PTOSLS, = HERO. ‘Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us!’ BURNS. IF you consult the authentic map of Fairy- land (recently published by Messrs. Moon, Shine, and Co.) you will notice that the emerald- green line which indicates its territorial limit, is washed towards the south by a bold ex- panse of sea, undotted by either rocks or islands. To the north-west it touches the work-a-day world, yet is effectually barricaded against intruders by an impassable chain of mountains; which, enriched throughout with mines of gems and metals, presents on Man- side a leaden sameness of hue, but on Elf- side glitters with diamonds and opals as with 184 HERO. ten thousand fire-flies. The greater portion of the west frontier is, however, bounded, not by these mountains, but by an arm of the sea, which forms a natural barrier between the two countries; its eastern shore peopled by good folks and canny neighbours, gay sprites, graceful fairies, and sportive elves; its western by a bold tribe of semi-barbarous fishermen. Nor was it without reason that the first settlers selected this fishing-field, and continued to occupy it, though generation after gener- ation they lived and died almost isolated. Their swift, white-sailed boats ever bore the most ~ delicate freights of fish to the markets of Outerworld—and not of fish only; many a waif and stray from Fairyland washed ashore amongst them. Now a fiery carbuncle blazed upon the sand; now a curiously-wrought ball of gold or ivory was found imbedded amongst the pebbles. Sometimes a sunny wave threw up a_ rose-coloured winged shell or jewelled starfish ; sometimes a branch of unfading sea- weed, exquisitely perfumed. But though these HERO, 185 treasures, when once secured, could be offered for sale and purchased by all alike, they were never, in the first instance, discovered except by children or innocent young maidens; in- deed, this fact was of such invariable occurrence, and children were so fortunate in treasure- finding, that a bluff mariner would often, on returning home empty-handed from his day’s toil, despatch his little son or daughter to a certain sheltered stretch of shingle, which went by the name of ‘the children’s harvest- field; hoping by such means to repair his failure. Amongst this race of fishermen was none more courageous, hospitable, and free-spoken than Peter Grump the widower; amongst their daughters was none more graceful and pure than his only child Hero, beautiful, lively, tender-hearted, and fifteen; the pet of her father, the pride of her neighbours, and the true love of Forss, as sturdy .a young fellow as ever cast a net in. deep water, or rowed against wind and tide for dear life. One afternoon Hero, rosy through the splash- 186 HERO. ing spray and sea-wind, ran home full-handed from the harvest-field. ‘See here, father!’ she cried, eagerly de- positing a string of sparkling red beads upon the table: ‘see, are they not beautiful ?’ Peter Grump examined them carefully, hold- ing each bead up to the light, and weighing them in his hand. ‘Beautiful indeed!’ echoed Forss, who un-_ noticed, at least by the elder, had followed Hero into the cottage. ‘Ah, if I had a sister to find me fairy treasures, I would take the three months’ long journey to the best market of Outerworld, and make my fortune there.’ ‘Then you would rather go the three months’ journey into Outerworld than come every even- ing to my father’s cottage?’ said Hero, shyly. ‘Truly I would go to Outerworld first, and come to you afterwards,’ her lover an- swered, with a smile; for he thought how speedily on his return he would have a tight house of his own, and a fair young wife, too. ‘Father, said Hero presently, ‘if, instead of gifts coming now and then to us, I could HERO. | 187 go to Giftland and grow rich there, would you fret after me?’ _ * Truly,’ answered honest Peter, ‘if you can go and be Queen of Fairyland, I will not keep you back from such eminence; for he thought, ‘my darling jests; no one ever tra- versed those mountains or that inland sea, and how should her little feet cross over?’ But Hero, who could not read their hearts, said within herself, ‘They do not love me as I love them. Father should not leave me to be fifty kings; and I would not leave Forss to go to Fairyland, much less Outerworld.’ Yet from that day forward’ Hero -was changed ; their love no longer seemed sufficient for her; she sought after other love and other admiration. Once a lily was ample head-dress, now she would heighten her complexion with a wreath of gorgeous blossoms; once it was enough that Peter and Forss should be pleased with her, now she grudged any man’s notice to her fellow-maidens. Stung by supposed in- difference, she suffered disappointment to make her selfish, Her face, always beautiful, lost 188 | HERO. its expression of gay sweetness; her temper became capricious, and instead of cheerful airs she would sing snatches of plaintive or bitter songs. Her father looked anxious, her lover sad; both endeavoured, by the most patient tenderness, to win her back to her former self; but a weight lay on their hearts when they noticed that she no longer brought home fairy treasures, and remembered that such could be found only by the innocent. One evening Hero, sick alike of herself and of others, slipped unnoticed from the cottage, and wandered seawards. Though the moon had not, yet risen, she could see her way distinctly, for all Fairycoast flashed one blaze of splendour. A soft wind bore to Hero the hum of distant instruments and songs, mingled with ringing laughter; and she thought, full of curiosity, that some festival must be going on amongst the little people; perhaps a wed- ding. Suddenly the music ceased, the lights danced up and down, ran to and fro, clambered here and there, skurried round and round with ir- HERO. 189 regular precipitate haste, while the laughter was succeeded by fitful sounds of lamentation and fear. Hero fancied some precious thing must have been lost, and that a minute search was going on. For hours the commotion con- _tinued, then gradually, spark by spark, the blaze died out, and all seemed once more quiet ; yet still the low wail of sorrow was audible. Weary at length of watching, Hero arose; and was just about to turn homewards, when — a noisy, vigorous wave leaped ashore, and de- posited something shining at her feet. She stooped. What could it be? 7 It was a broad, luminous shell, fitted. up with pillows and an awning. On the pillows and under the scented canopy lay fast asleep a little creature, butterfly-winged and coloured like a rose-leaf. The fish who should have piloted her had apparently perished at his post, some portion of his pulp still cleaving to the shell’s fluted lip; while unconscious of her faithful adherent’s fate, rocked by wind and wave, the Princess Royal of Fairyland had floated fast asleep to Man-side. Her dis- 190 HERO. appearance it was which had occasioned such painful commotion amongst her family and affectionate lieges; but all their lamentations failed to rouse her; and not till the motion of the water ceased did she awake to find herself, vessel and all, cradled in the hands of Hero. During some moments the two stared at each other in silent amazement; then a sus- -picion of the truth flashing across her mind, Princess Fay sat upright on her couch and spoke,— ‘What gift shall I give you that so I may return to my home in peace?’ For an instant Hero would have answered, ‘Give me the love of Forss; but pride checked the words, and she said, ‘Grant me, wherever I am, to become the supreme object of ad- miration.’ Princess Fay smiled, ‘As you will,’ said she; ‘but to effect this you must come with me to my country.’ Then, whilst Hero looked round for some road which mortal feet might traverse, Fay HERO. I9I uttered a low, bird-like call. A slight froth- ing ensued, at the water’s edge, close to the shingle, whilst one by one mild, scaly faces peered above the surface, and vigorous tails propelled their owners. Next, three strong fishes combining themselves into a raft, Hero seated herself on the centre back, and hold- ing fast her little captive, launched out upon the water. Soon they passed beyond where mortal sailor had ever navigated, and explored the unknown sea. Strange forms of seals and porpoises, marine snails and unicorns contemplated them with surprise, followed reverentially in their wake, and watched them safe ashore. But on Hero their curious ways were lost, so absorbed was she by ambitious longings. Even after landing, to her it seemed nothing that her feet trod on sapphires, and that both birds and fairies made their nests in the ad- jacent trees. Blinded, deafened, stultified by self, she passed unmoved through crystal streets, between fountains of rainbow, along corridors carpeted with butterflies’ wings, up a staircase 192 HERO. formed from a single tusk, into the opal pre- sence-chamber, even to the foot of the carnelian dormouse on which sat enthroned Queen Fairy. Till the Queen said, ‘What gift shall I give you, that so my child may be free from you and we at peace?’ . Then again Hero answered, ‘Grant me, wherever I am, to become the supreme object of admiration.’ Thereat a hum and buzz of conflicting voices ran through the apartment. The im- mutable statutes of Fairycourt enacted that no captured fairy could be set free except at the price named by the captor; from this necessity not even the blood-royal was exempt, so that the case was very urgent; on the other hand, the beauty of Hero, her extreme youth, and a certain indignant sorrow which spoke in her every look and tone, had enlisted such sympathy on her side as made the pigmy nation loth to endow her with the perilous pre- eminence she demanded. ‘Clear the court) shrilled the usher of the golden rod, an alert elf, green like a grasshopper. HERO. 193 Amid the crowd of non-voters Hero, bearing her august prisoner, retired from the throne- room. When recalled to the assembly an imposing silence reigned, which was almost instantly broken by the Queen. ‘ Maiden, she said, ‘it cannot be but that the dear ransom of my daughter’s liberty must be paid. I grant you, wherever you may appear, to become the su- preme object of admiration. In you every man shall find his taste satisfied. In you one shall recognise his ideal of loveliness, another shall bow before the impersonation of dignity. One shall be thrilled by your voice, another fascin- ated by your wit and inimitable grace. He who prefers colour shall dwell upon your complexion, hair, eyes; he who worships intellect shall find in you his superior ; he who is ambitious shall feel you to be a prize more august than an empire. I cannot ennoble the taste of those who look upon you: I can but cause that in you _all desire shall be gratified. If sometimes you chafe under a trivial homage, if sometimes you are admired rather for what you have than for O 194 HERO. what you are, accuse your votaries,—accuse, if you will, yourself, but accuse not me. In con- sideration, however, of your utter inexperience, I and my trusty counsellors have agreed for one year to retain your body here, whilst in spirit you at will become one with the reigning object of admiration. If at the end of the year you return to claim this pre-eminence as your own proper attribute, it shall then be unconditionally sranted : if, on the contrary, you then or even sooner desire to be released from a gift whose sweetness is alloyed by you know not how much of bitter shortcoming and disappointment, return, and you shall at once be relieved of a burden you cannot yet estimate.’ So Hero quitted the presence, led by spirits to a pleasance screened off into a perpetual twilight. Here, on a rippling lake, blossomed lilies. She lay down among their broad leaves and cups, cradled by their interlaced stems, rocked by warm winds on the rocking water ; she lay till the splash of fountains, and the chirp of nestlings, and the whisper of spiced breezes, and the chanted monotone of an innumerable. HERO. 195 choir, lulled to sleep her soul, lulled to rest her tumultuous heart, charmed her conscious spirit into a heavy blazing diamond,—a glory by day, a lamp by night, and a world’s wonder at all times. Let us leave the fair body at rest, and crowned with lilies, to follow the restless spirit, shrined in a jewel, and cast ashore on Man-side. No sooner was this incomparable diamond picked up and carried home than Hero’s darling wish was gratified. She outshone every beauty, ._ she eclipsed the most brilliant eyes of the colony. For a moment the choicest friend was super- seded, the dearest mistress overlooked. For a moment—and this outstripped her desire — Peter Grump forgot his lost daughter and Forss his lost love. Soon greedy admiration developed into greedy strife: her spark kindled a con- flagration. This gem, in itself an unprecedented fortune, should this gem remain the property of a defenceless orphan to whom mere chance had assigned it? From her it was torn in a moment: then the stronger wrested it from the strong, blows revenged blows, until, as the last con- 196 HERO. tender bit the dust in convulsive death, the victor, feared throughout the settlement for his brute strength and brutal habits, bore off the prize toward the best market of Outerworld. It irked Hero to’ nestle in that polluted bosom and count the beatings of that sordid heart ; but when, at the end of the three months’ long journey, she found herself in a guarded booth, enthroned on a cushion of black velvet, by day blazing even in the full sunshine, by night needing no lamp save her own lustre; when she heard the sums running up from thou- sands into millions which whole guilds of jewellers, whole caravans of merchant princes, whole royal families clubbed their resources to offer for her purchase, it outweighed all she had undergone of disgust and tedium. Finally, two empires, between which a marriage was about to be con- tracted and a peace ratified, outbid all rivals and secured the prize. Princess Lily, the august bride-elect, was celebrated far and near for courteous manners and delicate beauty. Her refusal was more gracious, her reserve more winning, than the HERO. 197 acquiescence or frankness of another. She might have been more admired, or even envied, had she been less loved. If she sang, her hearers loved her; if she danced, the lookers-on loved her; thus love forestalled admiration, and happy in the one she never missed the other. Only on her wedding-day, for the first time, she excited envy ; for in her coronet appeared the inestimable jewel, encircling her sweet face with a halo of splendour. Hero eclipsed the bride, dazzled the bridegroom, distracted the queen-mother, and thrilled the whole assembly. _ Through all the public solemnities of the day Hero reigned supreme: and when, the state parade being at length over, Lily unclasped her gems and laid aside her cumbrous coronet, Hero was handled with more reverential tender- ness than her mistress. The bride leaned over her casket of treasures and gazed at the inestimable diamond. ‘Is it not magnificent ?’? whispered she. ‘What?’ said the bridegroom: ‘I was look- at you.” So Lily flushed up with delight, and Hero 198 HERO. experienced a shock. Next the diamond shot up one ray of dazzling momentary lustre; then lost its supernatural brilliancy, as Hero quitted the gem for the heart of Lily. Etiquette required that the young couple should for some days remain in strict retire- ment. Hero now found herself in a secluded palace, screened by the growth of many centuries. She was waited on by twenty bridesmaids only less noble than their princess; she was wor- shipped by her bridegroom and reflected by a hundred mirrors. In Lily’s pure heart she almost found rest: and when the young prince, at dawn, or lazy noon, or mysterious twilight— for indeed the process went on every day and all day—praised his love’s eyes, or hair, or voice, or movements, Hero thought with proud eagerness of the moment when, in her own proper person, she might claim undisputed pre- eminence. The prescribed seclusion, however, drew to a close, and the royal pair must make their en- trance on public life. Their entrance coincided with another’s exit. HERO. 199 Melice Rapta had for three successive seasons thrilled the world by her voice, and subdued it by her loveliness. She possessed the demeanour of an empress, and the winning simplicity of a child, genius and modesty, tenderness and in- domitable will. Her early years had passed in obscurity, subject to neglect, if not unkindness ; it was only when approaching womanhood developed and matured her gifts that she met with wealthy protectors and assumed their name: for Melice was a foundling. No sooner, however, did her world-wide fame place large resources at her command, than she anxiously sought to trace her unknown parentage; and, at length, discovered that her high-born father and plebeian mother—herself sole fruit of their concealed marriage—were dead. Once made known to her kindred, she was eagerly acknowledged by them; but reject- ing more brilliant offers, she chose to withdraw into a private sphere, and fix her residence with a maternal uncle, who, long past the meridian of life, devoted his energies to bo- tanical research and culture. 200 HERO. So, on the same evening, Lily and her hus- band entered on their public duties, and Melice took leave for ever of a nation of admirers. When the prince and princess appeared in the theatre, the whole house stood up, answering their smiles and blushes by acclamations of welcome. They took their places on chairs of state under an emblazoned canopy, and the performance commenced. A moonless night: three transparent ghosts flit across the scene, bearing in their bosoms unborn souls. They leave behind tracks of light from which are generated arums. Day breaks—Melice enters; she washes her hands in a fountain, singing to the splash of the water; she plucks arums, and begins weaving them into a garland, still singing. Lily bent forward to whisper something to her husband ; but he raised his hand, enforcing ‘Hush!’ as through eyes and ears his soul drank deep of beauty. The young wife leaned back with good-humoured acquiescence; but Hero? In another moment Hero was singing in the unrivalled songstress, charrhing and subduing HERO. 201 every heart. The play proceeded ; its incidents, its characters developed. Melice outshone, out- sang herself; warbling like a bird, thrilling with entreaty, pouring forth her soul in passion. Her voice commanded an enthusiastic silence, her silence drew down thunders of enthusiastic applause. She acknowledged the honour with majestic courtesy; then, for the first time, trembled, changed colour: would have swept from the presence like a queen, but merely wept like a woman. It was her hour of supreme triumph. Next day she set out for her uncle’s resi- dence, her own selected home. Many a long day’s journey separated her from her mother’s village, and her transit thither assumed the aspect of a ceremonial progress. At every town on her route orations and em- blems awaited her; whilst from the capital she was quitting, came, pursuing her, messages’ of farewell, congratulation, entreaty. Often an unknown cavalier rode beside her carriage some stage of the journey; often a high-born lady met her on the road, and, taking a last view 202 HERO. of her countenance, obtained a few more last words from the most musical mouth in the world. At length the goal was reached. The small cottage, surrounded by its disproportionately extensive garden, was there; the complex for- cing-houses, pits, refrigerators, were there ; Uncle Treeh was there, standing at the open door - to receive his newly-found relative. Uncle Treeh was rather old, rather short, not handsome; with an acute eye, a sensitive mouth, and spectacles. With his complexion of sere brown, and his scattered threads of white hair, he strikingly resembled certain plants of the cactus tribe, which, in their turn, resemble withered old men. All his kind. face brightened with welcome as he kissed his fair niece; and led her into his sitting-room. On the table were spread for her refreshment the choicest products of his gardens: ponderous pine-apples, hundred- berried vine clusters, currants large as grapes and sweet as honey. For a moment his eyes dwelt on a human countenance with more HERO. 203 admiration than on a vegetable; for a moment, on comparing Melice’s complexion with an ole- ander, he awarded the palm to the former. But a week afterwards, when Melice, lean- ing over his shoulder, threatened to read what he was writing, Treeh looked good-naturedly conscious, and, abandoning the letter to her mercy, made his escape into a neighbouring conservatory. She read as follows :— My Friend,— You will doubtless have learned how - my solitude has been invaded by my sister’s long-lost daughter, a peach-coloured damsel, with commeline eyes, and hair darker than chestnuts. For one whole evening I suspended my beloved toils and devoted myself to her: alas! next day, on revisiting Lime Alley, house B, pot 37, I found that during my ab- sence a surreptitious slug had devoured three shoots of a tea-rose. Thus nipped in the bud, my cherished nursling seemed to upbraid me with neglect; and so great was my vexation, 204 HERO. that, on returning to company, I could scarcely conceal it. From that hour I resolved that | no mistaken notions of hospitality should ever again seduce me from the true aim of my existence. Nerved by this resolution, I once more take courage; and now write to inform you that I am in hourly expectation of be- holding pierce the soil (loam, drenched with liquid manure) the first sprout from that un- named alien seed, which was brought to our market, three months ago, by a seafaring man of semi-barbarous aspect. I break off to visit my hoped-for seedling. At this moment the door, hastily flung open, startled Melice, who, looking up, beheld Treeh, radiant and rejoicing, a flowerpot in his hand. He hurried up to her, and, setting his load on the table, sank upon his knees. “Look P ‘he’ cried, ‘Why, uncle,’ rejoined Melice, when curious examination revealed to her eyes a minute living point of green, ‘this marvel quite eclipses me!’ A pang of humiliation shot through Hero, . HERO. 208 an instantaneous sharp pang; the next moment she was burrowing beneath the soil in the thirsty sucking roots of a plant not one-eighth of an inch high. Day by day she grew, watched by an eye unwearied as that of a lover. The green sheath expanded fold after fold, till from it emerged a crumpled leaf, downy and notched. How was this first-born of an unknown race tended ; how did fumigations rout its infinitesimal foes, whilst circles of quicklime barricaded it against the invasion of snails! It throve vigorously, adding leaf to leaf and shoot to shoot: at . length, a minute furry-bud appeared. Uncle Treeh, the most devoted of foster- fathers, revelled in ecstasy; yet it seemed to Hero that his step was becoming feebler, and his hand more tremulous. One morning he waited on her as usual, but appeared out of breath and unsteady: gradually he bent more and more forward, till, without removing his eyes from the cherished plant, he sank huddled on the conservatory floor. Three hours afterwards hurried steps and 206 HERO. anxious faces sought the old man. There, on the accustomed spot, he lay, shrunk together, cold, dead ; his glazed eyes still riveted on his favourite nursling. They carried away the corpse —could Treeh have spoken he would have begged to lie where a delicate vine might suck nourishment from his remains—and buried it a mile away from the familiar garden; but no one had the heart to crush him beneath a stone. The earth lay lightly upon him; and though his bed was unvisited by one who would have tended it— for Melice, now a wife, had crossed the sea to a distant home—generations of unbidden flowers, planted by winds and birds, blossomed there. During one whole week Hero and her peers dwelt in solitude, uncared for save by a mournful gardener, who loved and cherished the vegetable family for their old master’s sake. But on the eighth day came a change: all things were furbished.up, and assumed their most festive aspect; for the new owners were hourly ex- pected. HERO. 207 The door opened. A magnificently attired lady, followed by two children and a secondary husband, sailed into the narrow passage, casting down with her robe several flower-pots. She glanced around with a superior air, and was about to quit the scene without a word, when the gardener ventured to remark, ‘Several very rare plants, madam.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ she cried, ‘we knew his eccentric tastes, poor dear old man!’ and stepped door- wards. One more effort: ‘This madam,’ indicating Hero, ‘is a specimen quite unique.’ ‘Really,’ said she; and observed to her husband as she left the house, ‘ These use- less buildings must be cleared away. This will be the exact spot for a ruin: I adore a ruin |’ A ruin ?—Hero’s spirit died in the slighted plant. Was it to such taste as this she must condescend? such admiration as this she must court? Merely to receive it would be humilia- tion. A passionate longing for the old lost life, the old beloved love, seized her; she grew 208 ; IIERO. tremulous, numbed: ‘Ah,’ she thought, ‘this is death !’ A hum, a buzz, voices singing and speaking, the splash of fountains, airy laughter, rustling wings, the noise of a thousand leaves and flower- cups in commotion. Sparks dancing in the twilight, dancing feet, joy and triumph; unseen hands loosing succous, interlacing stalks from their roots beneath the water; towing a lily-raft across the lake, down a tortuous inland creek, through Fairy-harbour, out into the open sea. On the lily-raft lay Hero, crowned with lilies, at rest. A swift tide was running from Fairycoast to- Man-side: every wave heaving her to its silver crest bore her homewards; every wind whistling from the shore urged her home- wards. Seals and unicorns dived on either hand, unnoticed. All the tumbling porpoises in the ocean could not have caught her eye. At length, the moon-track crossed, she entered the navigable sea. There all was cold, tedious, dark; not a vessel in sight, not a living sound audible. She floated farther: something HERO. 209 black loomed through the obscurity; could it be a boat? yes, it was certainly a distant boat; then she perceived a net lowered into the water ; then saw two fishermen kindle a fire, and pre- pare themselves to wait, it might be for hours. Their forms thrown out against the glare struck Hero as familiar: that old man, stooping more than his former wont; that other strong and active figure, not so broad as in days of yore ;— Hero’s heart beat painfully : did they remember yet? did they love yet? was it yet time? Nearer and nearer she floated, nearer and nearer. The men were wakeful, restless; they stirred the embers into a blaze, and sat waiting. Then softly and sadly arose the sound of a boat-song :— PETER GRUMP. If underneath the water ~ You comb your golden hair With a golden comb, my daughter, Oh, would that I were there. If underneath the wave You fill a slimy grave, Would that I, who could not save, Might share. RS: 210 HERO. FORSS. If my love Hero queens it In summer Fairyland, What would I be But the ring on her hand? Her cheek when she leans it Would lean on me :— Or sweet, bitter-sweet, The flower that she wore When we parted, to meet On the hither shore Anymore? nevermore. Something caught Forss’s eye; he tried the nets, and finding them heavily burdened began to haul them in, saying, ‘It is a shoal of white fish ; no, a drift of white seaweed ;—but sud- denly he cried out: ‘Help, old father! it is a corpse, as white as snow!’ Peter ran to the nets, and with the younger man’s aid rapidly drew themin. Hero lay quite still, while very gently they lifted the body over the boat-side, whispering one to another: ‘It is a woman—she is dead!’ They laid her down where the fire-light shone full upon her face— her familiar face. Not a corpse, O Peter Grump: not a corpse, HERO. 211 O true Forss, staggering as from a death-blow. The eyes opened, the face dimpled into a happy smile; with tears, and clinging arms, and cling- ing kisses, Hero begged forgiveness of her father and her lover. I will not tell you of the questions asked and answered, the return home, the wonder and _ joy which spread like wildfire through the colony. Nor how in the moonlight Forss wooed and won his fair love; nor even how at the wedding danced a band of strangers, gay and agile, recognised by none save the bride. I will merely tell you how in after years, sitting ° by her husband’s fireside, or watching on the shingle for his return, Hero would speak to her children of her, own early days. And when their eyes kindled while she told of the mar- vellous splendour of Fairyland, she would assure them, with a convincing smile, that only home is happy: and when, with flushed cheeks and quickened breath, they followed the story of her brief pre-eminence, she would add, that though admiration seems sweet at first, only love is sweet first, and last, and always. &2 VANNA’S TWINS. ah VANNA’S TWINS. THERE I stood on the platform at H , girt by my three boxes, one carpet-bag, strapful of shawls and bundle of umbrellas; there I stood, with a courteous station-master and two civil porters assuring me that not one lodging © was vacant throughout H——. At another time such an announcement might not have greatly signified, for London, whence I came, was less than three hours off; but on this par- ticular occasion it did matter because I was weakened by recent illness, the journey down had shaken me, I was hungry and thirsty for my tea, and, through fear of catching cold, I had wrapped up overmuch; so that when those polite officials stated that they could 216 VANNA’S TWINS. not point out a lodging for me I felt more inclined to cry than I hope anybody sus- pected. One of the porters, noticing how pale and weak I looked, good-naturedly volunteered to go to the three best hotels, and see whether in one of them, I could be housed for the moment; and though the expensiveness of such a plan secretly dismayed me, I saw nothing better than to accept his offer. Meanwhile, I retreated into the waiting-room wishing him success ; but wondering, should he not succeed, what would become of me for the night. Happily for me, my troubles were not aggravated by imaginary difficulties. I was turned forty-five, and looked not a day younger ; an age at which there is nothing alarming in finding oneself alone in a strange place, or compelled to take a night journey by rail. So I sat on the waiting-room sofa, shut my eyes to ease, if possible, a racking headache, and made up my mind that, at the worst, I could always take the mail-train back to London. After all, I had not long to wait. Within VANNA’S TWINS. 21y ten minutes of leaving me my porter returned with the news that, if I did not mind a very unfashionable, but quite respectable, quarter of H—, he had just heard of a first floor vacated half-an-hour before my arrival, and tency, if) pleased, to receive me. J merely asked, was it clean? and being assured that there was not a tidier young woman in all H—— than ‘Fanny,’ that her husband was a decent optician and stone-cutter, and that for cleanliness any of their floors might be eaten off, I felt only too thankful to step into a fly, and accompany my boxes to an abiding place. Before starting, I happened _to ask the name of my landlord, and was answered, somewhat vaguely, by my porter, ‘We-cail them: Cole.’ The report of a coming lodger had travelled before me, and I found Mr. Cole and his Fanny awaiting me at their shop-door. But what a Mr. Cole and what a Fanny. He was a tall, stout foreigner, about thirty years of age, ready with tucked-up shirt-sleeves and athletic arms to bear my boxes aloft; she 218 VANNA’S TWINS. was the comeliest of young matrons, her whole face one smile, her ears adorned by weighty gold pendents, and with an obvious twin baby borne in each arm. Husband and wife alike addressed me as ‘Meess,’ and displayed teeth of an enviable regularity and whiteness as they smiled or spoke. Thus much I saw at a first glance. Too tired for curiosity, I toiled up the narrow staircase after my boxes, washed my dusty face and hot hands, and stepped into my little sitting-room, intending to lie down on the sofa, and wait as patiently as might be whilst tea, which I had already ordered, was got ready. A pleasant surprise met me. I suppose the good-natured porter may have forewarned Mr. Cole of my weakness and wants ; be this as it may, there stood the tea ready brewed, and flanked by pats of butter, small rolls, a rasher, and three eggs wrapped up in a clean napkin. After this, my crowning pleasure for the day was to step into a bed soft as down could make it, and drop to sleep between sheets fragrant of lavender. VANNA’S TWINS. 219 A few days’ convalescence at H—— did more for me than as many weeks’ convalescence in London had effected. Soon I strolled about the beach without numbering the breakwaters, or along the country roads, taking no count of the milestones; and went home to meals as hungry as a school-girl, and slept at nights like a baby. One of my earliest street-dis- coveries was that my landlord’s name, as in- scribed over his window, was not Cole, but Cola (Nicola) Piccirillo ; and a very brief sojourn under his roof instructed me that the Fanny of my friend the porter was called Vanna (Giovanna) by her husband. They were both Neapolitans of the ex-kingdom, though not of the city, of Naples; whenever I asked either of them after the name of their native place, they invariably answered me in a tone of endearment, by what sounded more like ‘Va- scitammd’ than aught else I know how to spell; but when my English tongue uttered ‘Vascitammo’ after them, they would shake their heads and repeat the uncatchable word; at last it grew to be a standing joke between 220 VANNA’S TWINS. us that when I became a millionnaire my courier Cola and my maid Vanna should take the twins and me to see Vascitammo. I never thought of changing my lodgings, though, as time went on, it would have been easy to do so, and certainly the quarter we inhabited was not fashionable. A _ laborious, not an idle, community environed our doors and furnished customers to the shop: it was some time before I discovered that Jlamico Piccirillo held a store for polished stones and marine curiosities in the bazaar of H——. He liked to be styled an optician ; but whilst he sold and repaired spectacles, driving a pros- perous trade amongst the fishing population who surrounded us, and supplying them with cheap telescopes, compasses, and an occasional magic-lantern, he was not too proud to eke out his gains by picking up and preparing marine oddities, pebbles, or weeds. After we became intimate I more than once rose at three or four in the morning, as the turn of the tide dictated; and accompanied him on a ramble of exploration. He scrambled about slippery, VANNA’S TWINS. B07 jagged rocks as sure-footed as a wild goat; and if ever my climbing powers failed at some critical pass, thought nothing of lifting me over the difficulty, with that courteous familiarity which, in an Italian, does not cease to be respectful. I was rather lucky in spying eligible stones, which I contributed to his basket; and then, when we got home, he would point out to his wife what ‘da Signora’ had found ‘ger mot due e per li piccine. I understood a little Italian and they a little English, so we generally, in spite of the Neapolitan blurring accent, made out each other’s meaning. Vanna was one of the prettiest women I ever saw, if indeed I ought ‘to term merely pretty a face which, with good features, contained eyes softer and more lustrous than any others I remember; their colour I never made out, but when she lowered the large eyelids, their long black lashes seemed to throw half her face into shadow. I don’t know that she was .clever except. as a housewife, but in this capacity she excelled, and was a dainty cook over her shining pots and pans: her husband’s 25>? VANNA’S TWINS. ‘due maccheroni’ often set me hankering, as I spied them done to a turn and smoking hot ; though I confess that when Cola brought home a cuttle-fish and I saw it dished up as a ‘calamarello’ my English prejudice asserted itself. ‘Mr. and Mrs. Cole’ were unique in my small experience of people, but surely the twins must have remained unique in anybody’s experience. What other babies were ever so fat or so merry? To see their creased arms was enough till one saw their creased legs, and then their arms grew commonplace. I never once heard them cry: a clothes-basket formed their primitive bassinette, and there they would sprawl, tickling each other and chuckling. They chuckled at their father, mother, myself, or any stranger who would toss them, or poke a finger into their cushions of fat. They crowed over their own teeth- ing, and before they could speak seemed to bandy. intuitive jokes, and chuckled in concert. Well were they named Felice Maria and Maria Gioconda. At first sight, they were utterly VANNA’S TWINS. 222 indistinguishable apart; but experiment proved that Felice was a trifle heavier than his sister, and that fingers could go a hair’s-breadth farther round her fat waist than round his. When I made their acquaintance their heads were thickly plaistered with that scurf which apparently an Italian custom leaves undisturbed; but as this wore off, curly, black down took its place, and balanced the large, dark eyes and silky eyebrows and lashes, which both inherited from their mother. What we, in our insularity, term the English love of soap and water was shared by Vanna, and it was one of my amusements to see the twins in their tub. Often, if hastily summoned to serve behind the counter, Vanna would leave them in the tub to splash about, and throw each other down and pick each other up, for a quarter of an hour together; and if I hinted that this might not be perfectly safe for them, she invariably assured me that in her ‘paese’ all the babies toddled about the shore, and into the sea and out again so soon as ever they could toddle. ‘4 che male vt potrebb essere? non vi son coccodrili.’ an 224 VANNA’S TWINS. argument no less apposite to the tub than to the sea. As I possessed a small competence and no near home-ties, I felt under no constraint to leave H sooner than suited my humour ; so, though I had originally intended to remain there no longer than seven or eight weeks, month after month slipped away till a whole year had elapsed, and found me there still. In a year one becomes thoroughly acquainted with daily associates, and from being pre- possessed by their engaging aspect, I had come to love and respect Piccirillo and his wife. Both were good Catholics, and evinced their orthodoxy as well by regularity at mass and confession as by strict uprightness towards customers and kindliness towards neighbours. Once when a fishing-boat was lost at sea, and its owner, Ned Gough, left well-nigh penniless, Cola, who was ingenious in preparing marine oddities, arranged a group of young skate in their quaint hoods and mantles, and mounted them ona green board amongst sea- weed bushes as a party of gipsies; this would ¢ VANNA’S TWINS. 225 have been raffled for, and the proceeds given to the ruined boatman, had I not taken a fancy to the group, and purchased it. And the first time the twins walked out alone was when they crossed over the road hand in hand, each holding ‘an orange as a present to a little sick girl opposite. Both parents watched them safe over, and I heard one remark to the other, that ‘ Wossignore’ would bless them. It was mid-May when I arrived at H bd and about mid-May of the year following I returned to London. A legal question had meanwhile arisen touching my small property ; and this took so long to settle, that during many and many months I remained in doubt whether I should continue adequately provided for, or be reduced to work in some department or other for my living. The point was ultimately de- cided in my favour, but not before much vexa- tion and expense had been incurred on both sides. At the end of three years from quitting H—— I made up my mind to return and settle there for good: no special ties bound me to Q 226 VANNA’S TWINS. London, and I knew of no people under whose roof I would so gladly make my solitary home as with Piccirillo and his wife ; besides, the twins were an attraction. As to the optician’s shop being in an out-of-the-way quarter, that I cared nothing for, having neither the tastes nor the income for fashionable society: so, after a pre- liminary letter or two had passed between us, I found myself one glowing afternoon in June standing once again on the H—— platform, not in the forlorn position I so vividly remembered, but met by Cola, broader than ever in figure, and smiling his broadest, who whipped up my trunks with his own hands on to the fly, and took his place by the driver. Vanna came running out to meet me at the carriage door, seizing and kissing both my hands; and before I even alighted two sturdy urchins had been made to kiss ‘la Szgnora’s hand. Ten minutes more and I was seated at tea, chatting to Vanna, and renewing acquaint- ance with my old friends Felice and Gioconda. This was effected by the presentation to them of a lump of sugar apiece, for which each again VANNA’S TWINS. 227 kissed my hand, fortunately before their mouths had become sticky by suction. They were the funniest little creatures ima- ginable, and two of the prettiest. Felice was still just ahead of Gioconda in bulk, but so much like her that (as I found afterwards) if for fun they exchanged hats I got into a com- plete mental muddle as to which was which, confused by the discrepant hats and frocks. There was no paid Roman Catholic school in H——, but the good nuns of St. L taught the little boys and girls of their congregation ; and morning after morning I used to see the twins start for school hand in hand, with dinner as well as books in their bags; for St. L was too far from their home to admit of going and returning twice in one day. All the neigh- bours were fond of them; and often before their destination was reached a hunch of cake from some good-natured rough hand had found its way into one or other bag, to be shared in due course. At their books they were ‘proprio maravi- gtliosi, as Vanna phrased it ; whilst Cola, swelling 228 VANNA’S TWINS. with paternal pride under a veil of humility, would observe, ‘Von c’é male, né lui née lei? I believe they really were clever children and fond of their books: at any rate, one Holy Innocents’ Day they brought home a prize, a little story in two volumes, one volume apiece ; for, as the kind nuns had remarked, they were like one work in two volumes themselves, and should have one book between them. That night they went to bed and fell asleep hand in hand as usual, but each holding in the other hand a scarlet-bound volume, so proud were they. They were but seven years old, and had never yet slept apart: never yet, and, as it turned out, never at all. The Christmas when this happened was one of the brightest and pleasantest I recollect ; night after night slight frost visited us, but day after day it melted away, whilst sea and sky spread clear and blue in the sunshine. In other countries much snow had fallen and was still falling, but snow had not yet reached our shores. Christmas, as usual, brought a few bills to VANNA’S TWINS. 229 me, and likewise to my friends. Of theirs the heaviest was the doctor’s bill, for the twins had caught scarlatina in the summer, and had got well on a variety of pills and draughts. Then Cola bethought himself of certain money due to him at a coast-guard station not many miles from H pay the doctor; and one Saturday, a day or two after Twelfth Day, he took the first after- noon train to E——, this being the nearest , and which would just suffice to point on the line to his destination, and went to look after his debtor, telling Vanna that he might not be back before the latest train came into H——. ; So Vanna took her seat behind the counter, and looked up the road towards St. L——, watching for her little ones to come racing home from school, for school broke up early on Saturdays. As she sat, she knitted some- thing warm and useful, for she was never idle, and hummed in her low, sweet voice the first words of a Christmas carol. I only know those first words, so pathetic in their devout simplicity :— 230 VANNA’S TWINS. ‘Tu scendi dalle stelle, O Re del Cielo, E vieni in una grotta al freddo al gelo: O Bambino mio divino Io Ti voglio sempre amar ! O Dio beato E quanto Ti costo l’ avermi amato.’ She was thus occupied as I crossed the shop on my way upstairs, and whilst I paused to say a word in passing, a young woman, her face swollen with crying, came up, who, almost with- out stopping, called out: ‘O Fanny, Fanny, my three are down with the fever, and I’m running for the doctor!’ and in speaking she was gone. Sympathetic tears had gathered in Vanna’s kind eyes when I looked at her. ‘Won hanno padre, she said, half apologetically ; and I then recollected who the young woman was, and that her children were worse than fatherless. Poor Maggie Crowe! deserted by a good-for-nothing husband she worked hard to keep her little ones out of the workhouse; did charing, took in needlework, went out nursing when she could get a job, and now her three children were ‘down with the fever,’ and she had had to leave VANNA’S TWINS. 231 them alone in her wretched hovel on the east to fetch the parish doctor. We soon saw her tearing cliff to run a mile and more into H back as she had come, not stopping ‘now to speak. I went to my room, and looking into my charity-purse found that I could afford five shillings out of it for this poor family, and settled mentally that I would take them round next day after church. At the moment I was feeling tired and disinclined to stir, and I con- cluded the parish doctor, who bore a character for kindness, would certainly for that night supply his patients with necessaries. Justeatter the clock struck three I heard a bustle below; the twins had come home and were talking eagerly to their mother in their loud, childish voices. I heard Vanna answer them once or twice; then she spoke continu- ously, seeming to tell them something, and I heard both reply, ‘Mamma si. A few minutes later I was surprised to see them from my window trotting along the street, but not in the direction from which they had just come, eH) VANNA’S TWINS. and bearing between them a market-basket, each of them holding it by one handle. A suspicion of their errand crossed my mind, and I hurried downstairs to warn Vanna that a few snowflakes had already fallen and more hung floating about in the still air. She had noticed this of herself, but replied that they knew their way quite well, and it was not far to go; indeed, she could not feel easy without sending up a few oranges left from Twelfth Day for the sick children. Her own had had the fever, they had promised her to go straight and return straight without loitering, and though she looked somewhat anxious, she concluded bravely : ‘ Vossignore avra cura di loro.’ I went back to my room thoroughly mor- tified at the rebuke which her alacrity ad- ministered to my laziness)s ‘How much less would it not have cost me to set off at once with my five shillings than it cost poor Vanna to send her little ones, tired as perhaps they were, to what, for such short legs, was a con- siderable distance. From my window, moreover, I soon could not help perceiving that not VANNA’S TWINS. 233 only the snow, rare at first, had begun to fall rapidly and in large flakes, but that the sky lowered dense and ominous over the east cliff. I felt sure that there, and thither it was that the twins were bound, it must already be snowing heavily. Four o'clock struck, but Felice and Gio- conda had not come back. I heard Vanna closing the shop. In another five minutes she came up to me dressed in bonnet and shawl, with a pale face that told its own story of alarm. Still she would not acknowledge her- self frightened, but tried to laugh, as she apologized for leaving me alone in the house, assured me that no one could possibly be calling at that hour, and protested that she would not be out long. If the twins arrived in her absence she was sure I would kindly let them sit by my fire till her return; then, fairly breaking down and crying, she left me, repeating, ‘Mon son che piccint, poveri piccini, povert piccint miet.’ eS A couple of men with lighted lanterns stood waiting for her in the street; one of them 234 VANNA’S TWINS. made her take his arm, and I knew by the voice that it was Ned Gough. MHour after hour struck, and they did not return. About seven o’clock I heard a loud knock- ing; and running down to open the door, for being left alone in the house I had locked up and made all safe, I found Piccirillo, who on account of the snow had hastened home by an earlier train than he had mentioned, and was now much amazed at finding the house closed and no light burning below. When he understood what had happened he seemed beside himself with agitation and terror. Fling- ing up his arms he rushed from the house, calling out, ‘Vanna, Vanna mia! dove sei? rispondimi: figlt miter, rispondetemt. Neigh- bours came about him, offering what comfort they could think of: but what comfort could there be? He, too, must set off in the snow to seek his poor lost babies and their mother ; and soon he started, lantern and stick in hand, ejaculating, and making vows as he went. ‘Dio mio, Dio mio, abbi pieta di not. All through the long night it snowed and VANNA’S TWINS. 235 snowed: at daybreak it was snowing still. Soon after daybreak the seekers returned, cold, silent, haggard; Piccirillo carrying his wife, who lay insensible in his arms. After hours of wandering they had met somewhere out towards the east cliff, and Vanna, at sight of her husband, had dropped down utterly spent. She had gone straight to Maggie Crowe's cottage, and found that the twins had safely left the oranges there and started home- wards; Felice tired but manful, poor little Gioconda trudging wearily along, and clinging to her brother. Maggie had tried to keep them at the cottage as it was already snow- ing heavily, and the little girl had cried and wanted to stay and warm herself; but her brother said ‘No; they had promised not to loiter, his sister would be good and not cry, he would take care of her; so whilst Maggie was busy with her own sick children, the twins had started. Beyond this, not one of the searching party could trace them; the small footmarks must have been effaced almost as soon as imprinted on the snow; and any one 236 VANNA’S TWINS. of the surface inequalities of that snow-waste, which now stretched right and left for miles, might be the mound to cover two such feeble wayfarers. | For three days the frost held and our suspense lasted; then the wind veered from north round to west, a rapid thaw set in, and a few hours ended hope and fear alike. The twins were found huddled together in a chalky hollow close to the edge of the cliff, and almost within sight of Maggie’s hovel: Gio- conda with her head thrust into the market- basket, Felice with one arm holding the basket over his sister, and with the other clasping her close to him. Her fat hands met round his waist, and clasped between them was a small silver cross I had given her at Christmas, and which she had worn round her neck. - Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in their death they were not divided; but as they had always shared one bed, they now shared one coffin and one grave. After a while Piccirillo and his wife re- covered from their passionate grief; but Vanna VANNA’S TWINS. a — drooped more and more as spring came on, and clothed the small grave with greenness. They had no other child, and the house was silent indeed and desolate. Once I heard them talking to each other of ‘Vascitamméd:? Vanna said something I did not catch, and then Cola answered her; ‘S72, Vanna mia, ritorneremo , tolea Lddio che 10 perda te ancora, ~So I knew that we should soon have to part. They came upstairs together to me one evening, and with real kindliness explained that all their plans were altered on account of Vanna’s failing health, and that they must go home to their own country lest she should die. Vanna cried and I cried, and poor Cola fairly cried too. I promised them that the little grave shall never fall into neglect whilst I live, and in thanking me they managed to say through their tears,—‘ Vossignore é buono, e certo li avra benedetti.’ The business was easily disposed of, for though small, it was a thriving concern, and capable of extension. Other affairs did not take long to settle; and one morning I saw 238 VANNA’S TWINS. my kind friends off by an early train, on their road through London to ‘Vascitammd,’ which now neither the twins nor I shall ever see. A SAFE INVESTMENT. A SAFE INVESTMENT. IT was a pitchy dark night. Not the oldest in- habitant remembered so black a night, so moon- less, so utterly starless; and whispering one to another, men said with a shiver that longer still, not for a hundred years back—ay, or for a thou- sand years—ay, or even since the world was— had such gross darkness covered the land. Yet those who counted the time protested that morning must now be at hand, ready to break, even while East and West were massed in one common indistinguishable blot of blackness ; and those who discerned the signs of the times, those who waited for the morning, looked often towards one house which could not be hid, for it was set upon a hill, nor overturned, for it was R 242 A SAFE INVESTMENT. founded upon a rock, and from which a light streamed pure and steady, shaming the flickering gas-lamps of the town, the dim glare of shops and private dwellings, and the flaring, smoking torches of such wayfarers as thought, by com- passing themselves about with sparks, to find safety in their transit to and fro. On this cheerless night a solitary traveller entered the town by the eastern gate. He rode a white horse: about both the beast and his rider there was something foreign, or if not foreign, at any rate unusual. The man was keen and military of aspect, and had the air of one bound on some mission of importance. The horse seemed to know his road without guidance, to turn hither or thither by instinct, not to loiter, yet not to make haste. They passed through the eastern gate, which was opened wide before them : without let or hindrance they entered in, and the horse’s hoofs struck once on the paved road. In an instant, at the western outskirts of the city a flare of red light shot up. Out came houses into view from the night darkness; to A SAFE INVESTMENT. 243 right and left they flashed out for a moment: for a moment you could spy through the win- dows people sitting at table, reading, working, dancing, as the case might be: you could note a bird’s cage hanging here or there, a eat or two creeping along the gutter, a few foot-passengers arrested by the unexpected glare looking round them in all directions for its source, a single carriage threading its way cautiously along the dangerous streets: for a moment—then a cry went up, then there came the crash and crush of a tremendous explosion, and then darkness settled once more over its own dominion ; whilst through the darkness those who could not see each other’s faces heard each other’s groans, cries for help, shrieks of terror or of agonizing pain. All the gas-lamps of the city had gone out as though at a single whiff, for it was an explosion of the great central gasworks which had taken place. And the darkness deepened. To the south of the city lay the sea. Day and night its surges were never still nor silent ; day and night ships heaved on its bosom, passing in or out of harbour, laden with pas- 244. A SAFE INVESTMENT. sengers, with gold, silks, provisions, merchandise of all sorts. On this night, if any one had had owl’s eyes to peer with, he might have discerned that the deep boiled like a pot of ointment; he would have seen in a score, yea, in a hundred vessels, the sailors at their wits’ end reeling to and fro, and staggering like drunken men ; whilst the strong masts snapped like straws, and the tough, hollow ship-sides stove in as though they had been of paper—till captains, crews, and passengers, were fain to cast over- board freights and treasures, rarities from the ends of the earth, corn, and wine, and oil—to cast these overboard, and at length, abandoning the ship, to flee for their lives in boats, on planks, on pieces of the vessel, too happy if with bare life they escaped to land, beggared but alive. Meanwhile those on the quays could guess, though they could not see, the ruin, as wretch after poor wretch struggled to shore ; but for one who came, a score at least were seen no more for ever. In a central quarter of the town stood the old-established county bank, concerning which A SAFE INVESTMENT. 245 the townspeople had long boasted that not the national bank itself was safer. In panic years it had remained unaffected by the surrounding pressure ; it had stood firm, and stand it would whilst the town was atown: so said its directors, its shareholders, the public voice in unison. But on this certain night of all nights in the year, when ship after ship went down with entire costly cargoes, and scores and hundreds of hands on board; when the gasworks exploded, to the obvious utter ruin of the shareholders ; when a report spread that the treasurer of the chief railway company had absconded with all the funds in his hands, a report confirmed as night wore, and soon established as a fact ; on this night of all nights, the dismayed citizens turned in thought to their bank. Every man beheld an enemy in his neighbour, an enemy who would forestall others and save himself at all costs ; and in the panic of accumulated losses man after man bent his steps towards the bank. The doors were besieged; with loud cries the men—and the women too, for many of these had flocked thither impelled by the instinct of * 246 A SAFE INVESTMENT. self-preservation—men and women beset the doors, demanding instant admittance, and clam- ouring for their money deposits to be restored to them then and there. The pressure waxed irresistible ; the doors yielded; a terrified clerk or two strove vainly with plausible words to appease the foremost applicants; then desper- ately discharged claim after claim in notes, sovereigns, silver, till the last sixpence—,down to the last penny—was disbursed. When it became known that the old-established secure bank had stopped payment before it had met a tithe of its liabilities, it was as much as the clerks could do to escape with whole skins from the infuriated, disappointed populace. But more troubles were to come. At the railway station a telegram had been received early in the evening intimating that a branch bank in an adjacent town had been constrained by sudden pressure to stop payment, though, as it was hoped, only momentarily. This disastrous news had been studiously confined to one or two parties, who hoped to profit by being in advance of their neighbours; but soon a second A SAFE INVESTMENT. 247 telegram of like import came in from another quarter; then a third; and it became impos- sible any longer to suppress the facts. A ter- rible commotion ensued on ’Change ; there was scarcely a house in all the town where ruin, or at the least reverse, had not entered. But what, after all, were these partial local failures? Before the night was over another telegram arrived, and it transpired that the main national bank itself had broken. Then a cry went up through the length and breadth of the land. When our wayfarer reached the Exchange it was crowded by persons of all ranks and ages, brought together by the bond of a common disaster. He dismounted, tethered his white horse to the railings outside, and entering joined the concourse within, apparently with no further object than to observe and listen, passing from group to group, pausing sometimes a longer, sometimes a shorter period, here or there as the case might demand. Most of the persons present—of those at least who were not simply paralysed and struck dumb by their misfortunes 248 A SAFE INVESTMENT. —stood disputing in loud, excited tones, as to the causes and details of the present public calamities ;—whose carelessness it was which had occasioned the gas explosion ; how many vessels and lives, and what value of cargo, had perished in the storm; some rating the probable loss at millions and some at tens of millions; what hope there might still be of a dividend from the local bank; whether any of the reported failures had been without fraud; what head the country could make against the vast smash of the national bank. But here and there some one man or woman seemed, in the hubbub of rage and dismay, to be wrapped in private, personal erief, alien from the general cares. One such, a _ half-frantic elderly woman, huddled in a corner, was tearing her hair and crying out in broken, half-articulate speech. The strange traveller approached her, and in a, voice of great sympathy inquired into the source of her passionate sorrow. Then, weeping and gnashing her teeth, she shrieked her answer: ‘My son, my son, he has been cashiered to-day from his regiment! His commission was all we A SAFE INVESTMENT. 249 had in the world, and he was all I loved in the world.’ An old sullen man, accosted by the .traveller, replied shortly that his strong-box had been broken open and rifled by thieves, and that as he was removing a small remnant of money left to him from his own house to a place of security, the few precious coins had slipped through a hole in the bag and been lost. Ano- ther man, being questioned, seemed to find some relief in complaint, and answered readily that he had embarked enormous capital in construct- ing a reservoir for water, on a scale amply suff- cient for the supply of the whole town, but that, at the very moment when he hoped to realise cent per cent upon his original outlay, a flaw had been discovered in the main aqueduct, and it was then perceived, too late, that all the cis- terns were broken and could hold no water. Every tale was diverse, yet, in fact, every one was the same. Each speaker had sunk all that he had in some plausible investment, the invest- ment had burst like a bubble, and now one and all in desperate sorrow could but bewail their ruin as without remedy. They had no eyes, no 250 A SAFE INVESTMENT. thought, no sympathy, save each man for him- self; none stretched a helping hand to his neighbour, or spoke a word of comfort, or cared who sank or who swam in this desolation which had come like a flood. From such as these it was vain to demand hospitality. The traveller went out from amongst them, remounted his horse, and pursued his way along the darkened, deserted streets, be- tween rows of tall houses, in which the voice of mirth and music seemed silenced for ever. Now at one door, now at another, he knocked to ask for refreshment, but always without success. Sometimes no answer was vouchsafed to his summons ; sometimes he was turned away with churlish indifference, or even with abuse for having ventured to disturb the household in its night of distress. At last he observed one cottage, which, de- tached from other residences, stood alone in its trim garden-plot. In this only, amongst all the dwellings he had passed, there shone a light. He dismounted once more, tethered his horse to the wicket-gate, followed the gravel-path, and A SAFE INVESTMENT. 251 knocked gently at the house-door. A calm, cheerful-looking woman opened to him, and seeing a stranger at that late hour, conceived at once that he was a wayfarer in quest of repose and refreshment, and bade him enter and be welcome. Then, while he sat down by the fire, she hastened to set before him milk and bread, meat, wine, and butter. This done, she ran out and led the horse under an open shed (she had no stable), and there provided it with clean straw and fodder. : Now when the traveller had eaten and drunk and sat awhile, he began to question her con- cerning her prosperity and cheerfulness in that night of ruin; and she, as the others had done, answered him all that he would know. ‘My money, said she, ‘is not invested as so many in this town have invested theirs. When I was yet young, One told me that riches do certainly make to themselves wings and fly away; and that gold perisheth, though it be purified seven times in the fire. Nevertheless He added that, if I chose, there could with my gold and silver be made ready for me an ever- 252 A SAFE INVESTMENT. lasting habitation, to receive me when the pre- sent fashion shall have passed away; and that I might lay up for myself treasure where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal. So, when I was willing, He further informed me by what means I should send my deposits to that secure house whereof the Owner will be no man’s debtor. On the first day of the week I was to go up to the branch-house upon the hill—you see it, sir, out to the East yonder; there, where a light shines to lighten every one that goeth into the house ; and according as I had been prospered, I was to drop somewhat into the money-chest kept there. All such sums would be placed to my account, and would bear interest. But be- sides this, I was apprised that the Owner of the house employs many collectors, who may call at any moment, often at the most unlikely mo- ments, for deposits. FFrrom-these I was to take heed never to turn away my face, but I was to give to them freely, being well assured that they would carry all entrusted to them safely to my account. Thus, sometimes a fatherless child A SAFE INVESTMENT. 253 calls on me, sometimes a distressed widow ; sometimes a sick case comes before me; some- times a stranger, sir, as you have done this very night, demands my hospitality. And as I know whom I have trusted, and am persuaded that He will keep that which I commit to Him, I gladly spend and am spent, being a succourer of many, and looking for the recompense of the reward.’ So when the strange traveller had rested awhile, his horse also having been refreshed, he rose before daybreak, mounted, and rode away. Whence he came and whither he went I know not, but he rode as one that carries back tidings to Him that sent him. Also this I know, that some, being mindful to entertain strangers, have entertained angels unawares. rf ae ar aes PROS AND CONS. mi PROS AND CONS. ‘But, my dear doctor, cried Mrs. Plume, ‘you never can seriously mean it.’ The scene was the Rectory drawing-room _ —tea-time; some dozen parishioners drinking tea with their Rector and his wife. Mrs. Good- man looked down; her husband, the Rector, looked up. ‘I really did mean it, said he, courteously ; ‘and, with your permission, I mean it still. Let us consider the matter calmly, my dear Mrs. Plume, calmly and fairly; and to start us fairly I will restate my proposal, which is that we should all combine to do our best towards bringing about the abolition of pews from our parish church.’ 258 PROS AND CONS. ‘Then I,’ returned Mrs. Plume, shaking her head airily, ‘must really restate my protest. You never seriously can mean it.’ ‘Nay, resumed the Rector, ‘ don’t think that I am unmindful of your feelings on this point; and he glanced round the circle. ‘If I spoke hastily I ask your pardon and patience; but this matter of pews and pew-rents is on my conscience, and ¢hat I must lighten at all costs; even, Mr. Sale,—for Mr. Sale frowned —‘at the cost of my income. However, why should we conclude ourselves to be at variance before we have ventilated the matter in hand? I for one will never take for granted that any good Christian is against the acknowledg- ment of our absolute equality before God.’ ‘Sir, interposed Mr. Blackman, ‘we are equals, whatever may be our colour or our country. But whilst the Zenana counts its victims by thousands, whilst the Japanese make boast of their happy despatch, whilst the Bushman, dwindling “before our face, lives and dies as the beasts that perish, shall we divert our attention from such matters of life and death to fix it PROS AND CONS. 259 on a petty question of appearance? Pardon me if tears for our benighted brethren blind me to such a matter as this.’ ‘Our benighted brethren,’ said the Rector, gravely, ‘have my pity, have my prayers, have my money in some measure. Of your larger gifts in these several kinds I will not ask you to divert one throb, or one word, or one penny in favour of our poor fellow- parishioners. No, dear friend, help us by your good example to enlarge our field of chari- table labour; to stretch full handed towards remote spots; but not meanwhile to fail in breaking up our own fallow ground at home. We all know that if at this moment either our foreign or our native ragged brother were to present himself in church, however open our hearts may be to him, our pew-doors would infallibly be shut against him, and he would find himself looked down upon both literally and figuratively. This, I own to you, were I he, would discomfit me, and put a stum- bling-block in my way as a worshipper.’ ‘Pooh! pooh!’ broke in Mr. Wood, testily : 260 PROS AND CONS. ‘My dear fellow, I really thought you a wiser man. What hardship is it for a flunky or a clodhopper to sit in a seat without a door ?? ‘Ah!’ rejoined the Rector quietly, ‘for a servant, as you say, or for a mere sower of our fields, or (why not?) for a carpenter’s son either? But allow me to name two points which strike me forcibly,—two very solemn points ; and Dr. Goodman spoke with solemnity, and bowed his head. ‘ First, that if our adorable Lord were now walking this world as once He walked it, and if He had gone into our parish church last Sunday, as long ago He used to frequent the synagogue of Nazareth, He would certainly not have waited long to be ushered into a pew, but would, at least as willingly, have sat down amongst His own “blessed” poor; and, secondly, that we should all have left Him to do so unmolested; for I cannot suppose that His were the gold ring and goodly apparel which would have challenged attention.’ _ There was a pause, broken by Mrs. Plume, PROS AND CONS. 261 who, turning to her hostess, observed: ‘Ah,’ dear Mrs. Goodman, we know and revere the zeal of our dear good apostle. But you and I are old housekeepers, old birds not to be caught with chaff;’ and she shook a fascinating finger at her pastor; ‘and we know that the poor are not nice neighbours; quite infectious, in fact. They do very well together all in a clump, but one really couldn't risk sitting amongst them, on various grounds, you know.’ ‘Well,’ resumed the Rector, ‘I plead guilty to being but a tough man, thick-skinned, and lacking certain subtler members, entitled nerves. But what will you? You must make allow- ances for me, and even put up with me as I am. With docility, and all the imagination of which I am master, I throw myself into your position, and shudder with you at these repulsively infectious poor. I even seek to deepen my first impression of horror by ques- tioning myself in detail, and I dwell on the word “infectious.” This brings before me small-pox, typhus fever, and other dreadful ailments; and I hasten (in spirit) to slam to, 262 PROS AND CONS. if only I could to bolt and bar, my pew-door. Safely ensconced within, I peer over my ne- cessary barrier, and, relieved from the pressure of instant peril, gaze with pity on the crowd without, all alike typhus-stricken, all alike re- dolent of small-pox. A new terror thrills me. Are ‘all alike’ infectious? or have we grouped together sound and unsound, sick and healthy? Ah, you hint, that amount of risk cannot be helped if they are to come to church at all. I am corrected, and carrying out the lesson of my Teacher I echo: That amount of risk cannot be helped if we are to come to church at all.’ ‘These men! these men!’ cried Mrs. Plume, gaily. And Miss Crabb observed, from behind her blue spectacles, ‘Well, I suppose a woman of my age may allude to anything she pleases; so I make bold to tell you, Dr. Goodman, that small-pox may be all nonsense; but that nobody would like to sit amongst smells, and cheek-by-jowl with more heads than one in a bonnet.’ ‘Smells,’ rejoined the Rector, ‘I do strongly PROS AND CONS. 263 object to; including scents, my dear Mrs. Plume; but that is a matter of taste. The other detail, which I know not how to express more pointedly than in the striking words of Miss Crabb, is yet more to be deprecated: but let us consider whether pews fairly meet the dif- ficulty. Fairly? I ask; and then unhesitatingly answer, No. For all the poor, both clean and dirty, occupy our free seats together; and surely to sit next a dirty neighbour is, at the least, as great a hardship on the cleanly poor as it would be on the rich, who are so far better able to have their clothes cleansed, or even, in case of need, to discard them. If, indeed, all dirty individuals would have the good feeling to compact themselves into one body it might be reassuring to their fellows, but this it were in- vidious to propose; and besides, we are at present mooting pews or no pews, not any third possible—or shall we say impossible ?—alter- native. I confess to you, he resumed, very seriously, ‘when I remember the little stress laid by Christ on clean hands, and the para- mount importance in His eyes of a clean heart; 264 PROS AND CONS. when I reflect on the dirt of all kinds which must have touched Him in the crowds He taught and healed; when I realise that every one of my parishioners, poor as well as rich, will confront me at His judgment-bar, I tremble lest any should be deterred from coming to Him because I am too fine a gentlemen to go out into the highways and hedges, and compel to come in those actual poor—foul of body, it may be, as well as of soul—whom yet He has num- bered to me as my flock.’ Silence ensued—an uncomfortable silence ; broken by Mrs. Goodman’s nervous proffer of tea to Mr. Sale, who declined it. Mr. Home resumed the attack. ‘ Doctor,’ observed he, ‘all other objections to open seats might perhaps be overruled ; but consider the sacredness of family affection, and do not ask us to scatter ourselves forlornly through the church, here a husband, there a wife; and he interchanged a smile with Mrs. Home; ‘there, again, a practical orphan. I for one could not , possibly say my prayers without my little woman at my elbow.’ , PROS AND CONS. 265 ‘Here,’ cried the Rector, ‘I joyfully meet you halfway. The division of the sexes in dis- tinct aisles is a question by itself, and one which I am not now discussing. Only go betimes to church ’—at this a glance of intelligence passed round the circle, whilst Mrs. Home coloured,— ‘and I stake my credit that you will hardly ever fail to find six contiguous seats for your party.’ Then Mr. Stone spoke up—Mr. Stone, the warmest man in the parish. He spoke with his fat hands in his fat pockets. ‘Dr. Goodman, sir,—the courteous Rector bowed,—‘ my attachment to the Church and my respect for your cloth must not prevent my doing my duty by my fellow-parishioners, whose mouthpiece on the present occasion I claim to.be. A general movement of relief accepted him as the lay champion. ‘We ac- knowledge, sir, and appreciate your zeal amongst us, but we protest against your innovations. We have borne with chants, with a surpliced choir, with daily services, but we will not bear to see all our rights trampled under foot, and 266 PROS AND CONS. all our time-hallowed usages set at nought. The tendency of the day is to level social dis- tinctions and to elevate unduly the lower orders. In this parish at least let us combine to keep up wise barriers between class and class, and to maintain that fundamental principle practically bowed to all over our happy England, that what you can pay for you can purchase. This, sir, has been our first dissension’—a statement not quite correct,—‘ let it be our last; and in token that we are at one again, here is my hand.’ Dr. Goodman grasped the proffered hand, looking rather pale as he did so. ‘Let this betoken,’ rejoined he, ‘that what- ever is discarded amongst us, it shall not be Christian charity. And now it grows late. I must not selfishly prolong our discussion ; yet, as your pastor, with a sacred duty to discharge towards all my flock, suffer me to add one word. What Mr. Stone has alleged may be the system of worldly England ; though many a man pro- fessing far less than we do would repudiate so monstrous a principle; but as Churchmen we can have nothing to do with it. God’s gifts PROS AND CONS. 267 are bought without money and without price: “‘ Ho, every one,” cries His invitation. I, there- fore, as His most unworthy ambassador, protest that in His house I will no longer buy and sell as in a market. I confess myself in fault that I have so long tolerated this monstrous abuse; and I avow that you, my brethren, have this evening furnished me with the only plausible argument in favour of pews which has ever been suggested to me, for it zs hard upon our open- hearted poor that they should be compelled to sit by persons who, instead of viewing them as brethren beloved, despise the poor.’ THE WAVES OF THIS TROUBLESOME WORLD, A TALE OF HASTINGS FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. a ’ THE WAVES OF THIS TROUBLESOME WORLD. PART I. PERHAPS there is no pleasanter watering-place in England where to spend the fine summer months than Hastings, on the Sussex coast. The old town, nestling in a long, narrow valley, flanked by the East and West Hills, looks down upon the sea. At the valley mouth, on the shingly beach, stands the fish-market, where boatmen disembark the fruit of daily toil ; where traffic is briskly plied, and maybe haggling rages ; where bare-legged children dodge in and out between the stalls; where now and thena travelling show—dwarf, giant, or what not— arrests for brief days its wanderings. 272 THE WAVES OF THIS Hard by the market, on the beach, stands the fishermen’s chapel—plain, but comely, with, near the door, its small chest for offerings. I know not whether chanted psalms and hymns rise within its walls; but if they do, the windy sea must sound an accompaniment exceeding in solemn. harmony any played upon earthly organs, to such words as, ‘One deep calleth another, because of the noise of the water- pipes: all Thy waves and storms are gone over me;’ or, ‘They are carned sy ero ee heaven, and down again to the deep: their soul melteth away because of the trouble;’ or, ‘ Let not the waterflood drown me, neither let the deep swallow me up.’ It is a pretty sight in brilliant holiday weather to watch the many parties of health or pleasure-seekers which throng the beach. Boys and girls picking up shells, pebbles, and star-fishes, or raising with hands and wooden spades a sand fortress, encircled by a moat full of sea-water, and crowned by a twig of seaweed as a flag; mothers and elder sisters reading or working beneath shady hats, whilst after bathing TROUBLESOME WORLD. 273 their long hair dries in the sun and wind. Hard by rock at their moorings bannered pleasure- boats, with blue-jerseyed oarsmen or white sails ; and if the weather is oppressively hot and sunny, a gaily-coloured canopy is reared on light poles, for the protection of voyagers. When tide is high, a plank or a long step suffices ; but at low water, as the shore is flat, boatmen have fre- quently to carry children, and even women, across the broad stretch of wet sands to and from the vessels. Very different from such seafarers in sport are their near neighbours, the seafarers in ear- nest ; who neither hoist canopies for fair weather, nor tarry at home for foul; who might say with the patriarch Jacob, ‘In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night ;’ whose vigils often see the moon rise and set; who sometimes buffet with the winds and tug against the tide for very life. It is with one of these that my tale has to do: let us peep into his cottage. An accident to his boat, only just now, after hours of diligent labour, repaired, has kept D 274 THE WAVES OF THIS Frank Hardiman on shore all day. Within another hour the tide will be favourable, and he must put to sea; till then he stays with his wife and two children, Jane and Henry. They are seated at tea, discussing the con- tents of a letter received that afternoon. Let us look at the faces and listen to the con- versation. Frank Hardiman is thirty-one years old, tall, stout, tanned by the sun, with a deep, jolly voice, bright eyes, and the merriest of laughs. His wife, Emma, is slim and rather pretty, dressed with considerable taste and uncommon neatness; for before her marriage she was upper nurse in a gentleman’s family, and, indeed, made acquaint- ance with her good man when loitering along the beach after her little charges. Jane is nine years old, quiet and shy, with a mild expression, redeemed from insipidity by lines of unusual firmness about the mouth: when she speaks it is mostly in a slow, apathetic manner ; but now and. then a flash of feeling reveals that there are strength and depth in her character. Harry has scarcely entered his seventh year, and is a TROUBLESOME WORLD. 275 miniature likeness of his father, only less sun- burned. The letter under discussion ran as follows :— Dear Brother and Sister, My husband died ten days ago in the hope of a blessed resurrection. Moreover God, Who does all things well, has been pleased to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son. I am alone indeed now; not in debt, having just enough in hand to pay my way till Thursday, and then come down to you. Will you receive me? We parted in anger, but perhaps you will forgive me when you know how much I have lost, and guess with how sore a longing I desire to lay my bones amongst my own people. If I do not hear from you by Thursday, I shall understand that you cannot forgive: nevertheless remember, in the next world if not in this, we must meet again. Your sorrowful, affectionate sister, SARAH LANE. 276 THE WAVES OF THIS ‘How can she fancy we’d bear malice after all her troubles?’ said Frank; ‘and when it was for her own good, too. Write at once, my dear, and make her welcome to all we’ve got, such as it is, and the best of it.’ ‘Yes,’ replied Emma, dryly. She was jea- lously alive to her husband’s fondness for his sister, and by no means relished the prospect of her returning to live with them. ‘ How old is Aunt Sarah ?’ inquired Jane. ‘Twenty-five last March ; and five years ago she was the prettiest girl in Hastings. You must furbish up your room a bit, Jenny, and make your aunt as comfortable as you can. She’s got rather high notions, naturally; but I guess they must have come down by this time, poor thing! only don’t let us make her feel strange coming back to what used to be her home—and shall be her home again, please God, if she’ll come and share it. Well, I’m off, Emma,’ continued Frank, rising and shaking himself: ‘you ’ll write a kind welcome, I know, for you’re the scholar; and you needn’t say a word about me, except that I’m just the same TROUBLESOME WORLD. a7 as five years ago. Good night.’—‘ Good night.’ So he left the cottage. Then Jane busied herself with washing the tea-things and ‘tidying up;’ Harry, at the imminent risk of his fingers, began hacking a small bit of wood, to produce what he dubbed a boat, and Emma sat down to write the letter of invitation—TI cannot say welcome :— My dear Sister, Your letter came to hand this after- noon, and Frank and I are very sorry for your troubles ; but if you come here I dare say you will mind less. Frank says, ‘Come and_ wel- come, and be as all was five years ago:’ only ours is but a poor place for such as you, and you must not mind having Jenny in bed with you; and you cannot expect me to do nothing but wait on you, as I have a good handful with Frank and the children, I tell you plainly. So next Thursday we shall expect you, and no more at present from - Your affectionate sister, EMMA HARDIMAN. 278 THE WAVES OF THIS Whilst Emma wrote her letter, Jane, I say, washed the tea-things. There was brisk tho- roughness in her manner of washing; no great handiness, but concentrated energy: she was evidently conscientious. Next she coaxed Harry to forego his hacking and be put to bed, showing tact and good nature with firmness in the trans- action. Then, returning with her bonnet on her head and a basket on her arm, she asked her mother whether she should not take her letter to the post. ‘Yes,’ answered Emma; ‘and you must make haste, too, or it won’t be in time. Here’s a penny for a stamp; and,’ putting a crown- piece into the little girl’s hand, ‘you must bring me in some butter, and sugar, and treacle, and a loaf, and some tea; and call at Mrs, Smith’s for my bonnet, and get a reel of black cotton and a paper of needles. And you must run, too; you’ll have running enough, I reckon, when madam comes.’ _ Away ran Jane with all her might, reaching the post-office in much more than time to catch the evening mail. ‘Well, my little woman, is TROUBLESOME WORLD. 279 it a love-letter you’re carrying?’ said the post- master; to which she answered demurely, ‘ No, sir, please; it’s to my aunt in London. Seeing he was busy she added no more, but set off on her next errand. This took her to a various- smelling shop in one of the back streets, where she ran glibly through the accustomed list of articles: ‘Half a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, two pennyworth of treacle (for Harry), a quartern loaf,a quarter of a pound of three- and-fourpenny tea, and two rashers of bacon,’ supplying the last item from her knowledge of what must be wanted, though her mother had forgotten to name it. She packed all carefully in her little basket, counted the change from her crown-piece, chirped to a poor imprisoned lark, which could catch not one glimpse of sky from his nail in the shop, stroked her old friend the black cat, and started for Mrs. Smith’s smart establishment in the High Street. Mrs. Smith, in a false front and staring flowers, presiding behind her millinery counter, looked somewhat formidable. Jane preferred asking the young woman on the other side for 280 THE WAVES OF THIS the black cotton and needles. These were sup- plied and paid for; then Mrs. Smith called out to know if she wanted anything else. ‘ Please, ma'am,’ began Jane, ‘is mother’s bonnet ‘Oh!’ cried Mrs. Smith, shortly, ‘tell your mother that her bonnet isn’t done yet, and she needn’t keep bothering after it; for when it’s done I’ll send it home, and not before. Good evening!’ This bonnet was a bone of con- tention between the two women: it was to be trimmed in return for certain errands already executed by Jane; and the milliners hands being filled just now with more lucrative orders, great delay ensued in its completion. When Jane reached home, she found her mother seated hard at work making a black- and-white muslin dress with flounces—Emma loved to be smart on Sunday—for her own wear, Jane put “away the purchases, handed what change remained to Mrs. Hardiman, and sat down to write a’ copy and work an addition sum for Mrs. Grey, the curate’s wife, who gave her an hour’s instruction two or three times a-week. The little girl laboured to do her very best, and TROUBLESOME WORLD. 281 had just produced a particularly correct capital B when her mother shook the table. Not a word said poor Jane, though a great blot was jerked out of the pen on to the B. She tried again and again for six lines more, but without equalling the defaced B; then, that page finished, turned her mind to the sum. ‘4 and 4 are 8, ) and I are 9, and 7——’ ‘Jane,’ cried her mother, ‘there’s nothing for supper; run out and fetch two rashers.’ ‘I got them, mother, when I was out, because I knew they were wanted,’ was the cheerful answer, and reckoning recommenced. ‘4 and 4 are 8,and I are 9, and 7 are sixt janet “Ves, mother! “ Was the letter in time?’ ‘Oh, much more than 5] ’ time. 4 and 4——’ ‘I shall never get through these flounces to-night: put away your books, child, and help me. I’m sure your schooling isn’t worth much if it doesn’t teach you to mind me.’ Jane jumped up, though she could have cried, laid by her book and slate, and sat down close to her mother. In another minute two pairs of hands were hemming as fast as they could henr 282 THE WAVES OF THIS at the flounces. Why was Emma in such a hurry to finish making her dress? It could not be out of regard to her sister-in-law’s feelings, as she and her daughter were already in black for the death of an old relation who had left them a few pounds; neither could it be with an exclu- sive eye to Sunday, for this was only Tuesday evening: no, she was bent on receiving poor, sad Sarah in this fine gown, because she felt jealous of her good looks, and wanted to out- shine her in Frank’s eyes. Jane, who had no idea of this state of things, asked, ‘What was Uncle Lane?’ ‘Don’t call him‘ uncle,” retumed imma, sharply; ‘he was no kith or kin to us, but a Methodist fografer [photographer], and but a poor body at best. I dare say his widow hasn't a pound that she can call her own, though she is so ready to invite herself to live with them who work hard for their bread. However, your father must please himself. [Thread snaps.] _ Mrs. Smith’s cotton is mere rubbish; you go to Widow Wright’s next time, and see if you can’t get an honest pennorth; do you hear?’ TROUBLESOME WORLD. 283 ‘Yes, mother. I shall like to have Aunt Sarah in my bed: is she like father?’ ‘No—yes—I don’t know; don’t bother me. You'll have enough and to spare of Aunt Sarah, I can tell you.’ Silence once more, except for the click, click, of thimble and needle; Jane wondering what she had said amiss, for her mother was not usually cross. At last the flounces were finished. ‘There, that will do, observed Emma, more compla- cently, for they looked puffy and well. ‘I declare it’s supper-time; make haste, child, and toast the bacon whilst I clear away.’ On Wednesday, Jane having, under her mother’s direction, scrubbed her own bed-room floor, added a blue bason and jug to its furniture, and an extra chair. The window looked into Frank’s garden, very bright just now with nas- turtiums; and though it did not command a sea view, the murmur, or tumult, or roar of the great deep, could always, except in very still weather, be distinctly heard from it. 284 THE WAVES OF THIS The room made ready, let us glance at its future occupant. Sarah Lane, now so mournful, had years ago been not only the prettiest, but almost the merriest girl in Hastings. True, she was a child of sorrow to her mother, who died without even kissing her new-born baby; but, bequeathed to the guardianship of father and brother, she never missed a mother’s care. Often might Henry Hardiman be seen loitering up and down the parade, or lounging by the sun-dial, holding in his arms his little girl; or, as she grew older, putting his finger into her chubby fist to help her intoddling. Sometimes, in pleasant.weather, he took her in the boat with him for a row; sometimes left her on shore under the care of Frank, who lugged her unweariedly about the beach, where she served as plaything to her father’s rugged mates. ? | When the time arrived for Frank to go out with his father and share his labours, a change _ensued for little Sarah. She was sent to a superior school—for Henry Hardiman drove a flourishing trade—and only went home on a « TROUBLESOME WORLD. 285 Saturday to stay till the Monday; the Hardi- mans, from father to son, observing Sunday, and frequenting St. Clement’s Church. Henry and Frank were not a little proud of their girl as she walked beside them, rosy and good-humoured, or, with a pretty childish voice, joined in the hymns of the congregation ; and before long she, too, learned to be proud of her sturdy, weather- beaten father in his Sunday blue coat, and of her handsome, merry brother, and to give them back warm love for the life-long love which they gave her. | At fifteen, grown tall and womanly, Sarah | came home to keep her father’s house. Her school-education included several useful items: she was quick and clever with her needle, read with fluency and expression, wrote a clear hand, was a capital accountant, had a fair knowledge of geography, history, and spelling, could ex- press herself well in a letter ; moreover, she knew a little music and a little dancing, and, thanks to natural voice and ear, sang sweetly and tune- ably. Very soon the cottage bore witness to her good taste. The old-fashioned furniture 286 THE WAVES OF THIS was rubbed up; a few geraniums and fuchsias screened the parlour window ; a Virginia creeper, scarlet-coloured in autumn, clambered up the outer wall; and carefully tended plants ren- dered her garden the prettiest in the Tackle way. She liked and wore bright colours; and when she watered her window- flowers, or gathered a nosegay in the garden, or sat among the Pier Rocks watching for her father’s boat to come across the intense blue, sunny sea, often and often passers-by lingered to admire her noble beauty and untaught grace. When her skill as a needlewoman became known, first neighbours, then ladies, engaged her to work for them. By this means she amassed a little sum of money, carefully stored amongst her treasures, but never spent. Sometimes Henry, coming home, found her sewing and singing, whilst puss purred at her feet, and the — kettle sang on the fire. Then he would say, ‘Bless you, Sally; there’s no need for you to _ wear out your plump bits of fingers. Ain't Frank and I big enough to work for you?’ And she would answer, ‘Ah, but some day when TROUBLESOME WORLD. 287 you’re a dear old father, and stay at home in the chimney-corner, Frank mustn’t have all the pleasure of working for you, and my earnings will come in handy, you’ll see.’ Several young men courted her for her fair face, or clever ways, or kind heart; but to all of them she answered a civil ‘No,’ till it came to be said among the fisher-folk that Sarah Hardi- man must be waiting for a lord. Even John Archer, a well-to-do, God-fearing young boat- man, who followed her for many an anxious month, only at last elicited her gentle, firm ‘ No,’ though her father pitied the poor lad, and Frank © spoke warmly in his favour. Soon after Sarah left school, Frank married and brought home his Emma; but Sarah continued mistress of the house, her father’s darling, and very dear to her brother, which, with her good looks and many suitors, made Emma sore and jealous. The two young women were not over cordial together, though they never spoke of their coolness, and Frank was long before he even suspected it. So four years passed. One Saturday night, as the little family sat 288 THE WAVES OF THIS round the fire, over which spluttered eggs and bacon for supper,—as Henry dozed, Frank netted, Emma worked for her baby, and Sarah turned the rashers, a noise of quarrelling outside roused the two men. They started up, but before they could reach the door a loud crash was heard of something falling and breaking on ~ the pavement; then three or four voices cried ‘Shame!’ They ran out, and the women were left alone in some anxiety. After a few minutes old Hardiman returned. ‘Sally,’ explained he, ‘here’s a poor travelling showman whose box of things has just been smashed by big Ben, because he said the sun would take his likeness. Ben, I reckon, has had a glass too much. So I think it will be but Christian-like to take him in for to-night, as he’s quite a stranger here, and seems a decent body, if you’ll shake him down a bed, my darling.’ ‘Yes, father,’ answered the girl; and just then Frank and a young man entered, bearing _ between them the wrecks of a portable photo- graphic apparatus. ‘Sit down and be kindly welcome, : Sarah TROUBLESOME WORLD. 289 said, blushing like a rose; she set a chair for the stranger, and, with practical hospitality, broke three more eggs, and put three more rashers into the frying-pan. Then she placed those already cooked on the table, with cheese, butter, home-made bread, and strong beer. At supper the guest warmly thanked his entertainers, and proceeded to gratify their curiosity about himself. His name was John Lane ; both his parents were dead, and, indeed, he had no near relation in the world. His business was to take photographs, at sixpence and upwards ; for this purpose he travelled from town to town, seldom remaining in one place for more than a few weeks: ‘Till to-night,’ he continued, somewhat bitterly, ‘I never met with an ignorant brute. He then drew from his pocket a small case containing specimens of his art, both portraits and landscapes. Frank looked at them in silent admiration ; but Sarah observed, pointing to a coloured head, ‘I like that best ; I always want to know what eyes and hair people have.’ John Lane glanced up at her: ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘the sun can’t paint U 290 THE WAVES OF THIS eyes and hair” ‘Well, Mr. Lane,’ interposed Emma, ‘I must get you to do Jenny’s portrait. When will you be able?’ ‘I will come as soon | as I possibly can,’ he answered, eagerly. So that evening concluded. Next morning, while they sat at breakfast, Sarah said to the guest, ‘Our old church is worth seeing: I think when you’ve been there with us, you'll want to take its likeness too.’ But John Lane, flushing crimson, replied, with- out looking up, ‘I can’t go there, thank you: I’m what you call a Methodist.’ Certainly John Lane by no means exagge- rated in his own favour when he told his story. He might have said that during some years he had been the sole support of a bedridden mother, for her sake often denying himself all save bare necessaries ; that by perseverance and ingenuity he had attained proficiency in his art; that he had laid up a sum of money, and was in the way to add to it. Any one who knew him well could have related these facts and more. Two years before this period, about the time of his TROUBLESOME WORLD. 291 mother’s death, he stopped one Sunday after- noon to hear an itinerant preacher, who, bare- headed, Bible in hand, went out—to use his own phrase—into the highways and hedges, to compel men to come in. John stopped to kill time ; but the rough, zealous words pricked his conscience to the quick: before he went his way he had resolved to redeem the time. From that day he was an altered man: he read his Bible with fervent, persistent prayer, and at the first opportunity introduced himself to the preacher whose words had convinced him of sin. These two men, both honest, both zealous, both uninstructed, provoked each other to good works; but, utterly alien from church unity, ignored many vital doctrines. The elder man, con- strained by the love of Christ, sailed as a mis- sionary to India: John Lane then believed that he was called to fill the gap ; to lift up his voice like a trumpet, and proclaim the gospel to souls perishing for lack of knowledge. Therefore he gave up his fixed quarters in London, and wandering from town to town, endeavoured to speak a word in season to persons who came 292 THE WAVES OF THIS to him in the way of business ; and on Sundays, after attending one service in the Methodist chapel, devoted his afternoon to out-of-door preaching. This was the man whom what we call accident, but what is in fact the appointment or permission of God, brought to the fisherman’s cottage; to Hardiman and Frank, staunch churchgoers ; to Emma, not over partial to her sister-in-law ; to beautiful Sarah, with her winning ways and disengaged heart. Of course John Lane deemed himself in duty bound to bear witness for the truth here as elsewhere. Hardiman listened to him, but shook his head when he spoke of the love of the Establishment having waxed cold, of experience, and professors. ‘I like practisers,’ said Henry Hardiman; and trudged to St. Clement’s as heretofore. Emma went once to the Methodist | chapel, but was mightily offended when the preacher, looking, as she declared, full at her light blue bonnet, observed, ‘It might have been better for Dives in hell if he had not dressed so finely.’ Sarah, who would not grieve TROUBLESOME WORLD. 293 her father, continued a regular attendant at the old parish church once every Sunday ; but if, as frequently happened, in her afternoon stroll she caught sight of John Lane surrounded by a group of listeners, too often idlers, she was sure to join his audience and add her sweet voice to their hymns. Then followed the walk toge- ther home; the earnest communings by the way, of God, and Jesus, and heaven, of the everlasting burnings to be fled from, and the everlasting prize to be run for. So these two came to love each other: Henry only saw that the young man loved his beautiful daughter. ‘John Lane,’ said he one day, ‘you love Sarah, and mean well by her; but I tell you plainly she’s not for such as you. She’s said “No” to many a man already, and she’ll say “No” to you when you ask her: for she shall ‘never have my blessing on her marrying a Methodist, and gadding from place to place making mischief. Take my advice, my lad, and keep away from Sarah, and she won't run after you.’ 294. THE WAVES OF THIS So John kept away from the cottage ; and if Sarah fretted, she said not a word of her troubles to any one. About a week had elapsed since they last saw each other, when she, having finished some work for a lady at Halton, set off to carry it home.